A/N: Another chapter of Refraction up and live! Trying to get back on a Friday update schedule. So many thoughts, but mostly Ren and Naru and everyone wanting jealous Naru…

So, about that. I want you all to know I sat down and had a long talk with him about how all the readers wanted "jealous" Naru, but guys, he just isn't feeling it. In his defense, though Ren was created in part to be a foil to Naru, he's mostly there at this point to move Mai's character along. His existence in general is important to Mai and Naru's future relationship, but at this point in Naru's character arc, jealousy probably isn't really going to happen the way you hope. It's just too early. And realistically, jealousy would drive the romance too fast at this point. But don't worry, jealous Naru is def happening at some point in this story. I also have a ton more thoughts about Naru and Ren and jealousy, I just don't want to spoil the story. I'll happily share more though in the next author's note if you want. But it sums up to really needing Mai to have a failed relationship on her end in order to set these guys up for a slow burn. Mai does not, by nature, have a low EQ, therefore we need a little static and emotional scar tissue to make slow burn plausible. I love a low EQ FMC because it allows for all kinds of romantic cuteness, but when there aren't reasonable circumstances leading to her not understanding the MMC, it drives me nuts. So I'm trying to walk a fine line.

Stay with me though.

As always, not my sandbox, just my sandcastle.

Refraction Case Three Part Three

"The Forest for the Trees"

"If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more…." -Jane Austen

Mai shivered in the early morning chill.

Early, early morning chill. It wasn't even four yet. She crawled quietly out of her futon. She could see Bou-san and Yasu still asleep. John was on the porch that opened on one side of their room. She padded over to him quietly, journal and pencil in hand.

She held a finger up when he started to greet her. Using the porch light, she quickly started writing how her dream had gone, word for word. She tried to note as much detail as she could about the teens, their gym uniforms, their names.

She sighed as she got to the end, her hand cramping. She'd have to translate it all to English later, since in her haste, she'd written it in Kanji, but it was worth it.

"Can you help me?" She whispered to John.

He frowned in confusion, before scooting over closer.

"What's wrong, Mai. Bad dream?"

She wriggled her fingers back and forth. "Not sure yet. But it took place at the spring we visited yesterday. But the shoreline looked different. Can you help me try to draw it? Maybe it will help Yasu narrow down the timeframe he needs to search."

John frowned. "I can try, but I'm not sure I can draw it from memory after only seeing it once.

Mai sat back on her heels, frowning. "Dammit. I still don't know which of these kids is the spirit."

The dream had been telling, but she still didn't know the identity of the spirit.

John must have heard the frustration in her voice. "Here, let's try."

He padded in and got his sketchbook. "Ok." He turned to a blank page and frowned.

"What's wrong?" Mai asked.

John hesitated, then showed her a rough edge in his sketchbook. "Someone pulled a page out."

"Which picture?" She asked, chewing her lip.

She could almost feel something coming together. She just couldn't see the shape of it just yet.

"The one of you and Yasu." John admitted, looking troubled.

She sighed. "John, what if we went back to the spring. You could see how it looks now, and I could help you make changes to make it look like what I saw in my dream."

"Can you remember the details long enough?"

He was right, it was one thing to remember the events, but quite enough to hold the visuals of a dream in her mind…

"Wait." John padded back inside and returned, holding the brochure they'd been given when they arrived at the lodge.

"What day is it?" He asked. She cocked her head. "Tuesday, unless I slept longer than I thought." As it was, she must have slept nearly twelve hours.

She was starving.

"How fast can you get dressed?" John asked.

Mai stood up. "Why?"

"Every Tuesday the lodge leads a sunrise hike up the mountain to watch the sunrise from the spring. It leaves in about forty minutes. They take the steeper trail straight up, though. The one with all the stairs. Are you up for that?"

Mai nodded. Yesterday's hike had been challenging, but she hadn't been out of her element really. And if an actual guide from the lodge was leading visitors, it must be a hike most people could do.

"Let's do it." She said.

"Get dressed, I'll tell the boss and LIn." John said.

"Grab a camera, too. That way we'll have a before drawing and an after picture." She said, and he nodded.

She got dressed in a matter of minutes, then walked into the conference room. There was a futon against the wall, and she saw Naru asleep. It was a rare sight, but she didn't have time to appreciate it. John was whispering with Lin.

"We should wake Kazaya." Lin said flatly.

