InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Purity 10: Anomaly ❯ Misfortune ( Chapter 9 )

"Officials are issuing a warning tonight regarding the string of robberies in and around Lenox Hills.  According to Captain Ross McFadden of the 19th Precinct, there is evidence that the robberies are being orchestrated by a high-tech group, although they are not yet clear on exactly how organized this group really is . . ."

Frowning at the televised report on the news, Mikio flicked off the TV and dropped the remote on the coffee table.  Sesshoumaru had already arranged for some renovations to be done to the guest bathrooms—the master suite's bathroom had been finished earlier, well before Mikio had taken up residence, but there had been some difficulty in the custom fixtures that had delayed the work on the guest ones.  His uncle had offered to put off the work, but Mikio had insisted that it wasn't a problem.  The workmen weren't overly loud, and he'd been told that it should only take another week, tops.  They had been leaving around three or so in the afternoons, but they'd stayed later today—something about tiles having to be laid before the delivery of some of the cabinetry in the morning.  So, the contractor had left around nine with his sparse work crew, and Mikio had tried to lie down for a bit.  Trouble was, despite the fact that it was nearly midnight, he wasn't tired in the least.

He stood, shuffled over to the bank of windows that ran the length of the penthouse apartment, staring down at the lights of the city without really paying much attention to the view.  He simply had way too much on his mind, and he'd found over the years that he tended to do his best thinking at night, too.  Looking over the files and reports was tedious, at best, but he was starting to see definite patterns—things that could be easily overlooked, given that the emailed reports that Gavin filed were kept on the corporate server.  They were password protected, of course, which, really didn't mean much.  Gavin's passwords seemed to be secure enough, but if someone wanted to alter the files badly enough, and if the person had knowledge of how to crack a password protected file—or even just the basic skill of using Google—then there was always a loophole.

The files on the server were changed, there was no doubt about that.  The hardcopy reports were noticeably different from the ones that had been submitted.  Gavin's files were fine, even the ones he kept on his computer.  The ones that were in the possession of the accountant?  Those were not.

So the real trouble was going to be figuring out who had the opportunity to change those reports.  In a deposition, the two people who handled Gavin's files both admitted that they often didn't get around to looking at his reports for a week or two, sometimes a month, after they were submitted, so the window of opportunity was pretty broad.

Which, of course, just made Mikio's task that much more difficult.  He needed to know just who had access to the server, and that might prove to be harder information to obtain, given that the higher-ups at Morgan Tallerton Financial weren't entirely sure whether they trusted Mikio or not.  They seemed to think that he was on some kind of witch hunt, like he was trying to bring down the whole firm.  It wasn't entirely surprising.  Maybe they'd taken offense to the idea that Gavin had retained his own counsel, or maybe the general distrust he'd sensed from Bill Winehouse had rubbed off on them.  Either way, it just made Mikio's task a little more difficult.

'That all sounds good, Mikio, but you know damn well that you've been thinking more about a certain someone than you have about Jamison-san's case.'

'That's not necessarily a good thing,' he mused with a marked frown.  Gavin's case deserved more attention than that.  Considering that the man's life teetered in the balance, then distraction was really not something that Mikio could afford.

'You know, we could call her—maybe not now, considering the time, but tomorrow.  Ask her to dinner or something . . .?'

'Or we could concentrate on finding a way to prove that Jamison-san is innocent,' he remarked dryly.

'Aw, c'mon, Miki-chan . . . That woman is . . . Well, she's everything!  Smart, savvy, fun . . . and she's got a damn fine rack, don't you think?'

Stifling the urge to blush at his youkai-voice's overzealous analytical skills, Mikio scowled out the window.  The trouble with Madison Cartham, he figured, was that he had a feeling that she could very easily crawl right under his skin without him even realizing it, and that was entirely too dangerous to credit.

'And you make that sound like a fate worse than death.'

