“Mmh,” she grunted. “He was my next door neighbor growing up. Cranky old man but generous. My mom mentioned you had helped out.”
“Oh, I only did what I could.” This questioning felt like my entire life was laid out on a table, and Akai was picking through everything with tweezers. She knew who I was, what I did, who I was dating, and I hadn’t even introduced myself. Didn’t matter. I was sure she knew my full name and my mother’s address too.
Akai nodded her head once, snapping out of her critical gaze. “All right. So you need something from me. Let me guess.” She breezed past me and out to her computers. “A full work-up on Amanda Cheung and your boyfriend…” She typed into a web browser and up came a photo of them. “Yasahiro Suga.”
“Well, mostly her.” I stood next to her at the computer. “I don’t know enough about her, and she’s a celebrity so everything is filtered, you know?”
“I do, but celebrities have lives. They have email and chat and text messages and loads of stuff normal people have. They just hide them better.” She grinned up at me.
“Yeah. I need all of that.”
She minimized her browser and slurped her coffee again. “It’s gonna cost you, though.” She used a new napkin to wipe down her desk while checking her security monitors. “I don’t think you’ll go out with me, as much of a disappointment that is.”
I kept my face as impassive as possible. She was flirtatious, I’d give her that much.
“So, it’ll just be money. I’ll give you a full look into Amanda’s life, everything I can find and more for 500,000 yen.”
“500,000 yen?” I squeaked out. That was way out of my price range.
Akai shook her head, a mournful frown on her face. “These things cost a lot of money. Celebrities are slippery.”
“But we brought you the computer and the phone. Won’t that be enough to get you started? More than usual?”
“Are you telling me Goro-san will be okay with you using the evidence on this case to your advantage?”
I swallowed again, remembering the tenuous relationship Goro and I had with evidence. But he would want this data too, and I was willing to pay some of my own money to move the investigation along faster. I didn’t want this to drag on for weeks, months, or years.
“If you use the computer and the phone to aid your search, what will it cost me?”
Akai swiveled in her chair, left, right, and back again. “I’ll knock the fee down to 200,000 yen.”
Still, a lot of money but more manageable. I had a better chance of scraping that together, and I knew exactly where to start.
“Okay. I can work with that.”
“Ah, but no payment plans. You pay one hundred percent up front or I do nothing.” Her phone buzzed on the desk, and she glanced at the screen briefly. “I have to get back to work.”
I bowed and took a step backwards. “I’ll contact you soon, before the end of the day. I’ll get your number from Goro.”
“Tell him he has to text me with approval to search the evidence or the deal is off.” She turned from me and went back to her monitors.
“Got it. I’ll… I’ll have him do that.”
“I’m sure you will!” She shouted at me as I closed the front door behind me.
I ran from the property at a high clip, Buttercup barking his goodbyes from the metal crate.
I was mired in a moral gray area of life, and I wondered if I’d ever climb out of it, back to the light, again.
Chapter Nineteen
My hand hovered over the doorknob before I pulled my fingers away and considered running back down the stairs. I couldn’t do that though because reporters were on the other side of the door, and they would tear me to pieces if I tried to leave now. Yasahiro had taped cardboard up over the window to keep out their prying lenses, but it wasn’t keeping them away. They had increased in numbers while I was at Akai’s house to seven reporters and photographers.
I wanted to move onward but going inside to face Yasahiro was another thing entirely. A week ago, I’d been so sure of everything. I was secure in myself, in our relationship, in our future together. We had a future together. Now, I had serious doubts.
The door opened as I reached out for it.
“Mei-chan,” Yasahiro said, sighing. He looked a thousand years old. “Are you coming in or what? I heard the door open and close down there five minutes ago.”
Dipping my head to hide my embarrassment, I scurried past him and removed my shoes, placing them in my cubby next to his. My cubby. It had been mine for months.
We stood in silence and looked at each other before he looked away. This wasn’t right. It wasn’t natural. We usually greeted each other with smiles, talks of how our days went, and kisses too if we were feeling more affectionate than usual.
I glanced past him to the table as I took off my coat and scarf. The surface was piled high with papers and envelopes, his computer open and off to the side, a pen uncapped and in the middle of a legal pad of paper scribbled with notes.
“What’s going on?” I asked, bypassing him and coming to the table. My stomach sank as I looked at the top document.
“Sit down, Mei-chan. We need to talk.”
“I know,” I whispered, trying to keep the tears behind my eyes. On each piece of paper on the table, I found Amanda’s name. “You said as much earlier.”
I lowered myself into the chair across from him, and he sat up straight, placing his hands on the piles of papers.
“What you see here is the story of my demise.” He flipped through a few pieces of paper before shrugging his shoulders and adding them back onto the piles. “I believe we would’ve been walking into a trap on Monday, if Amanda hadn’t been killed, but now the situation is worse than that.”
“I don’t understand.” I wanted to brush off whatever this was and bring back the happy Yasahiro I knew, but everything spiraled away from me.
“I own a lot of property and businesses, you know that.” I nodded, clutching the arms of the chair I sat in. “But I don’t own a lot of them by myself. I own majority stakes in many but not all, and I always chose who I went into business with carefully.” He licked his lips and stared past me out the window. “At least, I thought I had.”
