She got to her feet. She was ready to scream the moment he tried to do anything else. The apartment building was occupied mostly by families. If she screamed, especially at this hour, someone would surely come running.
She returned his stare, speaking firmly, “Now go home.”
The man’s lips curled up at both edges. “I’ll be going nowhere. Not until you agree to come with me, that is. And you will come with me, be sure of that. You don’t have any choice.”
In a calm motion, he reached for his rear jeans pocket and pulled out a photograph.
“Look at this,” he said, holding the picture in front of her face.
When she saw it, she let out a little cry. It was a picture of Mima and Aran Naoto together.
“You know what this picture means,” the man said. “The media would love to get their hands on this. But you wouldn’t want that to happen, now, would you?”
Rumi shook her head no, tears filling her eyes.
“If I offer you this picture,” he said, “you’ll help me, won’t you? It won’t take long.”
Wiping her eyes, Rumi nodded.
III
Why isn’t the door locked? Mima wondered, standing at her apartment door. She remained there for a moment, hand on the doorknob, head tilted, while she dredged her memory, wondering if she’d forgotten to lock the door before she had left.
She didn’t think that was the case, but no other explanation came to her.
She deliberately avoided connecting the unlocked door with the shapeless dread that still lurked in the in the pit of her stomach. If she had thought the two were related, she never would have been able to set foot inside.
Slowly, she pushed the door open and, heart thumping away, she stepped in. The apartment’s lights were on, and her answering machine was switched off.
Did I really leave the apartment like this? Exasperation over her carelessness edged out her fear.
Then she smelled something. It smelled good, and it was coming from the kitchenette. She looked that way and saw a wide variety of food neatly laid out on the counter.
Mima clapped her hands in realization. Rumi had come over. Now that Mima thought about it, her manager had been acting strangely, too. From the look on his face, Bon-chan had seemed like he’d been hiding something.
So Bon-chan wanted to throw me a surprise party. Rumi didn’t leave early—he must’ve sent her out to get things ready.
“Rumi-chan,” the singer called out. But there was no answer. “Rumi-chan!”
Mima circled her room. She even looked in her closet, and in the shower room and the water closet. Rumi was nowhere to be found. She’d been cooking, that much was certain. But what had stopped her—and where had she gone?
Maybe she’d forgotten some ingredient and ran off to get it at the convenience store? Surely she would have locked the door if she had had to leave the apartment empty.
What had happened to her?
Mima returned to the front door, opened it, and looked outside. Perhaps Rumi was out in the hallway. The dimly lit space gave no sign of any presence—not Rumi’s, not anyone’s. Only the cold, nighttime air occupied the passageway.
Mima closed the door and sat in the foyer.
Her concern expressed itself as irritation. She thought, If Rumi were going to leave, she could have at least written a note.
Sitting there stewing about it wasn’t going to help anything. Mima shook away her foul temper and slowly stood back up. That was when her eyes caught sight of a small red object next to her pumps beside the door. Mima stooped down to pick it up. The thing looked like a small scrap of colored paper.
She held it in her hand and inspected it. Whatever it was, she had probably stepped on it and gotten it stuck to the bottom of her shoe. She wadded it up to throw it away, and her fingers became wet with a faintly red liquid.
It was a rose petal—a red rose petal.
A red rose petal!
Instantly, with that realization, her blood froze. Unbidden, her sixth sense began clamoring inside her thoughts. A rose petal. A red rose petal…
Her primal intuition roused the fear and anxiety she had so assiduously tried to forget. They emerged from the edges of her consciousness and came out into the open, no longer possible to ignore, their heads held high and arms spread wide.
Desperately, Mima tried to banish the truth from her thoughts; if she let herself appreciate what that rose petal signified, her mind would fall to pieces.
Mima needed a lifeline. She went to the phone. She’d reach out to her manager, have him come over.
She didn’t know where he was. He could have been at the television station, or his own apartment, or at the agency’s office. But she needed to find him and get him here. If she didn’t, she worried this incomprehensible terror would soon drive her mad.
Fretfully, she reached for the phone, when suddenly, it rang.
On conditioned reflex, her hand went to the receiver. Subconsciously, she knew she shouldn’t answer, but her hand, unbidden, had already lifted the receiver and placed it against her ear.
“Hello,” came the man’s voice. “Is… is this Mima-san?”
Mima felt the last fragile barriers of denial fall, leaving no separation between her conscious mind and subconscious terror. Her body trembled as she heard the hoarse voice speak. “Hello, Mima-san? This is Mima-san, isn’t it?”
It was the voice of the man who had tormented her over the phone, the sick stalker who had given Rumi that letter—the same one who had personally delivered another message to her very door.
Her voice shaking, Mima said, “What do you want? Who are you?”
“Who am I? You know who I am, Mima-san.” The man’s voice took on a mocking tone. “It is I, your Darling Rose.”
Starting to reclaim her composure, Mima resolved to get this creep to give up his location so that she could send the police after him. “All right, ‘Darling Rose,’” she said, “what do you want with me?”
“I’m glad you asked,” the man said. “I’m calling to request your presence. You can’t say no, mind you. I’ll wait five minutes. Come to my location within five minutes. I’m in K-TV’s old studio in Azabu. If you run from your apartment, you should get here in about four to five minutes. But five is what you have. If you try to contact your manager or the police, you won’t make it in time, so don’t try it. Five minutes, starting now.”
The man sounded as if he were going to hang up the phone. Before he could, Mima said, “What are you talking about? There’s no way I’m going to some abandoned studio. Just tell me your name and where you live, and I’ll meet you there instead.”
“You won’t come? That won’t do at all. You know Rumi-chan, don’t you?”
“Rumi? What’s happened to her?”
“Nothing has happened to her yet. But if you don’t come here, she’s going to die. If you’re even one second late, she will die.”
“Wh-what are you saying? Is she there with you?”
Mima pressed the receiver to her ear. She could hear Rumi’s voice, faint and distant, saying, “Mima-san… Don’t come… don’t come.”
In blind fury, Mima shouted, “You have Rumi?! You have Rumi?!”
“That’s right. And if you don’t come, she dies. This is not a joke. I killed that whore Ochiai Eri, you know—one more kill won’t make a difference to me.”
The man’s voice had grown flat, detached, and somehow that was even more forboding than before. Mima believed it. He really had killed Eri.
“All right,” she said. “I’m coming. The old K-TV. I just want you to let Rumi go.”
“If you come, I’ll spare her life. I promise you that. But you’d better hurry. Here we are still talking, and you’re already down to four minutes.”