The feeling of dread and unease grasped at Stephanie’s throat.
After how the call with Taryn ended, she couldn’t even reach Rachael even with the Detective’s phone raised her concern even more. And now… now she couldn’t get a hold of anyone. Not even the Mansion’s mainline, nothing was getting through.
It was driving her insane.
She stopped in her frantic pacing and looked at the Detective’s phone with a narrowed gaze before recalling something that Taryn had whispered when they were saying their goodbyes.
“Don’t come back here, no matter what. Keep yourself safe.” Saying these words in the embrace. One that Stephanie didn’t want to end. Glancing towards the mansion’s grounds, she could see Toya from a distance. His intent stare.
She didn’t want to let go of her.
Stephanie didn’t want to leave them like that as if she had gone and abandoned them that she was just leavening those two behind without even looking back at them to be sure that they would be okay.
Like with her mother.
Anger and agitation filling her, she whirled around and kicked a nearby chair, causing it the fall to the floor with a sharp clatter causing the few who were in the hall to look on with startled and confused expressions. The hell I will! She thought with a snarl. What was I thinking just leaving them like that? Ugh, I’m so stupid!! Sharply turning on her heel, Stephanie made her way back to the police chief’s office and entered without so much as a word.
The much older man, Police Chief Isamu Abe, whom she met with an hour previously, and Detective Daichi Sakamoto looked at her with confused bewilderment.
“When are you heading back to the mansion?” Stephanie demanded in Japanese. “How long are we just going to sit on our hands with them at risk?!”
“Stratford-san, please calm down,” Daichi asked. “We understand your concern about the recent phone call, but—”
“The hell you do!” she hissed. “My friends were left behind. And you expect me to be calm? I can’t get through now, no matter how many times I try. After that one phone call, I can’t reach either of them. All because that stupid fucking officer decided to think without his brain when he first went to that village!”
“We were just discussing that,” the Police Chief spoke in response to her claim in a calm, even tone before looking to Daichi. “Sakamoto-san, you were going over his recent dealings.”
“Yes sir, Officer Maebara, he’s been to the outer regions of Tokyo many times throughout the years in this precinct. He seemed to know the area well when we got the call. Practically boasted about how he could guide us all to this village blindfolded.”
The older man thought about it for a moment. “Any idea how many times he’s gone to this village within a year?”
“He’s currently up to four for this year, judging by the logs he kept. But any information about the visit either has been lost or not documented. It’s been the same over the past few years. The further I’ve gone back, the more trips he made.”
“Why did no one say anything?” the Chief demanded.
“Probably because of how high his ranking is, and with how “on-the-books” he has always been. Others probably assumed it was a personal matter since he has family out in that area.” He paused. “Lowell-san mentioned to me how people who visited the village have gone missing in the past.”
“She’s not the first,” Stephanie added. “Both she and Robert found documents belonging to a journalist. A woman came to the village in search of her friend who had gone missing a month prior to her disapearance. It’s because of her and the notes that Taryn found scattered about the place that we were able to learn what was happening.”
This brought the Detective pause. “Do you know the journalist’s name?”
Stephanie thought about it. “I can’t remember her last name; it was a really uncommon. I think it started with an S? But I remember her first name, it’s June.”
This caused the man to go completely still, the colour draining from his face before moving towards the Chief’s computer. “Pardon me; I need to borrow this for a moment.” And with a few quick strokes of the keys, he turned the screen to Stephanie. “Is this the woman you’re talking about?”
“Yes,” she answered quickly. “Rachael showed me a picture of her with another woman that was in all of the documents.” She glanced at Daichi, seeing his look of dreaded realization. “You know her don’t you?”
“Yes,” he admitted softly. “We met four years ago through my partner. She, along with a few others, were able to put a stop to a string of seral-killings that took place here in Tokyo.”
Stephanie frowned. “I haven’t heard about this.”
“It wasn’t something that was out for the public to know.” Explained the Police Chief. “We would release information about some of the murders, but we kept the information about it being a serial killer out of the news. With the murders, there was a rise in Yakuza activity since many of them had been targets along with several police officers. We didn’t wish to add fuel to the already burning fire, causing an even greater panic. Though some of it did get out, it was kept to a minimum in some Japanese forums.”