Mai made a face. Naru did not like waking up early.

She shook her head. "We're in a group of two, we're taking a guided tour, we're taking a camera, maps, a compass and a whistle. We'll be back by eight, according to the brochure, so we won't even miss breakfast, and if Naru wakes up before we return, here are my notes about last night's dream."

John blinked at her thoroughness and she shrugged.

Lin sighed. "Mai, Houshou left some rice balls for you. Take them with you to eat."

She nodded. She had no problem with that at all.

As they headed down the hall to the Lodge's main entrance, she flashed a grin at John.

"Could you imagine waking Naru to take a pre-dawn hike?" She could hear the horror in her own voice.

John just shook his head. "I think it was only a token argument on Lin's behalf, especially since Naru doesn't care for heights."

Mai stopped in her tracks.

"He...what?"

She stared at John, aghast, praying she'd somehow misunderstood him.

"Naru doesn't like high places. I don't think it's a phobia, but he certainly dislikes them. He said once he didn't mind as much when his feet were under him, but he doesn't care for things like roller coasters. He hiked yesterday because we needed to, but I doubted he enjoyed it.

"Naru...is afraid of heights?"

But that meant…..

She knelt suddenly, pressing her forehead to her knees as she screamed quietly into them in frustration.

"Mai, are you alright?" John's voice was alarmed.

"No, I'm not alright. Naru is afraid of heights and all I do is fall down places. Do you know how many times Naru has fallen down with me because I'm the most accident prone spirit magnet in the world?"

The sewer, the infirmary. There were probably other occasions she wasn't even remembering because she fell down like it was an Olympic sport.

Literally all she did was fall down, and he was always trying to catch her. That must have been so hard for someone with a fear of heights.

She was the man's worst nightmare.

Her cheeks flamed.

"Let's just go."

She stood up quickly, striding past him. She had half a mind to not come back down

"So, the beach was sort of…rounder." Mai said as she and John approached the lodge. "But otherwise, yeah. That's what I saw in my dream, more or less…."

Her voice trailed off as they saw Naru waiting in front of the main lodge for them.

He did not look pleased.

She exhaled. "Is it too late to head back up the mountain?"

John looked like he was considering it. "We'd have to come down eventually for food."

"Yasu once told me that a human being could live for three weeks without food as long as they had access to water." She said, almost managing to make the words sound conversational.

He looked over at her, startled.

She shrugged. "Just saying…"

She felt like a dog with her tail between her legs as she approached her boss.

"Hey Naru. We have a drawing we'd like to show Yasu."

He merely glared at them. He looked a little.. frazzled, for want of a better word. And his hair needed to be brushed, which never happened.

"Follow me." Was all he said, turning to head swiftly down the hall towards their rooms.

"Three weeks." She whispered to John, making a face at Naru's back.

"Mai!"

She jumped then hurried after him.

Geez….

He stopped so suddenly in the doorway to the room where they slept she nearly collided with him, then suddenly he spun, wrapping his arms around her.

Nearly choking on a mouthful of his shirt, her eyes widened…

What was happening and why was Naru hugging her…

"Naru-"

The sound of breaking glass interrupted her unfinished question.

A second later he released her and she stared up at him with wide eyes.

"Now do you understand?" He asked crossly.

"No." She paused. "I definitely do not."

She strongly, absolutely, completely had no idea what had just happened.

"Whoa!" It was John's surprised voice from behind her. She looked at him in confusion, then seeing where he was looking, she turned back towards Naru. Leaning around him to look at the room, her mouth widened in a surprised 'o'.

Yasu waved at her resignedly. "Hey girlfriend."

She frowned quizzically. For all that they joked about marriage, kids, even being soul mates, she wasn't sure they'd ever referred to her as a girlfriend. At least, not without a audience to appreciate their antics.

Yasu was sitting cross legged in the middle of the room and all around him, their belongings were in total disarray. Futons were laying haphazardly in piles, bags were uphended, papers lay strewn about. The glass Naru had shielded her from a moment ago was not the only broken one in the roll. Even one of the computer monitors looked to be nothing but static at this point.

"Is everyone ok?" She said finally.

It looked like either the spirit had been very active in their absence, or Naru had grown a penchant for pillow fights while back in England.

A quick glance at her boss's face reassured her she hadn't fallen into the twilight zone, and pillow fights were not the cause for current mayhem.

