Reckoning - Chapter 3

She was on her desk phone when Ito barged into her office the next day, face like a thundercloud. That didn’t bode well. Still, the phone call was important, so she lifted a finger to stop him from speaking.

Which didn’t endear her to him in the least.

“Thanks, Tanaka, I owe you one. Say hi to the wife.”

She hung up with a calm she was far from feeling and looked at her superior. “Don’t sugarcoat it.”

“Kobayashi is a mole.”

Shit. “How long?”

Features set in grim, harsh lines, Ito shook his head. “Last two years. We couldn’t find anything prior.”

Judging by his militant posture and grim face, he’d tried really, really hard. She breathed a small sigh of relief. At least he’d been clean when they’d been sleeping together. She’d hate to learn she was such a bad judge of character to sleep with a traitor.

“He leaked Hideyuki’s identity,” Ito growled.

The words were like a bucket of ice over the head. The son of a bitch was responsible for her cousin’s death. “Where is he?”

“Arrested.”

She flinched, despite herself. The Organized Crime Control Division brass didn’t like moles and traitors. The lower echelons even less. Noriaki would be lucky if he arrived at his trial with all his bones still intact.

She frowned. “He’s not in our division, he’s with the International. How did he get access?”

A tick worked in Ito’s jaw, which meant he wasn’t done with the bad news. “They got to Sato.”

She cursed. Sato Meiko, one of the analysts in the division. Quiet, gentle, and timid, with an AI-like mind and a wiz at the computer. She also had an almost seven-year-old daughter with an aggressive neurodegenerative disorder for which there was no cure, only exorbitant costs for palliative care. She must’ve been easy prey.

“Fuck,” she whispered. Dying child or not, Meiko would not receive any leniency.

“My sentiments exactly,” Ito replied.

The tone of his voice implied there was yet more to come. “What else?”

“Her log shows she’d accessed the file and sent it to Kobayashi.”

She didn’t have to ask what file Ito was talking about. It was the file. Buried deep under multiple layers of security. Only one other was buried deeper, the only ones able to access it were Ito and herself. Her file. Until they unburied it, she technically didn’t exist.

“Sato was obviously in a hurry and left a trace.”

Or the woman was tired of being a pawn and purposefully didn’t clean her access logs.

“You know what that means, right?” Ito asked.

She nodded. It meant Noriaki had received orders to send the file forward. She suspected to whom. And why. They were in the endgame. “The assassin lands tomorrow.”

Ito grimaced. “Shit has hit the fan, kid.”

X Y Z

Detective Nogami Saeko entered her office at the Shinjuku Police Station in a dark mood. Ryo’s been breathing down her neck for two days straight, ever since Kaori had disappeared, and she was tired, cranky, and hungry. And if the man called her one more time, she just might strangle him.

It wasn’t her fault he’d slept with a client in his own apartment, right under Kaori’s nose. It wasn’t her fault he’d slept with a client, period. He might’ve been drunk, but that wasn’t Saeko’s fault either.

The fact was he couldn’t keep it in his pants, slept with a client, and Kaori saw them right after, when the sweat hadn’t even dried yet.

Saeko’s heart squeezed at the thought. She couldn’t even fathom what the girl must’ve felt seeing the man she loved fresh off another woman. What had Ryo been thinking?! He knew how Kaori felt about him; damn it, he loved her as well. How could he have been so stupid? So callous?

It must’ve been unbearable seeing him like that. No wonder, Kaori had disappeared without a word, without her belongings.

Which brought Saeko to her predicament. To their collective predicament, because Ryo hasn’t been breathing down only her neck. Umibozu and Miki were in the same boat.

Kaori had no trackers on her, or if she did, they weren’t working. And Ryo was in full panic mode. Which, for him, meant going nuclear. He was willing to do anything, torture, maim, kill...even raze Tokyo to the ground, if need be, to find her.

If she wasn’t so tired, she would’ve grinned. Serves him right. He’s been pushing Kaori away for years, pretending she meant nothing to him, and now she was gone and he couldn’t cope.

But she didn’t grin. Because she was tired. And she was worried. It wasn’t like Kaori to just disappear, no matter what. She always went to Miki or bunked with her friend, Eriko.

Not this time. She was gone, and no one knew where she was. They’ve all engaged their various contacts to try to find her. Ryo had put the entire Kabukichō on alert...but no cigar.

No one had seen Kaori or spoken to her; no one knew where she might be; there were no rumors or claims of kidnapping. Nothing.

No wonder Ryo was going crazy.

