Chapter Notes: As promised, sex returns to the story this chapter. Also introducing a new character and filling out a couple mentioned before. Not quite as much plot stuff this chapter as I thought there would be when I started writing it, mostly talking and sex. Hope it's enjoyable!
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"A Kitsune, man. You caught a Kitsune. I still can't get over that. You gotta introduce me."
Rob was leaning back in his chair, hands clasped behind his head. He was wearing his usual work outfit of grey slacks and a black company polo straining over his muscular arms, the combat boots propped on his desk the only concession to his past in the Marines. Since he had at least a week's worth of thick black beard growing in, it was safe to conclude he and Melissa hadn't gotten back together yet.
"I'll think about it. She's a nice girl though, so if I do introduce you, you're going to have to pretend to be a gentleman."
It was late Friday afternoon, and we were both sitting in our office. While I was still on vacation, Rob was technically on the clock. Apparently it had been a quiet day, so he had been happy enough to blow off work and double check my research on Yumi in exchange for me spilling the beans on my vacation adventures.
I didn't try and go into my crisis of conscience with Rob, just giving him the basic facts of the story and how Yumi had ended up with Chiyo's pearl. He hadn't believed me at first; I'd had to show him the clip from the morning news. After he'd accepted that I wasn't pulling off an elaborate prank, he'd happily spent the next hour checking over the profile I'd built on Yumi. He asked some good questions about my methods, I had the right answers, and in the end he pronounced my work as satisfactory.
I'll spare you the full biography on Kylie/Yumi. The salient details were that she'd been a relatively normal rich kid until two years ago. In the fall of her junior year at college, Yumi had suddenly stopped going to classes. There'd been a doctor's note that had shown up at some point citing something vague and daddy's money and influence had swung things so that she could retake the semester if she wanted to with no repercussions, but she'd never gone back.
Around the same time that Yumi stopped going to classes, she stopped showing up online. Facebook went idle, Instagram was a graveyard. She showed up in a family Christmas photo on her mother's account that year, but she looked withdrawn and sallow. That and one photo of her trying and failing to look cheerful at a bar with her brother three weeks later were the last photos of her in her family's accounts. She'd vanished from their lives throughout the last two years like she'd never existed. Years of working private security for people like her parents meant Rob and I easily recognized the pattern - she had embarrassed the family in some fashion, presumably something to do with the sudden drop-out from college.
I'd found a record of her checking herself into rehab for heroin abuse three months after she'd dropped out of college, and shortly after she was discharged from rehab, her Instagram started occasionally showing flickers of life. Yumi's sparse Instagram account post-rehab was mostly artsy filtered shots of sunsets and industrial landscapes, along with the occasional selfie. Those rare selfies showed her gradual transformation into the woman I recognized as Kylie - different experiments with hair dye, punk clothes, more skin showing, and a sudden increase in breast size that could only come from surgery. Her account never showed her with anyone though, and didn't have many followers - at first I was worried that I wouldn't be able to find anyone in her new life.
Then I'd had a breakthrough - I'd gotten around to putting the name Tsumura Yumi into the national criminal database, and I'd gotten a hit right away. When I got around to checking my facial recognition program later, her mugshot had gotten flagged as a potential match for Aiko's sketch, so I would have eventually found her that way even if the car registration hadn't come through.
Yumi had gotten busted for possession about six months before she met me and Chiyo, well after her stint in rehab. The amount of cocaine she had on her was right on the line for possession with intent to sell, but her clean record up until then had let her get away with probation. Probably didn't hurt that her family was rich and invested in keeping any problems she had quiet.
The interesting part was the rap sheet on the person whose car she'd been driving when she'd gotten busted. Tetsuo Uechi had a record a mile long. If he'd been the one caught instead of Yumi, he would have gone away for a long time. Tetsuo was a known member of the Osaka Yakuza. He'd done two years in juvenile detention and another eighteen months as an adult, and had had three different charges dropped when witnesses refused to testify.
Tetsuo wasn't as private with his digital life as Yumi was. There were lots of photos of him partying with his friends, most of whom also had records. There were also plenty of shots of him and Yumi making out, though she'd been replaced in the photos with a different girl a few weeks after she took the fall for him on the cocaine charge.
I wasn't sure if Yumi was still involved with him, but it would explain why she wanted to avoid the police when she confronted me. Something still bugged me about the file I had on her though.