"Jou-chan, thank the gods. Come here, sit for a while." Bou-san had a strained smile on his face as he hurried over to her. "You look tired, why don't you come sit down. Next to Yasu. Right here."

He dragged her to the center of the room, nearly pushing her into Yasu's lap.

"John, are they possessed?" She looked at the blond with wide eyes but he only shrugged.

"Just sit next to me and smile, Mai." Yasu said, looking frazzled himself.

"Ok, what is going on?" Mai cried finally, their strange behavior finally pushing her over the edge.

Immediately, a pillow shot across the room, hitting Lin just as he walked in.

"Maybe, no yelling." Yasu said, pressing his lips together.

She should have stayed on the damn mountain.

"Would someone please fill us in? Mai's starting to get freaked out, and I get the feeling that wouldn't be a good thing right now." John asked.

She nodded emphatically.

"Almost as soon as your tour left, our friendly neighborhood spirit started acting up. As you can see. Only your belongings and Yasu's seem to be off limits." Bou-san grimaced.

She swung her head around to look. Sure enough, her stuff looked relatively untouched, as did Yasu's, an island of calm in a sea of chaos.

"Ok…but…why?" Mai asked, making sure to keep her voice level.

"If your dream is indication, it would seem to indicate that the spirit is using you and Yasu as fill-ins for Aya and Atsuki. It started acting up as soon as you left and it realized you weren't returning any time soon.

She looked at Yasu appraisingly. She could see a bit of resemblance, she supposed, especially with the glasses. "But I don't look anything like Aya?"

Naru snorted. "You act exactly like her. Can you really not see the similarities?"

She shook her head. Aya had been exceptionally pretty, and her features and coloring had been closer to Masako's than her own.

"Well, regardless, the spirit has decided you do." Lin's voice was like dry ice, and she winced. She could hear his dislike for her, it nearly dripped from his words.

She'd have to worry about that later though.

"Ok. So it thinks we-" She gestured between her and Yasu, '' are Aya and Atsuki. But why does it care?"

She had a sinking feeling in her stomach she knew the answer though.

Damn. It.

You think the spirit is Keiji?" She hazarded a guess that wasn't really a guess, because why else would the spirit care who they were?

"The spirit's demonstrations towards you and Yasu have been playful in nature, attention seeking, you might say." Naru leaned against the wall, arms crossed as he stared down thoughtfully at his shoes.

She realized all the others were now keeping a careful distance between themselves and her and Yasu.

"While towards the rest of us, it has become increasing, if not violent, then more extreme." Naru finished, looking at her now.

"It's a temper tantrum, is what it is" Lin said it like he knew exactly what he was talking about, and now she had a ton of questions about that she knew would never get answered.

"So, if the spirit is really Keiji, have you been able to verify his death?" Mai asked, already mourning the boy she had seen in her dream.

Dammit, she hated her job sometimes. Keiji hadn't deserved whatever had happened to him.

"Why wouldn't they tell us about the death of a guest at the lodge?" John added.

"It's possible it was covered up. It's possible they thought he ran away, we're not sure yet. And one thing we are pretty sure of is that it didn't happen in the last four years, so the current manager may not know about it." Yasu said. "The wi-fi here is non-existent, so I've been using one of the computers here at base to try and research. I think I've found the school, but we're still not sure about anything else. Do these uniforms look right?"

He showed her some pictures of what appeared to be a sports day at a high school. She studied the uniforms intently, then nodded. "Yeah, those look like the uniforms. But PE uniforms aren't always as school specific as uniforms, right?"

Yasu nodded. "Still, this is the closest we've come so far. But we're not even sure which year we need to be searching."

"We have something that may help." Mai stood up, crossing over to John. She noticed the other men in the room tensing, but nothing happened.

John mimed wiping sweat off his brow as he handed her his sketchbook.

She flipped through it quickly. "Do you think anyone here would remember how the spring used to look? I think it must have been changed by one of those large mountain storms you were warning me about, Bou-san. In my dream, there was a beach that wasn't there anymore. So we went to the spring and I described the changes for John, and he made this sketch. We could show the employees, and maybe they know when the shoreline changed. Then we know whatever happened, it probably happened before that."

Curious, the other four men leaned over her to look at the sketch. "I see what you mean, here and here, the shoreline has changed quite a bit-"

Bou-san was interrupted by a notebook smacking him in the back of the head before falling to the ground. He looked at the others in frustration and Yasu shrugged.

