Bottled Lightning by Weeks L.M

Author:Weeks, L.M.
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: South Fork Publishers
Published: 2022-06-12T16:00:00+00:00

Exodus

The envelope was too small and skinny to contain a bomb. “It could have anthrax in it, however…” he said out loud to himself. But then he thought, I must be getting really paranoid. It wasn’t the first time something had been delivered to him anonymously at the office.

He had been staring at the black screen of the monitor after Saya’s video ended when Mamiko, his executive assistant, walked in with the envelope. It had no return address.

He examined it closely while turning the envelope over several times in his hands. Only his name was printed on it. He held it up to a light above his desk and saw inside what looked like one folded sheet of paper, but he didn’t see anything resembling powder floating around inside. Curious, he carefully opened the envelope with a letter opener and, as he expected, found only a single sheet of paper inside.

He removed the piece of paper and opened the first of three folds. There was no letterhead. Then he opened the fold at the bottom, exposing the lower two-thirds of the sheet of paper and a note printed in Japanese: “Stop helping that bitch! It will not go well for you or your family if you stay involved.”

Torn used an encrypted app on his smartphone to call Sean. He hoped it would prevent anyone who might be listening in from hearing the conversation. While waiting for his son to answer, he pressed the intercom button on his office telephone and asked Mamiko to come in.

Sean answered the phone as Mamiko walked into Torn’s office. “Hi, Dad.”

“Sorry, Sean. Hold on just a sec.” Torn put Sean on mute.

“Mamiko-san, please scan this letter and its envelope and send password-protected PDFs to me right away. Send me the password in a separate email. Then, have the originals sent to Katayama-sensei by bike messenger, with instructions to give them to her former colleague at the metropolitan police. She’ll know what I’m talking about.”

“Will do.” Mamiko closed his office door behind her as she left.

Torn unmuted the phone and put his elbows on his desk. “Hi, Son. Sorry. I had to ask Mamiko-san to do something urgent for me. Now, I need you to listen very carefully.”

“What’s up? Sounds serious.”

“Deadly serious.” A little melodramatic, Torn thought to himself even as he said it. “I want you to take your mom and go to the cabin.”

“In Alaska? Why? What’s going on?”

“You remember that building that got blown up?”

“The one out past Hachioji? Yeah, why?”

“Well, it was owned by a client, and I just received a threatening letter from someone.”

“In Japanese or English?”

“Japanese, why?”

“It narrows down who the perpetrator might be,” Sean said with conviction.

Ah, my son the detective, Torn thought. “Maybe. The sender might be Japanese, but it could also be someone disguising themselves as Japanese. Who knows?”

Sean replied, “I’m not sure if someone who’s not Japanese would go to the trouble of sending you a note in Japanese. They’d have to get someone to translate it unless they were really good at Japanese.

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