MISPER
Gone
One Week Before (the prologue)…
Inspector Natsume Hyuuga stared into the photo in front of him. His fury had finally subsided, but the tension was eating him out like an animal. It had been two weeks. Two weeks since she had disappeared. Two weeks since he fired three of his people because they had thrown her out of the police station, and enabled the kidnapper to take her. Two weeks since he had had a good night of sleep.
Mikan Sakura. 25 years old. For almost a year she had been coming to the police station, asking if they had found anything about her mother who had disappeared that winter. Because the police had not found anything useful, she worked on her own, and brought them new evidence that pointed at a certain person who had not been in prison for five year. A former convict who disappeared from the scene. Persona.
Persona was a very dangerous criminal who had sold many women as prostitutes over the sea. He had been locked up 15 years ago, but five years ago, he was released. No one had heard anything about him for the past five years.
Except Mikan. She had discovered that he was on the scene again. Natsume had told her many times she should stop investigating on her own and start living again. She refused of course. Fresh out of college, she was working at a nursery school, where she had started working part time as a student in high school. A few months before graduating, she got pregnant after a night with a stranger she had met at a party. She had never seen him again. With a baby in her belly, she graduated with flying colours and started working. Then her mother had disappeared.
Since then, he saw her every week.
And in these past five months since she started coming, her belly grew, and she became even more beautiful.
Inspector Hyuuga stared at her photo and leafed through her personal data.
They had no trace and nothing that would help them find her. Or indicate what had happened to her.
Two weeks ago, she came to the station again, bringing new evidence. Natsume had not been in the office then, and another, younger police officer talked to her. The youngster had laughed in her face, called two other men, and told them to take her out. They did. After that there was no trace of her. As soon as Natsume received the news, he looked at the video tape of what happened at the police station, fired the three youngsters, and started searching for her.
Without success.