Gravitation Fan Fiction ❯ Because of You ❯ chapter 27 ( Chapter 27 )

[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]

By: Chocho

Because of You

Sequel to: This I Promise You

Written by: Chocho

Disclaimer: I do not own Gravitation or the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Summary: The only thing they have in common is their abhorrence for Shuichi. Karin claims he murdered her brother. Scott maintains that he is responsible for the death of his daughter. Karin and Scott's meeting may have been coincidental, but their plan to assassinate Shuichi is not.

Chapter summary: It seems as if Rinjin Karin has escaped from the police yet again.

Warning: Angst, drama, m-preg, language, m/m sexual content

Inserts: --

A/N: I cannot believe how fast that last chapter came out. Do not expect that little fluke to happen again. Anyway, we are nearing the end. I am not sure how many chapters are left, but it is drawing to a close. Time will be skipping forward rapidly here. Once again, I am sorry about how long it takes these chapters to come out. I am working on two other stories other then this one. Besides, I can name a whole bunch of you who have not updated in quite some time. Anyway, here it is. Enjoy!

***

Chapter 27

[“Thank you, Dr. Amada,” Tohma told him.

Dr. Amada inclined his head.

“Yes, Thank you,” Eiri said.

“You are very welcome.”

“Can we see him?” Shuichi asked with hope-filled eyes.

“Certainly,” Dr. Amada said. “He is being wheeled up to that private room you requested. I'll have Yoshio escort you up there when you are ready.”

They thanked the older man once again as he bowed and made his exit.

Detective Misawa turned towards the retired pop star. His expression turned hard. His eyes went serious. “Shindou-san. I am Detective Misawa Ren,” he reintroduced himself when Shuichi turned blank eyes towards him. “I am from the Osaka police department.”

“He's investigating the hit and run,” Eiri explained.

Shuichi nodded that he understood.

“That's right. Is it all right if I ask you a couple questions?”

Shuichi drew in a breath.]

***

(Osaka, Japan)

“All right, Tamaki-san,” Detective Shigeno Shin said. He looked from his small memo pad on which he had been jotting down notes up to the middle-aged candy stripper standing before him. “Thank you very much for your time. If we have any more questions, we can contact you here?” He indicated the contact information she had given the seasoned detective.

“Yes, sir,” Keiko nodded.

“All right. Have a nice day now.”

“Thank you. You too.”

As the detective turned away to join his partner who should be even now questioning the Uesugi-Shindou family, the volunteer's voice called him back. “Yes, ma'am?”

“Uhm.” Her gaze flitted off to the right. “There was another guy who was asking about her earlier.”

That had the detective's immediate attention. “When was this?” he demanded.

“Uh…Maybe a minute or two later?”

“Okay and this gentleman-?”

“He said he was her husband,” she informed.

Detective Shigeno raised an eyebrow at that. “Husband?” Nothing in the information he and his colleagues had on Rinjin Karin indicated she had ever had a serious relationship before let alone been married. So who was this other person? A partner maybe? Or someone else all together?

Keiko nodded. “Yes, sir.” She recalled the conversation she had with the man.

“And did this man give his name?” Detective Shigeno asked as he scribbled notes into his notepad.

“…Hmm…I don't…think so,” Keiko replied slowly as she raked her brain. “No. No,” she repeated more firmly, “he did not.”

“Can you remember what he looked like, Tamaki-san?”

Keiko thought long and hard, but came up blank. There had been nothing remarkable about the man. Shorn black hair and dark squinty eyes, on the short side and dressed shabbily. There had been nothing remarkable about the man. At least nothing that stood out. “I'm sorry.”

“No, no,” Detective Shigeno shook his head. “You are doing fine. Can you remember what he was wearing?”

Once again, Keiko scanned through her memories. “…Jeans? Uhm, those, those, uhm…what do you call them. Those tan ankle worker-type boots. Oh, uhm, Timberlands or whatever they're called.”

Detective Shigeno nodded. “What else? What about his coat?”

“Oh, yeah. I remember that because it looked like the coats that seem to be a staple of all grandparents. Cheap looking. A washed out tannish-brown color. Uhm, a green plaid stripe around the collar.”

“All right. Anything else?”

Actually, there was now that she thought about it. There had been something strange about the guy's chest.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, it was as if he had something hidden underneath his coat. You know, it looked kinda bulky.”

“`Bulky'?”

