Chapter 17: The 3 AM Call..
Watanabe called at three in the morning.
Unknown number. Kaito was awake. He answered.
"Park-san." Same measured voice as in person. The 3 AM timing noted and set aside, neither explained nor apologized for.
"Watanabe-san," Kaito said. He sat up. Park Jin-ho, he reminded himself. Shoulders first, settle.
"I have a question," Watanabe said. "I find questions like this one work better outside social settings. Less performance."
"Go ahead," Kaito said.
"Who sent you," Watanabe said. Statement with a question's function.
Kaito was quiet for two seconds.
He thought about the prepared answer. The elaborate, carefully constructed partial cover designed to survive scrutiny and redirect Watanabe's suspicion away from The House.
He set it aside.
"I'm going to tell you something honest," Kaito said. "Because you're sophisticated enough that the prepared answer would insult both of us."
A silence.
"Go on," Watanabe said.
"My real name is Mori Kaito. I'm not a private equity professional. I'm a fraud. Professional, practiced, eleven years. I was recruited four days ago by a group of people who've been building a case against you for eight years and needed someone who could get close to you without being recognized." A pause. "I'm telling you this because I found something in your file that nobody else flagged, and I think you should know I found it before we have any other conversation."
A long silence.
"The brother," Watanabe said.
Kaito said nothing.
The silence stretched. Outside Kaito's window, Osaka at 3 AM was very quiet. A distant truck. The convenience store sign humming.
"You found the clinic," Watanabe said.
"Yes," Kaito said.
"What do you intend to do with it?"
"Nothing," Kaito said. "I'm not going to use him against you. I want you to understand that clearly and I want you to understand I'm saying it now, before I have anything from you, so it can't be a condition of anything."
Another silence. This one different. Not calculating. Something quieter in it.
"Come to Ashiya tomorrow," Watanabe said. "I'll send the address."
He hung up.
Kaito sat in the dark.
He had just told a dangerous man his real name, his real purpose, and who he was working for.
Tanaka, if he ever found out, would call this catastrophic.
Kaito thought it was the only move that had any chance of working.
He thought: *Those two things might both be true.*
He almost went back to sleep.
Then his phone buzzed. Not a call. A message. Unknown number, different from the one Watanabe had used.
The message contained three words and a photograph.
The words were: *We see you.*
The photograph was of Doi.
Not Doi in Nara with his sister. Doi on a street Kaito recognized as being three blocks from his own apartment building in Namba, taken from above, very recently, because the timestamp said 2:47 AM, thirteen minutes ago.
Kaito looked at the photograph for a long time.
Doi hadn't gone to Nara. Or he had, and then he'd been found there, and been brought back. Or he'd been followed from Tennoji before he ever made it to the train.
He called Doi's new number. No answer. He called it again. No answer.
He sat on the edge of his futon in the dark and thought about Doi's breathing on the phone. Two fingers. Efficiently. Like they'd done it many times.
He thought: *They're showing me they can get to anyone I care about.*
He thought: *They're right.*
He didn't sleep again that night.
At six in the morning he went to the Honmachi building and found Sable already there, sitting at the desk in the third-floor workspace with a cup of bad coffee and the expression of someone who had also not slept.
"Doi's missing," Kaito said.
"I know," she said.
"You know?"
"We picked up movement in Tennoji around midnight. Someone watching his building. We lost them." She looked at Kaito steadily. "I sent someone to check on Doi at one AM. He was gone. Room was clean. No signs of struggle."
"Clean means he left voluntarily or with someone he didn't feel the need to fight," Kaito said.
"Or someone who was efficient enough that the struggle didn't leave signs," Sable said.
Kaito sat down.
"The message," he said. He showed her his phone.
She looked at the photograph. Her face did something small and controlled.
"They're telling you they can reach anyone," she said.
"Yes," Kaito said. "Which means the Ashiya meeting is compromised."
"Cancel it," Sable said immediately.
"No," Kaito said.
She looked at him.
"Canceling it tells them their pressure worked," he said. "And it closes the only door we have into Watanabe." He looked at the photograph on his phone. Doi's back, on a familiar street, 2:47 AM. "I'm going to Ashiya. But I need you to find Doi."
"Kaito," Sable said. "If these people have him—"
"Find him," Kaito said. "Please."
She held his gaze for a moment.
"Go to Ashiya," she said. "I'll find him."