Chương 5 - THE COAT KEIKO BROUGHT ME
“What does that mean?”
My voice barely worked.
Daichi looked at me.
“Your father was told to disappear.”
“By Akihiro?”
“Yes.”
Kazuki’s face hardened.
“My father threatened Naomi?”
“No.”
Daichi’s answer came quickly.
“Not exactly.”
I laughed in disbelief.
“There is no comfortable version of threatening a ten-year-old.”
“He believed he was protecting you.”
“There it is again.”
I looked around the room.
“Powerful men doing terrible things and calling it protection.”
Emiko closed her eyes.
Daichi did not defend himself.
That surprised me.
“Akihiro discovered the conspiracy around the warehouse went beyond our family.”
“Who?”
“Shipping executives. Police. Politicians. Tanaka contractors. Men who would have killed Masato and you if they believed he had survived with evidence.”
“So Akihiro erased him.”
“Yes.”
“Without telling me.”
“You were a child.”
“And then I became an adult.”
Daichi looked at Kazuki.
“That question belongs to him.”
My chest tightened.
I turned.
Kazuki didn’t look away.
“You knew my father survived?”
“No.”
“How much did you know?”
“That my father had arranged protection for someone connected to the fire.”
“When?”
“Seven years ago.”
“And you never thought that person might be Masato?”
“I suspected.”
That word hurt.
“You suspected my father was alive.”
“Yes.”
“And you watched me build an entire life believing he died when I was ten.”
“I had no proof.”
“You had enough to investigate me.”
Kazuki accepted the blow.
“Yes.”
I stepped away from him.
The room suddenly felt too crowded.
Then Keiko entered carrying a brown wool coat.
My father’s coat.
I forgot how to breathe.
“I found this in my father’s storage room.”
She looked shaken.
“After Lot 47 was released, I searched the old Tanaka archive.”
I reached for the coat.
My hands trembled as I touched the worn lapel.
There was a burn mark near the sleeve.
I remembered sitting on Dad’s shoulders while wearing that coat around both of us during a rainy festival.
Memory could be cruelly physical.
“What was it doing there?”
Keiko shook her head.
“I don’t know.”
Daichi did.
His expression told me.
“You’ve seen it.”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“After the fire.”
“On my father?”
“No.”
He looked toward Kazuki.
“On Akihiro.”
Kazuki went still.
“My father wore Masato’s coat?”
“To move him through a security checkpoint.”
The explanation unfolded slowly.
After Masato escaped the warehouse, Akihiro hid him inside a Takahashi transport convoy.
The coat went one direction.
Masato went another.
False witnesses were paid.
Dental records altered.
An accidental death became official.
“And my mother?”
I asked.
Daichi hesitated.
“Yumi knew Masato lived.”
That hurt worse than everything else.
“No.”
“She knew enough.”
“She let me grieve him.”
“She was trying to keep you safe.”
I closed my eyes.
Of course.
The same excuse.
Again.
Keiko touched my arm.
“There’s something inside the coat.”
She showed me the lining.
A seam had been opened and stitched closed again.
I borrowed a small knife.
Inside was a folded sheet of paper covered with what looked like wine tasting notes.
Bordeaux vintages.
Burgundy villages.
Acidity scores.
Barrel percentages.
I knew immediately it wasn’t normal.
My father never wrote tasting notes this way.
He hated numerical scores.
“What is it?” Kazuki asked.
“A cipher.”
Everyone looked at me.
“He taught me this game when I was little.”
I pointed to the first line.
Pauillac 82.
Volnay 90.
Margaux 61.
“He used wine regions as letters.”
I worked through it.
Slowly.
Numbers became positions.
Vintages became dates.
Village abbreviations became initials.
When I finished, I had a list of names.
DAICHI TAKAHASHI.
SHIGERU TANAKA.
AKIHIRO TAKAHASHI.
Three columns.
Three different roles.
Daichi — transfer approved.
Shigeru — transport arranged.
Akihiro — containment ordered.
Kazuki read over my shoulder.
“Containment.”
Daichi’s face darkened.
“You think that means murder.”
“What did it mean?”
“Stopping the evidence.”
“By burning the warehouse?”
“Yes.”
There.
The first clean admission.
Kazuki moved toward him.
“You ordered the fire.”
Daichi didn’t retreat.
“I ordered the ledgers destroyed.”
“With people inside.”
“I was told the warehouse had been cleared.”
“By whom?”
Daichi looked at Shigeru Tanaka.
Keiko went pale.
“My father?”
Daichi nodded.
Keiko shook her head.
“No.”
“Ask him.”
Shigeru arrived twenty minutes later.
He looked older than the night before.
Not powerful.
Tired.
Keiko stood across from him holding Masato’s coat.
“Did you tell Daichi the warehouse was empty?”
Shigeru’s silence answered.
“Dad.”
“Yes.”
Her face broke.
“Why?”
“Because I thought it was.”
“Who told you?”
Shigeru looked toward Kazuki.
“Akihiro.”
Silence.
Kazuki went white.
“My father knew I was inside.”
“No.”
“He sent me there.”
“He thought you had already left.”
“Masato?”
“Was supposed to be gone too.”
Nothing aligned cleanly.
That was the worst part.
Daichi had ordered evidence destroyed.
Shigeru had authorized transport based on false information.
Akihiro had manipulated everyone while claiming to contain the disaster.
No single villain.
Just layered choices that turned deadly.
I returned to the cipher.
There was another line.
N.S. — OBSERVE ONLY. NEVER APPROACH.
Date:
Seven years ago.
I looked at Kazuki.
He closed his eyes.
“That was you.”
“Yes.”
“You ordered someone to watch me.”
“Yes.”
“For seven years?”
“Yes.”
Every warm thing I had begun feeling toward him disappeared.
“You said you never had me followed for romantic reasons.”
“I didn’t.”
“That distinction is insulting.”
“I know.”
“Did you pay for my scholarship?”
His silence told me before his answer.
“Yes.”
My stomach dropped.
“The sommelier program in France?”
“Yes.”
“The anonymous cultural foundation?”
“My family.”
I laughed.
It sounded broken.
“My career.”
“Was yours.”
“You opened doors.”
“I paid tuition. You passed every exam.”
“You watched me.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
His voice lowered.
“Because if Masato was alive, I believed someone might eventually use you to force him into the open.”
“And did they?”
“I don’t know.”
I turned away.
Keiko suddenly said, “There’s another page.”
She reached deeper into the coat lining.
A smaller strip of cloth came free.
Stitched onto it was one sentence.
Not ciphered.
My father’s handwriting.
KAZUKI DOESN’T KNOW WHAT HIS FATHER MADE ME DO.
I stared at the words.
Then below them:
IF HE EVER FINDS NAOMI, TELL HIM I FORGAVE HIM.
Kazuki stopped breathing.
“Forgave me?”
His voice broke for the first time.
I looked at him.
“For what?”
He said nothing.
Daichi’s face changed.
He knew.
“Tell her,” he said.
Kazuki looked at his uncle.
“Don’t.”
“She deserves it.”
“Tell me what?”
Daichi’s eyes settled on me.
“The reason Masato went back into the warehouse wasn’t the ledger.”
May you like
My skin went cold.
“He went back because Kazuki was still inside.”
