Time stopped.
Have you ever felt a sudden coldness, not because the air conditioning kicked in, but because death decided to rest its hand on your shoulder? That was exactly what I felt at that moment. Kaito's shadow loomed over me like a black shroud, and his voice, which had sounded so warm and cultured moments ago, was now as sharp as a surgical blade cutting through the silence.
"Are you looking for something specific, Aya?"
I didn't move. I didn't breathe. My hand was still inside his bag, my fingers curled around that lock of hair. I could feel its texture—soft, silken, and hauntingly familiar. It was the texture of a ghost. I thought of my sister, Sakura. I thought of her cold body found in the Mitso woods ten years ago, and how the killer had left nothing behind but an empty silence. Now, I was touching the very evidence that could send this man to the gallows, and he was standing right behind me.
I had to speak. Silence in this house was an admission of guilt.
"Oh!" I let out a short, shaky laugh as I yanked my hand back, trying to look embarrassed rather than terrified. I spun around to face him. He was close—too close. I could see my own pale reflection in the lenses of his glasses. "I'm... I'm so sorry, Kaito. I was looking for my lip balm. I thought I'd tucked it into your bag when we were in the car. My brain is just scattered tonight. I'm a mess."
I took a step back, my heart hammering against my ribs so hard I feared he might actually see it vibrating through my blouse.
Kaito remained still. He didn't even blink. His eyes were scanning my face, reading my micro-expressions, dissecting my body language like a patient on his operating table. He knew I was lying. He knew I wasn't looking for lip balm. But in the game of cat and mouse, sometimes the cat enjoys letting the mouse believe it has escaped.
"Lip balm?" he repeated the word slowly, as if tasting its bitterness. Then, he reached toward the bag with agonizing slowness and zipped it shut with a chilling finality. "You could have just asked, Aya. I don't like people touching my things. Small details, remember? Privacy is everything to me."
"I apologize deeply," I said, forcing a shy, submissive smile. "It won't happen again."
Suddenly, the smile returned to his face, but it didn't reach his eyes. "It's fine. That call I took... it was from the hospital. An emergency. It seems my night won't end here. I should take you home now."
We got back into the Lexus. The drive from that secluded restaurant back to central Tokyo felt a thousand times longer than the trip there. The car was silent, save for the rhythmic, annoying thud of the rain against the windshield. I looked at the backseat, at the cooler box. What was really inside? A medical specimen, or another "souvenir" like that lock of hair?
"You're very quiet, Aya," Kaito said, driving with one hand, his grip steady and relaxed. "Still thinking about the lip balm?"
"No," I lied quickly. "I'm just... thinking about your work. How do you handle it all? The blood, the death, the life-altering decisions. Doesn't it haunt your dreams?"
Kaito laughed—a dry, hollow sound. "Death isn't the enemy, Aya. Death is simply the final state of perfection. No more pain, no more mistakes, no more lies. When I'm in that OR, I am the only one in control of that perfection."
"Have you ever killed someone?" I asked. The words were out before my brain could vet them. It was a dangerous, stupid question.
Kaito slammed on the brakes at a red light, the force throwing me forward against the seatbelt. He turned to me, and for the first time, I saw a dark, hungry passion in his eyes.
"As a surgeon, I've lost patients," he whispered. "But killing... that's a vulgar word. I prefer to call it 'ending the suffering.' Don't you think some people are just more beautiful when they are perfectly still? Like those designs you create. Static. Perfect. Incapable of hurting anyone."
We finally pulled up in front of my apartment building. I didn't wait for him to come around and open my door. I threw it open myself and stepped out into the freezing air.
"Thanks for dinner, Kaito," I said, already backing away.
"Aya!" he called out. I stopped and turned. He had leaned his head out of the window, the rain soaking his face. "You forgot something."
My heart stopped. Did he find out I stole something? Was he going to hand me the hair?
He held his hand out of the window. Between his fingers was a small tube of lip balm. "I found it in the backseat. It seems you were telling the truth about looking for it."
I took it from him, my fingers brushing his cold skin. This wasn't mine. I had never seen it before in my life. But I nodded, thanked him, and sprinted toward the entrance.
Once inside my apartment, I engaged all three locks and slumped against the door. I was drenched in sweat despite the cold. I opened my hand and looked at the lip balm. It had a small, handwritten label on it: "Mitso - 2014".
The year my sister was murdered.
This man wasn't dating me. He was playing with me. He knew exactly who I was. He knew I was in Mitso back then, and he knew I was hunting him. He had placed that lip balm in his car on purpose, just like he had left the hair visible. He was inviting me into his kingdom, confident that I would walk right into his trap.
I went to my closet and pulled out the old box where I kept Sakura's things. I took out her last photograph. She was smiling, her long hair cascading over her shoulders. I compared the color to the image burned into my mind from his bag. A one-hundred-percent match.
Tears began to fall, but they weren't tears of grief. They were tears of white-hot rage.
I sat down at my computer. I wasn't afraid anymore. Fear is a luxury I can no longer afford. If Kaito Mori wanted to play the hunter, I would make him believe I was the perfect prey. I would keep dating him. I would get into his house, find what was in that basement, and make him pay for every drop of blood he had spilled.
I opened my email. There was a message from him, sent seconds ago:
"Aya, I truly enjoyed our talk about 'perfection' tonight. On Saturday, I'm driving up to Mitso to visit my family's shrine. It would be lovely if you joined me. I think there are many memories we need to share there."
Mitso. The place where all the nightmares began.
I typed my reply, my fingers feeling a strange, surgical coldness:
"I'd be happy to go with you, Kaito. Mitso holds a very special place in my heart."
I closed the laptop and looked in the hallway mirror. The mask I had worn my whole life was cracking, and underneath, something dark was emerging. Something that looked a lot like Kaito.
Freida McFadden always says we all have secrets. But the secret I'm keeping is that I am not the victim in this story.
I am the end of it.