Ring by Kôji Suzuki Read Free Book Online Page B

kitchen. The bereaved father was seated in front of a newly-installed Buddhist altar, speaking to his daughter's photograph. His voice was shockingly cheerful, and Asakawa became depressed. He was obviously living in denial. Asakawa could only pray that he'd be able to get through.
    Asakawa had found out one thing. If this Nonoyama had in fact lent Tomoko the membership card, he or she would have contacted Tomoko's parents to ask for the card back upon learning of her death. But Tomoko's mother knew nothing about the card. Nonoyama couldn't have forgotten about the card. Even if it were part of a family membership deal, dues were expensive enough that Nonoyama wouldn't just allow the card to stay lost. So what did this mean? This was how Asakawa figured it: Nonoyama had lent the card to one of the other three, either Iwata, Tsuji, or Nomi. Somehow it passed into Tomoko's possession, and that's how things had ended. Nonoyama would have contacted the parents of the person he or she had lent it to. The parents would have searched their child's belongings. They wouldn't have found the card. The card was here. If Asakawa contacted the families of the other three victims, he might be able to unearth Nonoyama's address. He should call right away, tonight. If he couldn't dig up a clue this way, then it would be unlikely that the card would provide a means for finding when and where the four had been together. At any rate, he wanted to meet Nonoyama and hear what he or she had to say. If he had to, he could always find some way to track down Nonoyama's address based on the membership number. Asking Pacific Resorts directly probably wouldn't get him anywhere, but he was sure that his newspaper connections could come up with something.
    Someone was calling him. A distant voice. "Dear… dear…" His wife's flustered voice mingled with the baby's crying.
    "Dear, could you come here for a minute?"
    Asakawa came to himself again. Suddenly he wasn't even sure what he'd been thinking about all this time. There was something strange about the way his daughter was crying. That feeling became stronger as he mounted the stairs.
    "What's wrong?" he asked his wife, accusingly.
    "Something's not right with Yoko. I think something's happened to her. The way she's crying-it's different from how it usually sounds. Do you think she's sick?"
    Asakawa placed his hand on Yoko's forehead. She didn't have a fever. But her little hands were trembling. The trembling spread to her whole body, and sometimes her back shook. Her face was beet red, her eyes clenched shut.
     
    "How long has she been like this?"
    "It's because she woke up and there was no one here with her."
    The baby often cried if her mother wasn't there when she woke up. But she always calmed down when her mother ran to her and held her. When a baby cried it was trying to ask for something, but what…? The baby was trying to tell them something. She wasn't just being bratty. Her two tiny hands were clasped tightly over her face… cowering. That was it. The child was wailing out of fear. Yoko turned her face away, and then opened her fists slightly: she seemed to be trying to point forward. Asakawa looked in that direction. There was a pillar. He raised his eyes. Hanging about thirty centimeters from the ceiling was a fist-sized mask, of a hannya -a female demon. Was the child afraid of the mask?
    "Hey, look," said Asakawa, pointing with his chin. They looked at the mask simultaneously, then slowly turned their gazes to each other.
    "No way… she's frightened of a demon?"
    Asakawa got to his feet. He took down the demon mask from where it hung on the beam and laid it face down on top of the dresser. Yoko couldn't see it there. She abruptly stopped crying.
    "What's the matter, Yoko? Did that nasty demon scare you?" Shizu seemed relieved now that she understood, and she happily rubbed her cheek against the child's. Asakawa wasn't so easily satisfied; for some reason, he didn't want to be in this