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she pulled away from the curb and watched him grow smaller in her
rearview mirror, she felt disheartened.
She had no idea that her unease was a premonition of terrible
things to come.
• 33 •
• 34 •
BLIND LEAP
CHAPTER THREE
December 18
Golden Gate Bridge
Ylatest in a trail of loss that stretched back to her childhood. As
she waited for Velvet to return from her sorrowful walk on the bridge,
she thought, At least Velvet knows the person lost to her.
Yoshi could barely remember her mother. The face she imagined
when she thought of her was not her mother’s actual face; it was an
invention, Yoshi’s guess at what her mother might have looked like.
She did not know for sure. She recalled her mother’s smell, the touch of
her hand, the sweet, soothing sound of her singing Japanese lullabies.
But even though she had her sight as a child, she could not conjure up
a memory of her mother’s face.
Her father had not been the kind of man to capture his wife’s beauty
with a camera. He had expected her to be there in their home when
he wanted to see her face. Nanako was only twenty-four. Too young
for cancer, she had never had a mammogram. By the time they made
their diagnosis it was too late. The cancer had already metastasized
and spread throughout her body. She was gone six months later. In his
grief, Yoshi’s father could not even bear to hear her name, and he cut
off contact with their extended family back in Japan.
It was three years now since a stranger had stolen Hiroki
Yakamota’s life, and Yoshi still hadn’t recovered, not really. A
consummate professional, she had been careful to keep her emotional
wounds well hidden. It did no one any good to know the depth of the
fear that had stalked her ever since Hiroki lost his battle with a six-inch
• 35 •
oshi was no stranger to heartache. Jeff Conant was just the
DIANE AND JACOB ANDERSON-MINSHALL
blade; her friends and coworkers would not understand her anxiety.
They would assume that her job put her in proximity to the kind of
perpetrator who had stolen her father’s life, and therefore brought up
the horror of her loss. But that was not it. Not at all.
Yoshi feared that without someone like Hiroki in her life, she
would not longer function when the last light in her eyes faded and
she was plunged into an eternal darkness. Her father had been her
rock, her best friend. He had also been her caregiver when she needed
one, and her cheering section when she had doubts. He had been
her reason for working hard, the reason she was even in this field
of private investigating. That fate would take him from her as well,
even though it was twenty-five years after the death of her mother,
seemed anything but fair. And now that she had lost both Hiroki and
her eyesight, she wondered if it was time to admit defeat and hang up
her PI credentials.
The sound of footsteps interrupted her thoughts and the driver’s
side door cracked open, letting in the cold and humid winds of San
Francisco’s December. Without a word, Velvet slid into the Celica.
Yoshi detected the scent of salt water. It was probably a combination
of tears and the coastal breeze pregnant with seawater molecules. She
covered Velvet’s hand with her own and did not interrupt the silence by
verbalizing her sympathy. Velvet’s skin was chilled from the elements.
“Why?” Velvet demanded, as though Death hovered nearby,
willing to give up his secrets when properly queried.
“I’m sorry,” Yoshi said, knowing it was not enough.
She squeezed Velvet’s hand before releasing it like one of the
rehabilitated birds of prey that wildlife specialists regularly set free from
the hills above the Golden Gate Bridge. She imagined hawks soaring
over the bridge and the ocean. Circling on once-broken wings, they
offered hope that Velvet would recover, too. Her emotional wounds
would heal and she would fly again. But it would take time.
As Velvet accelerated rapidly away from the parking area, the
G-force pressed Yoshi hard against the back of her seat and gave her
stomach the sensation of roller-coaster rides. She imagined Velvet’s
foot slammed on the gas pedal, pressing the lever until it kissed the
floorboards.
Yoshi gripped the door handle. She understood Velvet’s need for
acceleration, and she knew that when first exiting the scenic turnout a
driver had the advantage of an extra lane. But this wouldn’t last long;
• 36 •
BLIND LEAP
in only four hundred feet it turned into an exit ramp for Sausalito. She
muffled her concern; it seemed unwise to utter a panicky sound when
Velvet would need all her concentration to keep them on the road.
Given the steep incline leading to the Waldo Tunnel, which linked
them to the rest of Marin County, revving the Celica up to speed in the
short distance was a tremendous feat. Leaning forward in her seat as
though her weight would propel the vehicle forward, Velvet coaxed the
car to 45 m.p.h. and, just as she was running out of pavement, swerved
sharply into the freeway slow lane. A horn blared behind them as an
irate driver was forced to reduce his speed.
“Fuck you, too,” Velvet yelled, releasing her pent-up emotions by
pounding on her own horn. It echoed off the walls of the tunnel and
elicited responses from other drivers.
She glanced sideways and saw Yoshi tighten her grip on the door
handle. For a split second, Velvet worried that inertia would propel
her friend over the emergency brake and she would slam into Velvet,
making her swerve into the path of a big rig, and they would both die.
But Yoshi was clinging to the door frame like she had the same idea in
her head, too.
“He’s gone,” Velvet said. “Relax. We’re fine.”
Yoshi let her relief out in an exaggerated sigh and released the
handle.
“Why couldn’t he have been the one to jump?” Velvet asked, not
expecting an answer.
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