The Runaway Bride

by Carolyn Keene

  She realized that she would have to leave him there for the moment. She had to warn Midori and Mad Dog about Seiji.

  Nancy set the fire extinguisher down and dashed up the stairs two at a time. When she got to Mad Dog’s door, she stopped and listened. She could hear Midori and Mad Dog carrying on a conversation in hushed tones.

  Nancy banged on the door. The conversation stopped abruptly.

  “Midori! Mad Dog! It’s me, Nancy. Please let me in!” she shouted.

  The door opened. Mad Dog was standing there, his hair disheveled.

  “You missed all the action,” he told her drily. “Midori’s fiancé dropped by just a few minutes ago.”

  Midori rushed up to Mad Dog’s side. Her eyes were filled with tears, and her cheeks were flushed. “Everything’s such a mess, Nancy,” she murmured. “Ken managed to find us!”

  “I know,” Nancy replied, walking into the studio. “George and I tried to—”

  “You knew about Ken?” Mad Dog cut in, his dark eyes flashing. “Why didn’t you warn us? We were sitting ducks.”

  “We tried to call you as soon as we found out about Ken,” Nancy said patiently. “But your line was busy, and Ken was on his way here. I jumped into a cab and got over here as soon as I could.”

  “He’s in the bathroom,” Midori said.

  Nancy looked confused. “What?”

  “I didn’t even want to let him into the studio, but Mad Dog said he wanted to take care of him once and for all,” Midori explained. “He opened the door and punched Ken in the jaw, just like that.”

  “He was out cold. We locked him in the bathroom,” Mad Dog added. “We were just getting ready to call the cops when you showed up, Nancy.”

  “Oh, boy.” Nancy took a deep breath. “Listen, I have some big news for you both. Midori, remember when you overheard Ken talking to Connor last Thursday?”

  “How could I forget?” Midori said miserably.

  “Well, that wasn’t Ken you heard,” Nancy said. “I know you thought it was, but it wasn’t. I just figured it all out a few minutes ago—”

  She stopped talking. She realized that Midori and Mad Dog were no longer listening to her and were staring over her shoulder at something.

  Nancy turned around. Seiji was standing in the open doorway, a gun in his hand and a blood-chilling smile on his face.

  Chapter

  Sixteen

  KEEPING THE GUN POINTED at Nancy and her friends, Seiji kicked the door closed behind him.

  “I’m so glad to find you here, Ms. Drew,” he said silkily. “It’ll make what I have to do so much easier. What’s that expression you Americans have? Killing two birds with one stone? Except that in this case, it’ll be three birds, won’t it?”

  Midori was the first to speak. “But I don’t understand,” she said, her voice trembling. “What are you doing here, Mr. Nakamura?”

  “I was just about to tell you,” Nancy said slowly. “It was him, not Ken, you overheard talking to Connor last Thursday.”

  “What!” Midori gasped.

  Seiji continued to smile his eerie smile. “Please go on,” he said. “I would be most interested in learning the fruits of your detective work, Ms. Drew.”

  Nancy proceeded to explain to Mad Dog and Midori what she had discovered about Seiji, Connor, and the politician, Watanabe. “That’s why Connor was so upset when he saw you unwrapping the van Gogh, Midori,” she finished. “He was afraid their little scam would be revealed.”

  “Very good,” Seiji said, giving Nancy a little bow. “You’re really quite resourceful. You would have made a marvelous addition to Nakamura Incorporated—it’s a shame I’ll have to kill you.”

  Nancy felt goose bumps prickling her arms. Stay calm, she told herself. Buy yourself some time. George and Mick will be here soon.

  She looked at Seiji levelly. “You’re quite resourceful yourself. Coordinating the van Gogh transactions with Watanabe through Nobu Auctioneers must have been quite a challenge.”

  “It wasn’t the first time,” Seiji said, shrugging. “I’ve made many such transactions in the past year, with the help of Connor and my contacts at Nobu. Thanks to them, I have many good friends in the government. Friends who are willing to, shall we say, pull strings for me.”

  Midori shook her head and glanced toward the bathroom. “I can’t believe I suspected Ken.”

  “I didn’t know of your suspicions about my nephew,” Seiji said to her. “Of course, I didn’t know until now that you’d eavesdropped at his door at such a crucial moment and mistaken my voice for his.”

  “Where was Ken while that was going on?” Nancy asked curiously. “Why were you and Connor in his office, but not him?”

  “Ken and I were having a meeting in his office,” Seiji explained. “After Connor found Midori with the van Gogh, he came rushing in and asked to have a word with me in private. Ken offered to leave us alone for a few minutes—he said that he had to go see Gil Armstrong about something anyway.”

