Before You Were Anne: A Novel

A companion novel to The Return of Ellie Black, this thriller alternates among three perspectives: a pregnant detective investigating a murder, the dead woman's backstory told in second person, and the woman's captive teenage daughter. Together, the narratives trace a web of abuse, trafficking, and buried identities spanning Japan, rural Idaho, and Seattle. The novel opens with the death of Rika, described in second person as she lies at the bottom of her stairs in a pool of blood.

Chelsey Calhoun, a Japanese American homicide detective in Seattle, has just learned at her eighteen-week ultrasound that she is expecting a girl. Adopted as an infant by a white family, Chelsey has no biological family history. She has not told anyone at work about the pregnancy, fearing she will be sidelined. Her partner, Montoya, texts that he has a body.

The victim is Anne Walker, a dark-haired Asian woman found stabbed three times in the back inside her row house. Her sixteen-year-old daughter, Naomi, is missing. On the balcony, Chelsey finds half-smoked Seven Stars cigarettes, a rare Japanese import brand. In Naomi's bedroom, a dresser has been shoved against the door, and a cracked photograph shows Anne, a young Naomi with a pink blanket and rope doll, and an unidentified woman before a brick wall.

The detectives visit Mayumi Ito, listed as both the homeowner and Naomi's school emergency contact. Mayumi reveals that Anne's real name is Rika Takahashi: She came to the United States for an American fiancé named Smith and later changed her surname. Mayumi met Rika at a hostess house called Moonlight in Tokyo when they were both eighteen. Naomi's biological father was from Tokyo, but Rika never revealed his name.

Second-person chapters reconstruct Rika's life. Born outdoors on a farm in Sakegawa, a rural village in northern Japan, to a teenage mother, Rika grew up in isolation. At seventeen, a short romance with an American English teacher ended when he left without warning. Rika moved to Tokyo. At the train station, her mother tied a red string with a golden bell charm around her wrist.

In Tokyo, Rika was recruited into Moonlight, a high-end hostess club where women entertain wealthy male clients. Mayumi became her mentor. Rika noticed Hiroshi Akiyama, a quiet young man among a group of powerful men, and they began a secretive relationship. Hiroshi had joined the yakuza, Japan's organized crime syndicate, to pay off his mother's gambling debts. He came from a burakumin family, a historically marginalized class in Japan. They married quietly, and without either knowing, Rika was already pregnant.

A Japanese document from Naomi's school locker is identified as a koseki, a family registry listing Rika as married to Hiroshi Akiyama. The detectives theorize Naomi used it to track her biological father. The Tokyo embassy reports Akiyama has a criminal record and suspected yakuza ties. Chelsey finds Seven Stars cigarette butts at the Four Seasons hotel matching those at the crime scene. The detectives raid Akiyama's suite, but his shock at Rika's death appears genuine. He explains Naomi contacted him, and he flew to Seattle to reconnect. His story checks out, and he is released under FBI surveillance.

Rika's marriage unraveled when Hiroshi's fiancée, Chiyo Tatsumoto, the daughter of his yakuza boss, confronted and struck Rika, leaving a permanent cheek scar. Fired from the hostess club and relentlessly stalked, Rika nearly threw herself in front of a subway train before Mayumi found her. Through Mayumi, Rika met Seth Prickett, an American dentist from Triumph Valley, Idaho. Seth proposed, and Rika accepted. Mayumi gave her a Seattle address in case she ever needed help.

In Idaho, Seth struck Rika when he discovered her pregnancy, confiscated her passport, controlled her money, and locked her in an attic room. She reported the abuse to Seth's best friend, local police Chief Brian Housten, who dismissed her. She gave birth alone on the bathroom floor. Seth named her Naomi Prickett and claimed legal rights. Eventually, Shannon, a librarian who befriended Rika, smuggled Rika and Naomi out and bought them a bus ticket to Seattle. Rika changed her name and left no trail.

Chapters from Naomi's perspective reveal her captivity in a cold room with unfinished drywall, an IV drip keeping her sedated. In fragments of consciousness, she recalls the discoveries that precipitated the crisis: overhearing Mayumi call her mother "Rika," finding a hidden passport, obtaining the koseki, and emailing Hiroshi's family.

Chelsey traces the rope doll to a toy store in Triumph Valley and identifies Seth. She discovers he has a new wife, Joyce, a young woman from Thailand with concealed bruising, who secretly confirms Seth was absent during the crime window. When the detectives serve a warrant, Seth takes Joyce hostage at gunpoint. Joyce breaks free, Seth shoots Housten, and Chelsey kills Seth. She finds Rika's unsent letters in the house but not Naomi.

Back in Seattle, Chelsey discovers a UV-light mural in Naomi's bedroom painted in invisible paint. The mural traces Naomi's investigation through Tokyo, Triumph Valley, and a chapel in Puget Ridge marked with three ginkgo leaves. Following the trail, Chelsey finds the ID of Hanako Kashigawi, a Japanese university student who vanished twenty years ago, connected to Mayumi's business card and a company belonging to Damon Castro, a doctor under FBI investigation. At Castro's waterfront warehouse, the detectives find a butterfly earring identified as Naomi's and, beneath fresh concrete, a mummified body, likely Hanako. Castro is questioned but released on an alibi.

Chelsey recognizes that the herringbone brick wall in the old photograph of Rika, Mayumi, and Naomi matches Castro's warehouse exterior. She and Montoya rush to Mayumi's penthouse, where they find documents burning in the fireplace and Naomi unconscious in a back room, an IV just removed. Mayumi admits administering morphine at Castro's direction. Montoya retrieves Narcan, a nasal spray that reverses opioid overdoses. Naomi opens her eyes.

Naomi's hospital statement and Mayumi's confession reveal the truth. Castro recruited Mayumi at Moonlight twenty years earlier, making her a partner in a trafficking operation disguised as an antiques import business. Seth killed Hanako, and Castro buried her. Castro and Mayumi engineered Rika's meeting with Seth. When Rika escaped and arrived in Seattle, Mayumi tried to atone by providing a house and supporting Naomi. But when Naomi uncovered the truth and Rika confronted Mayumi, Mayumi killed Rika and kidnapped Naomi at Castro's direction. Files recovered from Castro's home reveal hundreds of victims.

A parallel thread follows Chelsey's buried origins. Montoya reveals that Safe Haven warming boxes were not installed until 2016, decades after Chelsey's birth, proving her mother's account cannot be true. Chelsey's mother confesses that Chelsey's father, a police sergeant, brought home a baby from a drug house where four people had died of overdoses. He burned the case file and a silver bracelet engraved with the name Rin. Chelsey tracks down Duncan Armstrong, her father's former partner, who confirms the story, and submits her DNA for testing.

At Rika's funeral, Chelsey gives Naomi her mother's unsent letters. Naomi and Hiroshi arrange a traditional Japanese cremation. They fly to Japan, where Naomi meets her grandmother in Sakegawa. Beneath the persimmon tree where her mother was born, Naomi kneels and decides to write Rika's story, beginning with the words that opened the novel.