Kumi followed me up the stairs, huffing and puffing by the time she hit the first landing.
“You would think I never got out and exercised or something.” She leaned against the wall, and her hand that clutched the railing turned white.
“Are you going to be all right?” Kayo scanned her from head to toe. “Or should I be ready to call Goro?”
“No. Good god, do you want us all in trouble?” Kumi rolled her eyes at Kayo and kept climbing. “I’ll be fine. I’m just a bit pregnant.”
“Five months is more than ‘a bit.’”
I ignored them both, my hand shaking as I tried to slip the key in the lock for Yasahiro’s apartment. I hadn’t been there in two days, and I dreaded what might be on the other side of the door.
What would I see? My life as it was, never to be that way again? Or my future, ripped to shreds?
I took a deep breath before stepping inside. Deep breaths were pretty much the only thing left at this point.
Letting all the air from my lungs out in one swift exhale, I let my shoulders fall in relief. The apartment looked exactly the same as when I left. As I took off my shoes, I glanced at Yasahiro’s bedroom and noticed his computer was missing. That was the only difference I could see.
“Huh. I expected the place to be ransacked,” I said, dropping my keys in the bowl to the left of the door.
Kayo shook her head as she set her shoes to the side. “It’s not a crime scene. We confiscated the computer, the filing cabinet, and all the knives since Cheung was killed with a sharp object. And the team did a cursory search, but they were careful not to disturb much.”
Kumi huffed as she pulled off her ankle boots. “You know Goro. He’s a stickler for details.” She wiped the sweat from her brow as she peeled off her coat and hung it up. “Okay, you two. Sit down. It’s story time.”
Kayo and I sat next to each other on the couch, both of us shrugging our shoulders at each other. We had no idea what was going on, but if this would help clear Yasahiro, I would listen to Kumi talk for years if I had to.
Kumi paced the room, wiping sweat away from the back of her neck with one hand, the other resting on her belly.
“All right. Where should I start?”
Kayo sat back in the couch, her arms crossed. “Start at the beginning.”
“The beginning is hard to pinpoint. You know we’re all great friends. Me, Goro, Mei, and Yasahiro, right?” Kayo nodded. “And I always told Yasahiro that if he needed anything, he should come to me. I know a lot of people in town, and I figured I could help out. I love Sawayaka, and the business it’s brought in, so I wanted to be helpful.” She turned to me, her hands together in prayer position. “Really, Mei. I figured helping him was helping you.”
“Um, sure. Yeah. That’s fine. You know I’m not jealous or anything.” I laughed because if I trusted anyone, it was Kumi. I’d been jealous of Amanda for a few months, but that had dissipated as I worked on being a better person. I’d never had a bad thought about Kumi ever.
Her face collapsed in sadness, and her eyes grew teary. The skin on my arms prickled in fear. What was she holding back?
“I’m so, so, so sorry you have to hear about this from me and not Yasahiro.”
I felt woozy, my head losing its grip on gravity.
“What? Spit it out before I faint.”
She worried her hands together and continued. “Yasahiro came to me about two months ago while I was working alone at the bathhouse.” She closed her eyes. “He wanted to propose to you, and he wanted me and Akiko to come with him to help him pick out the ring.”
Everything stopped. I stopped breathing, and Kayo and Kumi stared at me. Propose? I didn’t even understand the word, my brain was so stuck.
Kumi broke the spell by coming to the couch. “He was, is, so in love with you.” Tears fell down her face, but I did nothing. Shock had paralyzed me. Yasahiro was going to propose to me? “He went on and on how it was his destiny to find Chikata, find your mother, and meet you. I mean, he said the most romantic things I’d ever heard. Better than a drama.”
This was when I laughed. Hormones had obviously grabbed hold of Kumi’s brain and dragged it through the streets. I believed Yasahiro said sweet things about me, but surely she was blowing this out of proportion because she was pregnant and watching NHK dramas every night before bed.
“Don’t you dare laugh,” she said, pointing at me. I pressed my hand to my lips and looked at Kayo. She sat forward with her chin in her hands, listening to us both. “I’m telling you the truth!”
“I — I kind of believe you? He was going to propose to me? But… he had never said anything to me.” I stood up to face her. “We never talked about what we would do if we got married, or what kind of life we wanted, or even if we would have kids.” I threw my hands up in the air. “Kumi, this better not be a joke.”