  While Seiji talked, Nancy began sneaking glances around Mad Dog’s studio. She needed a backup plan in case Mick and George didn’t make it in time.

  “Your fiancé knew nothing of our activities, Midori,” Seiji went on. “Otherwise, he wouldn’t have told me where you were hiding.”

  “He told you?” Midori cried out.

  “I ran into him just outside my office about an hour ago,” Seiji said. “He looked very excited. When I pressed him for an explanation, he said that he was on his way to this address to try to win you back.”

  Midori turned pale. “Oh, no,” she murmured. “My poor Ken—”

  “I never dreamed of including my nephew in the scheme, Midori,” Seiji said, sighing. “I always sensed that he disliked me. I knew I couldn’t trust him.”

  “Speaking of trust, why did you kill Connor?” Nancy said suddenly, hoping to bait Seiji into a confession.

  Midori and Mad Dog looked amazed, but Nancy just shook her head.

  Seiji glared at her. “What makes you think I killed him?” he said coolly. “Well, never mind, you won’t be around to cause me any trouble anyway. Yes, I killed him. Or rather, I had Shin do the job. You know Shin, Ms. Drew. He was supposed to come up here to scout things out while I went to the car to get my gun. But thanks to you, he’s lying unconscious downstairs.”

  “Well, thanks to him, and you, I was nearly poisoned by a piece of fugu, and pushed into a roaring bonfire, and sliced up by a shuriken,” Nancy snapped.

  “You’d become most inconvenient,” Seiji said simply. “You see, I wasn’t terribly worried about Midori until she ran away from the wedding. Then I feared she suspected something about the van Gogh. But I thought she would stay in hiding. If she resurfaced, I planned to silence her with threats.”

  Midori shuddered. Mad Dog moved closer to her and put his hand on her shoulder.

  “When I learned that you were searching for Midori, Ms. Drew, it was obvious to me that you had to be stopped at any cost,” Seiji continued. “You’re a detective. There was a chance you would get to the bottom of my little art transactions.”

  Nancy spotted an open bucket of paint on the floor, behind Seiji’s feet.

  Seiji glanced at her suspiciously. “Am I boring you, Ms. Drew?”

  “I was just thinking,” Nancy said quickly. “You must have really started getting nervous when Ken caught me at Connor’s Rolodex.”

  “My nephew happened to tell Connor your ridiculous story about trying to find some woman’s name in it,” Seiji said. “We realized at that point that you were getting much too close to the truth. Then, early this afternoon, the accountant at Nobu called Connor and wanted to know if his lovely American secretary had gotten the van Gogh papers to him in order.”

  He paused, then added, “Courage was never Connor’s strong suit. Right after that phone call, he marched into my office and told me that he wanted out before you had the authorities at our doorstep, Ms. Drew.”

  “So you punished C
onnor for his lack of courage by having him killed?” Mad Dog spat out.

  “I also wanted to make sure he would never be able to testify against me, if it ever came to that,” Seiji replied glibly.

  His eyes glittered behind his rimless glasses as he raised his gun higher. “And now I will have to kill the three of you,” he announced. “I plan to make it look like your handiwork, Mr. Hayashi. I can see the newspaper headlines now: ‘Crazy Artist Shoots Friends, Then Turns Gun on Himself.’ ”

  Midori covered her face with her hands. Nancy stared at Seiji—then happened to notice a figure behind him.

  It was Ken. He had somehow managed to get out of the bathroom and was moving silently toward them.

  “There’s just one problem with your plan, Mr. Nakamura,” Mad Dog burst out suddenly. “A big problem.” Nancy realized that he had noticed Ken, too, and that he was trying to stall for time so Ken could get to his uncle.

  Trying not to attract Seiji’s attention, Nancy fixed her eyes on Ken’s and cocked her head very slightly to make him notice the open bucket of paint behind Seiji’s feet.

  Ken saw it. As soon as he was close enough, he reached down quickly, picked up the bucket, and flung its contents over Seiji’s head. Bright blue paint splattered everywhere.

  Seiji cried out in surprise, and his gun went off. The bullet ricocheted off the ceiling. During that crucial split second, Nancy reached for the closest weapon she could find—a table lamp. She picked it up and brought it down as hard as she could on Seiji’s gun hand. Seiji dropped the gun, and it skittered across the wood floor.

  Seiji flung his paint-covered glasses off and dove for the gun, which had ended up near one of the vinyl lawn chairs. Ken went for it at exactly the same moment.

  Seiji got his hand on the gun first. He rolled over to face Ken and raised it ever so slightly in the air, just inches from Ken’s head.

  “No!” Midori screamed.

