Tracking

"Section Chief Kunikida, sorry to dump such a major operation on you the moment you arrived... From here on, Section Chief Kunikida will command the officers in the operation! The top priority is ensuring Mrs. Suzuki's safety!"

Shiraishi understood who he was issuing orders alongside. After a brief hesitation, he handed over command—since Kunikida had once headed the First Investigation Division's Sixth Section, his experience had to be extensive.

So Shiraishi let him take command while he acted independently. Kunikida did not stand on ceremony and immediately began directing the operation.

Ah—

At that moment, an unfamiliar woman's scream came through the radio...

Gen's voice followed at once. "Mrs. Suzuki... jumped from the second-floor women's restroom! She got into a car prepared by the kidnappers, and it's already driven away!"

Clearly, the scream had been caused by Gen barging in. Fujisato could also be heard nearby calming the other civilians.

The moment Shiraishi heard Gen's report, he floored the accelerator and headed for the service station...

"What kind of car? Are the kidnappers inside? Who's driving?" Kunikida confirmed over the radio.

"No one. Mrs. Suzuki drove away herself... A black Fuent, and the license plate was obscured," Gen immediately replied.

There was a garbage collection point downstairs, with plenty of large trash bags to cushion their fall. Gen and Fujisato immediately jumped down as well and ran after the car.

They had not gone far when they heard a screech of brakes. A QX56 stopped in front of them!

Before the two of them could panic, they saw their own station chief sitting in the driver's seat.

"Get in!" Shiraishi barked.

The two got in. Shiraishi continued driving in the direction they indicated, but after a while, he suddenly discovered that the tracker had stopped moving...

Shiraishi drove straight toward its last recorded location, which was in an alley.

"Stop! That's the car!" Fujisato spotted the vehicle they had just seen by the roadside.

After the three got out and checked it, they found that there was no one in the car. What was more...

The bag of money, along with Tomoko's own phone, was still inside the car!

That meant Shiraishi had no way to contact Suzuki Tomoko either.

"Damn it!" Shiraishi snapped in frustration.

"Mrs. Suzuki likely changed cars. There are no signs of a struggle at the scene, so she should have left voluntarily. The last location was..." Fujisato immediately reported the location over the radio.

Clearly, the restroom exchange had only been a smokescreen. The kidnappers had actually used written instructions to tell Suzuki Tomoko to change both the method and location of the exchange.

What infuriated Shiraishi was that he did not know whether Suzuki Tomoko was truly brave, simply too stubborn to admit defeat... or trying to prove to her daughter that she was not someone to be underestimated. She had actually stubbornly followed the kidnappers' instructions!

"There are no surveillance cameras on the nearby roads..." The news Kunikida brought was rather discouraging.

At the same time, Fujisato and Gen realized that their station chief had vanished...

They looked around, then suddenly saw him. Like a gibbon, he was using the angles between the walls and the densely packed surrounding buildings to rapidly climb and leap upward. He had already reached the top of a nearby six-story building!

From the rooftop, he prowled about and scanned the area...

Genjiro and Fujisato Seiko: ...

What the hell was that supposed to be?

The higher he stood, the farther he could see... Shiraishi's field of vision expanded considerably. But since he did not know what car Suzuki Tomoko had switched to, he could only search for vehicles behaving suspiciously, which was not very efficient.

But just then, good news finally came from the police station!

"The voiceprint analysis is complete! There were sounds of children playing and dolphins crying in the kidnapper's background audio... It should be at the Beika Aquarium! All officers from the Criminal Affairs Division are to head to the Beika Aquarium in plain clothes. All other patrol officers currently in action are to continue searching for clues near the vehicle-switching location!" Kunikida cautiously refrained from sending everyone to the aquarium.

Upon hearing that, Shiraishi immediately climbed back down. Clinging to the wall, he essentially dropped one floor at a time, then leaped directly down from the final three floors!

Gen and Fujisato were left staring in stunned disbelief...

"Let's go!" Shiraishi called out.

Although Fujisato was a patrol officer, Shiraishi still took her along to the aquarium since it was on the way.

In his haste, Shiraishi committed three traffic violations in a row while changing lanes...

Even worse, there happened to be a traffic cop nearby!

"Pull over! Which lane were you supposed to be in?" Riding a motorcycle, Miyamoto Yumi caught up to the offending car, knocked on the window, and asked irritably.

Miyamoto Yumi was a patrol officer in the Metropolitan Police Department's Traffic Division, though Shiraishi knew her.

"I'm... it's me!" Shiraishi had initially intended to show his Police ID, but when he realized the traffic cop was someone he knew, it became, "It's me."

"Shiraishi? What are you... Did you buy a new car?" Yumi recognized Shiraishi Kuro and was about to make small talk.

But Shiraishi Kuro urgently cut her off. "What's going on with this road?"

It was not just that Yumi had stopped him. There was also... a traffic jam!

"There's been a minor collision up ahead, so it has been reduced to two lanes... Are you on official business? I can clear a path for you." Yumi could see that Shiraishi was in a hurry.

"There's no time... Gen, drive my car!" Shiraishi said, glancing at Yumi's motorcycle.

After getting out of the car, Shiraishi immediately said, "Lend me the bike. I'll buy you dinner afterward!"

Then, without waiting for an answer, he grabbed Yumi under the arms and lifted her off the motorcycle.

Because of the difference in their size and strength, Yumi had not even reacted before she was taken off the bike like a child being lifted down from a bicycle. Her helmet was also removed in one hand...

"Wait... don't... Hehehe... ah..." Yumi first burst into ticklish laughter, then let out a cry of grief—grieving for her motorcycle as she watched it get ridden away under an unbearable load. The helmet was also wedged with difficulty over Shiraishi's enormous head.

Yumi felt that the moment Shiraishi got on her "iron steed," it had sunk a little lower...

The large motorcycle Yumi normally rode looked like a child's bike beneath Shiraishi's massive frame.

"You're from Beika Police Station, right? What's wrong with your station chief?" Seeing Shiraishi already speeding away, Yumi could only complain to Gen and Fujisato.

After getting on the motorcycle, Shiraishi raced all the way to the Beika Aquarium.

Just then, his phone suddenly rang. Shiraishi had not wanted to answer it, but after glancing at the screen, he saw that it was Kuroki's number.

"Hello, any leads?" Shiraishi asked directly—he had previously told Kuroki to investigate the kidnapped girl's identity further, but it seemed rather meaningless now that they already knew the kidnappers' location.

Kuroki had not gone to the police station that day, so he had no idea how to contact his new superior and had not taken a radio with him. Thus, he called the station chief directly to report.

"Chief! The kidnapped girl's name is Ujihara Ayano. She previously used Suzuki Sonoko's identity to work at a bar. The people carrying out the kidnapping can basically be identified as a group of Bōsōzoku who frequently hang around that bar," Kuroki immediately reported.

She had used Sonoko's identity to work? Shiraishi was initially taken aback, then quickly realized that she must have used the identity of a "Teitan High School student." Although people in the Eastern Island Nation could work after turning fifteen, most businesses did not dare hire minors from unfamiliar places, lest disputes arise. If they were students from a nearby school, however, the owners would feel much more at ease.