Makes sense. Stephanie had heard that many constant killings would be kept off the news out of fear and panic that it could cause. Of course, they would release information about it eventually, but in the heat of the moment, they probably didn’t want to make anything worse. “Is that why her uncle was involved?”
“In a sense.” Daichi didn’t go any further than that and went back on topic. “Suchiko-san told me that her friend had gone missing, but my hands were tied. There wasn’t anything I could do besides an initial investigation that gave no clues. She was frustrated that her friend’s case had been shunted and vowed to find out herself. In fact, it was Maebara who had taken the case.”
Stephanie looked at the man puzzled, if this woman was a friend why not remain in close contact? “You didn’t hear anything from her after that?”
“With Suchiko-san, it wasn’t uncommon for her to go completely dark for days at a time given her line of work. I had assumed that was the case until her family contacted me. She hadn’t returned home in several days. I was the one who filed her as a missing person, tried to locate her but kept reaching dead ends. No one knows where she went. And the only clue I found was a partly destroyed guidebook for tourism in rural areas of Japan. I looked online and spoke to all the companies I could find in the tourism business, both legitimate and not. But none had ever seen it before.”
“Did it look like this?” Stephanie asked as she pulled out a booklet from her bag.
“Yes,” he said as he took it from her and began to look through the pages. “But the one I found has some pages torn out. Where did you get this?”
“It was mailed to me after I had inquired online in a local forum about trying to find a Japanese historical site that tourists can stay in and enjoy. The mansion was the biggest draw, so I thought that place would be best for what I was after.”
“The village wasn’t on any of the local maps,” Daichi said.
“Well, that’s no real surprise,” the Chief spoke up with arms folded across his chest. “There are several secluded villages throughout Japan, many abandoned ones too. Reasons for that range from young people preferring to live in the cities. While the old, well, are simply getting too old to be doing any sort of hard labour, they too may leave to the city with their remaining family if they have any or to a government home. The other reasons tend to be due to the number of landslides and earthquakes, causing the people of many villages to simply up and leave everything behind. Because of that, those villages have faded away on any newer maps.”
“Yet Maebara-san knew how to get to it like the back of his hand,” Daichi muttered, now deep on thought. “It’s possible that…” he trailed off. Frowned, and remained silent.
“Sakamoto,” his boss spoke sternly, reminding Stephanie of how her father would act when speaking in such a way. “It does us no good to remain silent like that. If you think you know something, then say so, don’t stay quiet.”
“I don’t think you’ll find anything from the one that did this.”
“I’d be more worried about the number of people that have gone missing here, than me being anywhere else right now. Or so I’ve heard from the villagers…”
“Lowell-san said something that’s been bothering me, that we wouldn’t be able to find the one who had committed the murder.” Stephanie remained silent, for obvious reasons. There was no way in hell that they would believe that a Doll could do such a thing. “Has anything come back from the forensic team?”
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The Chief had a rather grim expression on his face. “There wasn’t anything.”
Daichi’s expression turned from a frown to shocked confusion. “What? Nothing?”
“Absolutely nothing, no fingerprints or DNA besides that of the victim. There were strands of long dark hair found with the victim. The young man managed to grab some and entangled around some of his fingers.”
“From one of the workers?” Daichi asked. “That would count as the suspect’s DNA.”
“There was no DNA to even extract from as there was no root; it was just the hair. But the team did find something, and because of it, one of them decided to carbon test it. However, that information won’t be back for at least another forty-eight hours.”
“Why would they do that to begin with?” Stephanie asked. “I thought you could only do carbon testing like that on bones and teeth.”
Daichi looked at her. “While that is true, human hair contains carbon, about forty-five percent of the human hair consists of carbon. So logically, it could be done if there’s enough.” His gaze then returned to his boss. “But I’m wondering that too, what made them decide to do it in the first place?”
“Because one of the scientists felt something was off about the hair.”
“In what way?” Stephanie asked as the tension slowly crept into her body. Making her fear the worst of what the man had to say.
“At first, he thought it might have been synthetic, but after putting it under a microscope, he found that it was not only real but it was treated Camellia Oil. Along with traces of persimmon fruit. Historically and still today, it’s used by Geisha to keep their long hair looking beautiful.”
“That still doesn’t explain why he’d carbon date the hair,” Stephanie added.
