"That Yakuza was right. You needed to hide," Alan Lord says. It's around 8 pm, and we've been in the hotel room for hours. Alan nods thoughtfully and crosses his thick arms. His tiny, brown eyes bore into me. "For whatever reason, he wanted to help you. When did that happen?"

"The day before yesterday." When the danger of the last few weeks suddenly hits me, the walls of the hotel room shake like in an earthquake. I might have been kidnapped or even killed. "I laid low until going to the museum, and you know what happened there, so that's everything, Alan. Story time is over."

Alan smirks and checks his phone. "Tell me anyway. Something new might come out of it."

We need to think about something else sometimes, so an ongoing game of chess is on a small table between our chairs. "Okay, you're the expert." I move a rook. Then, I check my phone too.

Alan studies the chessboard. His brown mustache moves back and forth with his pursed lips. "The Cowboy's real name is Mark, and he's no slouch. Joel must be good. I'm impressed." He takes hold of a knight's head but doesn't move it. "Did Joel find anything out about him?"

"I don't know. He's only sent me a few messages since then. Can I tell him yet that I'm with you?"

"Not yet." Alan is suspicious of everything and everyone, but even if Joel betrays me, my family is safe. Alan called, and my parents left with Sophia. My mother must be so angry, so worried, a different emotion winning over from moment to moment, like the bottom and top of a bus rolling down a hill. "Tell Joel to stop poking around," Alan says. "This is way too dangerous for an amateur."

"I already told him."

Before sharing the rest of my story with Alan, I message Joel. I tell him that the Cowboy's name is Mark, but I won't tell him how I know, even if he asks.

Joel's replies take longer and longer. Because he's busy. Or he's lost interest. No one needs a girlfriend who believes in demons and is mixed up with Yakuza.

I put down my phone. It's time to tell Alan the part of the story he knows.

***

The museum is on the top floors of a skyscraper. It's closed today, so Brian Keating's private showing must mean he's my father's special friend.

Multiple girls Cynthia's talked to reported encounters with Brian Keating in hotel rooms. This is not a false accusation like she made about my father. I believe her.

I'll tell my father about Brian Keating, and I'll tell Alan Lord, his FBI agent friend, even if I don't have what it takes to confront Keating myself. I have not seen Alan yet, but I hope he's at the museum, so I can tell him everything.

***

"And now you know your father already knew about Brian Keating." This is one of Alan's rare interruptions.

"It's ironic."

"Ironic. And stupid. Going after Brian Keating on his own is the second stupidest thing your father has ever done."

"Oh, really? What was worse?"

"Not seeing you for seven years."

I punch Alan's huge, round shoulder. It's about as effective as a comet attacking the sun. I shake out the pain in my hand.

***

Margot and I follow the museum curator into a room. Champagne bottles and snacks are spread out on a table. Alan Lord spots us first. He's as huge and muscular as I remember, like an American football player in a tailored blue suit. The top of his bald head gleams under the museum's crisp light.

"Mr. Keating's on the way up," the curator says.

My father spots me. "Damn, Makiko can't be here," he says.

I clutch a clipboard to my chest. Since our reconciliation, my father's been very careful how he speaks to me, but he's curt now, as if he knows I might be rude to Brian Keating and won't tolerate it.

"If she's accompanying you to New York, she's basically my trainee," Margot says. Last week, my father suggested I go with him on a trip this summer.

My father's usually very smooth, but his smile right now mars his face like a dent. "I'm glad to see you, it's just... There's a problem."

Despite being a big man, Alan Lord weaves around my father like a police car on a crowded highway. "Makiko, remember me? It's been too long."

I smile. Alan was always so fun and kind when I was little. I go for a hug without even thinking about it. I'm more comfortable expressing myself with my body than I was even a couple of weeks ago, probably thanks to the boy and Joel. And Cynthia. "Hi, Alan."

"I understand avoiding your father all these years, but me?" Alan laughs, but afterwards he's immediately serious. His hand lightly grazes the green fabric on the back of my one-piece dress. He guides me toward a door. "You remember what I do, don't you?"

"Yes-"

"Great, I'm here on business, and we need to talk privately."

We're already through the door and in another room before I respond, because his business is the FBI and I want to tell him about Keating. "Okay."

We walk through a couple rooms before I realize Alan's shepherding me away from Brian Keating. "Is this because of Brian Keating and teenage girls?" I say.

Alan raises his eyebrows. Before answering, he leads me through a few more connected museum offices that aren't open to the public. "Your father told you?"

"No, but I know."

"Do you?" Alan's thick brown mustache dances around when he's puzzled. "Well, you're also in danger-"

"Yeah, a cowboy is trying to kidnap me."

Alan's side glance is precious. It's nice to surprise someone who thinks you know nothing. "Makiko, I'm impressed." He opens a door. Opposite us are elevators. Before we cross into one, he checks the hallway for, I guess, bad guys. "You and I are hiding at a hotel tonight, while your father makes things right."

"My father is a photographer. Shouldn't you be the one making things right?"

