Read Online Eight Million Gods-eARC by Wen Spencer - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Wen Spencer
Ads: Link
English sites for “shinai bag.” It wouldn’t take much to realize that she wanted to buy the bag at Isetan in Kyoto.
What she hadn’t researched on the Internet were the coin lockers. She had sacrificed half an hour and a few hundred yen to find out how they worked. The only place that the exact locker number and pin number for the digital lock was recorded was in her password-protected documents.
She would have to cross through the train station to find her way back to the subway. She only knew one way to go. It would only take her a minute to check the locker.
If the killer had left something for her to find, then he was way beyond slightly deranged. How did she attract such a monolithic loon before her first book came out?
Nikki scurried back through the underground maze linked to Umeda Station. She wasn’t sure how long the locker rental was good for. Eight hours? Only until the last train of the day? A full day? If the killer left something in a locker before he had killed Gregory, it was drawing close to twenty-four hours now.
There was so much she didn’t know.
She felt like she was lost in a dark, shifting ocean. All around her were people she couldn’t understand, signs she couldn’t read, as she tried to find her way through the complex of malls and subway stations. So completely lost.
What the hell was she going to do when she reached the Osaka Station? She had Tanaka’s business card; he had pressed it on her before she left the police headquarters. She could call him and ask him meet her at the station. The digital key meant she didn’t have to mention her little tour of Gregory Winston’s apartment. If she couldn’t get into the locker, she only looked like she was histrionic.
But what if she could get into the locker? What did she tell Tanaka? How did she explain knowing the PIN? If she told Tanaka that it was in her manuscript but not posted to her blog, then he’d know that she’d been hacked, and would probably get a warrant for her computer. Maybe. More likely, he’d just assume she was working with the killer.
Surely there would be security cameras on the lockers. If Tanaka checked the video from them, he would find out who used the locker last. But what if Tanaka didn’t check them? What if he didn’t believe the killer had hacked into her computer files? It was more logical that she knew the PIN number because she had programmed it in. She couldn’t force them to check the security cameras. She could only count on them weighing the circumstantial evidence, and it made her look like an accomplice.
No. She wouldn’t call the police—unless there was a dead body. A corpse would trump everything. There shouldn’t be any dead bodies, though, if the killer was sticking to script. Japanese were lawful people—surely the killer would keep to her story. Of course, maybe the killer was some imported crazed American serial killer; they couldn’t be trusted.
She was probably on a wild goose chase.
Besides, how would the killer get a dead body into the train station unnoticed?
Body parts, on the other hand, were a possibility.
Her stomach was doing cartwheels by the time she found her landmark niche restaurant. It had closed for the night, a steel gate rolled down over it. Beside it were steps up to the street level. There was probably some underground link to Osaka Station from Umeda Station since it seemed like half of Umeda was tied to the underground complex, but she hadn’t found it yet. Instead she went up the steps and across an alley and into Osaka Station.
At least the coin locker that she wanted was right by the door.
She stood eyeing it nervously. The “in use” light was on. Something was in it. She went to the touch-screen control panel for the bank of lockers, hit the English button, and selected the “take out the baggage” option. It asked her for the key she used. She picked the cash payment option of “key number.” It asked for the locker number and
What she hadn’t researched on the Internet were the coin lockers. She had sacrificed half an hour and a few hundred yen to find out how they worked. The only place that the exact locker number and pin number for the digital lock was recorded was in her password-protected documents.
She would have to cross through the train station to find her way back to the subway. She only knew one way to go. It would only take her a minute to check the locker.
If the killer had left something for her to find, then he was way beyond slightly deranged. How did she attract such a monolithic loon before her first book came out?
Nikki scurried back through the underground maze linked to Umeda Station. She wasn’t sure how long the locker rental was good for. Eight hours? Only until the last train of the day? A full day? If the killer left something in a locker before he had killed Gregory, it was drawing close to twenty-four hours now.
There was so much she didn’t know.
She felt like she was lost in a dark, shifting ocean. All around her were people she couldn’t understand, signs she couldn’t read, as she tried to find her way through the complex of malls and subway stations. So completely lost.
What the hell was she going to do when she reached the Osaka Station? She had Tanaka’s business card; he had pressed it on her before she left the police headquarters. She could call him and ask him meet her at the station. The digital key meant she didn’t have to mention her little tour of Gregory Winston’s apartment. If she couldn’t get into the locker, she only looked like she was histrionic.
But what if she could get into the locker? What did she tell Tanaka? How did she explain knowing the PIN? If she told Tanaka that it was in her manuscript but not posted to her blog, then he’d know that she’d been hacked, and would probably get a warrant for her computer. Maybe. More likely, he’d just assume she was working with the killer.
Surely there would be security cameras on the lockers. If Tanaka checked the video from them, he would find out who used the locker last. But what if Tanaka didn’t check them? What if he didn’t believe the killer had hacked into her computer files? It was more logical that she knew the PIN number because she had programmed it in. She couldn’t force them to check the security cameras. She could only count on them weighing the circumstantial evidence, and it made her look like an accomplice.
No. She wouldn’t call the police—unless there was a dead body. A corpse would trump everything. There shouldn’t be any dead bodies, though, if the killer was sticking to script. Japanese were lawful people—surely the killer would keep to her story. Of course, maybe the killer was some imported crazed American serial killer; they couldn’t be trusted.
She was probably on a wild goose chase.
Besides, how would the killer get a dead body into the train station unnoticed?
Body parts, on the other hand, were a possibility.
Her stomach was doing cartwheels by the time she found her landmark niche restaurant. It had closed for the night, a steel gate rolled down over it. Beside it were steps up to the street level. There was probably some underground link to Osaka Station from Umeda Station since it seemed like half of Umeda was tied to the underground complex, but she hadn’t found it yet. Instead she went up the steps and across an alley and into Osaka Station.
At least the coin locker that she wanted was right by the door.
She stood eyeing it nervously. The “in use” light was on. Something was in it. She went to the touch-screen control panel for the bank of lockers, hit the English button, and selected the “take out the baggage” option. It asked her for the key she used. She picked the cash payment option of “key number.” It asked for the locker number and
Similar Books