"Teenagers…" He offered.

Mai lay on the futon in the command room while Lin monitored the equipment and Yasu worked on a repurposed computer they had hard wired into the lodge's internet. It was about as far apart as she and Yasu were able to venture from each other safely. As long as no one else got too close to them, however, the spirit seemed satisfied. Things had settled down, more or less.

Naru had looked at her earlier and had briskly told her to go back to sleep. He, John and Bou-san were currently canvassing the lodge staff about the changes to the spring's shoreline, while Yasu continued to work on the identity of the president of the Mai/Yasu Spirit Fan Club (his exact phrasing)..

She looked around the tea shop. Everything appeared in order, but she didn't see Gene, so she headed to the door. She had learned that if Gene lingered in the Tea Shop, it was a vision he was more reluctant for her to see. She didn't have the heart to point out to him that during the four years they'd been apart, she'd seen just about every misery known to man..

Sometimes she didn't think she had much innocence left.

She knew he'd blame himself, but it had been her own fault. The disastrous confession to Naru, finding out that not only was Gene a real person, but that he'd died before he'd ever met her in real life, and then Naru leaving Japan…

It had been too much for her to take in, and some part of her must have shut down. Unfortunately, it was the part that Gene had used to connect with her, and had Naru not insisted on interfering, she and Gene might not have been able to reconnect.

She pushed open the door, blinking in the late afternoon sunlight as it came in the windows of the lodge she and Yasu had investigated their first night at Whispering Pines.

Keiji was there, looking repeatedly over his shoulder as he hurriedly packed his bag.

He was leaving, and he didn't want anyone to know, Mai surmised.

Why? To protect Aya and Atsuki? She supposed it made sense, in a way. If the target was gone there was no one for the other kids to bully, and Aya would be less likely to confront them.

Mai shook her head sadly. Sometimes retreat was the better part of valor, as yasu would say. But when it came to bullies, in her experience it only delayed the inevitable. Still, things were really starting to get heated between Keiji's friends and the bullies, so she didn't really blame the teen.

She watched as he scribbled a short note, leaving it on his futon.

Well, at least he left a note.

He was walking towards the road when suddenly, a pair of girls ran up to him.

"Keiji, Keiji! Have you seen Atsuki?" One cried, grabbing his arm.

Mai frowned, and even Keiji looked at the girl curiously. The girl was pretty, in an overly made up kind of way, and Mai would bet her whistle that she had never talked to Keiji a day in her life before this.

Mai didn't trust her a whit.

"He's on dinner duty." He said after a wary moment.

"Oh, no. What are we going to do? Aya's in trouble!"

Something about the way the other girl said it, the way they kept meeting each other's eyes, had Mai biting her own lip.

"Don't trust them." She whispered to herself futility, since she knew she couldn't influence things one way or another.

Gene looked at her sympathetically from where he leaned against a tree.

"Aya?" Keiji said, immediately tensing. "What happened?"

"A couple of guys were yelling at her, and then she followed them up the mountain. She looked really upset. I guess we could tell the teachers, but they'll get in trouble for going up the mountain alone. Coach said anyone who went off without the group might get expelled…"

Keiji shook his head adamantly. "Keep looking for Atsuki, I'll go after them." He looked worried as he changed direction, away from the road and towards the trail head, his pack still on his back.

The girls watched, unmoving as he faded into the growing twilight.

"Good job, beautiful." The two boys from earlier strolled into sight. "The little freak bought it hook, line and sinker. Later, when he comes back down, we'll tell Coach and he'll finally be out of our school."

"He won't!" Mai cried, furiously. "He won't come back down, you jerks."

Already she could see the storm clouds gathering, blocking the moon.

Mai blinked in surprise as she looked up into Naru's indigo eyes.

Nightmare?" He asked drolly. A lock of his hair had fallen forward, and her hand itched to brush it back. The memory of brushing the leaf out of his hair the day before was still burned into her skin.

"What-?" She said. Naru was sort of….hunched over her. His arms were held over her head. Was he trying to protect her?

Were things flying around again?"

She sat up slowly, Naru pulling back as she came forward. Yasu and Lin had taken similar positions, attempting to protect their workstations.

"You started turning and twisting, and then things started flying around again." Yasu offered.

She frowned. Because she had been upset in her dream? Technically, she had been dreaming of Keiji's memories, so she supposed the connection could go both ways…

She shook her head. "That means he is really strong, Naru. Like, really strong."

