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No Escape
Chapter 6
Late the next morning while Rukia was at school, Ichigo used the key she'd loaned him to let himself back into her house.
She was right. The police weren't going to be jumping to help them without more evidence. Three of the people who'd died had done so in other states, so it was well out of their jurisdiction. And they weren't about to bring in the feds unless they had some solid proof. The best they were willing to offer was to give Ichigo the phone numbers for the right people to contact about the out-of-state deaths so he could ask them questions.
From the tone of the detective he'd talked to, they weren't likely to be of any more aid than the local police were. Which meant Ichigo had to figure out whether or not he believed Rukia's theory. If he didn't, then he'd go on his way, after making sure Yammy was back behind bars where he belonged. If he did believe her, then that changed his course of action dramatically.
Neither Rukia nor Kon was due home anytime soon, so Ichigo fixed himself a pot of coffee and laid all of the information Rukia had given him out on the kitchen table. He'd purchased a map of the United States along with a notebook to help him organise the details.
He marked the map with the location of each death, then he assigned to it the name of the victim and date it had happened. He drew a line across the map, linking the dots in chronological order, but it didn't show any sort of pattern. No straight line, no circle or partial circle, there was no single highway connecting the cities. They jumped all over. That was a dead end.
Ichigo recorded other details in his notebook, hoping it would help him see some kind of pattern that would prove someone was acting alone. The times of day for each death differed, as well as the method of death. The victims had nothing in common other than the fact that they had all lived at Sosuke Aizen's foster home at one time, which wasn't enough for the police to get involved.
Rukia had included a small amount of personal information about each of the victims, but it looked to be only the kind of facts that the state would have on file for any foster child. There was a list of foster homes where each child had lived, and again, the only intersection was Aizen.
Ichigo compared the dates of the deaths to any significant date he could find in each file, hoping for a match. Birthdays were a bust, as was the date that each child came to live with Aizen. There was nothing he could see significant about the dates that each one died, though it would have been handy toward proving murder if they'd each happened to be killed on the anniversary of the day they entered Aizen's home or something similar. Maybe that would have been enough proof to get the police on the case.
He was out of ideas, mostly doodling on the paper, drawing lines between dates, when he noticed something. They'd died in the same order that they'd arrived at Aizen's home. That couldn't be a coincidence, could it?
He knew one person who would know the answer to that for sure, so he pulled out his cell phone and called Nemu, Uryu's wife. She was freakishly smart and had a knack for seeing patterns, which is why she was now one of the foremost cryptologists in the nation.
"This had better be important," she answered after about ten rings.
"It's good to talk to you, too," said Ichigo.
"Ichigo! Sorry. I was rude, wasn't I?"
Ichigo couldn't help but smile. Nemu was easily distracted by her work, but she was the biggest egghead he could find. "Working on something important?"
"I hope so. Otherwise I'm being terribly overpaid."
"Good to hear it. I just need a quick favor. Can you tell me what the odds are that six people would die in a specific order?"
"What?" she asked, and he could hear in her tone that he now had her full attention, which was a truly rare thing for anyone but Uryu or their new son. "What have you gotten yourself into now?"
"I don't know. It kinda depends on the answer to that question."
"You mean six specific people, right?"
"Right."
"Out of how large a group?"
"Does it really matter?"
"Absolutely."
Ichigo stifled the urge to rub his temples. "Out of a group of twelve."
"Can I assume they're each equally likely to die. Or is someone sick or significantly older?" She uttered the macabre questions with clinical detachment.
"Assume they're all equally likely to die. Just give me a ballpark, Nemu. That's all I need."
"Okay. Your ballpark is less than a percent. Would you like me to be more specific?"
"Uh, no." Less than one percent? That was a pretty tiny ballpark.
"Are you sure?" she asked, her tone telling him she thought he was making a gross error in judgment.
"Positive. Thanks, Nemu. I owe you one."
"Then get here as soon as you can. Uryu could really use the help. He's swamped and it's making him grumpy."
"I thought Chad was coming to help."
"He was, but Tatsuki came down with that flu that's been going around, and Chad refuses to leave her until she's better."
Guilt gnawed at Ichigo. He really needed to step this thing up and go do his job. His buddies needed him, and they were as close to real family as he was going to get. He couldn't let them down. "I'll hurry. I promise. Kiss the baby for me?"
"Twice."
"Thanks, Nemu." Ichigo hung up and looked down at the notebook. It was looking more and more like Rukia's instincts were right. Those people were murdered.
Which begged the question, who was next?
AN
Since this is crazy short, I uploaded the next chapter too! Yay! Also I wanted to give you guys a gift for hanging with me this long and dealing with my erratic updates. Also, wish me luck because I'm trying out for American Idol this week! I'll let you guys know how it goes! Please review!