CHAPTER 1
L sat looking out of his apartment window; the far window in the living room. The one where, he had been told, five people had jumped to their death. It was a wall high window, about 5 feet wide. It didn't open, so L confirmed that it was never accidental if someone fell out of it.
Some day, he wanted to build his own house. A house that he could live in forever: where no one would tell him otherwise. One he could have a family in. A real family. A family that would never abandon him.
L didn't want big windows in his house. They always felt threatening. Windows were like open doors. Everyone could look right through them. They could see what you are doing. What you have done, who you are…
He had trained himself to be a door. Becoming a solid object gave him the feeling that he was safe. He never gave his full name and used many aliases so that no one would ever find out all about him. It was his way of being a door. Like a brick wall, no one could see through him and know what he did a long time ago.
Today was no different then any other day. L sat, with his knees up, on the floor at the base of the large window. Even though he wasn't fond of windows, this window let him see far out beyond the tall buildings of Vancouver, British Columbia.
L moved to the Canadian city when he was assigned to a police case that involved four murders and five "suicides" in the last month. At this very moment in time, he was sitting at one of the crime scenes. There was something in sitting in front of a window where an expected suicide had occurred. It was more of a misunderstood feeling. Like whatever happened here, happened for a reason.
Knowingly, L placed a hand on the glass window.
It was a little cold from morning frost. He leaped forward and breathed on the glass. His hand print appeared on the glass. Along, curiously, with five words that L had not noticed before.
"I don't want to die"
L felt his head fall to one side and he bit the tip of his thumb. So it wasn't suicide. Wait. This is a brand new glass window. There is no way that someone could have written this before they jumped. Unless…
L jumped to his feet. He ran across the room to his laptop and looked up the last five renters of the apartment.
The man before him had only stayed at the hotel for a week. Had someone threatened him or try to kill him? There was something to this, L knew it. What it was, he wasn't quite sure. The man had relocated to a house in Winnipeg, Manitoba.
He picked up his cell phone from the table. L always held his cell phone as if it was a piece of evidence: between thumb and pointing finger at the very top of the phone. He dialed Watari's cell phone number. It began to ring.