“It. Isn’t,” she growled between clenched teeth. “Sit. Back. Down.”
I considered saying no and leaving, but something told me not to mess with her.
“Don’t even tell me you never talked about these things. I witnessed those conversations for myself!” Her voice rose, and I sat farther away from her. “All our dates, you talked about opening your tea shop, how you wanted to own the family house someday, how you wanted to take care of your mom, and what did Yasahiro do?”
I thought back to those dinner dates. “He agreed with me?” I pressed my fingers to my lips as I inhaled. I was so blind. “He said those were the things he would want too.” I always thought he meant he wanted to own his family’s house and take care of his mother. That’s the tradition in Japan. A woman married into a man’s family and then she took care of his parents. Not the other way around. But Yasahiro had an older brother. He wouldn’t be expected to do this.
Kumi nodded her head. “Now you see it, right?” I turned my face from her to hide my embarrassment. I was a fool for not seeing it before.
“He made me promise not to tell anyone. I couldn’t even tell Mom or Goro. Both of them would have cracked under the pressure. They’re too weak for secrets.” This made her laugh. She swayed side to side, relieving pain in her hips. “I coordinated with Akiko, and we went to Tokyo together one morning while you were working with your mom. Yasahiro had a jeweler all picked out. He was adamant that the ring be perfect. He said you saw Amanda’s ring, so yours would have to be different. The ring would need to be you.”
I didn’t want to cry in front of Kayo who was silent through this whole personal story. I regretted bringing her, but she was a police officer investigating Yasahiro. It needed to be done.
“We all agreed on a setting, and he spent fifteen thousand dollars US on the whole thing.”
The blood drained from my face as I thought about the magnitude of that money. He had probably sold off property in the last few months to get it… to spend it on me! On a ring! That I would’ve told him to return because that was too much money. Way too much.
I glanced at Kayo, and she shrugged. “The man has excellent taste, obviously.” She waved at his apartment. “And while it’s a damned good story, there’s no evidence to support he used the money for an engagement ring.” She stood up, swiping out the creases in her dress pants. “We found no bills of sale, no receipts, no communications between you all or a jeweler. I’m sorry, Kumi. I just don’t believe this.”
She walked past Kumi, and my lungs shrank, unable to expand again. Kumi grabbed Kayo’s arm, looking her in the eye.
“It’s not a lie. We didn’t text about the plans because he was afraid Mei would see the texts and wonder what was going on. We only called each other, maybe just a few times. Otherwise, I made the plans in person.” She looked at me. “I didn’t want to screw it up. You deserved that proposal from him. Deserved it. After everything you’ve done for him and for all of us. And now I’ve gone and destroyed your proposal. I’m sorry.”
She sniffed up, letting go of Kayo.
“There was a bill of sale. He paid with a cashier’s check, and they gave him change in cash. Then he had to wait for the setting to be finished. He picked the ring up last week and was going to propose in Beppu after you were done with your relief work in Kumamoto.”
Beppu. My lips formed the word. I remembered the look of sheer disappointment on his face when I told him to cancel the trip because of Amanda’s reappearance. My throat closed up, emotion wringing it tight.
Kayo narrowed her eyes at Kumi. “So where is it?”
Kumi shook her head. “It must be somewhere here, in this apartment. I asked the head sous chef at Sawayaka if there was anything in the safe there, and he said nothing out of the ordinary.” She looked left and right. “So it must be here.”
“Can’t we just ask him now?” I pleaded. I wanted to see him, touch his face, hold his hand, and ask him quietly about this before anyone else got involved. What if he wanted to go back on his proposal?
Kayo shook her head. “Honestly, if I don’t see a ring, I’m not saying anything about this. No offense, Mei. It’s just hard to believe.” She was a skeptic which was something I normally liked about her. Today, not so much.
Regardless, we had to do something. My engagement ring was somewhere in Yasahiro’s apartment.
I needed to repeat that to myself. My engagement ring was in Yasahiro’s apartment!
“We need to find it now.” Kumi rolled up her sleeves. “Let’s find the ring and the receipt, and with that, they can let Yasahiro go and get on with finding the real killer. I’m not letting you go through the pregnancy on your own…” Her voice trailed off as my face heated up.
