Read Online Eight Million Gods-eARC by Wen Spencer - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Wen Spencer
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until she realized that the police might have taken it as evidence.
What else could point to the killer having had access to her files? She crept through the apartment, running her flashlight over the contents. It was a clean, simple place, much as she had imagined it. Sleek modern furniture mixed with Japanese antiques in a way that Nikki wished she had the money to emulate. She would give her eyeteeth for the lacquered sword tansu that Gregory was using as a coffee table or the beautiful wedding kimono on the wall.
In the bedroom was a tall tansu with a dozen drawers standing in as a dresser. In the bottommost drawer was a coil of heavy jute rope. She eyed it without touching it. George had a sick little fetish for tying up schoolgirls; it was what truly lay behind his rape of Yuuka’s body. He liked his sexual partners young and helpless. With Yuuka, he’d discovered the ultimate in helplessness was dead.
Did Gregory have the same fetish or had the killer put this here? The rope was the type used in the Japanese ancient practice of bondage called kinbaku . She had learned much more than she wanted while researching George’s scenes. She closed the drawer without being able to decide what it meant in terms of her stalker.
She was about to give up when she saw Isetan Department Store bag in the bedroom trash can. She stared at it, feeling sick. There wasn’t an Isetan in Osaka. There was one in Kyoto, anchoring down half of the sprawling train station. George had gone to Kyoto to steal an antique samurai sword enshrined at a local temple. When he reached the train station, he realized that he had no plan on how to get the sword back to Osaka. He stopped at Isetan’s and bought a case used by high school students to carry wooden practice swords to and from school.
After he’d stolen the sword and killed Yuuka, he’d taken a crowded express train back to Osaka with the case slung across his shoulders. The whole trip he felt as if he was being watched. By the time he reached Osaka, he wanted to be rid of the incriminating sword, so he left it in one of the coin lockers at the train station. It wasn’t until he reached his apartment that he realized he still had the Isetan bag folded up in his pocket. He’d taken it out and tossed it in the bedroom trash can where it seemed to taunt him with his guilt.
To anyone else, it was just a simple plastic bag. To Nikki, it was like the blood on Lady Macbeth’s hands. Out, damn’d spot. Out, I say!
Had Gregory just coincidently been at Kyoto and shopped at Isetan or had his killer left the bag in the trash, slavishly recreating her book? She used facial tissues as impromptu gloves and carefully took it out of the trash. Inside was a sales receipt. It was dated Saturday, a few hours before Gregory had been killed. She took out her phone, scanned the kanji of the item bought and ran it through her translation app. Bamboo sword bag.
She dropped the receipt in horror, and then hastily picked it back up with the tissue, fumbled it back into the Isetan bag, and shoved both into the bedroom trash can. A minute later she was out of the apartment, and a minute after that, running away from the building.
“Who in fucking hell is this crazy! What kind of whacko would go through that much fucking trouble? Go to Kyoto, buy a bag . . .”
Oh god, what else had he done in Kyoto?
She dug out her ballpoint pen and stood clicking it and practiced her deep breathing as she tried to think in some calm, rational way.
Data on her Internet searches went onto the net and came back to her. When she was just researching her novel, she never bothered to use a proxy service to disguise her apartment’s IP address. Anyone could have intercepted her searches and deduced information. She’d tried several times to pull up “Isetan Kyoto Fukuro Shinai ” before discovering it didn’t mean “bag for bamboo sword” but “bamboo sword wrapped with leather.” After that, she’d searched
What else could point to the killer having had access to her files? She crept through the apartment, running her flashlight over the contents. It was a clean, simple place, much as she had imagined it. Sleek modern furniture mixed with Japanese antiques in a way that Nikki wished she had the money to emulate. She would give her eyeteeth for the lacquered sword tansu that Gregory was using as a coffee table or the beautiful wedding kimono on the wall.
In the bedroom was a tall tansu with a dozen drawers standing in as a dresser. In the bottommost drawer was a coil of heavy jute rope. She eyed it without touching it. George had a sick little fetish for tying up schoolgirls; it was what truly lay behind his rape of Yuuka’s body. He liked his sexual partners young and helpless. With Yuuka, he’d discovered the ultimate in helplessness was dead.
Did Gregory have the same fetish or had the killer put this here? The rope was the type used in the Japanese ancient practice of bondage called kinbaku . She had learned much more than she wanted while researching George’s scenes. She closed the drawer without being able to decide what it meant in terms of her stalker.
She was about to give up when she saw Isetan Department Store bag in the bedroom trash can. She stared at it, feeling sick. There wasn’t an Isetan in Osaka. There was one in Kyoto, anchoring down half of the sprawling train station. George had gone to Kyoto to steal an antique samurai sword enshrined at a local temple. When he reached the train station, he realized that he had no plan on how to get the sword back to Osaka. He stopped at Isetan’s and bought a case used by high school students to carry wooden practice swords to and from school.
After he’d stolen the sword and killed Yuuka, he’d taken a crowded express train back to Osaka with the case slung across his shoulders. The whole trip he felt as if he was being watched. By the time he reached Osaka, he wanted to be rid of the incriminating sword, so he left it in one of the coin lockers at the train station. It wasn’t until he reached his apartment that he realized he still had the Isetan bag folded up in his pocket. He’d taken it out and tossed it in the bedroom trash can where it seemed to taunt him with his guilt.
To anyone else, it was just a simple plastic bag. To Nikki, it was like the blood on Lady Macbeth’s hands. Out, damn’d spot. Out, I say!
Had Gregory just coincidently been at Kyoto and shopped at Isetan or had his killer left the bag in the trash, slavishly recreating her book? She used facial tissues as impromptu gloves and carefully took it out of the trash. Inside was a sales receipt. It was dated Saturday, a few hours before Gregory had been killed. She took out her phone, scanned the kanji of the item bought and ran it through her translation app. Bamboo sword bag.
She dropped the receipt in horror, and then hastily picked it back up with the tissue, fumbled it back into the Isetan bag, and shoved both into the bedroom trash can. A minute later she was out of the apartment, and a minute after that, running away from the building.
“Who in fucking hell is this crazy! What kind of whacko would go through that much fucking trouble? Go to Kyoto, buy a bag . . .”
Oh god, what else had he done in Kyoto?
She dug out her ballpoint pen and stood clicking it and practiced her deep breathing as she tried to think in some calm, rational way.
Data on her Internet searches went onto the net and came back to her. When she was just researching her novel, she never bothered to use a proxy service to disguise her apartment’s IP address. Anyone could have intercepted her searches and deduced information. She’d tried several times to pull up “Isetan Kyoto Fukuro Shinai ” before discovering it didn’t mean “bag for bamboo sword” but “bamboo sword wrapped with leather.” After that, she’d searched
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