Shinji blinked, swallowing the knot in his throat. “Excuse me?”
“About the change in the killer’s M.O. .” Teruo paused and looked him up and down. “You’re not feeling well. Wouldn’t it be better if you went back to the office?”
“No, I’m good. I need to be here.”
Teruo repositioned himself on Shinji’s left, concealing him from the eyes of the other officers, then whispered, “You’re pale and sweat’s dripping down your forehead. This…thingis affecting you. I can handle the investigation.”
Shinji shook his head. “Something’s going on here and I need to figure it out. I won’t leave.”
“At least let’s get you outside for some fresh air. We could brainstorm far from… you know…” He nodded toward all the officers behind him.
“Okay.”
Teruo took Shinji’s elbow and gently helped him out the front door. They walked the cobblestone path toward the main gate and stopped outside. The energy was thinner here and Shinji exhaled a long, shaky breath. He glanced at Teruo who looked okay. It seemed that, for now, only Shinji’s energy affected him which added another level of strangeness to Teruo’s ability.
“You were speaking about the killer’s M.O.,” Shinji said, his voice strained.
“Yeah. Got any theories?”
“I think I’m the reason.” Shinji pulled a tissue from his pocket and wiped the sweat off his forehead.
Teruo frowned. “You?”
With a nod, Shinji gazed toward the house, then back at Teruo. “I’ve been targeted by the perpetrator. They clearly want to get rid of me, so it’s not surprising the M.O. changed. My theory is that, until now, the killer intended to make a show of this ‘morbidly creative’ way of murdering. Possibly a parallel to the way the killer was bullied years ago. But then I interfered by questioning Yamato and Ishida’s ghosts and finding the laptop in Yamato’s house.”
“So our perp is in a race against the clock to murder as many on his list as possible before you figure out whatever’s on that laptop.”
“Most likely. My guess is that Yamato, Ozawa and Ishida had something incriminating on their phones. Our digital forensics haven’t been able to track them. They’ve been destroyed. But the criminal didn’t take into account Yamato’s laptop.”
“Or did,” Teruo said, “but couldn’t access the apartment due to the security in that building.”
Shinji paused as two forensic techs carrying more evidence bags walked toward their cars.
“And there’s another thing that bugs me,” Shinji continued when the forensics were out of earshot. “But I can’t say it here. I’m not risking being heard again. Not after what happened in the parking lot.”
Teruo seemed to lose his patience with all this sneaking around and beckoned Shinji to follow him further down the street. “You still think it was the assistant, Kojima.”
“Her or—” Shinji leaned forward. “—Suzuki.”
Teruo’s jaw dropped. “You can’t be serious. I’ve known Suzuki for a long time. She’s not a murderer.”
“This amount of energy,” Shinji said, waving his hands in a grand gesture, “can’t possibly be used without draining the person. Suzuki is out sick today. Stomachache from a convenience store’s packed breakfast? Too big of a coincidence. The two of them could be working together.”
Teruo shook his head. “Sorry, I don’t believe that for a second. Suzuki doesn’t fit our perpetrator’s profile. She’s too old, she wasn’t born in Tokyo, she never went to high school here. She’s not among the list of contacts for Yamato, Ozawa, Ishida or Miura. Our only link right now is Kojima and we have zero evidence against her too. What we have is your word which is—”
“Just speculation, I know.”
“Exactly. Yes, Kojima was at the medical center. She touched you and you felt a peculiar energy. That’s not enough. That could’ve easily been a coincidence and the perpetrator knows you have the laptop because you’ve probably been stalked this entire time. Both of us, actually.”
Shinji chewed on his lip. Teruo was right, but what he had felt at the medical center coupled with those ghosts lined up in the corridor and the way they attacked him told Shinji there was more to this. If only he’d gotten through to Ishida. The case would’ve been solved by now.
“I’ll pull a file on Kojima when we get back,” Teruo said.
“Don’t worry. The superintendent’s on it.”
Teruo nodded slowly. “Almost forgot the two of you are in this together. I feel like the outsider who knows close to nothing.”
“That’s not true, Teruo.” Shinji held his shoulders and squeezed. “You know more than most.”