Naru nodded. "It's been apparent for a while now that this spirit is….an outlier. This case has aspects of both a poltergeist and a residual spirit."

He was still kneeling beside her, and she pulled up her knees, feeling a little self conscious with his closeness. She rested her chin on her knees.

"Would the ghost of someone, a teenager, who was already a poltergeist, be strong like this?" She mused.

Naru looked at her sharply. "You think the spirit might have been a latent psychic when he was still alive?"

She shrugged. "Something about the way the other kids looked at him. They hated him, but they were a little scared, too. He was small compared to the rest of them, but they always ganged up on him in twos or threes. It just sort of reminded me of the kazai panic. I can't say I saw him demonstrate PK or anything though."

Naru searched her face for a moment and then nodded. "Well, it would fit the case parameters. A spirit who was already a poltergeist before death would make a strong residual spirit. Especially if his death was traumatic?" The last was phrased as a question, but Mai just shook her head.

"I only saw the set-up." She said, and then went on to explain.

Halfway though, Bou-san and John returned with the news that eight years ago, during the height of school group season, an unexpectedly strong storm had come through, leading to massive amounts of flash flooding. The topography of the spring had been changed, with the majority of the beach washed away. The rest was only visible during times of drought.

"So, eight years ago." Naru began to sum things up. "Keiji was tricked into going up the mountain in a dangerous storm. He had already been intent on leaving, and had, in fact, left a note saying so. The teachers would have thought he had left voluntarily, as would his friends. No one would know otherwise because cell reception is so poor out here. They would have arrived home before they realized Keiji never had."

"The kids who tricked him weren't exactly going to volunteer that information." John pointed out grimly.

"And, if their parents were teachers, they may have protected their kids even if questions were asked." Bou-san added.

"Which means Keiji is still up there, on the mountain." Mai said glumly.

"Don't worry Jou-chan, now that we know what happened, we can help him move on." Bou-san reached out to ruffle her hair, but paused halfway. His hand fell and she guessed he was tired of being hit on the head.

Keiji was almost as bad as Ayako, in some ways.

THinking of Ayako made her sigh again. Without John's ability to exercise a spirit painlessly, only Ayako's tree cleansing was left as a route to help Keiji without harming him.

But Ayako wasn't here, and John had lost his faith and….

Her frustration rose up, tightening her throat. Why was it always innocent kids like Keiji who were abandoned in the mountains? All he'd been trying to do was protect the people he loved.

"Hey, no crying." Yasu said, plopping down beside her, throwing an arm around her shoulder.

"I'm...not." Mai said, wiping her tears away angrily. "I'm just...frustrated. Keiji went there to try and help Aya. We can't even help him."

She stared stubbornly down at the futon. She was afraid to look at John. Too late, she'd realized he might think she was blaming him.

"We can help him, right?" Yasu said, and Mai looked up to see him looking pointedly at the other men.

"Yasu-" Now she just felt embarrassed. Why did she always have to wear her heart on her sleeve like this? Gods, she was twenty one already.

She needed to grow up already…

"If we can locate his bones, we might be able to purify him with the appropriate funeral rites." Monk said, a troubled look on his face. "And Ayako could still come, Mai. She would if you called, you know that.'

She shook her head. "She's too busy at the hospital. And how would we even get a message to her out here?" She'd been messaging photos to Ayako ever since they reached the lodge, but she wasn't sure that any had ever actually gotten through to the miko.

Bou-san opened his mouth, and then closed it thoughtfully. "Actually, yesterday at the spring I had a few bars of service for a few moments. I sent her a few pictures of you and John. If I take that trail to the top, I could probably text her from there. It's worth a shot."

"I'll go with you. If we leave now, we should be able to make it easily down before dark." John offered.

"I'll go too!" Mai said, eager to not feel so useless.

She had accepted the fact that she was a better investigator asleep than awake, but accepting it didn't change how it felt to be dead weight the rest of the time.

"No." Naru's response was immediate, and sharp enough that a glass of water on the desk rattled.

"Easy." Lin warned.

"What Naru means is that it's a very fine line between protectiveness and possessiveness." Bou-san said gently.

"This spirit has escalated a lot since we've been here." John added.

"So it's best if you and Yasu stay here, where it's safe. We don't know how Keiji's spirit would react if it perceived you were in danger." Bou-san finished.