Turning on his heel as he started away from the window, he stopped abruptly when a wave of dizziness washed over him.  So strong that he reached out to steady himself on the back of a nearby chair, he closed his eyes and willed the feeling to pass.

It brought it all right back into focus, didn't it?  Unexplainable dizzy spells, clumsiness that really couldn't just be growing pains or something stupid, like his family had tried to tell him for years—at least, until it had become painfully obvious that it really wasn't anything like that, at all.

And he'd thought that it was all right, hadn't he?  Thought that his own physical limitations were something that he could deal with because he had done it all his life, and that was all right.  Or, at least, it had been all right until recently—until he'd met the girl with the violet eyes, that was . . .

'But . . . But maybe she won't care . . .' his youkai remarked almost timidly.

'As it that matters,' Mikio scoffed.  Of course, she'd care, and he knew that, too, but even if she didn't, he did, damn it.  A woman like her?  She was used to guys like Evan Zelig, guys who could do the things that Mikio himself would never be able to do.  Guys who could move without a second thought as to whether or not he'd manage to stay on his feet, who didn't have to worry that he'd end up, flat on his back, looking like a complete and utter fool.  It was demoralizing, debilitating, entirely humiliating, really, and for reasons that Mikio didn't want to consider, the idea of allowing Madison to see him like that?  It was just a little more than he could stand . . .

It seemed to him that it took longer than normal for the room to stop spinning as he stepped cautiously around the chair and lowered himself into it.  Swallowing hard to force down the rising bile that normally accompanied the worst of his dizzy spells, Mikio rubbed his forehead and forced himself to take a few long, deep breaths.

He felt shaky, but the dizziness slowly receded, much to Mikio's relief—and overall disgust.  Over time, he'd really come to hate those moments, those times when something inside him veered off-kilter.  Trouble was, he never quite knew when one of those spells was going to hit him, either.  It wasn't like there was any kind of warning beforehand, which irritated him, too.  At least if he knew what kind of thing might trigger it, then he could take steps to avoid or prepare, but there weren't.

When he was just a pup, his parents had taken him in to have him tested.  Kichiro had surmised that maybe there was something wrong with Mikio's inner ear, maybe some kind of defect that caused his balance to be adversely affected.  But when they'd tried to get him into the scanner to test him, he'd gotten scared, and InuYasha had very nearly busted down the door to 'save' him.  Of course, he wasn't very old at the time, so it wasn't entirely surprising that he'd freaked out.  Even so, no one had ever suggested that he get the test done later, and, while Mikio had wondered why that was, he'd also heard the whispers, too, and he'd realized that his parents had ended up arguing about it . . .

That memory was enough to bring Mikio abruptly to his feet once more, and without stopping to think about the time, without bothering to consider that it was late, that he probably should try going back to bed, he strode toward the door, ignoring the residual if not dull throbbing in his head.  Somehow, the very walls of the penthouse suite seemed to be closing in on him, and the only thought in his head was that he needed to escape, even if he really wasn't entirely sure why he felt that way.

Swinging open the door, he stopped short, moments before barreling straight into Cartham Madison, who stood just outside, her hand raised, ready to knock.  "M-Madison," he stammered, as much from the surprise of finding her there as from the wholly unsettling and entirely welcome feeling of warmth that rushed through him in that instant.  The scent of her wafted to him, enveloping him in a haze of her as he swallowed hard and made himself take a step back.  Dressed as she was in a white cotton blouse and faun suede skirt, she didn't look like she'd been out for the evening, no.  If anything, she looked like she might have just left her shop . . .

"Hi, Mikio."  She made a face, squeezing one eye closed as she shot him a rather nervous kind of smile.  "Sorry to come over so late," she apologized.  "It's stupid, really, but . . . Um, can I use your phone?"

"My . . .? Oh, uh, sure," he said, stepping to the side to allow her to enter.  "Is everything all right?"

