“I suppose.” Imai stood straighter, swaying a bit until Michiko put her arm around his waist. He let her help him off with his boots near the front door, then let her lead him to the guest room. “It’s warm in here,” he said as he shrugged out of his leather jacket and silk shirt. He undid his belt, then stopped to look at Michiko. “You can go now.” She didn’t respond, so he repeated it.
“Of course, Imai-san. I’ll leave the door ajar in case you need anything.”
“Do me a favor,” he said before she exited. “Call the house and make sure Kim is all right.”
Michiko smiled. “Oh, don’t worry; I’ll see she’s taken care of.”
* * * * *
Kim slowly became aware of a tingling sensation in her arm. She tried to move it and realized she was lying face down on a concrete floor, her arm pinned underneath her. She blinked a few times, her eyes coming into focus while her thoughts raced to catch up.
The concert…Imai’s parents…wine…
Kim sat up. “Izumi, that bitch.” The effects of the drugged liquor seemed to be wearing off at least. Now if only she could figure out where the hell she was.
“Mom?”
Kim whipped around, regretting the quick motion as soon as she felt a wave of dizziness wash over her. For the moment, worry replaced her anger as she recognized her daughter’s frightened voice. “Mandy!”
She hugged her crying daughter to her, pulling back when Mandy calmed a bit. “Are you all right? Did she drug you, too?”
Mandy shook her head. “Some guy brought me here. He said Miji-san sent him to give me a ride to the concert. I was coming to see you.”
She began crying again and Kim hugged her close. “It’ll be all right, honey.” As soon as I figure out what the hell is going on.
Kim glanced around them, trying to get a better sense of where they were. Only one of the overhead lamps had a working light bulb, giving off a dirty, grayish glow that couldn’t chase away all the shadows in the room. It looked like they were in a large, abandoned warehouse, with a few scattered crates and water-stained boxes. The smell of old fish permeated the air, as did the salty scent of the ocean.
Behind them, a door creaked open. Kim looked over her shoulder as three men entered the room. She shifted her body protectively to shield Mandy. One of them stepped forward, a long rope dangling from his hand.
“Stay away from us,” Kim warned. If they didn’t understand the language, they had to get the meaning in the tone of her voice.
The man raised one of his thick eyebrows, but answered in heavily accented English. “Oh, yeah? What could you do about it?”
“More than you’d expect,” she said bravely, knowing that her meager self defense course probably hadn’t taught her much that she’d remember after all these years.
The man laughed and said something in Japanese to his cohorts, who also laughed. Mandy clutched the back of her blouse. “Mom, please don’t piss them off.”
“I won’t, but I don’t plan to be some weepy victim either. I won’t let them hurt you.”
The man ordered them to stand, then bound them side by side and marched them through the warehouse to a grimy freight elevator. He took them up a floor and pushed them into a small office. It had a sofa, a small attached restroom, and a new-looking television. The windows were all grated and boarded from the outside. A scratched steel desk stood in the corner with a few soft drink cans and packs of instant ramen and a few pieces of fruit.
“The food was my idea,” the man said flashing a smile that showed off one gold tooth. “If Chiko-chan had her way you’d starve first.”
“Why is she doing this? She’s crazy. You know that, don’t you?”
“Mom,” Mandy whispered as the man withdrew a large knife from the breast pocket of his jacket.
“I’ll give her your regards, Donovan-san,” the man said. He whipped the knife down, making both women shriek, but the blade cut only the rope where the knot was fastened. The rope fell and the man turned away. “Have fun,” he said with a smirk as he closed and locked the door.
The man’s footsteps faded down the hall and the loud, grinding sound of the elevator motor started up again.
“What do they want?” Mandy asked with scared sob. “Why are they doing this?”
“I don’t know why exactly, but that Izumi woman is behind all this.” Kim went to the door, testing the lock just in case. She went window by window, unlocking and shoving them up, grabbing at the grates, peeking through the small gaps between the outer boards, looking for any possible way they could get out or flag someone down for help.