“You’re pregnant too?” Kayo’s eyes were wide.
Kumi swore. “Dammit.” She screamed at the ceiling, but I smiled and hugged her. She’d had too many secrets to keep. I knew I couldn’t trust Goro with that one. It was only a matter of time.
“It’s okay. Let’s get to searching.”
The search began in earnest immediately. Even Kayo got in on the fun after phoning Goro to let him know what was going on. I could hear him yelling into the phone from the other room as Kumi and I searched the bathroom.
“Goro sounds pissed,” I whispered to Kumi, but she waved me off.
“He’s good at being loud. I always told him he would have made a better football or baseball coach than a police officer.”
Locating Yasahiro’s travel kit in the bottom drawer of his bathroom vanity, I unzipped it and poured everything on the counter. Nothing but bath supplies. I sighed as I looked at the bathroom. It would take days to put this place back together. Kumi had pulled every towel out of the linen closet and found my chocolate stash. It’s a good thing I had taken the pepper spray and stun gun out the other day. They were in my purse.
“He can always coach when your kid gets bigger,” I said, returning everything to the kit.
Her face brightened with a smile. “Yeah. I guess you’re right.”
She picked up each pile of towels and pushed them back into the linen closet. I tried not to think about how I would have to refold all the towels to make them fit on the shelves properly. I was not a neat and tidy person, but everyone around me was. Straightening and cleaning were my jobs, between home, Yasahiro’s apartment, and my elderly clients. It took a while to get used to living in such a pristine place, but I ended up craving the normality of order.
I opened the last two drawers in the vanity and didn’t find anything.
“I don’t think it’s in the bathroom.” I paused for a moment as I heard Kayo open the cabinets in the kitchen and pull out pots and pans. She was off the phone and busy searching.
“Bedroom?” Kumi asked, gesturing to the other door. I was hoping we wouldn’t have to search the bedroom. Yasahiro was a private man. Even I didn’t just search through his things, and I was dating him.
“Sure. I guess.” I stood there, not wanting to move on. I believed Kumi’s story, that there was an engagement ring waiting for me, but guilt pressed me down. This was not the way Yasahiro had intended for things to happen.
“Well, don’t just stand there. Let’s go. This is not my house, so you take the lead.”
“Fine,” I said, opening the door from the bathroom to the bedroom. “You search his desk, and I’ll start underneath the bed.”
Yasahiro kept all his off-season clothes and a firebox under the bed. I rummaged through the sweaters and heavy pants, then I put the combination into the firebox and opened it. I held my breath as I shuffled through the documents inside, but I came up empty-handed. I thought for sure if he was going to keep the ring anywhere, it would be in the firebox. It was the safest place for something so expensive, even though I knew the combination. Still, I wouldn’t have gone in there unless there was an emergency.
Anger and frustration warred in my chest, heating my body and making me sweat. I’d had just enough of this.
I slammed the box shut and shoved everything back under the bed.
“Why didn’t he just propose when he got the damn ring?” I yelled at the room. “Then we wouldn’t be in this mess right now!”
Kumi was bent over the bottom drawer of the desk. “Don’t get all mad and upset right now. We don’t have time for that.”
“It must be in here.” I headed straight for Yasahiro’s dresser.
Ripping his shirts from the drawers, I gave up any pretense of being careful or respectful. It was time to either find the ring or tear the place apart trying. This was the only thing left that I could control. Searching Amanda’s emails, texts, and photos made me depressed and angry. No one wanted to listen to me, and without evidence, I doubted they ever would.
Shirts, shorts, underwear, and socks all ended up on the bed as I pulled his entire dresser apart. But as each drawer emptied, hope fizzled out. Where was it?
I wiped sweat from my upper lip and looked around. Ignoring the growing hunger in my belly, I went for the standing closet. This was where I kept the extra money, passports, and anything else I’d need for a quick getaway, all in the false bottom. I knew the ring wasn’t in there or else I would’ve seen it the other day. But I pulled the false bottom open anyway and checked. Nope. He was too smart for that.
I yanked each of his suits from the closet, tossing them in their dry cleaner bags to the bed. One, two, ten suits. The eleventh one went on top of the pile and slid straight off to the floor.