  In his frenzied attempt to retrieve the gun, Seiji hadn’t noticed Nancy coming around behind him. Before he could pull the trigger, she leaped forward and ground her heel down on his gun hand. He yelled out in pain, and his fingers fluttered open, releasing the gun. Nancy bent down then and yanked Seiji’s right arm back into an immobilizing half nelson.

  “You’re finished,” Nancy told him breathlessly. “And you and your crooked friends are going to jail for a very long time.”

  Mad Dog picked up Seiji’s gun and dropped it into what was left of the bucket of paint. Midori burst into tears and ran into Ken’s arms.

  He held her tightly. “It’s okay,” he whispered into her hair. “It’s over.”

  Just then, George and Mick came racing through the door. They stopped and stared at the scene with their mouths hanging open.

  Finally George said, “What did we miss, a finger-painting party?”

  • • •

  Nancy entered the enormous white tent on Mick’s arm. George and Gil followed close behind, laughing loudly about something. Much to Nancy’s surprise, her friend had taken a liking to the brainy Australian.

  Inside, about a hundred people were milling around. Waiters in tuxedoes drifted by, balancing trays of hors d’oeuvres and champagne glasses high in the air.

  “Leave it to Yoko Nakamura to throw a party together on four days’ notice,” Nancy remarked. “This is great.”

  “It’s almost as great as the wedding ceremony was,” George said. “I loved that poem Ken wrote for Midori—it was so romantic!”

  “It was nice that they decided to hold the whole thing here, at the park where they had their first date, rather than at the Hamada Imperial Villa,” Mick added. “That place would have reminded them too much of Seiji Nakamura.”

  Gil took a piece of shrimp sushi from a passing waiter and said, “So our once-esteemed boss has been incarcerated, eh, Mick?”

  “Yup,” Mick replied. “His sidekick, Shin, is in jail, too. And so are Watanabe and a bunch of Nobu employees.”

  “But Mrs. Nakamura managed to arrange to keep the whole thing out of the papers until tomorrow,” Nancy added. “As far as most of these wedding guests are concerned, Seiji Nakamura is on an overseas business trip.” She paused and chuckled. “It’s ironic that after everything Ken’s mother ended up coming through for him and Midori. Finding out what they had suffered on her brother-in-law’s account really turned her around.”

  “Ken and Midori definitely deserve a happy ending,” George remarked.

  Nancy sipped some sparkling cider and studied the crowd. She spotted Ken’s mother, Mari, and Midori’s parents. She also noticed Hana and the three teens from Café Vertigo, dressed from head to toe in black leather. Someone was missing. . . .

  “Where’s Mad Dog?” she said suddenly. “I didn’t see him at the ceremony. Did any of you?”

  George, Mick, and Gil looked at one another, then shook their heads.

  “I can’t believe he’d miss the wedding,” George said, perplexed. “Where could he be?”

  They heard the deafening roar of a motorcycle outside the tent. A few moments later Mad Dog came rushing in. He was wearing a black and pink polka-dot tie in addition to his torn jeans and leather vest.

  He saw Nancy and her friends and came up to them. “My bike broke down in the middle of the highway,” he said, panting. “I had to spend an hour fixing it. I hope Ken and Midori aren’t furious at me for missing the ceremony.”

  “How could we be furious at you, Mad Dog?”

  Nancy turned around. Midori was standing a few feet away. She looked radiant in her white silk kimono embroidered with gold cranes and flowers. Ken was at her side, his arm around her waist.

  “I don’t think I’ve thanked you yet for taking care of Midori,” Ken said, extending his hand to Mad Dog. “I hope we can be friends.”

  Mad Dog grinned and clasped Ken’s hand. “Absolutely.”

  Midori fixed her amber eyes on Nancy. “We owe our deepest debt of gratitude to you. If it hadn’t been for you, this wedding would never have happened.”

  “Oh, I don’t know about that,” Nancy replied, blushing slightly. “When two people are meant to be together, they always seem to find their way back to each other.”

  “That goes for friends, too,” Mick said, gazing meaningfully at Nancy. Then he raised his glass in the air. “I’d like to propose a toast to Midori and Ken. May they have a lifetime of love and wonderful adventures together.”

  Everyone clinked glasses. In the background the orchestra began to play a lively melody.

  “I think that’s our song,” Ken said to Midori, and they sailed off to the dance floor.

  “Nice toast,” Nancy whispered to Mick.

  He grinned. “To tell you the truth, I kind of meant it about us, too. Not the lifetime of love, but the part about wonderful adventures. What do you say we rendezvous every few years or so and tackle a case together?”

  Nancy laughed and raised her glass. “You’re on.”

  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

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