It was like Kaori had vanished. Here one day, gone the next. A mere mirage...

Saeko had only come to the office to check her email, she needed to get back out there. She wouldn’t deploy the police force for a city-wide search just yet, but she might have to soon. And as long as she delayed calling in the scuba team, the better.

Then she noticed a manila folder, as nondescript as possible, on top of her desk. It looked like one of the case folder files MPD used before going fully digital a couple of years ago. They now used the folders for hard copies in the archives in case the servers glitched.

What was an archive file doing on her desk? A blank archive file. There were no annotations or information on the cover. It was pristine.

It obviously wasn’t connected to one of her current cases; the files would’ve been sent via the MPD internal document management system. And even if it was, it would have to wait. Kaori took precedence.

Like Ryo, she felt protective of the girl. She was Yuki’s sister. The only connection Saeko herself had left to the man that had been her world, but she had been too proud and stupid to admit it.

She and Ryo were similar in that regard. Not revealing their true feelings to the person they loved.

Still, her policewoman instincts were tingling. She might as well take a peek.

After checking her email and sighing at not having received any news or updates, she silenced her mobile—just in case Ryo remembered he hadn’t badgered her in more than ten minutes—and picked up the blank folder.

It wasn’t an archive folder. The documents inside were all copies of a six-year-old case...

Her eyes widened, and breath left her lungs in a long rush of shock. Her legs gave in, and she collapsed into her chair, her trembling hands clutching at the folder so hard her knuckles turned white.

X Y Z

On a stool in Cat’s Eye, Ryo clutched his head between his hands, pressing his thumbs against his temples. His head hurt. His heart hurt. Everything hurt. And he had no one to blame but himself.

Whatever Umi or Miki said to him—and the woman had plenty to say, while Umi mostly just glared—didn’t come even close to his own recriminations.

He’d fucked it up bad this time. And for what? A lousy lay he barely remembered.

Kaori was gone.

He pressed his thumbs deeper as another panic attack loomed.

He needed to find her. Even just for her to spit in his face and send him to hell. He didn’t care. He just had to find her, make sure she was okay. Or if not okay, at least unharmed.

Even if he never saw her again after that, he needed to know she was alive. Somewhere.

The alternative was unbearable.

The prospect of life without her was unbearable as well, but preferable to—

He wanted to laugh, but he knew it would come out as a sob. For years he’d tried to make her leave. First it was because of the promise he’d made to Maki to protect her—she wasn’t made for this life. And afterward, because of the other promise he’d made to Maki. The promise not to touch her. Because of the vow he’d made to her, never to see her as a woman if she came to work for him.

Not touching her had become more and more difficult; not seeing her as a woman impossible. So he’d tried his damnedest to make her leave. But she stuck to him like glue.

Until he stopped trying to make her leave, but then fucked it all up...And she finally left.

Fuck, it hurt.

He’d broken his promise given to a dying man. He’d broken the promise he’d given to himself to always protect her, no matter what.

He lost the only woman he’d ever loved. The only woman he would ever love.

He could finally admit it to himself: the world wouldn’t end. He loved her. He would always love her. And it fucking hurt.

He’d clung to a promise made. He’d been a coward. He’d been a bastard...He’d pushed her away. And now she was gone.

She was gone, and he couldn’t find her. He, the great sweeper, one half of City Hunter, couldn’t find the most important person in his life.

What good did the tech do him? The tracking devices in her clothing, the bug in her cell phone...useless. She’d left everything behind.

She’d left him behind.

But maybe it was for the best. He had no idea what he’d say to her if he did find her. What would he say if she suddenly reappeared?

The door chime tinkled, and Ryo’s bruised heart ended in his stomach.

It couldn’t be, could it? 

He turned toward the door...And it wasn’t. It was just Saeko. Pale, the corners of her mouth pinched.

His heart stopped as dread spread through his body. It couldn’t be. Fate wouldn’t be so cruel.

“Makimura Kaori is dead,” Saeko said monotonously.

The world did indeed end. His world ended.

What should a man feel when his very reason for being was no more? Sadness? Grief? Desperation?

As Ryo’s insides turned to ice, all he could feel was rage. He became rage. He became vengeance. Maybe grief and sadness would come later; for now, the only thing that mattered was finding whoever took Kaori from him and killing them.

When that was done, he could turn all the rage inwards.

“How?” he growled. First it was how, then it would be who. And if she didn’t know, he would find out.

“Drug overdose.”

“What?!” Impossible.

Saeko slammed a manila folder onto the counter beside him. “Six years ago.”