Tokyo Heist Read Online Free PDF Page B

a mountain tunnel, above a bookcase. The tracks follow a crack in the plaster. His finger traces a cluster of glacial lakes, which I now see are painted around bubbling plaster and brown water stains. “And these cracks here were from the last earthquake.” He traces them over the fireplace mantel, showing how a web of cracks has been transformed into a tree. The tree sprouts vines, curling to the next wall, where green, orange, and yellow-and-brown birds perch: cockatoos, partridges, parrots, and doves. Owls with wide, staring eyes. “See? If you can’t repair something, you can turn it into art.”
    Lugging my bags, my dad leads me down a short hallway painted with explosions of rhododendrons and outlines of madrona trees. We come to a small room off the kitchen, furnished with an old drafting table and a sagging, plaid loveseat. The white walls are bare except for one tendril of ivy, drawn in pencil, that snakes in from the hall. “Sorry, there’s not much in the kitchen,” he says, and at first I think he’s talking about the wall art. “Mostly I eat takeout. But help yourself to anything you find.” He unfolds the loveseat, revealing a hide-a-bed. “The Ritz it is not. Apologies.”
    “It’s fine. I could use some sheets, though.” I try to sound casual, but inside, I’m smoldering. He hasn’t done one thing to prepare for me.
    “Good idea. I’ll hunt some down. Then I’d better get cracking on some mural ideas.”
    “You know what? Forget it. I’ll sleep without them. I’m going to turn in. I have to take two buses to get to the comic shop tomorrow, and my shift starts at nine. I’d better get up early.”
    Then I notice something on the armrest of the hide-a-bed. A woman’s black sweater.
    We both stare at it for a while, as it if might hiss and attack us.
    There’s no sign of my existence in this house. No school photos, even though I’ve given him a picture every year. And yet. This sweater.
    My dad picks it up, opens the door to the basement, and flings it down the stairs.
    “Skye doesn’t live here, does she?” I ask.
    His laugh comes out like a bark. “Nope.”
    “Does she come over a lot?”
    “I don’t think you’ll be crossing paths here. As of tonight, she’s not in the picture.”
    “You guys broke up? Tonight?”
    “We were on a collision course. It’s getting late. Sit tight. I’ll rustle up those sheets.”
    I lie down. Springs creak beneath me. I’m relieved Skye’s out of the picture. But that also means finding out her connection to the art theft will be that much harder.
    After my dad fails to come back with sheets, I get ready for bed, then dial Edge again.
    No answer. I feel seriously sick.
    I’ve never had a real boyfriend. But I’ve read a ton of shojo manga, and listened to Reika’s ups and downs with her Boyfriends of the Month, older guys from other schools.
    I don’t have anyone else like Edge. He’s been there for me every day since we met in seventh-grade French class, on a day when I felt totally alone in the world. We had to write and perform a skit together, and he made me laugh so hard with his ideas I actually fell out of my chair. We’ve been best friends ever since. If I confessed I liked him as more than a friend, and he didn’t feel the same way, it could wreck the friendship.
    That almost happened this fall. We were at Deluxe Junk in Fremont one Saturday, trying on vintage clothes for a short film Edge was working on. I came out of the dressing room in a flouncy gold prom dress from the eighties. He emerged in a powder-blue tuxedo with ruffles down the front. We cracked up, looking at ourselves in the mirror. “The seventies? Wrong decade,” I told him, since he usually dresses like he’s from a 1940s film—trousers, a waistcoat, the occasional gray fedora.
    “It’s good to branch out now and then,” he replied.
    An old Michael Jackson song came on the radio, and we danced. Edge did disco moves, his honey-brown hair falling into