“Both the Camellia Oil and the fruit were fresh, not from a manufacture with no traces of chemicals or by-products. What’s more, it looked to have been recent. Not many would use the old methods and prefer easy access to products you can’t get normally. On top of that, they found that there were shavings of porcelain underneath the young man’s nails, as though he was clawing at something made of China before he died. They were able to determine a date for that. Quicker than the hair, mind you, but even then, it’s hard to comprehend it.”
Daichi scowled at this. “Meaning what?”
“Meaning what killed this young woman’s friend might not even be human. Even though the hair was tested to be human, we won’t know until it comes back within three days. And I shudder to think what the results will be for that.”
Daichi was silent for a moment, mulling something over before speaking aloud. “I need to return to the village.” His tone going on edge. “Chief, we need to get as many police officers to the village as quickly as possible. Ones that we can trust.”
“I’m already working on it. But it’ll take some time.” He told the Detective.
“Then make it quick,” he turned to leave. “I have some contacts I can get to assist us, some that we can trust. Even the Yakuza if I need to.”
“I’m coming with you,” Stephanie spoke up, causing the man to stop in his tracks. “I want to be sure that they’re okay.”
Daichi gave her a sympathetic look. “I’m sorry, Stratford-san, we can’t let you. You’re a civilian. You shouldn’t be in this any deeper than you already are.”
“My friends are drowning in it!” she nearly screamed. “I don’t want them to end up like Robert or worse! I need to come with you.”
This made the detective look at her once more with a look of concern, what would be worse than dying? She was hiding something from them. She must have known that doing so wasn’t right and could very well impede the investigation that was to come. Then again, she was friends with the Lowell girl. And knowing that, there was probably a good reason Stratford remained silent. Unable to reveal certain truths at that time.
Regardless of what she wished he wasn’t about to oblige her.
“I cannot.” He tells her. “Regardless of your personal feelings on this, I cannot allow you to come with me. To put yourself at risk.”
She could understand where he was coming from, she really did, but that didn’t stop the growing fear that she had building up inside of her. Gritting her teeth, Stephanie grabbed hold of the man’s tie, recalling what Taryn had told her at the hotel bar, and tighten it around his neck. “I need to go back there!”
He didn’t even look phased. “No,” he said softly.
“If I don’t do something, that monster will kill them!” her eyes felt hot with tears as her breathing began to labour. “It’ll get Taryn again, and I know… I just know if it does, I… we won’t see her ever again. She’ll disappear just like all the others. I won’t let that happen.” She tightened his tie when he showed no signs of yielding.
Feeling like she was pushed against the wall, she used one of the last things she wanted to do as a threat, but it was one, in her mind, that needed to be done.
“My family is a massive influential corporation that can ruin anyone if I so choose.” A partial bluff, her family had connections, but she doubted it could happen like that. “Lawyers will look into all of the missing people from that mansion, the shady dealings with the corrupt police linked to this department. With so much backlash, you won’t be able to save yourselves from it once it starts. Know that I will do anything to bury this whole damn department if they don’t come back alive!”
Daichi placed his hands along her shoulders. They were gentle but firm, as both hands rested along her nape. “I’m sorry.”
She felt a sudden sharp pain along the side of her neck before all had gone dark. When she opened her eyes again, she found herself lying on a cot in what looked to be a room to sleep for the police.
“Son of a…” she snapped as she went to stand, seeing that her things were resting on a chair nearby a desk. Her purse, wallet, phone and camera. And a note from the detective.
Apologize for being so rough with you. You left me no choice but to knock you out, we will get your friends back from the village. I promise you that. The door has been locked, and I have entrusted police that I know personally to guard you so that no one will hurt you. However, you won’t be able to leave until I return. There’s plenty of food and drinks stocked in the mini-fridge. Until we come back, have whatever you wish.
Sakamoto Daichi.
She glanced at the fridge before putting the note back on the desk. She was pissed, but not at the man for doing his job. This wasn’t going to stop her from getting back to the village.
Calming herself down, Stephanie began to take in her surroundings. There were only three bunk beds, two desks, a mini-fridge and outlets to plug in a laptop or phone. From her purse, she took out her charger and placed her phone with it. It was better to go with a full battery than one that was going on half a charge. As it charged, she looked more around the room, no windows from what she could see. She really was boxed in.