Outside there was nothing but a huge empty lot enclosed in a barbed wire fence. More broken, moldy crates and rusty machinery littered the lot. City lights shone in the far distance past the edge of the shipping yard. There were no security guards, no workers. No one.
“Michiko?” Mandy sat down on the edge of the desk, wrapping her arms around her waist. “But why?”
“I think she’s a very sick woman,” Kim said as she closed the last window. She rested her forehead against the glass and shivered. She went to the sofa and hugged her daughter and finally realized that her engagement ring was gone. That bitch had probably taken it to pay those goons.
“Someone’s going to realize we’re missing, right?” Mandy asked.
“Imai.” Kim closed her eyes and hugged Mandy tighter. “He’ll realize something’s wrong and help us.” He has to.
* * * * *
“Oh, shit,” Imai muttered when he saw the police cars in front of his house. “Kim!” He jumped out even before Michiko pulled to a complete stop. Mrs. Nimura was in the front hall with the officers taking a report. “Where’s Kim? What happened? Is she all right?”
The housekeeper twisted the edges of the apron she wore. “Imai-san, thank goodness you’re here. I tried calling, but your cell phone was off.”
“Where’s Kim? Is she all right?”
“I don’t know where she is. The guesthouse is ruined. I think her things are gone. Most of them anyway.”
A detective called to Imai as he came down the stairs with a uniformed officer. He identified himself as Inspector Hirayama.
“What’s going on? Where’s my fiancée?”
Hirayama looked at his notepad. “That would be the American woman? Kim Donovan?”
“Yes. Where is she?”
“We don’t know, but we’re looking for her. Her belongings, including her passport, all appear to have been removed.”
“Were we robbed?”
Hirayama’s brow furrowed. “It doesn’t’ appear that way, though I’ll need you to do an inventory to be certain. It appears that vandalism is the main crime here and in the guesthouse.”
“Vandalism? Who in the hell ‑‑”
“I told you last night, Imai-san,” Michiko said from behind Imai. “I told you that woman was drunk and out of control.”
“That would be Miss Donovan?” the inspector asked.
“Yes,” Michiko said.
“And you are?”
“Michiko Izumi. I’m Assistant Vice President of Shimizu’s-san’s recording label.”
“This is bullshit,” Imai grumbled before stalking off to see the guesthouse.
Michiko gave a long, pained sigh and shook her head. “I knew his being involved with that woman would end badly.”
Mrs. Nimura tried to speak, but Hirayama interrupted. “Let’s go into the living room and you can tell me all about her.”
Chapter Twenty-one
“How’s he been?” Jun asked Toru when he joined him and Koji for a late drink at their apartment.
Toru took a long sip of the beer and put his feet up on the coffee table. “He’s been giving the fans their money’s worth, but I can tell his heart’s not in it. You know that look he gets in his eyes when he’s feeling the music?” Koji and Jun nodded. “It’s not there. It’s like he never had it at all.”
“Damn,” Jun said. He turned to Koji.
“You were friendly with her. What do you think happened?”
Koji shrugged. “I have no idea. Imai let her have it backstage when his father came and bitched at him, but I’m sure they could have worked it out. I can’t imagine why she took off so soon.”
“And trashed his place?” Toru asked. “I think that really hurt him, even though it was just the guesthouse and the big TV in the living room.”
“That was weird,” Jun said. “At least she didn’t steal his shit, too.”
Koji set his beer aside. “It doesn’t make any sense.” He looked to Toru. “Did he try calling L.A.? I guess that’s where she went.”
“He called from Kyoto and Nagoya and Osaka but got no answer at her place. Last night in Yokohama he called the woman she used to work for and was told she hadn’t heard from Kim at all. She was probably just covering for her.” Toru finished his beer and looked over the sheets of new music his band mates had been working on while he’d been traveling with Imai. “I think after the last concert on Friday he might fly over to try and talk to her in person.”
“Or I won’t bother.”