“Yeah and by the looks of this guy, it wasn't muscle.”

Detective Shigeno's mind flashed to the gaggle of various news media gathered outside the hospital. He wondered.

~*~

Detective Misawa Ren was lost in thought as he emerged from the elevator, but looked up when he heard his name. “Hey, Shigeno,” he greeted his partner.

“How'd it go?”

“Well, they said it would take a while for Kitazawa-kun to be coherent enough to talk, so Shindou-san and Uesugi-san said they would contact us when he woke up, but I did speak to the twins who were in the back seat during the accident. They both claim that they were hit from behind as Kitazawa-kun was pulling into a parking spot in the parking garage.”

That jibed with what the eyewitnesses had told them. “Did they get a look at the car or the license plate or even the driver?”

Detective Misawa checked his notes to make sure he got his facts straight, “The older one, Keitaro, said it was a black car being driven by a woman with long blond hair.”

A slow grin spread across Detective Shigeno's face. “Bingo.”

“I had him do a photo line up and he picked out Rinjin right away.”

“No hesitation?”

“None,” Detective Misawa nodded. “The younger of the two, Kane, said that he noticed a black car behind them during the whole drive from Nara to Osaka. It even pulled into the parking garage with them and then followed them as Kitazawa tried to find a spot to park.”

“He noticed it following them?”

“Yeah. He said he pointed it out to Kitazawa-kun, but that was when the accident happened.”

Detective Shigeno shook his head in disgust. For as long as he has been in law enforcement, he was still stunned by the audacity of some people. He would never be able to understand what goes through their heads. “What about Shindou-san?”

“He confirmed everything Uesugi-san said.”

Detective Shigeno nodded. “And those photographs?”

“He knew nothing about them…until now.” Detective Misawa nodded when he saw Shigeno wince out off the corner of his eye. “Suffice it to say, I'm glad I'm not Uesugi-san right about now.”

His partner chuckled.

“And it is a very good thing that Seguchi-san hired those bodyguards.”

Detective Shigeno was glad he was single.

“What about you?” Detective Misawa asked his partner as he slipped his notepad back into his coat pocket.

“I spoke with Tamaki Keiko and she confirms that the package was delivered to the front desk by a woman fitting the description of our unsub.”

“So it was definitely Rinjin then?”

“Yes,” Detective Shigeno confirmed as he and his partner strolled through the halls of the hospital. “Tamaki-san described Rinjin to a `T'. She even backed up that French student's claim that she was limping.”

“It looks like she did not walk away from that accident unscathed.”

“This should make it that much easier to find her.”

“Should.”

“And yet somehow, she is able to sneak into the hospital and than just disappears right under everybody's nose without being seen.”

“So she hasn't been found yet?”

“There's no trace of her.”

That was to be expected. She was not about to let herself be caught just yet. No, she was far from done with the Uesugi-Shindou family. “She's good. I will give her that, but she was not completely unseen.”

Detective Shigeno nodded. “She tripped up big time.”

“I don't think she sees it that way, though. Dropping off that package at the front desk personally in front of a room full of eyewitnesses?”

“Right. Right, and actually speaking with Tamaki-san, telling her who the package was for.”

“She is taking more and more risks and becoming bolder as time passes and she remains free.”

Detective Shigeno shook his head in disgust. “She's laughing at us.”

“I am not sure if she wants to be caught or just recognized for what she is doing.”

“Which is what?”

“Bringing a murderer to justice.”

~*~

“Are you sure?” Detective Shigeno asked the uniformed security officer some time later.

Officer Takeda, who moonlighted part time as a security officer at Osaka University Hospital, nodded without taking his gaze from the black and white security monitor. “Yeah. That's him. He said that he was lost and trying to find the cafeteria. Then he asked if I had seen his wife. Said they were here to see her cousin, or something.”

Detectives Shigeno and Misawa exchanged a knowing look. That was the same story this guy gave Keiko. At least he knew how to keep his story straight. It brought less attention to him.

“Did you get a name?” Detective Misawa asked.

“No, but he did seem a little nervous.”

Detectives Misawa and Shigeno glanced at one another again. If he had been legitimate, like he had been pretending, then there would have been no reason for him to be so jumpy even when confronted with a cop. But the fact that this man had been was evidence enough that he was not who he claimed to be.

“What about her?” Detective Shigeno asked as he pointed to another security monitor that displayed a woman with long hair in a fur trimmed coat that was handing over a large envelope to the hospital employee behind the counter.