He shook his head and returned to the papers, his hand on the right pile. “These are the things I own by myself, but this pile?” He gestured to the larger one on his left. “These are the investments I went into with other people, mostly Robert and Giselle, because they had the most money of everyone to invest. You remember them from the other night?”
I nodded again. Of course I remembered them. Amanda had cheated on him with Robert. I also remembered how angry Giselle was later on that evening, how she stormed out of the party and left Robert there.
“Well, I just found out Amanda has been buying up Robert and Giselle’s stakes in everything through a holding company. I saw a few of the transactions and didn’t investigate them, which I realize now was foolish and stupid. Robert and Giselle often cashed in investments to move money around, and I trusted them. But…”
He pulled out one specific piece of paper and handed it to me. I paled at seeing “Sawayaka” written across the top.
“She was close to buying out Robert and Giselle’s stake in Sawayaka. Really, really close.” His voice was low and gravelly. “My lawyer contacted her lawyer, the one we were supposed to meet on Monday, and this transaction would’ve taken place then. It was her… intention to use a bunch of these investments and other things against me, to blackmail me into agreeing.”
“These things? What other things?” My voice cracked, I was so stunned.
He looked hard at me, and I knew there was another secret he held back about his relationship with Amanda. It wasn’t just the cheating!
“Like a lot of things.”
“Just tell me already,” I barked, anger rising to the surface.
“Don’t get angry with me, Mei-chan,” he bit back, and embarrassment washed
over me. I held in a sob, and he softened. “Sorry,” he mumbled.
“This is all going to get out,” he continued. “Her parents are bound to inherit her money and these little parts of me. I could try to sell many of them, but the press will latch onto the fact that we were tied together, and I had reasons to want to get rid of her.”
“Why? That doesn’t make any sense.”
“Because she was pushing me out of investment opportunities?” He looked bewildered. “As if I operate only on money or something. At least, that’s the image Amanda has painted of me over the years, and her lawyer has a ton of damning information including emails we sent to each other. Stupid things I said that will be taken out of context and make me look like a money-hungry animal.”
The piles on the table seemed to grow. They overtook Yasahiro and ate him alive right in front of me.
“But it doesn’t matter,” I said, reaching forward to grab his hands. “You didn’t kill her. None of this matters.”
He pulled his hands out from under mine, the warmth of our touch evaporating instantly on the cold table.
“It does. And I can just see it now. No one will find the murderer, and instead her parents will go to the media and say things like, ‘Yasahiro wanted her gone from his life, and she loved him.’ Or, ‘They had all of these investments together. So either they were together, or he was tired of her and killed her.’” His voice changed to something between mocking and disbelief with each statement. “Amanda did her best to get me back. She tied herself to me in any way she could.” He swept his hands over the stacks of papers. “I’m sure this is only a fraction of what I know. Everything will come out in a few days once the work week starts.”
He rubbed his face, and I so wanted to comfort him. I got up from my chair and came around the table to him, but he jumped up from his chair and backed away from me.
“It’s over for us, Mei-chan. This —” He pointed to the papers. “This will ruin me. My lawyer is doing everything he can to mitigate the damage, but I’m done. I can’t bring you down with me.”
“It doesn’t have to be that way,” I pleaded with him, even bringing my hands to prayer position in front of me. “We can weather this together. The two of us. Together. You don’t have to bear this alone.”
His face hardened, and he scared me enough to pull back a step. “Do you want to bring shame on your mother, your family, your business you’ve pulled together out of nothing? I will bring shame upon you like none you’ve never witnessed before. As it is, I’ve already put out feelers looking for someone to buy Sawayaka and this apartment so I can leave Japan.”
“No.” The flood of tears broke loose. “You can’t leave. You have a life here. Don’t you remember our New Year’s trip to the onsen? You said we were a team. That we’d get through things together.”
He ignored me and my pleas. “I’ve been considering Brazil. It’s far enough away to make a new life.”
Brazil? My knees weakened. Amanda said she was the big leagues, and she meant every word. She really did. If she couldn’t have Yasahiro, then no one would.
My brain churned through every idea I could come up with, but the only option now was to solve the murder case as quickly as possible. If I let any time go by, Yasahiro would panic, Amanda’s parents would arrive here in Japan, the work week would begin, and the lies would snake out of the ground like worms after the rain.
“I’m sorry about this. I really am. I…” He stopped, his eyes brimming with tears.
“You what?” I whispered, my throat so constricted I could barely speak.
“I love you.”
I closed my eyes against the slap of that statement. He had never said he loved me, not in all the months we’d been together. It wasn’t popular in Japan to declare love, and he understood that, even though he’d spent many years away in France. But I knew it in my heart, the way one knows a loved one cares but never says it out loud. Hearing it, though? I staggered against the kitchen island and steadied myself.
“And I’m sorry about Oshabe-cha. I owe you. The tea shop was going to be your shining moment, and I’m stealing that from you. I hate myself for it.”