They turned to find Imai standing in the doorway of the apartment, his arms folded across his chest and a folder in one hand. “Imai-san?” Koji glanced at Jun seated next to him on the sofa. Jun frowned and took another swallow from his beer.
“Letting bad feelings go on like this between you and Kim isn’t a good idea,” Jun said. “Trust me, I know.”
“Is that the kind of advice that would’ve saved your marriage, Jun?” Imai said bluntly. “Or maybe there were other things wrong between you and Rumiko?”
“That’s not fair.” Koji glared at Imai.
“But it’s true enough,” Jun admitted quietly. “Maybe Imai thinks whatever he shared with Kim is over.”
Toru cleared his throat to break the awkward silence among the four friends. “Didn’t you want to rest in tonight?” he asked Imai.
“I couldn’t sleep.” Imai looked down at the folder, a shadow falling over his face as it had throughout most of the concert. “I finished writing a song for Friday. I wanted to run over the instrumental arrangement with the three of you.”
He set the folder on the table before his friends then went over to take Koji’s acoustic guitar from its stand. Perching on the arm of a chair, Imai began to play the new ballad while his friends looked over the sheet music and exchanged glances with each other as they read the lyrics.
The pain in the words was palpable, and they’d all been in the same frame of mind at one time or another, pouring their very souls into the words and music in a vain attempt to lessen the emotions tearing them apart from within.
“It’s a great song, Imai,” Toru said. “It will be a big hit for you. Bigger than Orange Moon was for us.”
Imai mumbled something, then set aside the guitar and left without further comment. Toru started to go after him, but Jun stopped him. “He needs some time, that’s all. He’ll be fine.”
* * * * *
The following morning Michiko Izumi smiled to herself as she rang the doorbell of Imai’s house and brushed past the doting old housekeeper. “I have a package for him ‑‑ where is he?”
“In his room. He asked not to be disturbed. I’ll take it up.”
Michiko hit the older woman with a harsh look. “I’m not a disruption, and you can plan on me being around here more. A lot more.”
Reaching the top of the stairs, Michiko paused before a large framed photo and checked her reflection in the glass, making certain her expression was one of concern and sadness before knocking on the bedroom door and entering.
Naked to the waist, a bottle of wine in his hand, Imai was sitting in bed watching his latest promotional video clip ‑‑ the one with that fat American whore. Michiko ground her molars together a moment, her fingers tightly gripping the padded overnight mail envelope in her hands. “Imai-san?”
“Go away,” he said, never taking his eyes from the screen.
“A package came to the office for you.”
“I don’t give a shit.”
“It’s from Los Angeles,” she said softly, noting the way the muscles of his toned chest and arms tensed before he clumsily set the wine bottle on the nightstand, not caring that it toppled over leaving a large bloodlike stain on the pale carpet.
He nearly bowled her over in his haste to grab the envelope and tear it open. Inside was another small envelope and inside that a ring. The ring he’d given that whore. His shoulders slumped as he stood and stared at it
“Is there no note, Imai-san?”
“Get out,” he growled without looking up from the glittering ring.
“But, Imai-san ‑‑”
“Get the fuck out!”
“Please call me if you need me,” Michiko said softly. “I’ll check on you later. I’m so sorry, Imai-san, but perhaps it’s for the best.” He said nothing, just kept staring at that ring, but Michiko had to struggle to contain her happiness as she exited the room. The woman was dead to his heart now, and soon she’d be dead for good.
* * * * *
“You’re shitting us, To-chan,” Koji said, trying to lighten his tone as Toru perched on the edge of the table in the control room of the recording studio.
Toru’s expression was grim as he took a long drag of his cigarette. “I’m not. He had it all cut off after he got that engagement ring back.” Toru stubbed out the cigarette. “Nimura-san said he’s not left his room since he brought that music over the other day. She said he’s been drinking up a storm, too.”
“Shit,” Jun muttered.
