MEMORY: Hide and Seek (Part 3)

The sudden nostalgia made me want to check out the place more.

Leaving Yana in her own exploration, I headed towards the cabinets and opened one near the windows. Lying inside was a box-like record player (like the old one Grandma has in the province), and racks of vinyl records filling up the space.

I opened another cabinet and my eyes lit up when I saw rows of cassette tapes containing music from Abba, Bee Gees, Air Supply, and the likes. I couldn’t be any luckier to have found a Walkman on top of the stack to boot.

After checking if it had batteries on, I put on the headphones and was about to insert a tape when I noticed it was loaded. It wasn’t labeled so I assumed it was a blank tape. I rewinded and played it just to be sure.

“This is Nicole,” the voice said, which made me gasp in shock. I let the tape play as I sat frozen on the floor.

“A.P. is already getting suspicious so I have to take precautionary measures.

I always carry the photos with me but I also made copies and left it in the Literature Club room just in case. It’s safer there than in the Newspaper Club where he knows I frequent a lot.”

I made a quick glance at Yana and was relieved to see she was busy reading the SB logs. I turned my undivided attention back to the tape.

“I guess it was partly my fault that he became suspicious because I’ve been asking him questions lately. I can't help it though; I need to know the truth. And maybe, I am hoping that he’ll feel guilty somehow, and finally admit what he has done.

I’m going to the construction site later. I’ll bring my camera with me, as always, as I might find something there. But before that, I’ll leave my recorder here first.

I’m pretty sure there's no way A.P. will find it here. After all, he doesn’t like things of the past.”

“A.P.” Calvin muttered after listening to Nicole’s recording.

“For Augusto Pier,” I said aloud, not wanting to believe it was only a mere coincidence.

The freshman and I were on the phone this evening. Earlier, when Yana wasn’t looking, I slid the recorder into my pocket so I could let Calvin hear it too.

He indeed is the culprit, I reiterated to myself, letting the truth sink in.

“Do you think they will believe my sister’s account? She didn’t explicitly say his name,” Calvin said to me. I don’t think it’s because he was doubting the evidence, but because he wanted to ensure the man would be put in jail.

“Calvin, we need to find a way to make him talk,” I said, my voice deeper than usual.

“But how are we going to do that?”

I had asked myself the same question since I got home, but I hadn’t come up with a lot of options.

“First, we have to get his attention, and lure him out. Like a rat attracted to the scent of cheese,” I said, thinking as I went along.

“Wow, senpai, you really sound like a detective now,” he said, getting excited.

Setting aside Calvin’s praise, I let my thoughts drift back to Nicole’s words, digesting every piece of it.

He doesn’t like things of the past, she said.

And that’s when I realized what I have to do.

“Calvin, what is a rat most afraid of?” I asked the boy, a plan steadily taking shape.

“Um, cats?” he replied, seemingly confused.

I grinned to myself. “In that case, we have to lure him into a cage, unaware that there’s a cat waiting for him inside.”