When I parted from the event companion and got back to my room, I booted my computer and connected to the internet. I tried accessing the CPT Owners Club. Since successfully seizing the ransom, I hadn’t revisited it once.
I opened the bulletin board page. There was an endless stream of unrelated comments. Unrelated to Juri—actually, those were the legitimate ones.
My hand froze on my mouse. It was because I saw this post:
Please (Julie)
I wonder what’s happened to my dear car. They haven’t gotten in touch even though I paid the money and I wonder what’s happening.
The car’s owner, if you see this post, please contact me.
Please.
What did it mean?
When I looked at the date, it was from the night before. The text was no doubt begging that Juri be returned without delay. However, she should have safely returned to the Katsuragis.
Was it a trap?
That was possible—pretending that Juri hadn’t come home and hoping the culprits would resume contact.
But, I thought. Even if Juri hadn’t gotten home, that wasn’t the kidnappers’ problem. Wasn’t it incredibly naïve to expect them to reply? In fact, I felt no desire to take any sort of action.
But what if Juri hadn’t gotten home?
I thought that was the more likely possibility. I had dropped her off by a hotel in Shinagawa, but she might not have gotten in a taxi there. No, even if she had, there was no knowing if she’d headed on home. She hated the Katsuragis. She’d come into a lot of money and might have decided to just vanish.
If that were the case, it was a catastrophe. The psychology of a victim who’d been kidnapped and who’d finally gotten away from the culprits should have been to return to safety. Even if it wasn’t a very comfortable home, the Katsuragi residence had to be Juri’s sole refuge.
If Juri stayed missing, that would be fine. The truth would never come to light. But wouldn’t that be hard? Could a girl who was barely twenty keep her identity hidden? Even if she had a lot of money, without a certificate of residence or family register, how did she intend to live?
At this rate, the police would have to dive into an open investigation. Pictures of Juri’s face would likely appear all over Japan. TV stations wouldn’t leave the case alone. No matter how much Juri tried to conceal herself, she’d still have to go outside. She’d have to come into contact with people. Someone would definitely recognize her.
What performance did she intend to act out once she was in the custody of the police? Did she mean to start using, only then, the lines I’d fed her? It would be meaningless. The police would eventually suspect the kidnapping was a ruse. I didn’t think Juri could withstand their relentless interrogation. It was just a matter of time before she gave me up.
Unable to sit still, I took my coat in hand and ran out of the room. I was completely sober.
I got into the MR-S and headed towards Yokosuka yet again. If Juri were in hiding, I didn’t think it’d be anywhere other than that condo. The money was also hidden there.
Speeding down the expressway, I organized my next steps in my mind. Finding Juri came first. What would I do once I found her? At any rate, I’d have to make her go home, even if I needed to spank her. I could only spin the extended confinement as an outcome of the culprits’ extreme cautiousness.
Even so, if Juri had already met with someone, it was over. I didn’t think she could be that stupid, but what would I do in that case? My brain was in full gear, but I couldn’t think of a genius plan. I could only pray that she hadn’t seen anyone.
I arrived at Yuki’s condo. I parked my car a little ways away and walked from there. Wandering around a place like this was dangerous, but leaving Juri alone was riskier. Whatever happened, I had to take her home.
Making sure that no one saw me, I approached the building. It was the middle of the night, so the superintendent probably wasn’t there. But the problem was that I didn’t know the room number. What I did know was the nickname Yuki.
The glass door of the entrance had been left open. It didn’t seem to be auto-locking. Just as I thought, the super wasn’t there. The mailboxes were lined up to the right. There were nametags on some but not all of them. Even when there was one, when it was just the surname it served me no use.
Mindful of my surroundings, I plunged my hand into a mail slot on one end. Though I groped around with my fingers, I couldn’t feel anything. It was Saturday night. Probably all the mail had been picked up.
I moved to the next mailbox. This time I felt something. When I grabbed it with my fingertips and brought it out, it was a postcard. I looked at the addressee. It was for Kaoru Yamamoto. That couldn’t be Yuki.
Next I put my hand into the mailbox beside that. I became anxious. Would I ever get anywhere this way? But it was all I could do.
My fingertips touched something. I carefully pulled it out. This time it was an envelope.
Tetsuya Matsumoto—
I returned it thinking that wasn’t it, either. At that moment, something suddenly came to me.
It’s better if you don’t come. Because it’s a women-only condo—
Juri had definitely said that.
Chapter 17
Ten days had passed since we had successfully obtained the ransom. My regular life had returned to what it was before the game. Wake up, light exercise, breakfast, go out the door. At the company I did boring work and I’d stop by the gym on the way home. I intended to invite someone out on a date over the weekend. This time, I planned on enjoying myself up to sex. I’d probably need to make a reservation at some hotel.
The days were tranquil; my mind was anything but. I was worried about Juri. Why didn’t they report on it at all? I didn’t think the police needed to censor the press. I was worried about the post on the CPT Owners Club, too. According to the last message, it seemed like Juri hadn’t gotten home at all. What had happened after that? Since then, there hadn’t been a new post.
If Juri were home, that would be okay. Katsutoshi Katsuragi might have pulled some strings to keep the press quiet. Because if a girl that age were kidnapped, everyone would expect something to have happened to her.
But I had the feeling I shouldn’t be too optimistic.
One cause of my anxiety was the Yokosuka condo. According to Juri, her friend Yuki was renting in a women-only condo, but when I looked into it, there were a good number of men living there. And part of the building was even company-owned housing for a steel manufacturer. Juri had said Yuki’s room was a studio, but when I asked the super about it at a later date, he said there were no such units at all.
Why had Juri told such a lie?
I retraced my memory. What she’d said about the condo being for women only had gone something like this:
But it’s better if you don’t come. Because it’s a women-only condo. You could just chill at Yokosuka harbor and gaze at the passing ships.
Basically, she had just not wanted me to go with her and made up that lie on the spot. Why had she not wanted me to come?
I recalled what had happened the time we had gone to Yokosuka again on the last day. On that occasion, I’d tried to go to the condo with her. Her navigation had suddenly become erratic. On the way there we’d actually gotten lost. Why had that happened?
My theory was that she’d been searching for a random condo. She hadn’t wanted me to go to Yuki’s condo no matter what, so she’d found one similar to Yuki’s and tricked me. If so, that condo not being women-only and not having studios made sense. It did, but then new doubts arose. Why had she gone so far to keep me from going to Yuki’s condo? And where had she hidden the two hundred seventy million yen she’d been carrying?