She heaved a sigh, the three inch taupe heels clicking lightly against the hardwood floor as she stepped inside.  "Depends on what you consider 'all right'," she muttered, looking decidedly irritated about something.

"That sounds rather dubious."

Pausing long enough to pin him with an entirely inscrutable look, she slowly shook her head.  "I’m a moron, Mikio.  I don't know if you knew that already, but I am."

He blinked at her harsh self-assessment.  "I-I don't think you are," he allowed.  "Why would you say that?"

This time, she snorted indelicately, launching herself into a brisk pace as she strode away from him, only to pivot on her heel once she reached the window and started back toward him once more.  "I'm an entirely lost cause—pathetic, really.  Honestly pathetic!"

Crossing his arms over his chest as he leaned back against the door he'd just closed Mikio remained silent, figuring he'd be better off to wait until she'd calmed down enough to tell him what had happened or at least, why she seemed to think that she'd done something terrible, anyway.

"And you'd think that Evan, knowing me, would realize that there was a good chance that I might need to be able to get into his house while he's gone on his honeymoon, wouldn't you?  I mean, he's known me forever, so he should have known that I, being me, would need the spare keys he keeps there for me, which would ordinarily be fine since the security team knows me—or at least, they know where to look on the security clearance list so I could get into his house to get my spare keys."  Her already agitated expression shifted into one of near mutiny as she continued to pace the length of the room, and for a moment, Mikio wondered if she wasn't about to completely lose what little bit of sanity she was struggling to hold on to.  She didn't seem to be too far away from a bout of hysteria—he could smell it rolling off her in waves.  But she must have realized that freaking out really wasn't going to help her, and she drew a few deep breaths to calm herself.  Then she sighed yet again.

He cleared his throat since she seemed to have forgotten that she was actually speaking to him.  She started, pivoting on her heel again as her gaze lit on him once more.  "You lost your keys?"

"No, I didn't lose my—" Another sigh, this one a lot more defeated than the others.  "I'll tell you what I've told Evan before: my keys are exactly where I set them down . . . I just don't happen to remember where that was."

Pressing his lips together in a thin line, lest he do something entirely stupid, like give in to the urge to laugh, he slowly nodded.  "And Evan's got your spare keys in his house."

She stopped, mid-stride, and stared at him.  "Yes," she finally said.  "Did I mention that he's given his security team the time off while he's gone?  Everything's locked up tighter than Alcatraz, but even then, I'm not sure if he'd have the keys at his Zel Roka mansion or in the townhouse they bought recently.  There's just one rent-a-cop guarding the mansion with the explicit orders, 'No one, under any circumstances, allowed in, period'."  Shaking her head, she stomped around the sofa, only to flop down on it to bury her face in her hands.  "Bas might have access to both of those, but who knows if he's in the city at the moment, either . . ."

"So you wanted to call Bas," Mikio concluded with a curt nod.  Then he frowned.  "Why didn't you just use your cell phone?"

"Because," she admitted, her voice muffled, "it's in my apartment—my locked apartment.  I apparently forgot it this morning, too."  Letting her hands drop away from her face, she heaved a sigh as her shoulders slumped, as she cast him an entirely pathetic kind of look.  "Can I just use your phone to call a hotel?  I'll figure the rest of it out tomorrow—call a locksmith or something."

"Well, you could, but," Mikio began as he glanced around, as his frown darkened slightly.  "You don't have your purse?"

Sitting up quickly, she patted the sofa on both sides, leaning slightly to sweep her hands underneath herself before she shot him what should have been a quelling glance, but somehow wasn't.

He nodded.  "You forgot that at home, too?"

She shook her head.  "No, I probably left it in my office," she admitted.  "Good, since I really don't want to have to call my credit card company and bank and all that—again—and have to explain—again—that I've lost my cards—again.  Bad, because . . ." Trailing off as she dropped her face into her hands once more, she groaned.

"Why don't you just stay here tonight?" he offered, wondering in the back of his mind if he wasn't signing his own death warrant in the process but brushing aside the thought just as quickly.  "We can call Bas in the morning."