"We should search the mountain for his body. We can't pin all our hopes on Ayako being able to drop everything at the last minute to run up a mountain. And she's pretty strong, but that's a big mountain. What if she has to do the cleansing ceremony three or four times before Keiji feels the pull?" Mai argued.

Bou-san looked troubled at this.

"It is a pretty big mountain. And if Ayako cleanses the wrong area, and Keiji's spirit isn't purified, who knows what he'll do?" John said.

"We can help search for his body. At least the obvious areas." Yasu added.

"If your theory is right, Yasu and I are the safest people to go up the mountain anyway." Mai added her own argument.

Naru shook his head. "It's too risky."

Mai gritted her teeth in exasperation. She didn't want to have another outburst that had Keiji flinging objects at her teammates.

"Naru-"

"You're not going up the mountain." Naru bit out, forcefully enough that Mai jumped, and immediately a knocking sound began echoing through the room.

"This spirit is really fixated on you two." John said apologetically. "What if Bou-san and I start searching the mountain on the way back down.

Mai bit her lip. Bou-san was the best on the mountain anyway, and when it came to trying to protect Ayako, he had the most skin in the game, as Madoka would say…

"Lin and I will help them search the trails." Naru said decisively, standing.

Mai scrambled to her feet. "But your-"

Behind Naru, she saw John frantically shaking his head.

"I'm what?" Naru asked, arching a brow.

Afraid of heights.

"You and Lin need to monitor the equipment." She finished, looking at the older man for help.

Lin's silence was as absolute as always, however.

"The spirit will most likely stay here with you two. Yasu knows the equipment as well as you and John by now. It should be fine." Naru said dismissively.

"Let's get ready."

**********Stinger*************

Ayako smiled as she looked through the photos the team had been sending her. She'd hesitated at first, afraid every photo she saw would have him in it.

And some did, of course. But seeing him was never as bad as the fear of seeing him, she'd learned. The problem was, it seemed like every day she woke up and had to re-learn the same lesson.

Still, Mai and Yasu looked happy. Even John had some color in his face. Lin and Naru, well, it would take more than a mountain to change their perspectives. But the kids looked happy….

She frowned, pulling her phone closer. In the picture, Mai was smiling as she leaned against a wooden railing. The spring's blue water looked positively crystalline behind her. To one side, Naru stood, though he was facing Mai, not the camera. Mai's expression was carefree, almost too carefree, if Ayako was being honest. At first, she thought that was what was giving her the feeling of unease.

But then, slowly, she began to realize that just behind Mai, the photo seemed…blurry?

She switched quickly back to the photo before that. Yasu and Mai were laying on the ground in the room Ayako assumed they were staying in. Mai's head was pillowed on Yasu's stomach, and Yasu himself might have been sleeping, his book laying over his face. But again, just to the right of them, the picture seemed to blur, like it was overexposed, but only in that one place.

"Riko, I'm going to be in my office if any patients need me…" She said distractedly, heels clicking sharply on the tile floors as she walked.

Once in her office, she quickly booted up her computer, forwarding the photos from her phone to the email account she used for work. It took a few moments, and she found herself tapping her manicured nails with impatience against the dark, polished wood of her desk.

Finally, the photos began to download, and she found herself studying each one anew.

Dread began to pool in her stomach as she realized that every photo containing either Mai or Yasu figured the same blurry shape, a shape that was looking more and more to Ayako like a figure.

"They may not even see it, if they're only looking at the photos on their phones…" She whispered to herself.

Picking up her phone, she began to dial the familiar number, but then she paused.

"Stop it, Ayako. Just stop already. It's over, and a phone call won't change anything. They need to know…."

Steeling her reserve, she finished dialing.

"Come on Houshou, pick up. Pick up, dammit." She snapped her phone shut impatiently when it went to voicemail.

"Useless, idiotic monk. You can't even answer a simple phone call…"

Of course, she knew it was probably just bad reception, the same reason the photos had taken so long to come through to her in the first place.

So, what to do? Surely Naru and Lin were on the lookout for this exact thing, right? They were ghost hunters, after all.

Still, it bothered her how…close…the ghost, for lack of a better word, was to Mai and Yasu. Neither seemed like they had any idea in the pictures.

Standing, she looked around for her purse and keys. She was exhausted from working nearly a double shift, her habit of late.

It was going to be a very long drive.