“Magda … Alessandri?” Sage asked.
“We’re really going to Shibuya 109?” Rayna asked. “Is it completely wrong to spend my graduation money four months before I get it?”
“We are not going to Shibuya 109,” I corrected her. “You have school. Wanda would kill you for skipping. And she’d kill me for helping you.”
“It’s an educational experience. I’ll write a report about it when I get back.”
“It could be dangerous, Rayna.”
“How dangerous can it be? You’re going shopping.”
We weren’t, but I understood what she meant. Shibuya 109 was the fashion pinnacle for Tokyo’s young and hip: ten floors of the most trend-setting shops and boutiques, all packaged in a giant cylindrical building that leaped out of the skyline. Rayna and I had done quite a bit of damage there on our last visit, but that was three years ago, and another onslaught was definitely in our future.
Yet as much as I was dying to attack the place with Rayna by my side, this wasn’t the time. While it didn’t seem dangerous to look for someone in a department store, nothing on this journey had been what it seemed. This was maybe the only time in my life when I desperately didn’t want Rayna to be with me.
“Please don’t fight me on this, Rayna. If you come with us and something happens—” She heard how upset I was, and the playful fight left her voice. “It’s okay,” she said, “you go. I’ll stay here … pining for my fiancé.” She said the last part with practiced melodrama, and I laughed with relief—both that she understood and that she’d be safe at home. As Rayna turned the car onto the highway and headed toward the airport, I turned on the car radio, leaned back in my seat, took a big, meltingly sweet bite of butterhorn, and let the taste linger on my tongue. For this one brief moment, life was simple and filled with joy. I wanted to savor it. I knew it wouldn’t last.
IT TURNED OUT I’d have a little more time to enjoy things before we left. The fastest way to get to Tokyo was a direct flight from New York, but it didn’t leave until almost two the next afternoon. Sleeping at home wasn’t an option, and while Rayna waxed rhapsodic about making the most of Larry Steczynski’s black AmEx and treating ourselves like sultans for the night at a cool hotel in Manhattan, it made much more sense to just grab a decent room near the airport.
“Okay,” Rayna agreed, “but seriously, we’re not going to just go to sleep, right? We need to all hang out. After I get some time with Clea. I’m having serious withdrawal.”
“You’re staying the night with us?” I asked excitedly.
“Hello—did you honestly think I wouldn’t? I was serious about the black AmEx fest. But a little hotel will be great too. We’ll do Holiday Inn Express. They have amazing cinnamon rolls.”
“They do?” I asked.
“Signature cinnamon rolls. All you can eat at breakfast.”
“I kinda love that you know that.”
Aside from cinnamon rolls, Rayna’s other request was that she check us in and set up the rooms: two rooms, each with two queen beds, on the same floor, but all the way down the hall from each other. I cringed, imagining Sage and Ben stuck in a room together all night. I couldn’t imagine how that would work.
Rayna waited until we got into our room, then threw herself on one of the beds. “Finally! I thought we’d never get a second alone!” Sprawled on her stomach, she propped herself up on her elbows and kicked up her feet. “Spill—what’s the deal with Hottie McDreamMan?”
“Sage?” I laughed.
“No, I mean Minister Sanders.” She threw a pillow at me. “Of course I mean Sage! He’s the one, right? The guy from your dreams. Oh my God—he’s real and he’s hot! Does he kiss as well in real life as he did in your dreams?”
“I wouldn’t know,” I admitted. “We haven’t kissed.”
“What are you waiting for?”
“So the whole randomly-popping-up-in-pictures thing doesn’t bother you?”
“Nope.”
“The whole strange-cultists-chasing-after-him? That doesn’t bother you either?”
“Nobody’s perfect, Clea.”
“How about if I told you he might be a serial killer? Would that bother you?”
“Debatable. Elaborate.”
I told her about the nightmares and about what I’d seen in his house. As I unrolled the story, her expression went from flip and giddy to openmouthed and riveted.
“Oh my God, Clea.”
“Crazy, right? And I still have no idea how he got into all those pictures.”
“That part’s easy.”
“Really?”
“Of course,” she said. “You’re soulmates.”
“Rayna …”
“Fine, I know, you don’t like that word. But you can’t possibly deny that you have a deep, powerful soul connection. By definition you have that. You said yourself, he found you in four different countries and four different times. Out of all the people in the world at any given time, he found you. The only possible way he could have done that is if your souls were connected. He’s a soul-seeking missile.”
“But he told me he wasn’t there for any of the pictures.”
“Yes, he was! Don’t you get it, Clea? Your souls are connected—he’s always with you, whether he’s there physically or not. And you’re the one who told me about cameras capturing people’s souls, right? So that’s what it’s doing—capturing the soul that’s always with you, because you’re always connected. It’s very romantic.”
I thought about what she said, ignoring the last sentence because I knew by now that everything was very romantic to Rayna.
“Okay,” I ceded, “I’ll give you the connection. But what about the serial killer thing? What if we’re connected because he tracks these women down, acts like he loves them, and then kills them?”
“Kills you. You’re them.”
“Yeah, thanks, that’s a much nicer way to put it,” I said, rolling my eyes.
Rayna considered it a second, then shook her head. “Nope. I don’t buy it, Clea.”
“Why, because it’s not as romantic?”
“It’s not as romantic, but that’s not why I don’t buy it. If he’s a killer, there are lots of other girls to kill.”
“Maybe that’s his game, though,” I said. “The hunt for one soul, again and again.”
“Then why are you still here?”
“The other women lived with him for a long time too. Maybe he wants to wait until my defenses are down, and then—”
“Wow, Clea, you are so jaded. You found your soulmate. People wait their whole lives for this. It’s the most amazing thing in the world, and it’s happened to you. Can’t you just accept it and be happy?”