She remembered being a young girl at the Dontaku Festival, the street full of people in bright-colored costumes playing samisen and beating drums.

Thousands of paper lanterns floated on the water. Kites with tails of red ribbons danced overhead, and fireworks burst open the sky.

Keiko felt more pressure building inside her head, a thunderstorm. Dark and cold and terribly threatening. The noise of the storm was a loud rumble, drowning out all other sound.

Was she passing now?

She did not want to go!

Keiko was inside this darkness that was not sleep, when suddenly Yuki’s voice, close but distant, broke through the numbness.

Yuki was speaking to her. Yuki was there.

“Mommy. It’s me. I’m here. Hold on, Mommy. I love you.”

She tried to call out, Itsumademo ai shiteru, Yuki. I love you forever, my daughter.

But a large tube filled her mouth, and she could not speak.

And then Keiko drifted farther into the darkness.

But she came back—she was fighting the storm.

Someone was inside her room. Someone here to help?

She heard footsteps around her, felt a pull at the IV line in the back of her hand.

Her heartbeat sped up!

This was not a dream.

Something was wrong. This person hadn’t come to help.

An explosion of pain bloomed inside Keiko’s head.

She couldn’t see. She couldn’t hear. Keiko screamed out in fear, but nothing came out of her mouth.

She understood what was happening now—she was being murdered; then her thoughts melted as she slipped into the void.

Keiko never felt the cold, metallic touch of a coin, first on one eyelid, then on the other.

She didn’t hear the whispered words in her ear.

“These coins are your transfers, Keiko. Good night, princess.”

Part Two

MURDER, MURDER
EVERYWHERE

Chapter 34

YUKI WOKE UP in the dark, her heart racing in leaps and bounds. Everything came back to her immediately, and with unusual clarity. Dr. Pierce mouthing condolences in the hospital waiting room. Lindsay driving her home from the hospital, putting her to bed, sitting with Yuki until she finally slept.

Still, it made no sense.

Yesterday, her mother had been well! Today she was gone.

Yuki grabbed the clock—almost 6:15.

She called Municipal Hospital, punched her way through the Audix menu. At last she got a live operator who connected her to the ICU.

“You can come anytime, Ms. Castellano,” the ICU nurse said. “But your mother isn’t here. She’s in the basement.”

Yuki’s rage was instant and blinding. She sat upright in her bed.

“What do you mean she’s in the basement?”

“I’m sorry. What I meant to say is that we can’t keep deceased patients in the ICU —”

“You put my mother in the hospital morgue? You insensitive —”

Yuki slammed down the receiver, then picked it up again and dialed for a cab. She couldn’t trust herself to drive right now. She dressed quickly in jeans, a cardigan, running shoes, and leather jacket, and dashed outside her apartment building to Jones Street.