Looking over, Curacao happened to see a tall, thin man standing behind the Follow Spot on the second floor. He tucked a handgun into his jacket, turned, and ran.
The Bullet had come from that angle. The banquet hall had been completely dark just now, with the only illumination coming from there. The gunman had hidden behind the light source, backlit. At the moment he fired, nobody in the hall could have seen him.
Forget the councilman—even if that gunman had suddenly fired at her, she probably would have been caught off guard because she could not dodge in time.
In other words, if Uzo had wanted to kill her tonight... all he had to do was casually add a light little line to the script: "The gunman was too nervous. His gun went off by accident, killing an innocent waitress by mistake."
As that dangerous fact flashed through her mind, a cold sweat silently broke out across Curacao's back.
Even organization members rarely shot their targets directly on occasions like this. Such an overt assassination was practically outside Curacao's frame of reference.
She suddenly realized that she had still underestimated Uzo's danger—unlike the other executives, this guy did not need to kill anyone personally. Even his "subordinates" were mostly disposable, used once and discarded.
That meant Uzo had no need to follow the secrecy principles ordinary executives had always observed. With his spotless Detective identity, he could move freely through the crime scene and easily distance himself from subordinates who did not even know him.
...The best way to deal with Uzo had never been any so-called testing or adapting. It was distance—complete distance. She had to hide somewhere this guy could not reach. Otherwise, once she appeared before him, what happened next would no longer be under her