The Flower Master (Rei Shimura #3) by Sujata Massey Read Free Book Online Page A

shared with Hugh. Going back would be horrible. I imagined walking past the concierge, who would remember me, and then having to travel upstairs in the elevator, stopping a few floors short of the place where Hugh and I had lived in unmarried bliss. I couldn't go back.
    I dialed Lila, thinking that she probably wouldn't want me to come, not after what had happened at the flower-arranging school.
    "Oh, it's you!" Lila sounded out of breath when she answered. "I just got back from the Kayama School. The police talked to all of us. It was absolutely awful. I wish that I could disappear into a hot bath for a few hours, but my little ones need dinner, and I'm going crazy."
    "I'm sorry to disturb you. I was just calling back about tomorrow morning. You want to cancel, I assume."
    "Tomorrow morning? Goodness, that call I made to you. I almost forgot." Lila paused. "I don't want to cancel."
    "But you said that you were wiped out from the police—"
    "I like to have lots of things going on! It keeps life from being dreary."
    She was too lively for me. "Sorry, but Roppongi is hard for me to get to. Could we meet elsewhere?"
    "The Kayama School is in Roppongi. You were there yesterday and today," she reminded me.
    "Yes, but, well, the circumstances are a bit difficult. ..." I was making a typically Japanese excuse. It worked well in the original language, but sounded pretty phony in English.
    "I need to talk to you," Lila insisted. "Not about antiques. About the Kayama School."
    Why talk to me instead of Lieutenant Hata? I thought of how Lila had seen Aunt Norie break down crying in front of the police. Maybe Lila was afraid that things would be worse for a foreigner such as herself.
    "All right," l said, compassion rising. "Can we meet somewhere besides your apartment?"
    "Oh, I can't leave. I have three small children, and my nanny doesn't arrive until eleven. Then I have aerobics class, and after that it's a women's club luncheon. Every second after eleven is completely booked." Lila sounded desperate.
    I buckled under.
    * * *
    "You look so different, Miss Shimura!" Mr. Oi, the Roppongi Hills concierge, greeted me with a startled expression when I walked into the sun-filled marble and glass lobby.
    "It's my hair," I said gloomily. My hair had once been short and chic, but I was letting it grow. The ends had crept over my ears, and it would probably take another year for all the different layers to match up. For now, I used gel and bobby pins and slicked everything back behind my ears. Richard Randall said the style looked like a low-budget Isabella Rossellini, but I didn't believe him.
    "No, not the hair. It is your eyes. You look tired and almost sad."
    I had good reason to feel sad. But I didn't want to tell the concierge about the murder at the Kayama School six blocks away. No, he could find out on television or through a tabloid.
    "I'm here to see Lila Braithwaite," I told him. "In Apartment seven-oh-two."
    "She is expecting you? Feel free to go ahead. I trust you in the building." He sighed heavily. "Is Mr. Glendinning returning to Tokyo?"
    "No," I said flatly, realizing that was the reason Mr. Oi thought I was so blue. The death of someone was worse than losing a bad ex, but I didn't want to get into it. I just said good-bye and went to the seventh floor.
    Lila's door, unlike the others, was decorated with a few hand-painted children's works of art. I knocked carefully so that I wouldn't disengage the taped pictures, and Lila opened the door. She was dressed in her aerobics gear, turquoise leggings topped with a short Tokyo American Club T-shirt. A three-year- old girl was clinging to her slim thigh. I could hear the sound of Doraemon, an animated cat video, blaring from a nearby room, and two children were screeching somewhere else.
    "What are the proper words of welcome?" Lila asked wearily. "Irrasshai? The maid hasn't come in yet, so I apologize for the clutter."
    "Mummy, I want crackers now," her daughter demanded, and as