“Damn,” Koji whispered. It was a crazy quirk, but Imai’s hair was like an extension of the man himself, an homage of sorts to his proud samurai heritage. For him to have it all cut off was unbelievable. It was as if he were a modern-day warrior acknowledging the ultimate defeat not only as a soldier but also as a man. It was as if he were giving up, ready to die.
Koji rubbed his hand across his lover’s back. “Jun, can’t you call Rumiko and ask her to go see Kim-san? “
“I don’t know, Koj. Should we get involved?”
“How can we not?” Toru said.
* * * * *
The four members of ChildsPrey were passing the time late that night by going over a new song when the sound engineer broke in over the loudspeaker. “Jun-san, a call for you from America.”
Koji, Toru, and Kyoru followed Jun and waited while he spoke to his ex-wife. “Well?” Koji asked when Jun hung up the studio phone.
“The manager of Kim-san’s building said she hasn’t been back since she left, and she didn’t send him the rent check for this month. He said she and her daughter have lived there for almost ten years and never once have they been so much as a single day late with payment. Rumiko went to the hair salon of Kim-san’s friend, and she swore she wasn’t giving Imai a brush off. She doesn’t know where Kim is, hasn’t heard a word, and the daughter’s friends have even called because Mandy isn’t returning their messages either.”
They all looked at Kyoru. “Miji said Mandy-chan just up and quit. Sent him a text message on his phone last week, the day after that photo shoot when I talked to her.” The lithe drummer paused and looked at his friends. “This is strange.”
“But Kim sent the ring back to Imai from Los Angeles, right?” Jun asked Toru.
Toru shrugged. “That’s what he said. He said she sent it through the L.A. office.”
“But why not send it to him directly?” Jun frowned. He turned to Koji and touched his lover’s shoulder. “Does any of this make sense? Aside from Imai-kun, you’re closest to her.”
Koji shook his head. “It doesn’t make any sense at all.” He bit down on his lower lip. “Donovan-san is not a cold person like that. I don’t know everything that went on between them the night of the concert, but I do know they were very much in love.”
The four men exchanged concerned looks. Each of them had a dear one in their lives they couldn’t bear t
o be without ‑‑ Kyoru had his wife and Toru had Hideki, while Koji and Jun had each other. Like any relationship, they all went through ups and downs. But the four men would do anything for their lovers, and the same held true vice versa.
It couldn’t be any different for Kim-san, not when it was so obvious by how happy Imai had been that the couple loved each other deeply.
“What else was strange,” Toru said, “was that Kim-san apparently wrecked the place ‑‑ the guesthouse and part of the living room in the main house. Smashed the plasma TVs, threw the CDs and DVDs around. Nimura-san said Michiko Izumi told the police Kim had been violent when she brought her home that night.”
The men all exchanged skeptical glances.
“Should we call the police?” Kyoru asked. “Report her and her daughter as missing persons?”
“We have no proof though,” Jun said. “Would they check with the airlines on a hunch? I doubt they’d give us any information if we went calling around Narita.”
“Nakamura could find out,” Toru said. “That man has a lot of influential friends, and I swear he owns half of Tokyo.”
“Sounds like a good idea.” Jun gave a short nod.
Toru stubbed out his cigarette in the ashtray next to him and reached for his cell phone. He scrolled through the saved numbers to find Nakamura’s direct line, then glanced up at his band mates. “Should we tell Imai?”
Everyone looked to Jun, who folded his arms across his chest. “We don’t know for sure that anything’s wrong yet,” he said. “Tonight’s his last concert, and we all know it’s the biggest stop on the tour. I don’t want to make him worry unnecessarily, when you consider how hard the rest of the shows have been for him, especially since this one is being televised live.”
* * * * *
Ten days. It had been ten long, frightening days since she and Mandy had been brought here by the mafia associates of that crazy bitch, Michiko Izumi. Kim sipped the cold tea leftover since the morning and looked at her daughter, who stared at the flickering screen of the television after the mobster turned the power on for the night.
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