"Oh, I don't want to be any trouble," Madison insisted as she slowly got to her feet.  "I know the concierge at the Riesman-Criss.  I'm pretty sure that he'll work with me."

Glancing at the clock, Mikio shook his head.  "Madison, it's one in the morning," he told her gently.  "You're welcome to stay."

She thought about it for a long moment, biting her lip as she considered his offer.  "Are you sure?" she finally asked.  "If it's a problem, I really can go to the hotel."

He shook his head again.  "You're hardly a problem, Madison," he pointed out.

She didn't look like she entirely believed him, but she nodded.  "If you're sure . . ."

Only then did Mikio break into a small grin as he pushed himself away from the door.  "I'm sure," he said.

And then, she smiled.

' Baka, baka, baka, baka, baka . . .'

'I don't know if you're the most brilliant being on earth or if you're absolutely the stupidest.'

'Stupidest.  Definitely the stupidest.'

'Is 'stupidest' even a word?'

'. . . You're really not helping.'

His youkai-voice sighed.  'I know, but damn, this is nice . . .'

He winced and shifted slightly, just enough to try to put a breath of space between Madison and himself.  It wasn't that he didn't like her very close proximity, no . . . Quite the opposite, actually.  That was, unfortunately, also becoming a pretty big problem, too . . .

'I don't know if I'd say 'nice',' he muttered to himself as he stubbornly fought to keep from glancing at the bedside clock.   'It's more like torture—slow death . . .'

'Stop being a melodramatic baka,' his youkai reprimanded sharply.  'I mean, concentrate on the positives here, why not?'

The wince shifted into a grimace as the woman in question shifted in her sleep, drawing up her knee, draping it over his legs, entirely too close to the part of him that he was desperately trying to ignore at the moment.  'No . . . positives . . .' he choked out.

'Are you kidding me?  That woman—the hottest woman you've ever clapped eyes on—is here, in our bed, sleeping with you, and she obviously feels no qualms in snuggling right up to you, now does she?'

No, she didn't, and therein lay the problem, as far as Mikio could tell.

He really wasn't sure, exactly how it had happened, in the first place.

He'd asked her if she wanted to stay with him, which was kind of the beginning of the end, in retrospect.  But he'd managed to forget at the time that the guest bedrooms weren't accessible, given the work still going on in the bathrooms, which also meant general disarray in the guest rooms, and when he had realized that, he'd decided that she could use his room, and he could just sleep on the sofa, but Madison hadn't liked that idea, and when he'd insisted, she'd stated that she'd just go to a hotel because putting Mikio out of his own bed was just not an option.

"Are you kidding?  You're too tall for that sofa," she pointed out with a slow shake of her head.  "You'll end up sore and . . ." She shook her head again.  "I'll call the hotel, but thanks."

Grabbing her hand as she started to stride past him, Mikio tugged her back.  "Absolutely not," he insisted.  "The sofa is fine."

"No, it's not," she stated once more, crossing her arms over her chest as she frowned at him.  "I can sleep on it, though."

That earned her a raised-eyebrow.  "It's not okay for me, but it's okay for you?  Why's that?"

She smiled.  "I'm a lot shorter than you," she pointed out, "and I'm the idiot who misplaced her keys, so the couch is good enough for me."

"You're not an idiot, and I couldn't possibly ask you to sleep on that," he argued.  "You take the bed, please."

She opened her mouth to argue with him.  He held up a hand meant to silence her.  Instead, however, she stared at him for a long moment, then grabbed his hand and marched him off toward the bedroom in question.

And she'd insisted that they were both adults, after all, and that the bed was big enough for the both of them to share, which, in theory, it really was.  Given that Sesshoumaru was tall himself, the bed had been custom made to fit his height and was easily as wide as it was long, and Mikio, who was only an inch or two shorter than the inu no taisho, really didn't have any grounds to complain about Madison's idea about their sleeping arrangement.