I turned my back on him and clutched at the marble island top. This could not happen. I couldn’t allow it to happen. We were so close to making this work! He loved me, and I loved him. We both had businesses we could take into retirement. We had families, and we could have a family together.
I wasn’t going to let this get in the way.
I pulled my phone from my pocket, and keeping my back to Yasahiro, I accessed the app for my bank. I had 180,000 yen give or take in my account. I could withdraw 100,000 yen in one go today at the ATM but that would be my limit for one day.
But if I was going to protect Yasahiro and keep him from any more harm, he couldn’t know what I was about to do.
I turned to face him, and he shrank back from the determination on my face.
“I love you, too, and this” — I pointed to the stacks of paper — “will not ruin you. It won’t ruin me. This is nothing but a hack job by some desperate, attention-seeking girl, and we are not breaking up.”
I stalked into the bedroom, opening the closet door and yanking up the false bottom. After Etsuko hid her illegal cash in the false bottoms of her kitchen cabinets, I went about hiding things in Yasahiro’s apartment. He’d thought it was funny, but I knew better. When he saw the cash piles grow, I was certain he’d caught on how important it was to keep money on hand for any occasion.
Today was such an occasion.
I grabbed stacks of money from the pile and counted them to make sure I had enough. Yes, and there was some left over, just in case. I replaced the false bottom and moved onto the closet in the bathroom to grab the stun gun, pepper spray, and empty thumb drives I kept hidden behind the towels along with my stash of chocolate. Sorry if that’s weird, but Yasahiro never went back there, and it was the only place I could think of to hide things that were mine. I’d purchased the stun gun and pepper spray in Tokyo after my run-in with Fujita Takahara, determined never to get caught up in a murder investigation again without protection.
My, how my brain worked.
I rejoined Yasahiro in the main room and his eyes widened as he saw what was in my hands.
“Mei-chan! What are you doing?” He tried to lunge forward and grab things from me, but I swiveled away.
“I’m borrowing some money, okay? About 100,000 yen, and I’ll pay you back. The rest, you never saw. Understand?” I grabbed my bag from by the door and dumped everything inside.
“I’m… wait. I don’t like this at all. What are you going to do?” He followed me and stood over me as I put my shoes and coat back on.
I figured my life could go one of two ways at this point. I could raise the white flag in defeat, let Yasahiro go, and spend the rest of my life living with Mom, making little to no money, and dying an old maid with ten cats at my feet. Or I could fight for what I loved, for the man I loved, and go down swinging.
I jumped up and threw my arms around his neck, pulling him to me and crushing his lips against mine. I took the kiss by force but he responded eagerly, tightening his arms around me and deepening the kiss. This was where we worked best. This was where my heart was. This was what I needed in life.
I broke off and touched my forehead to his. “Lock the door and don’t leave. And don’t talk to anyone until you hear from me again.”
Chapter Twenty
I bolted from Yasahiro’s place like a woman on fire. Running from the reporters since I don’t own a car, I kept going until they were all gone. I could’ve called Kumi to come pick me up, but she was working. Besides, being pregnant and married to a police officer did not make her the best person to be a getaway driver, anyway.
I withdrew money from my bank’s ATM, made it to the edge of town in less than an hour, and dropped off the cash at Akai’s house.
“Are you sure you want to dive into Amanda’s life?” Akai asked as I
left the envelope of cash on her desk and scratched Buttercup’s head. “You might not like what I uncover.”
“Doesn’t matter now. I have to look,” I said, zipping up my coat. “Yasahiro-san needs to be cleared.”
“What if he’s not?” she asked at my turned back. I was already heading outside. “What if I find stuff you don’t want to know?”
I shook my head as I reached for the door. “Still doesn’t matter.”
“If you break up, will you go out with me?” She asked as I closed the door. I had to laugh because she was so brash.
“I’m straight!” I yelled and left. She didn’t respond, or I didn’t hear a response either way.
I took the crosstown bus to Mom’s side of town, passing Sawayaka brimming with people and reporters. The bus slowed down just enough for me to see Ana inside, handling groups of customers and keeping reporters outside who were trying to sneak in. Her hair was frizzy and tied back, and she frowned more than smiled.
On the walk home from the bus stop, I thought of all the things I’d miss if Yasahiro moved away. First, I’d miss him. I’d miss eating with him, talking to him, sleeping with him, just sitting on the couch with him. I’d lose my tea shop. I’d lose my painting studio too. There wasn’t enough room to paint at the farmhouse and the new barn wouldn’t have a loft. I would probably lose some of my elderly clients too since I accessed them via Yasahiro’s apartment.
I glanced over at Akiko’s house as I came upon her driveway. She’d drive home tomorrow, Monday, and be back to doing her rounds again on Tuesday.
I pulled my phone from my pocket and texted her, “Hope you’re having a great time at the conference! Things around home have gotten strange and complicated. Check the news.”
While I had the phone in my hand, I dialed up Goro as I walked up the driveway.
“Hey, Mei-chan,” he answered, the sound of papers shuffling in the background. “You and Yasa-kun break up?”
I tripped on a rock in the driveway and came close to throwing my phone on the ground and kicking it.
The Daydreamer Detective Opens a Tea Shop Page 13
