Groans emanated from the prone figure whose mountainous belly identified her as Midori. She’d rid herself of the hood and gag, and as Reiko hurried to her, she retched.

“I’m going to be sick,” she said.

Reiko dashed for a bucket. Midori vomited while Reiko held her head. Afterward, Midori sat up and clutched her stomach, hands frantically pressing, rubbing.

“My baby.” Fright thinned her voice, widened her eyes. “It hasn’t moved since I woke up.”

She and Reiko sat in momentary speechless terror that the opium-or the trauma suffered by Midori-had killed the unborn child. Then Midori began to sob.

“No, oh, please, no!” she wailed.

“The baby will be fine,” Reiko said, hoping she spoke the truth. “It’s just asleep. Lie down and rest. Don’t worry.”

After she settled Midori on the floor, Reiko hastened to Lady Yanagisawa. The woman lay quiet and still, legs straight, her hands fallen at her sides. When Reiko pulled the hood off her and yanked the cloth gag from her mouth, Lady Yanagisawa blinked up at Reiko. Her tongue slowly moistened her lips.

“Are you all right?” Reiko asked.

Lady Yanagisawa murmured, “Yes, thank you.”

Her face was strangely blank, her tone calm and polite as if this were an ordinary social occasion. She made a feeble motion to rise. When Reiko helped her sit up, she said, “I must be going home now, if you’ll excuse me.”

An eerie apprehension stole through Reiko.

“You can’t go home,” Keisho-in said to Lady Yanagisawa. “We’ve been kidnapped.” She peered quizzically into Lady Yanagisawa’s face. “Don’t you remember?”

Lady Yanagisawa frowned in bewilderment, shaking her head. “My apologies… I don’t understand what you’re saying.” She seemed oblivious to their surroundings; she ignored Midori, who moaned and wept across the room. As Reiko and Keisho-in regarded Lady Yanagisawa with speechless confusion, she repeated, “I must be going home now. Kikuko-chan needs me.”

“I’m sorry, but that’s not possible,” Reiko said gently.

She explained what had happened, but the words seemed not to penetrate Lady Yanagisawa’s mind. The woman laboriously clambered to her feet. Gripping the walls for support, she stumbled blindly around the room. “Kikuko-chan,” she called. “Where are you?”

“The shock has driven her mad,” Keisho-in said.

Reiko feared that Keisho-in was right. Perhaps Lady Yanagisawa was only suffering from the aftereffects of the opium; but perhaps her already unbalanced mind wanted to deny what had happened, and its refusal to face facts had tipped her over the edge of insanity.

“Where are you, Kikuko-chan?” Anxiety inflected Lady Yanagisawa’s voice. “Come to Mama.”

Reiko hurried to Lady Yanagisawa and put her arms around the woman. “Kikuko-chan is safe at home. Please sit and compose yourself. You’re not well.”

Lady Yanagisawa pulled away and continued searching the room. “Kikuko-chan!” she called with increasing urgency.

“We need help,” Lady Keisho-in said. She staggered to the door, banged on it, and yelled, “Hey! We’ve got sick people in here. I order you to bring a physician!”

The banging echoed through what seemed like a deep well of empty space. No reply came. Midori’s sobs rose in hysteria.

“I wish I’d never gone on the trip,” she cried. “I wish I were at home.”

“This is intolerable,” Keisho-in declared, her fear giving way to anger. “My head is killing me. I need my tobacco pipe. It’s cold in here. The dust irritates my lungs.” She coughed and wheezed. “That I, the shogun’s mother, should be treated like this is an outrage!” She kicked the door. “Whoever you are, let us out at once!”

“I want my baby to be all right,” Midori wailed between sobs. “I want Hirata-san.”

Responsibility for her companions fell to Reiko with the burdensome weight of an avalanche. Though ill and terrified herself, she said, “We must stay calm. Getting upset will only make matters worse.”

Lady Keisho-in turned a vexed scowl on Reiko. “You’re so good at solving mysteries. Find us a way out of this.”

But Reiko knew how much her past success had depended on weapons; freedom of movement; access to information; and the power of Sano, his detective corps, and the Tokugawa regime behind her. Here, unarmed and trapped, what could she do to save her friends?

Nevertheless, determination and duty compelled Reiko to try. “Please be patient. I’ll get us out,” she said, feigning confidence.

Keisho-in squatted, folded her arms, and waited; Midori’s tears subsided. Lady Yanagisawa turned in slow, giddy circles, her gaze darting deliriously. The lap and rush of waves pervaded the uneasy quiet. Reiko went to the door and pushed. Its thick, heavy wood didn’t yield; pressure only rattled the bars on the other side. Her hands probed for cracks in the door’s surface and around the edge, to no avail. She moved to the windows and discovered that the shutters were nailed closed. She inserted her fingers into the narrow gaps between the rough wooden slats and tried to pry them apart. This gained her nothing except splinters in her skin.

Lady Yanagisawa collapsed, forlorn and whimpering, in a corner. “I can’t find my little girl,” she said. “Where can she have gone?”

Reiko examined the walls and floor. Both were marred with holes and fissures, but none large enough for escape. The building seemed ancient, in disrepair, but solid. Soon Reiko was exhausted, panting, and sweaty despite the cold. She stood in the center of the room and gazed upward. The ceiling was twice as high as she was tall. Moonlight shone through crevices amid the rafters. Failure drained her energy; she sank to her knees.

A pitiful wail came from Midori: “What’s to become of us?”

Lady Keisho-in jumped up, trotted around the room, and pounded on the shutters. “Help!” she shouted. “Somebody help!”

“Don’t panic,” Reiko begged. “We must save our strength and ready our wits for when we get an opportunity to escape.”

“We’ll never escape,” Midori said as more sobs convulsed her. “We’ll all die!”

Her hysteria infected Keisho-in, who clawed the door with her fingernails. “I must leave this place now! I can’t stand this anymore!”

Though Reiko attempted to reason with and comfort her friends, they paid no attention.

“Hirata-san!” Midori called, as if her voice could carry across the distance to her husband.

Keisho-in hurled herself repeatedly against the door, uttering foul curses that revealed her peasant origin; Lady Yanagisawa whimpered. Reiko had never felt so useless. When news of the massacre and abduction reached Edo, the shogun would surely order Sano to investigate this serious crime. Here Reiko was at the center of what might be the biggest case of Sano’s career; but all her talent and experience mattered not, for this time she was a victim instead of a detective.

Frustration, physical malaise, and terror that she would never again see Sano or Masahiro nearly overwhelmed Reiko. Tears spilled from her eyes; yet her samurai spirit blazed with anger toward her kidnappers and spurned the notion of giving up without a fight. Somehow she must deliver herself and her friends to safety, and the criminals to justice.

“Hirata-san!” Midori called again and again.

Her friend’s desperation resonated through Reiko. As much as she craved action, there seemed nothing she could do at present except wait for whatever was to come.