So she'd borrowed one of his shirts to sleep in and had taken a nice, long shower while Mikio had tried to convince himself that it was all okay, that there really wasn't any need to panic.  Still, he'd pulled on a pair of sweatpants—not something he normally wore to bed—but was glad he'd bought since he hadn't thought to pack any hakama which he tended to wear when he took to the archery range.  He'd yet to seek out the one he'd located via an internet search of the area, but the sweatpants were a far cry better than his usual option of sleeping naked, anyway . . .

'Do you think she'd have minded if you had gone to bed naked?'

'Again, not helping,' Mikio grumbled to himself as he squeezed his eyes closed and tried not to think about the proximity of her body against his.

'Well, she is a pretty forward girl . . . Do you think she usually sleeps naked, too?'

He very nearly whined out loud, though he managed to bite back the sound before it actually slipped out.  'I . . . I don't want to know.'

His youkai sighed.  'But I do.'

That statement didn't deserve a response, as far as Mikio was concerned.  Besides, trying to imagine the woman in even less than the oversized white tee-shirt she'd grabbed out of his closet was just not something that he could do—at least, not if he wanted to keep any semblance of his self-control, at the moment.  After all, the shirt might well reach mid-thigh on her, but the soft material did absolutely nothing to hide her generous curves, clinging to her in all the right places as she snuggled just a little closer against his side, her head tucked neatly under his cheek, resting on his shoulder.  The warmth of her seemed to radiate straight from her and right into him, and she'd kicked down the sheer sheet that had covered her to the waist some time ago, too, leaving the long and gorgeous expanse of her bared legs open to his ardent perusal.

Outside the window, Mikio could discern the vague light of a weak and tepid dawn, and he sighed.  His entire body ached in a crazy-mad sort of way, as though the strain of the last few hours had, indeed, taken its toll on him.  Maybe he would have been better off, to have insisted that he sleep on the sofa, after all, and yet . . .

And yet, there was simply something about her, wasn't there? Something that quelled the tinge of panic that had gathered around the edges.  There was a certain something there, hidden just below the surface—something that he dared not to consider too deeply, something that spoke in whispers and murmurs.

Slowly sliding his foot up the mattress, propping up his knee as he carefully shifted, he finally dared to lean away just far enough so that he could look at her face.  Relaxed in the throes of a peaceful slumber with the barest hint of a smile quirking her lips, she really couldn't know just what she was doing to him.   His youkai-voice wasn't wrong when it had remarked upon the fact that she really was the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen.  She was, absolutely, and he knew, didn't he, that it wouldn't matter how long he lived, he'd never, ever meet a more beautiful woman, ever, in his lifetime . . .

It was hard to reconcile it in his mind, though—the child she was when he'd first encountered her and the woman she'd grown to become.  That bright, golden hair, caught back in a cute little pony tail that fell in a cascade of loose curls and those dark, deep violet eyes as she'd wrapped her hands up in the hem of the deep red dress, as she'd shuffled her almost chubby little legs, digging the toes of her black slippers against the wood floor . . . The first time he'd seen her, she was little more than a baby, sure, but a very pretty baby, even when she'd stared at him, only to duck out of the room and run away when he'd smiled at her . . .

And yet, she'd grown into the woman lying beside him—a woman who could so easily make him forget a lifetime of things that he thought he believed, and even though he knew that some things were best left alone, why was it that she, alone, could weaken that resolve he'd spent so long building, in the first place . . .?

'Mikio?'

'Hmm?'

'I . . . I could get used to this . . .'

His thoughtful frown dissipated as he slowly let his head fall back against the pillow once more, as he hesitantly, carefully lifted his arms, as he reluctantly wrapped them around her.  'Y . . . Yeah,' he admitted with an inward wince, as the half-formed ideas of what he should and shouldn't allow slipped away.  'Yeah . . .'