“I think your intense devotion to Reina is what made this possible…So now my question is simply, why?” Higano stared at her tightly sealed lips. “Why did you attempt to quit your role as Reina?” She was wearing a blindfold, so Higano couldn’t see how she reacted. The beautiful woman was silent for a moment, and then asked, “How do you know that’s what I was doing?”
“It’s just a general assessment based on watching you for the past month. You wrote home and told them you’re still alive, and asked them to send Asami Ino’s ID. You’re trying to break things off with Koichiro, and you just called off the engagement with Ken. You’ve also already decided to move to Shikoku. You’re clearly wrapping up the you living as Reina and making preparations to return to being Asami Ino.”
She sighed, unable to counter what he knew.
“However, the other Reinas realized you were acting suspiciously. As a result, they started trying to kill you.”
Higano stood from his Aeron chair and approached the sofa. The woman didn’t move as his footsteps drew nearer. He drew his index finger along her jaw and then tilted her head up toward him.
One cut along her throat was still healing.
“Looks like one of the men controlled by the Reinas cut you with a knife. He pretended to be a pervert with a hair fetish and attacked you. So even if he actually killed you and was caught by the police, they’d just think he was a pervert who messed up while trying to cut off some of your hair, and they wouldn’t look into his background. This is beside the point, but I was the one who tackled the pervert and let you escape. Seems like you were able to get away before the police could take your account.”
“You’re too kind…I appreciate your assistance on that occasion. Thanks to your efforts I’ll have the pleasure of being killed by a serial killer rather than a man pretending to be a pervert.”
“Haha, that’s a good joke.”
“Hehe, isn’t it?”
The two chuckled together.
“But your behavior is a mystery to me. You all were pretending to be someone else, and I’m sure you got frustrated in such an oppressive environment. You must’ve wanted to quit or run away at times. But no one gave up. That’s how tight the bond was between the Reinas. So you must’ve known that they’d go after you when you tried to go back to being Asami Ino. Nevertheless, you still went through with your decision.” Then Higano asked gently, “What exactly motivated you to do that?”
The beautiful woman became quiet again. She sighed deeply before catching her breath and smiling.
“That’s my deepest, darkest secret.”
“Well then.”
“It’s buried so deeply inside myself that not even I have easy access to it. If you must know, you’ll have to pull it out and reveal it yourself. As both a serial killer and a detective, you must be skilled at prying into people, aren’t you?”
This was a challenge. Higano sat in his chair and leaned far back, crossing his arms.
“Mr. Detective, you already know that Koichiro and I had a relationship. A normal person would think that was an unbearable burden. But you don’t seem to think it was a potential motive.”
“Yes, I assumed that there was some reason that took priority. I’m sure of it.”
“You have frighteningly good intuition.”
Higano watched Reina Myoko giggle and was convinced that he wasn’t mistaken.
“Now, may I ask you a question?”
“Please do.”
Higano let out a gentle sigh and said, “You’re in love with Koichiro, aren’t you?”
The woman caught her breath.
But she only allowed the briefest moment to pass before responding, “Yes, I love him. I did in the past, I do now, and I will in the future…hehe, but it doesn’t seem like I’ll have much longer to love him.”
“Another joke.”
“No, I’m just being sarcastic, Mr. Serial Killer.”
“Well that’s…unfortunate.” Higano laughed. “Since you say you know everything about Reina, let me ask you this. Did she have a physical relationship with Koichiro before she created the Reinas?”
“Yes.”
“Was she also in love with Koichiro?”
“Yes. Reina loved Koichiro. She did in the past, she does now, and she will in the future.”
Higano picked up the glass cube puzzle from his black desk and began to spin the pieces in a compulsive way, unconsciously. Even so, he quickly finished the puzzle.
For him, solving a case was the same as spinning his puzzle.
Higano discovered the truth, unconsciously, almost compulsively.
Whether he wanted to or not, he had already exposed several truths. Indeed, these truths rather stripped themselves bare in front of Higano, revealing themselves automatically: truths you didn’t want to know, truths you shouldn’t know, and others that mustn’t be known. In his presence, the truth revealed its grotesque innards just as the women who met him wanted to show off what lay beneath the skirts they wore.
Yet truth really has no value.
Higano looked at the woman’s beautiful feet in their brand new pumps. Whether or not he discovered Reina Myoko’s secret, in the next few minutes he was going to remove the pumps, peel off her stockings, and then cut off her foot with a chainsaw.
However, if he wasn’t able to discover her secret—he would feel awful.
Ah, yes. That awful feeling. Learning her secret might help him scheme to win over the police, but that would only be a bonus prize.
That biological revulsion. In the end, that sensation is what pressed Higano into action.
He closed his eyes, focused on physical sensations, and rubbed the angular corners of his puzzle. As he did, the most important piece of all the information he had gathered separated itself of its own accord and became entwined in the web he had cast in his mind.
“You said that Reina loved Koichiro…That she did in the past, does now, and will in the future.”
“Yes.”
“At what point did she fall in love with her father? Is that something you know?”
“Yes. She was in love with him for as long as she could remember.”
“So she basically loved him since the first time Koichiro held her.”
The beautiful woman nodded slightly.
Hearing this, Higano thought back on Reina’s eventful past.
Reina was in love with her father for as long as she could remember.
That cast a different light on one incident from her past. Higano picked up his tablet and began to search through articles.
✦ ✦ ✦
A Japanese tourist plunged to her death at the well-known Portuguese tourist destination Cabo da Roca. Yumi Myoko (39) died from the injuries sustained. Her daughter, who witnessed the accident, said her mother lost her balance and fell from the cliff as she was trying to take a photograph. The daughter suffered intense psychological trauma and will undergo counseling.