Beyond the Horizon

60. Horizon

"I've already told you," the woman sighed, exactly thirty-six hours after the conflagration of Horizon Laboratories, Inc. "I don't know anything about Horizon Laboratories."

          She sat in the middle of a small, corner office in downtown Tokyo. The office was stationed in the basement of a dated brick building the Tokyo Police Department reserved for their detectives and investigative team, covered from door to door by stained blue carpets and flowery wallpaper that the head detective complained undermined the credibility of their office.

          Detective Ayako Nurishima tapped her pen three times against her desk. The hum of the central heater echoing through the ceiling panels sounded like a horde of angry bees, waiting in the wings for Detective Nurishima to continue her pointless interrogation.

          She'd been at it for the better part of two hours, working her way through the list of questions the police commissioner had ordered her to ask. The office had been in a frenzy since the fire department became aware of the devastating blaze, exactly three hours after it'd raged to the point where nothing could be done to save the building or anyone inside. Things had been in a panic since the police swept onto the scene, diving headfirst into their investigation and searching desperately for an answer to the chaos.

          They still didn't have any answers. Thirty-six hours, and their only lead couldn't remember anything about what'd happened.

          Detective Nurishima glanced down at the woman's wrists. They were bandaged, having been rubbed raw by something the medical examiners hadn't been able to properly identify. The scratch patterns weren't consistent with injuries stemming from bondage with rope. Metal seemed the most likely culprit, perhaps a pair of handcuffs.

          "And you're certain you have no connection with Horizon Laboratories," Detective Nurishima stated. She tapped out a pattern on the hull of her desk with the tip of her pen―a childhood song her mother had taught her, which calmed her down when a case proved too difficult to solve.

          "Yes, I'm certain," the woman replied. "I don't know anything about Horizon Laboratories. Why does everyone keep asking me that?"

          Detective Nurishima glanced down at the paperwork strewn across her desk. Not all of the files and data for Horizon Laboratories had survived the blaze. The only real information that surfaced were the paychecks and employment records of those connected to the facility.

          This woman claimed not to know anything about Horizon Laboratories. And yet, according to her employment history and a thorough background check of her payment records, she'd been an employee there for at least three years.

          "I see," Detective Nurishima murmured. She flipped through the woman's paperwork, skimming the official police report.

          The woman, one Haruka Kotona, age twenty-eight, had been found wandering along the roadside just on the outskirts of Tokyo in a daze, her wrists bleeding and her clothing rumpled. The police officer who discovered her had believed her to be the victim of a vicious mugging, but after news of the spontaneous collapse of the Horizon Laboratories headquarters became public, the police quickly connected the dots and found that Kotona had been an employee there, reportedly working during the time of the collapse.

          Kotona smiled, then, and Detective Nurishima recognized it immediately as a smile that people had when they felt irritated and didn't want to start shouting. "Detective," she said, venom dripping from each word, "am I being detained?"

          Detective Nurishima exhaled. In her time on the force, that was the one question she hated the most. There was no real way to answer it without being accused of keeping someone in the station against their will, and anything she said could tip the scales out of her favor. The last thing she needed was for Kotona to demand to speak with a lawyer.