The Memory of Murder

By E.M. Megs

Chapter 7 – Reception

When she had asked Ken to get Kyoya's case file for her, he'd looked at her like she was crazy. "I don't believe it. I can't believe that he was a murderer. Especially without having a reason. I have to know, Ken. I have to."

He looked at her with unending sympathy and nodded his head slowly, easily accepting the explanation without much more trouble. "Don't let Takikara find out," was all he said in way of advice. She swallowed and nodded once sharply, thankful that there was at least one other person who was willing to help.

For days after she sat in her office, sifting through evidence in both the Takahashi murders and Kyoya's own suicide, trying to find some medium between the two. For some reason she kept coming back to his suicide note. As if it were the one thing that tied everything together.

He never said anything about either the murder or suicide directly, which bothered her. If she had no knowledge of what had happened to him she could have assumed that he'd just left her. Except for the 'they' part.

Who were 'they' exactly? The police?

But the police didn't fit with being in a place he couldn't see her. In prison, she'd be able to visit.

I never wanted to bring you into it.

It. He used ambiguous terms quite frequently in the note. 'It.' 'They.' Things that could be taken as a reference to just about anything.

"Come on, Haruhi…" she whispered to herself, "What are you missing?"

Kyoya had shot himself with the same 9 mil glock that was his service weapon. The same gun that had killed the Takahashis.

Had anyone actually even tested that? She made a note to ask the twins to run Kyoya's gun against the bullets in the Takahashis just to make sure.

It wasn't until later when she was sorting through his office things to see what she wanted to keep that things began to fall into place.

She came across it completely on accident. Wouldn't have even known it was there if it hadn't fallen out of one of his old ledgers.

A note. A small square note with a circular black sticker holding the folds together. Gently, curiously, she opened it and read.

Hey Ohtori, how'd you like that present? You know you better reign in that old man of yours. He's trouble for both of us.

-K

She frowned at it. Ambiguous. Signed by a letter that probably only held significance to Kyoya. She set down the small note on the bed for safe-keeping and opened the ledger, pawing through it.

At first she didn't make sense of the Japanese characters written on the page in his messy scrawl. Nor the pictures that accompanied them. Then when she got to newspaper clippings of their solved cases, she began to understand. "A scrapbook…" It was a scrapbook of his memories all the way back from when his mother had died onward.

The further back she got, the more overwhelmed she became. Then the same small notes with black stickers started showing up among the pictures and newspaper clippings, pushed haphazardly between the pages. She took them out in order, and read them slowly.

Your old man's really starting to piss me off, Ohtori. Better do as I say or someone's going to get a cut throat.

-K

This really isn't the time for you to ignore me. If anything, you should acknowledge the fact that I'm here, and I'm watching.

-K

Why'd you kill the Takahashis? I thought they were lovely people. And they were even proven innocent, unlike you.

-K

Admit defeat, Ohtori, or Daddy's gonna pay.

-K

Or perhaps, even better, your sister.

-K

Or your niece.

-K

Or your entire family. That sounds like the best.

-K

All of them. Threats. Signed by K. Threats against him and his family. For what purpose? And who was it? Who could possibly hate Kyoya's family that much?

They started before the Takahashis murder, growing more and more frequent and menacing the further into the investigation they got. She covered her mouth, at last becoming overwhelmed with the knowledge being presented to her. Then she let out a muffled sob as she pushed it all away from her, as far as she could off the bed, and fell back on the mattress.

"Why didn't you tell me?"

A/N: Yo! A week later as promised! Summer has come and graduation as passed. Woohoo. Now I just need to pack all this STUFF into boxes…

Kudos to: SmartApple for being the ONLY reviewer last chapter! Though it was only a week… I don't blame you guys.