Return Of The Dragon

Chapter 25

The three of them walked around the office. There wasn't a single space on the walls that wasn't plastered with papers, photos, maps, receipts, screenshots that had been printed out.

Tomo turned around in the small space.

"Jesus. I don't know where to look first," said Tomo.

Suzu took the paper down from the wall. She turned it over.

Meanwhile, Kei cornered Tomo. He said to Tomo, "I need all the information you have on this woman. All of it."

"Sh-She sent me an email a year ago. It said it contained a hit song she wrote just for me, and if she was right, she wanted to be hired on her terms. If it wasn't, she wouldn't bother me again. It turned out to be the big break I needed. Do you remember Go With the Flow ?

"That's the catchy self-empowerment song, right? 'Go with the flow and let it take you where you never dreamed?'"

In spite of everything, Tomo smiled a small smile. "Ah, so you were listening all this time."

Kei looked hard at Tomo, who braced for a scolding. Instead, the taller man said, "You're my baby brother. Of course I listened. So then you hired her. Get me everything from HR: direct deposit, national id number, name, address – what?"

Kei stopped as Tomo was shaking his head morosely.

"Her rule was to be paid under the table, a prepaid card, a burner phone. I never put her in HR."

" Shit ."

"I don't think that matters," said Suzu.

The two men looked at her, surprised.

"Why do you say that?" said Kei.

She walked over to him, still holding the piece of paper.

"I don't think this is going to play out in the real world. It never was. Those murders were red herrings."

"Then where will it play out?" asked Tomo.

Kei locked eyes with her. He knew. His eyes willed her not to say it, because if she didn't say it, she wouldn't be putting herself in mortal danger.

She looked at him, so long that Tomo started looking back and forth between them. Finally she spoke: "In U."

Kei whipped out his phone. "Daisuke. I need you to meet - "

Daichi, Otto, and Hiruka all showed up in the hallway.

Hiruka wheeled herself in, looking at all the papers cluttering the walls. Her eye was clean and appraising, and it cut through anything irrelevant. Her glasses gleamed in the light of the office.

"What are those on the wall? Those poems."

Daichi took a paper down. "These aren't poems, these are lyrics. Tomo's lyrics. What you never listened to the radio?" His last words had a teasing tone.

"No time."

"They aren't mine," said Tomo. "The person who did this wrote my songs for the last six months at least. Now she's escaped. I don't care if my career is over, you have to find her. She betrayed me and she is a murderess."

Suzu saw that Tomo's eyes for once shared some of the darkness that was in Kei.

Fascinating, thought Suzu. You think you know someone, then they surprise you.

Hiruka interrupted her train of thought.

"Oh, we'll find her all right."

"You're sexy when you're determined," said Daichi.

"Shut up. Bring all those lyrics down here." Soon she was holding all of them in her hand.

"The killer killed on rainy days. There was rain at the concert. Several of these have a theme of water."

" Go with the flow, let it take you where you never dreamed, where nothing's as it seems, go with the flow ," sang Suzu, in a halting voice.

Even with all the tension in the air, everyone stopped to listen.

Kei's heart stuttered in his chest.

That voice ... she's still got it.

Tomo joined in. " Go with the flow ... you're the only one who knows, that all rivers don't lead to the sea. You're meant to be with me. "

Suzu turned white and clenched the paper. She gripped the desk, as her legs turned to jelly and crumpled uselessly.

Kei stepped in and swept her up, holding her close to his chest, not caring that everyone was looking.

"What. What is it."

"I know who it is."

"Where is he?!"

"Not he ... she. It's all about me. She did this, she killed those people because of me ..." her voice broke, and she leaned into his shoulder, sobbing.

She whispered into Kei's ear, him realizing her sobbing was a pretense. "They can't know. I don't want anyone else to get hurt. Promise me. Promise me, Kei."

He nodded imperceptibly.

"The Rainy Day Killer is the little girl my mom saved from the river."