The heroin use, dating a Yakuza, the punk look - all easily explained why her family was pretending she didn't exist now, but they'd started to cut her off before she'd gone off the deep end. There was still a void surrounding that last semester she'd spent in college, and I was convinced it was something associated with that drop-out that had turned daddy's little princess into the family black sheep. But I couldn't find a way into that void with what I had to work with, and I'd accepted that I wasn't going to penetrate it before the deadline for first contact that I'd agreed to with Chiyo.
Rob grunted and pulled up one of the shots of Yumi and the thug making out again. "Be careful contacting this bitch, Ender. If she's still connected to the Yakuza, you can't trust her."
I nodded. "That's why I want you watching my back. Can you run a trace when I call her tomorrow?"
"Yeah, it'll be easier to do it as a pair. You focus on keeping her talking, I'll run the trace. You want to do the call here, or at your place?"
I thought for a moment. "Here. We've got more bandwidth and better equipment here than I have at home. I guess you'll get to meet Chiyo. We'll meet you at 11:30 tomorrow?"
"Sounds good. I'll be a good wingman, don't worry. Very respectable."
"Yeah, I've seen your attempts at respectable before." I punched Rob in the arm and got up.
He got up as well and we clasped hands and bumped shoulders before I headed out. The office was emptying out for the weekend as I slipped out. Yes, private security is a 24/7 operation, but most of that round-the-clock staff was on site guarding clients. Aside from a couple of staffers holding down the phones at the office for the late shifts, the office drones like Rob and I got evenings and weekends off.
Mostly emptying out didn't mean completely empty though. I was halfway to the exit when I heard a voice ring out from down the hallway.
"Wiggins! My office!"
I about-faced and headed towards the COO's office. Amelia Wiggins, aka The Valkyrie, my aunt and my boss's boss. She had two Purple Hearts and a Bronze Star earned flying a med-evac helicopter in the second Iran War (the one without the nukes), was a founding member and co-owner of Night Hawk Private Security, and just generally a kind of scary lady.
She'd gotten the nickname The Valkyrie after her chopper got shot down in enemy territory by a Russian shoulder-mounted RPG; she not only made it back to the US/Iraqi lines, she also managed to safely escort back two other survivors of the crash who'd been injured worse than she was. That got her the first Purple Heart and the Bronze Star; the second Purple Heart came when she took a piece of shrapnel in the arm but managed to keep her crippled bird in the air and pilot it back to base. The shrapnel wound grounded her, but she moved into the command structure and made it up to Major before her career in the military flamed out.
Aunt Amelia was the black sheep of her generation despite her sterling military record; she'd publically come out as a lesbian a good decade before that was something you could do as a member of the military, and the brass had dishonorably discharged her despite the fact that she was a literal war hero. My parents had stayed close with Aunt Amelia after she was discharged for coming out, breaking step with the majority of our extended family. My parents were both good Catholics and didn't approve of her lifestyle, but they also believed that family always looks out for family no matter what. I think the job offer Aunt Amelia gave me after I made it clear that I'd be pursuing civilian life instead of the family trade was intended to be a small repayment to my parents for standing by her.
Of course, Aunt Amelia had a reputation to maintain at work, so after getting me in the door at Night Hawk, she'd shown me absolutely no favoritism. If anything, she was harder on me than on the rest of the staff, which was saying something. That meant that despite how fond I was of my aunt, I felt justifiably nervous heading into her office.
"Close the door and take a seat."
Aunt Amelia didn't look up from her computer as I came in. I followed her instructions and sat down to wait. Night Hawk's image is more corporate than paramilitary despite the fact that our founders and most of our employees are ex-military, so Aunt Amelia was wearing an expensive suit instead of one of the faux-military uniforms some of our rival firms wore. I may be biased, but I think my aunt still looks pretty sharp for a woman her age. She has the same blonde hair as the rest of the family, though she's got a few grey streaks coming in. Her face is all sharp lines and angles, with crow's nest wrinkles around her eyes. She was fit enough that she could still pass an army physical, aside from the two fingers on her left hand that don't bend anymore thanks to that piece of shrapnel.
She eventually took off her reading glass and gave me the once-over. I stared back as confidently as I could. I was pretty sure I hadn't done anything wrong, but that stare could make anyone sweat.
"I was going to save this until Monday, but when I saw you in the hall I figured we might as well get this over with now. Why am I finding out from the local news that one of my employees has taken up hunting mystical creatures?"
Oh, of course. Fuck Tricia Ayami and Kyoto Morning News. I gave her my best innocent smile. "I was as surprised as anyone when I ran across her out hiking. Catching the Kitsune was a spur of the moment decision. I'm not starting a second career."
Aunt Amelia frowned. "We'll discuss the Kitsune in a minute. First, I want to know why I heard about it from the news instead of directly."