Thunk.
Both Kumi and I froze before turning slowly to the bed. She stepped away from the desk as I reached for the suit with shaking hands. The dark gray jacket and pants were custom-made in Hong Kong, one of Yasahiro’s favorite suits. I picked it off the floor, and it felt heavier than all the rest.
I snaked my hand up under the plastic and into the front pocket of the jacket. My fingers closed around a velvet box, and my heart raced as I pulled it back out.
“She found it,” Kumi yelled into the kitchen. Kayo dropped whatever she was doing and came into the bedroom. Her eyes skipped over the bed and the mess I’d made before coming to rest on the box in my hand.
The hinges creaked as I opened it. The engagement ring sat in black velvet, winking in the light of the overhead lamp. He’d picked the perfect ring, a set of three diamonds set in platinum. Delicate filigree in a water motif edged the diamonds on either side.
Kayo whistled. “That’s gotta be at least two or three carats. Where did you find it?”
I couldn’t move or speak. All I could do was stare. He knew how much I loved water. I loved the bathhouse, the onsens, and going to the shore. I often talked about living near the sea someday, and how I wanted to learn to sail. He’d listened. All those nights we spent together talking of our dreams before sleep, he had listened.
Kumi handed Yasahiro’s suit to Kayo, and Kayo searched the pockets. In the inside pocket, she found the bill of sale.
“Congratulations, Mei,” she said, bowing with a wide smile. “Looks like you’ll be married in no time. Are you going to try it on?”
“Should I?” I looked at them both. This was so unusual, and I wondered if I should just hand it over to the police.
Kayo thought for a moment, her eyes turning to the ceiling. “As far as I’m concerned, the ring belongs to you and Yasahiro. So put it on and wear it. Own it. That’s the best way to convince the chief. This” — she lifted the bill of sale — “is what I need.”
I took the ring from the box and slipped it onto my left ring finger. The ring glowed in the light, and I tilted it back and forth to catch the facets of the diamonds and make them sparkle. It was the single most beautiful thing I’d ever seen, and it was meant for me! The fitting was a little loose, but whatever. I was sure I’d gain weight over the next few months, if only I could keep food down.
“It’s over for us, Mei… I can’t bring you down with me.” Yasahiro’s last words punched me in the gut, and my body chilled.
“What if… What if he’s changed his mind?” I tore my eyes from the ring and watched both Kayo and Kumi’s faces fall. “He broke up with me. The other day. Told me he needed to cut ties with me so I wouldn’t be dragged into this mess.” Tears blurred the shiny ring into a shiny blob. “What if he feels like his reputation has been ruined enough that he’ll want to leave?”
Both women had nothing to say. Kayo’s mouth opened but she couldn’t speak. I hadn’t told anyone he broke up with me. I denied it like I denied everything else. I even denied it to him! I told him he couldn’t break up with me.
But he had and then went against all my advice.
I looked at the ring again. It felt right, like it belonged there. The cool metal had already warmed to my skin, filled with my energy. At this point, it was either mine or it would be melted down.
“I’ll wear it for a day. Just a day.” I snapped the box closed. “And then I’ll take it off and give it back to him. He can decide what to do then.”
I could live in denial for another day. What was another day of denial when I lived it so perfectly?
The door bell rang in the other room, and I tilted my head in confusion, hoping to hear a car or voices outside. It rang again, echoing through the apartment.
I left the bedroom with Kayo and Kumi right behind. Pressing the intercom, I leaned into the speaker.
“Who is it?”
“Uh, is Yasahiro there?” A voice I thought I recognized asked in English.
“Who is this?” I repeated in English.
“It’s Robert. I’m here to see Yasahiro. Is he there? Is this… Mei?”
I looked at both Kumi and Kayo. Kayo grabbed Kumi’s arm.
“Let him in. We’ll be in the bedroom.”
“Okay,” I said, clearing my throat. I remembered the emails I had seen last night between Robert, Giselle, and Amanda. Robert was not my top suspect (Hiroshi was), but I hadn’t counted him out.
“It is Mei. I’m buzzing you in,” I said into the intercom.
I pressed the DOOR button, set the ring box aside, and straightened myself up as his footsteps pounded up the stairs.