STARLIGHT | krmy ✓

20

CHAPTER TWENTY —
                      AN OLD THREAT.

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MAYA TURNS THE doorknob and pushes the door to the interrogation room open, her gaze barely acknowledging the woman who sat in the chair opposite hers as she seats herself and flips through her documents once more to make sure she didn't miss any details.

"Tojō Nozomi," Maya declares, putting the papers aside. "I have a few questions for you."

"Undoubtedly so~" The woman smiles, her grin not unlike a cat's, curling at the edges of her lips as she leans forward, coy eyes an enchanting, hypnotising emerald green. "Fire away, buchōu."

Maya doesn't let any reaction through, and Nozomi giggles, like she wasn't being suspected for attempted murder.

"Thank you for your cooperation."

Tojō Nozomi, a twenty-six-year-old woman who worked at a bookstore in Akihabara, Tokyo, was a suspect for one of the cases against an entertainment agency manager. It was the newest case — and the most brutal — the victim had been roughly mauled with a broom and was now in the general hospital with a nasty head injury; and Maya had taken it upon herself to question the suspect as soon as possible. This information could be fresh.

"Do you know this man?" Maya pries a headshot of Tsuda Kenjirō from the breast pocket of her uniform and tosses it across the table, knowing full-well that Tamao was outside watching in confusion. But she didn't want to waste time — all the other suspects had 'admitted' to their crimes, and for the older, unsolved cases, the culprits had turned themselves in. It was too easy. Something fishy was going on. And even odder, the victim didn't have traces of sexual assault on her body. Was this going to be a new pattern?

Nozomi takes a glance at the photograph, then slides her gaze back up, an eyebrow quirked. "You're not going to ask me if I did it or not?"

"No," Maya leans back in her chair, shoulders squared. "Because I might already know your answer."

Nozomi flashes that smile again. "Oh?"

Maya finally lets a smirk play on her lips, and she looks straight into Nozomi's eyes, which were such a stunning green that Maya could have been distracted; but there was a reason why she had graduated top of her investigation unit at the police academy. Through all that green, there couldn't be mistaking the quivering pupils, the little tremor in her voice whenever she ended her sentences, or the desperate concentration in her gaze.

"You did do it." Maya says, letting herself slip back into a stony expression. "The fingerprints are yours."

She was lying through her teeth, and she had her acting ability to thank for. Hopefully Tamao would be able to flow along with this.

Naturally, Nozomi falls for it. The older woman leans back in her chair, the clink of her handcuffs resounding clear in Maya's head with the carefully-disguised trembling of her tone. "Why, aren't you fast."

Maya doesn't take the bait. "So? Do you know him?"

Nozomi's gaze drifts down to the picture again, and she shakes her head. She was telling the truth.

"Alright," Maya pulls another photo out of her pocket and flicks that across to Nozomi as well. "Do you know him, then?"

This head-shake was more careful, more accentuated.

"Are you sure?" Maya pushes, leaning forward again. Nozomi's eyes flicker up to meet hers, and she nods, unaware that Maya had already predicted the tell-tale hasty undertone. That layered hesitation.