No, there had to be a window or something like a ventilation system. Stephanie walked over to the door and peeked out through the crack along the floor, just barely she could make out feet. Must be the ones the detective asked to guard me. She thought. The door itself was pretty sturdy in its own right, meaning she couldn’t kick down the door. Not that she could anyhow, she was strong but not that strong. She might be able to get a few good dents in the metal frame if she tried, but that would be it.
A sudden flickering caught her attention; craning her neck back, she saw the light is the source of the faint flickering, her dark blue gaze then drifted toward the switch. It was late morning judging from her watch, meaning she could see any source of light through the darkness. Turning the switch, the lights in the room went off; as her eyes adjusted to the darkness of the standard-sized room, she gathered her things only to pause when she picked up her phone to see her lock screen, a picture of her and Robert. She sighed.
This shit wasn’t right, not at all.
But I’ll make it right. Stephanie thought as she put her phone away. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught something, a faint light trying to get through. Only to then hear the two men being called to assist with something, a crazy drunk apparently. The timing for that couldn’t be more perfect. Stephanie moved towards the cracked outline; it was initially a bookshelf that had been placed here. Thankfully, it wasn’t too heavy to push.
Makes me think of when I helped Thomas move that bookshelf. she thought to herself, smiling at the memory despite the current circumstance. His face when I did it. God, I’ll never forget it. When the shelf was partly out of the way, the room flooded with the early afternoon light. Hooray for exercise and perseverance annnnd being stubborn. Guess I should thank Dad for that. She then turned the light back on to make it too obvious and went back to the window.
It was a cross-wire type of window, one that was small at eye level and of a rectangular shape, with a width of forty-eight inches in width and a height of twenty-four inches.
She stared at it, then at herself and came to a quick conclusion. It was going to be a tight fit to get through. Opening the window, and sliding it to its other side, she looked outside. Not too high up, with trees and some bushes just a few feet away, she was just a bit off the ground floor. And no sign of people anywhere near her.
Moving over to the beds, she took what sheets were their, double knotted them into a makeshift rope, the ground wasn’t that far, but she wasn’t about to risk it either way. Tying it to one of the bedposts, she gave several hard tugs, ensuring that it would be secure before tying her purse to one end and dropping it out the window.
Carefully lowering it before it touched the ground. Then, after moving one of the desks, Stephanie climbed herself out feet first, it was a tight fit but manageable one. Though her breasts had something negative to say about it. With a faint scowl, she pressed on her chest and eased the rest of herself out before scaling down the wall; she smiled; this was just like whenever she went rock-climbing. Jailbreak addition.
When she reached the ground, she untied her purse, slung the small bag over her shoulder and rechecked her surroundings. Stephanie made her way around the station and away from the place altogether. Now she just needed a car.
Taking her phone as she walked, wanting to look as casual as possible to not draw anyone’s attention, Stephanie searched for car rental places near here, only to stop when realizing that there was one near that shop with all the pink stuff and the jewelry store.
With that in mind, she hailed the next taxi she saw, giving the driver directions to the place she needed to be in Japanese.
Falling back into her seat, she let out a breath of exhaustion, she felt tired, but her mind was too wired with adrenaline to even think about sleep. Her gaze fell to her chest, where the pendant that she once gave to Robert lay gleaming in the sunlight. Tears fell from her eyes as she covered the pendant with her hand.
Robert, I’m sorry. She thought as she tilted her head back as the tears began to stop with the assistance from her quarter-sleeved T-shirt. But I can’t just think of myself in this situation. I can’t leave them behind.
“Are you alright, miss?” the driver asked in Japanese.
“Yes, I’ll be fine,” she responded to him in kind. “Please don’t mind me, it’s just been very a long day.”
He glanced at her from the rear-view mirror. “Well, I hope it gets better for you.”
She gave a faint smile. “Thank you,” she said softly before glancing out the window in the hopes to ease her worries, but staring off into space did her little good. Taking out her camera, she began to go through her photos. Even with everything that happened, Stephanie couldn’t help but smile faintly at the many pictures and a few videos she took from their trip.
Of their time in Tokyo, the many places they went to eat, and places they ventured together and separate. Of the village and the festival. How they were all dressed, taking photos of them together and alone.
Only for her warm smile to conform to an expression of shocked confusion as her blood began to turn cold. What the hell is this?