Dr. Higano had probably given him a clue when he spoke with him alone at the business hotel, too. Koichiro transformed, behaved as poorly as he could, and began to show off his faults to help complete Reina’s plan.
All for his daughter.
So that his daughter’s desires weren’t for naught.
Generally speaking, then, Koichiro was an awful person. It was clear that he deceived his daughter and raped her. But he wasn’t all evil. Part of him sympathized with his daughter. It wasn’t all lust; there was love, somewhere.
Dr. Higano was right. The meticulous plan Reina had so painstakingly built had crumbled apart. It crashed down, a disappointing failure.
“Yuri.” Dr. Higano picked up a few of the glass blocks and clattered them in front of me. “This is what the pursuit of truth is.”
I finally realized what he meant.
“But there’s still time,” he said. “Avert your eyes from the truth, cover your ears, and you can still carry out Reina’s plan. Her true wish can still be fulfilled.”
That would’ve been best. Leave things as they were and send Koichiro Myoko to jail, a supervillain, all according to Reina’s plan. That would be a fitting end for her story.
After all, if the world knew the truth, no one would be any better off. If the truth came out, Reina would have killed herself for no reason. Even if Koichiro escaped false charges, he would still be ostracized. Ken’s anger would have no outlet and he’d be left alone with hideous thoughts. On top of that, within the force, Yamaji and I would both be criticized, and I’d likely encounter more obstacles preventing me from capturing Masquerade.
Not a single good thing would happen if the truth came to light.
But I…
“Dr. Higano, you always say ‘The truth has very little value,’” I said. “But I’m not convinced. I used to believe the truth alone would save us. But…I was wrong. The truth is just the truth; it is not kind, nor is it right. That’s what this case made me realize. I’m sure you’ve suffered through the same thing a number of times…But…” I clenched my hands into fists. “But if we don’t seek out the truth…”
From the beginning I only ever had one goal.
“…We’ll never take down Masquerade.”
The murderer who had killed my sister was a seemingly impossible criminal in today’s world. Despite the mountains of evidence he left behind, we could find no traces of him. He’d transcended reality, transcended substance, had turned into an illusory urban legend. And somehow he had managed to charm everyone by combining the malevolence of murder with his beautiful aesthetic.
Masquerade was a fiction inside a fiction.
The only way to drag him out from within that fabrication was to follow the truth to its very end. Masquerade was undefeated in a world woven with lies—a stage built for him to dance about freely and madly.
Only with the truth could we hunt him down.
I knew this instinctively.
So despite the fact that Reina had gambled her life with her plan, I resolved to seek the truth no matter what truth of my own awaited me. Without that attitude, I, too, might be swallowed up by Masquerade’s lies.
I alone refused to dance in his world.
Also, I was certain of one thing when it came to Reina’s plan for revenge.
Her decision to use suicide as a means for revenge was absolutely a mistake.
So I chose to let Reina’s decision to gamble her life for revenge go to waste.
It would amount to nothing.
With my own arrogant sense of justice, I destroyed and denied what she had carefully built.
I knew Dr. Higano was probably disappointed in my decision, in my naïve sense of justice. Now he’d really hold me completely in contempt.
But his expression told a different story.
“I’m impressed,” he said.
He was speaking honestly, not sarcastically. His blue eyes were wide open and glistening with excitement.
“You’ll only ever catch Masquerade if you continue your hunt for the truth. Ahh, you are absolutely right.”
Dr. Higano stood and, incredibly, kneeled before me. He took my right hand as though I was a queen.
“Your hand is beautiful,” he said reverently. “And the faithfulness of your heart even more so.”
His sweet words and the way he gently held my hand made me blush.
“Which is why I’m sure.” Dr. Higano stroked the back of my hand with his fingers. “Masquerade will come for you at some point to take your right hand.”
A chill ran down my spine.
I couldn’t escape the feeling that what he said was completely true.
“And when that happens, I don’t know what the outcome will be. I don’t know whether you will end up a victim—or whether you’ll be able to expose the truth and catch the serial killer. However, I choose to believe that you are the special person who will take down Masquerade.”
He released my right hand and whispered, in his deep voice, “You are already his archrival.“
Why?
For him to encourage me so honestly was the highest of compliments—
—yet my body was trembling with a fear that had risen from somewhere inside me.
Dr. Higano left the room and before long, returned with coffee for two.
I watched Dr. Higano sit in his Aeron chair before I sipped my coffee.
His pale, well-balanced face now showed no trace of the excitement he’d displayed only a moment ago. I couldn’t detect any emotion behind his usual perfect, mannequin-like smile.
I took a gulp of coffee.
I was surprised. The coffee Erika had made was excellent, but Dr. Higano’s was a level above even that. I’d heard the word “fruity” used to describe coffee before, but now I realized for the first time what it signified. The coffee had a fruity drinkability and pleasant acidity.
I finished the cup before I knew it.
“I feel like I finally get why coffee is so delicious.”
“Yes!” Dr. Higano nodded contentedly. “With coffee, you want to enjoy the acidity.”
This coffee talk was entirely beside the point. We still had a lot to discuss. I coughed and stared straight at him.
“Doctor, you’ve convinced me of the reason Reina committed suicide, but we haven’t talked about the trick she pulled off.”
“Yes.”
“So…Her severed foot was in her apartment. The knife that killed her was also there. If Reina’s death was suicide, she had to have done it in her apartment, right? And if that’s the case, we have the new problem of determining who took her body to Odaiba.”
“Yes. However, that question is quite easy to answer,” Dr. Higano said. “She took her own body.”
“Excuse me?”
“To be more accurate, she just took her own car there.”
I was completely lost in thought. I pressed the corners of my eyes with my fingers and asked, “So she died in the park?”
“Exactly.”
“No, no, that’s impossible. Her foot was cut off in her apartment! The murder weapon was there!”
But Dr. Higano didn’t flinch. “The knife was mass-produced. You could buy it anywhere. And the BMW was an automatic.”
Confused, I racked my brain and tried to come to grips with what the doctor was saying.
To sum it up, then: Reina had killed herself in the park to try to frame Koichiro. However, her severed foot had been left in her apartment. As was the knife covered with blood—blood from her chest. But it is possible she had another similar knife prepared. Then, according to Dr. Higano, Reina drove herself to Odaiba in the BMW.
“Ah.” I understood what Dr. Higano was trying to say.
But it couldn’t be true.
Because this wasn’t something a normal person would ever do. Even just thinking about the implications made my entire body freeze with fear at how insane it was.
“Dr. Higano, I think I know what you think happened,” I said, my voice quivering. “Reina cut off her own foot, left it in her room, and drove herself to the bay with one foot.”
I wanted for him to say no, but Dr. Higano nodded gently and said, “Yes.”
My mind had taken in all it could, but he continued mercilessly.