Officer Takeda studied the monitor screen, but shook his head. “Sorry.”

“Is there any way we can get stills?” Detective Misawa asked the technician at the controls.

“Both of them?”

“Yes.”

“Sure. It'll take a few minutes, though.”

“Do it.”

“Right.”

“Once we get those stills,” Detective Misawa said, “I think we should have a little news conference.”

A slow grin spread across Detective Shigeno's face.

~*~

(Nara, Japan)

Lieutenant Katsuragi Eiji stepped from the mansion that at most cost a hundred times more than his annual income out onto the stone steps that led down to the drive with a brown paper grocery bag in his hand. Turning around, he tipped his head at the tallish woman with her long chestnut brown hair pulled back into a ponytail and a chubby little baby with jet-black hair and large eyes that sparkled like amethysts on her hip. The baby was sucking on a necklace the woman holding him was wearing around her neck and staring as if transfixed at him. Even the baby's sweater set and khaki slacks looked like they cost more than what Lieutenant Katsuragi earned in a month as a police officer with the Nara police force.

“Seguchi-san.”

“Lieutenant,” Seguchi Mika answered back with a small nod.

Mika watched as the police detective secured the brown paper bag that held something he had retrieved from her brother's desk in the trunk of his unmarked police issued police car before slipping behind the wheel and rounding the turnabout. The car pulled out through the gates and vanished. Mika stepped back into the warm house gratefully and shut the door behind her. As she made sure the gates were closed securely and the security system was on, she wondered what that had been all about and reminded herself to ask Tohma and her brother about it later. She was not too happy about being left out of the loop.

“Well, little Kira,” she breathed to her nephew. “I think it's time for someone to take a nap.”

As if the six month old knew what had been said to him, his face crumbled. With her necklace hanging from the two front lower teeth he had, little Kira started crying.

Mika knew from experience with her own children that her littlest nephew was faking. “See? Already cranky. C'mon.”

With Kira still protesting, Mika spoke to him softly as she climbed the staircase towards the nursery.

~*~

(Osaka, Japan)

“I want to have a crew on the Uesugi-Shindou household twenty-four-seven,” Detective Misawa was saying over the phone to his captain as he paced back and forth under the carport outside the hospital. “I think it will be the only way to catch her.”

This woman was as slippery as a fish and as elusive as a ghost was. She was unlike any other criminal he had ever come across. Nothing about her made any sense. The one thing they could count on was that she would show up at the Uesugi-Shindou household to hand deliver another photograph.

From what he was able to learn from both Uesugi-san and Seguchi-san, they had a state of the art security system on not only the house, but also Shindou-san's recording studio and the grounds itself. This means that if Rinjin had plans to do more than just evade the privacy of this family or play bumper cars, she would have to do it outside the compound.

Whether Rinjin Karin was watching them from down the street or sneaking up to their mailbox in the middle of the night, they needed to be there to catch her.

“…Great. Thanks…Sure thing.” Detective Misawa snapped the phone shut and slipped it into his coat pocket. He turned towards his partner. “He went for it,” he said grinning.

“Let's just hope it works.”

“It will.”

“We'll see.”

“All right. You ready for this?”

Not really, Detective Shigeno thought but he nodded to the affirmative. Neither Detective Misawa nor he actually liked this part of their job, but unfortunately, it was unavoidable if they wanted to gain the trust and cooperation of the public. It was when the political aspect became more important than the investigation that Detective Shigeno drew the line.

Together they exited the hospital via the automatic sliding doors. Crossing the lot, they headed towards the horde of various news agencies that seemed to have multiplied a hundred fold in the brief couple of hours since they had arrived at the hospital.

Detective Misawa took a deep breath and stepped up to the podium that sprouted microphones like mutations. “Good afternoon.”

His voice instantly silenced the murmurings of the gathered reporters and photographers that seemed to have created a shantytown around the hospital in the hopes of catching something newsworthy that would help them to top their competitors.

“We'll be making a short statement today. Afterwards, we'll take a couple questions.” He glanced briefly over the statement that had been prepared for him earlier. “Earlier today…”

***TBC***

A/N: Sorry this one is so short.

Next chapter: One month later. Riku gets a new car. Hiro and Fujisaki are over for a visit and Rinjin Karin makes another appearance. We might even finally learn the gender of the babies.