This time when I walk back into the bakery, I have significantly more situational awareness and far less obsession about a stupid egg that may not even exist.
I can’t believe I’m such a little idiot. That must be what Matsumoto is doing. He just wants to send me all over the place so he can take me unaware. If Brian knew I was being this stupid, he’d probably kill me himself.
“Can I help you?” a much nicer girl than the one at the boutique says when I reach the counter. I find I need that coffee and donut even more than before I made this startling realization. I scan the display case, trying to make up my mind, when a reflection catches my eye and I look up to see a small blue cake shaped and decorated like a Faberge egg.
I’m sure my eyes are comically wide, and the girl probably thinks it’s just sugar-lust taking over.
Matsumoto said Faberge-style egg, so I naturally expected something made out of metal or ceramic… a decorative piece. Not food. And maybe it’s a coincidence. I mean it is almost Easter, after all. A fancy decorated egg cake in a bakery right before Easter isn’t exactly an unlikely event.
“Is that egg cake for sale?” I ask.
“It’s $19.99.”
I’m so glad I brought a bunch of money with me. Between filling up the gas tank, breakfast, the clothes, and this… I’malready punching close to $600. And I still have plenty if the opportunity for bribery comes up.
“Great, can I get that and a coffee to go, please?”
The girl boxes up the egg inside a small white cake box, fixes me a coffee in a to-go cup, and gives me a wrapped up fork and knife like she thinks I plan to just dig in now. I pay, thank her, and carry the package back out to the car.
I take a quick, furtive glance around the parking lot… looking for obvious government-looking black cars. The last time Matsumoto took me, that’s the kind of thing they were driving. Brian’s totally right about this. If kidnappers really want to blend, they should drive rusted-out Honda Civics. Nobody ever suspects the rusted-out Honda Civic. But it’s like they want you to know they’re bringing your doom with them. So non-descript black sedans are the favored stalker car. At least for the active, powerful criminal element, like Matsumoto.
Even if he doesn’t plan to pull me off the street in broad daylight, he could have someone watching me and my progress. But, I don’t see anything suspicious, so I settle into the driver’s side of Brian’s car and lock the door.
I take a sip of the coffee, as though caffeine could settle my jangled nerves, and carefully open the white box. I have a moment of self-doubt as I wonder if I’m about to feel really stupid, smashing and destroying a cake for a non-existent secret message. I decide against smashing into it with my hand like a lunatic and instead use the knife to cut down the center.
About half an inch in, I meet resistance and use the fork to dig into the cake like I’m digging up a dinosaur, brushing the moist part of the cake away as though it’s so much dirt.
I’m surprised when I find there actually is something baked inside—a long aluminum foil wrapped tube. It’s almost the entire length of the cake. I pull it out and remove the foil wrapping to find a glass tube, like a test tube. There’s a longscroll of paper containing a message far longer than I would have believed could have so compactly fit inside this cake.
I’m tempted to eat the cake. It was so beautiful, and it smells divine, but I’ve had breakfast. I won’t starve, and the idea has suddenly popped into my head that the cake could be drugged.
I don’t think Matsumoto would murder me with poison. That’s a woman’s method of choice. He wants me alive and punished for daring to be freed from him. But there could be a sedative in the cake which only makes me easier prey. And I’m still worried the entire Easter Hunt may be a distraction from something else.
Since I don’t trust my self-control on this, even in the face of possible sedative, I take the cake back across the street and dump it in an outdoor trash can, really hoping that move was smart and not paranoid.
To console myself for my loss, I go back inside the bakery, order a little bunny cupcake with pink buttercream frosting and chocolate cake.
“Back for more already?” the girl says.
I wonder if she knows what was hidden inside the cake. I doubt she was the one who baked it in, and even if the egg cake was drugged, the rest of the bakery’s offerings should be safe.
“It’s for a special event but it just smelled so good, I wanted something for myself now.”
“I’ve been there,” she says. She puts the cupcake into a small white cupcake box, I pay her, and go back to the car.
I fortify myself with sugar and caffeine before carefully removing the rolled up paper from the glass tube.
Mina, it is good of you to join my Easter Hunt. The prize for successful completion is Brian’s life. But unfortunately, theprice is your freedom. You must care a great deal for him to make such a sacrifice.
The rest of Matsumoto’s long winded note just gives me directions to a lingerie shop, what to say to the person and that there will be a package for me there.
It’s not that I wanted to go on a scavenger hunt for this psycho, but it seems clear to me that he really doesn’t know how they work. There are supposed to be clever clues, not boring directions to each location. I feel like an executive assistant running errands.
Though I shouldn’t complain about this. After all, the last thing I need is a set of complicated clues I might not figure out while the clock ticks on Brian’s life. There could be any number of cultural differences that could make riddles not translate from his brain to mine, and it’s the last thing I need.
At the lingerie store, I give the stated code phrase, “Someone is holding a package for bunny.”
No, I’m not kidding. That’s the lame code phrase. If I didn’t already want revenge, if this man hadn’t already destroyed me, I’d be tempted to kill him just for sending me all over the city collecting these stupid eggs.