His tight smirk shows that he probably argued with my father about this. "I can't, not in Japan, and he's the one who created this mess."

It sounds like my father and Cynthia are similar. "What did he do?" I say.

"Oh, is there something you don't know?" The elevator opens, and we go in. "Brian Keating's people want to kidnap you because your father is... messing with them. I'll make sure you're safe while he somehow fixes things."

"The Yakuza work for Brian Keating?" I say.

Alan watches the changing lights that show the elevator going down. "There's some connection, yeah."

Elevators in these tall skyscrapers drop down fast. My head and stomach are okay, but I feel the motion. "So I'll hide with you for a few hours?"

"Well... maybe all night, or longer. But your father hopes to fix things before his show opens tomorrow morning."

I trust Alan, and I trust my father. But. "The Yakuza have been watching me for at least three weeks, Alan. My father might not be able to fix things overnight."

When we walk out of the elevator, Alan's frowning. He always softens his reactions with smirks and winks or jokes. A straight-up frown on his face is as disconcerting as one on a Teddy Bear. "We can't let anyone follow us," he says. "Keep your eyes open, okay?"

There are a lot of people in the lobby of the skyscraper. I don't know if I can pay attention to everyone. "Do my parents know I'm staying with you?" I say.

"They will. Come. We'll head to your father's apartment first." Alan whisks me across the plaza. If someone follows us, I hope Alan sees them, because I don't. Most people aren't as easy to spot as the Cowboy.

"Can I let my boyfriend and friends know I'm with you?"

"Keep it to a minimum and don't give them any details." Alan might be the biggest person I've ever walked beside. He squints one eye and tilts his head. "On second thought, tell no one. Let's suss things out ourselves for a few hours first, okay?"

I won't tell Alan about the demon. It would just make things awkward. Except for a few short replies here and there, Joel hasn't said much since that night with the Cowboy. "Should I be scared, Alan?" I say.

His jaw tightens. The angles in his face grow sharp and hard. "Right now, I can't answer that. To be honest, your father didn't tell me about any of this until this morning when he realized things were spiraling out of his control."

***

Alan Lord and I arrive at a hotel room in Daikanyama around 4 pm. Early on, we eat expensive hamburgers with steak fries. Afterwards, I tell him everything I know while we play games of chess. As the evening goes on, Alan fields occasional messages from my father, or sends some. "What exactly is he doing?" I say around seven.

"I don't know." Alan is not happy about that. Sometimes he paces the floor, not because he's worried about us, but because of my father, out there. "I don't think he's telling me everything. After his show tomorrow, I'm going to tear him apart and feed him to the dogs. Or the koi." He stares up at the ceiling, or more likely heaven, and does not laugh at his own joke.

No Yakuza or demons bang down the hotel door yet. I'm still in the green one-piece dress I wore to the museum. If we have to run, I can, luckily, because white sneakers look great with this dress and that's what I chose to wear. "There are so many hotels in Tokyo, even if they find out we're in one, they can't search them all," I say.

Alan sinks down onto the edge of one of the beds. "I'd feel better if I had a gun."

"Do you want mine?"

"You have one!"

I slowly shake my head no.

Alan's smiles are always precious. Most people probably think he's big and scary, but I know better. He grips the air like a gun floats there. "I'm a sucker, because I really, really wish I had one."

Not long after 8 o'clock my story is finished, and Alan knows everything that happened since the November night when I thought my father was dead and Cynthia and I met in Roppongi. Alan's silent about the demon. It probably embarrasses him, like when I said or implied too many details about the boy and Joel. I don't go on about the demon, but something strange and dangerous is out there, whether or not it's an actual demon.

"I know about Joel Susugi. He's young." Alan folds his hands. "I don't want to be a buzzkill and I hope he really likes you, but he has a reputation as a lady's man."

"Like my father?"

Alan lifts his big shoulders up in a you-said-it-not-me kind of way.

"I guess I don't mind being hurt."

Alan gets off his bed and looks out the window. "I mind," he says.

***

Neither of us turns on the TV, and no one moves a chess piece for at least an hour. I zone out by reading a manga on my bed while Alan turns a chair toward the door and broods over his phone. "I have friends in the US military," he says. "They're coming to Tokyo in case the Yakuza or Brian Keating's people get wise to our location. My friends might bring guns."

"Is that really possible?" I say.

"Well, if we have to use them and get caught, it'll probably be a huge problem for the US government."

I read some more of my manga until my phone vibrates. I take it off the bed's comforter and glance at a message from Cynthia: They took me because they couldn't find you. Help. In an accompanying photo, Cynthia's eyes are red. She sits in the corner of a room beside a cowboy hat and green cowboy boots.

When I rush off the bed to Alan in his chair, I stumble. "It can't be Cynthia instead of me." I hold up the phone. "We have to help her, Alan. We have to."

There will be no more italicized sections, because the story has caught up to Makiko and Alan Lord in the hotel room. I was worried that might be confusing. Was it?

What happens next?

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