CHAPTER 34
CHAPTER
IT WAS CLEAR THAT MASUYO did not know that Hiroko was coming along on the outing.
But when Nash told the woman that her daughter had organized it, Masuyo questioned nothing.
However, she was dismissive of the other woman and showed her displeasure for Hiroko’s presence the entire time they were out.
For her part, Hiroko seemed nervous and excessively ill at ease, and Nash didn’t think it was simply because of the way Masuyo treated her.
Hiroko just seemed afraid to be around the other woman.
The shopping and tea completed, they drove back in silence to Steers’s building. Thura escorted Masuyo to her part of the penthouse, while Nash took Hiroko back to her small apartment.
“Ms. Steers advised me to get to know you better, Ms. Hiroko.”
“How wonderful. If you have the time, come in then and we can chat, Mr. Hope.”
“You can just call me Dillon.”
“I will call you Dillon-san. And please call me Hiroko-san. I had my tea, but would you like some?”
Nash brightened at the offer. “Thank you, yes.”
While she put on a kettle and got the tea ready, Nash looked around the living room.
On some shelving there were a number of framed photos.
Almost all of them were, presumably, pictures of Hiroko and Steers, the latter from the time she was an infant in a blanket to a fully grown woman.
And there were numerous drawings of Hiroko that spanned many years.
They were mostly done in pencil and pen and ink, but there was also one in watercolor.
Hiroko brought the tea in, poured out a cup, and handed it to Nash, who took a sip and smiled appreciatively.
“Excellent, thank you.”
They sat down in her small living room with impressive views of the city.
“Victoria-san has always been so good to me,” noted Hiroko.
“She said you have been with her since she was born. And I see that in the photos.”
Hiroko looked at the shelves of pictures and her face crinkled into a smile. “Yes.”
“And those drawings of you?”
“Victoria-san did those. She said she wanted to capture her Hiroko-san as I aged.”
“She really did those?” Nash said in surprise.
“Oh yes. She maintains a studio here where she paints and draws. She is very talented.”
“They’re really exceptional.”
“She was the youngest child, so it was in some ways easier and in other ways harder for her. The other children. . .they had their own people to care for them, and my job was to look after little Victoria-san.”
“I’m sure she was a handful,” noted Nash.
“I do not know what. . .?”
“Stubborn?”
Hiroko tittered. “Oh yes, she had that way about her. She would wave her little fists and would want to do things only her way.”
This intrigued Nash. “What did you do when she did that?”
Hiroko said quietly and precisely, as though reliving a cherished memory, “I would get down on the floor so that I was eye to eye with her. I would tell Victoria-san that true wisdom was not thinking that only you had all the right answers in your head, but to draw upon all the knowledge that was out there and then judge for yourself what was worthy and what was not. If you did so, you would be smarter than everyone else.”
“Did she listen?”
“Not so much when she was very young, no,” said Hiroko with an amused expression. “But as she grew older, yes, Dillon-san, she did listen. And she indeed grew much wiser.”
Nash thought of the competition against her siblings that the FBI had told him about, a deadly battle spurred on by her mother.
He wasn’t sure how to frame it, but he wanted to hear Hiroko’s impression of it. “I understand that she is the only one of the Steers children still living?”
Hiroko’s features instantly crumpled and she put a hand to her mouth.
Nash said nothing. He just sipped his tea and waited.
“That is true,” she finally said.
“Was there an accident? Or was it some sort of illness that was contagious?”
“I. . .I do not wish to speak of it, Dillon-san. It is sad, a very sad business.”
“I’m sure. I’m sure everyone was sad.”
“Not everyone,” said Hiroko, who then seemed to catch herself. “Would you like some more tea, Dillon-san?”
“Yes, thank you.” He held out his cup for her to fill. Next he said, “I. . .saw the burns that Ms. Steers has. How terrible.”
Hiroko looked stunned. “She showed you?”
“Yes.”
“She must trust you very much, Dillon-san. And she has spoken highly of you when she has come to visit me here.”
“I think she does trust me. I hope you can, too,” he added.
“Victoria-san is a wonderful judge of character, so I will trust you.” She paused and kneaded her fists into her small thighs.
“We were both on a plane that came down from the sky,” she said in a trembling voice.
“Victoria-san’s father died. Everyone died except for Victoria-san and me.
But she was so badly burned. I. . .I pulled her from the wreckage. ”
“When was this?”
“Nearly eight years ago.”
Nash looked at the small, elderly woman in amazement. “That must have been very difficult for you. Especially after having just survived a plane crash.”
“I could not let her die. Somehow, I found the strength to do what I needed to. She was in hospital for quite a long time. They wanted to do many surgeries. Many more, I mean. But . . .”
“But she wanted the injuries to remain, as a reminder”—he stopped to think of the right words—“to never let her guard down?”
Hiroko nodded. “Yes, that exactly. Oh, it grieved me to see her in so much pain. To the bone, right to the bone she was burned. The smell of the fuel, her screams, her father dying right in front of her.” She paused and bowed her head, her small chest heaving with emotion.
She sat back up, her face streaked with tears, and continued, “But her strength was beyond all my experience.”
“Did they ever find out what happened to the plane?”
Hiroko said, “I have heard. . .that it was not an accident.”
“Not an accident? What then?”
In a lowered voice she said, “Victoria-san has enemies.”
“Well, from what I’ve seen I can understand that.”
“I know what some say about her. I know what . . .” She looked up at him. “She is a good person, Dillon-san. She cares very much, sometimes too much. She adored her father. He. . .he was not like his wife.” She stopped and looked frightened.
Nash said hastily, “I know exactly what you mean. I have met the woman, after all. And I will never share with anyone anything you tell me.”
Hiroko smiled nervously and then her expression turned somber. “You asked about the other children?”
“Yes?”
“The Steers family has great wealth, and in such families there is always a. . .contest to see which child will carry on the running of this. . .great wealth.”
“And is that what happened with the Steers family?”
Nash was hoping that he was getting close, finally, to learning the details of Steers murdering her own siblings.
“In a way, yes.”
“And Ms. Steers is the only one left, so I assume she won this. . .struggle?”
But Hiroko shook her head and looked at him fearfully. “Dillon-san, do you care for Victoria-san?”
This query shook Nash, who had not been expecting it. “I. . .I work for her. My job is to protect her. So, yes, in that way, I do care for her,” he said slowly and, he hoped, convincingly.
“I have never told anyone this.”
“What?” he said quickly.
At that moment Nash’s phone buzzed. It was Thura.
“Lady wants you, right now,” said Thura.
“What lady?”
“Who you think? Masuyo. Something about going out again without the baggage.”
Shit. “I’ll be right there.”
He put his phone away and looked at Hiroko. “I have to go now, but may I come back and talk some more, Hiroko-san?”
“I would like that very much.”
“Is there anything you need? Anything I can bring you?”
Her face brightened. “I am quite fond of chocolates. Lindt? And Ferrero Rocher? The gold packaging symbolizes good fortune.”
“I’ll get both.”
“Thank you, Dillon-san. And thank you for caring for Victoriasan. There are few who know her well. But for those who do, she is. . .different than one may think.”
Nash didn’t know how that could possibly be, since he had seen the woman blow the brains out of Lynn Ryder, and she had killed her siblings and God knew how many other people. But for her old nanny, Victoria-san could apparently do no wrong.
He rushed to the elevator and headed up to deal with another female Steers, and he was not looking forward to it at all.