I'm so sorry for the delay everyone! Time got away from me as well as many other factors and the fact that normally by now I have an idea for the next case but I'm finding myself a little stuck. Feel free to give me case ideas in your reviews! I'll credit you if I use them! For now enjoy this chapter!

Chapter 9-Truth to the Tale

March Day 5, 12:27 P.M.

For the first time in a long time, Mai actually felt refreshed when she woke up that morning. For nearly six months her mind had been plagued by nightmares and terrors from previous cases. She had lost touch with her spirit guide back in November and that connection was finally restored late the night before. The hollowness in her chest that never seemed to disappear was finally filled. She felt almost whole again. Who would have thought that it would take a case that involved sleeping in the same bed as her boss to-

That was when a blush started to creep up on her face. She remembered what happened early that morning, if you could call it morning. Her pulled close against his chest, his arm wrapped tightly around her waist, him whispering in her ear. She stifled a squeal as she turned over to find that she was once again alone in the bed.

Perhaps it was all a dream. Why would Naru apologize? What did he have to apologize for? Sure she had been annoyed with him many times over the last two years she had worked for him, but she was rarely ever actually angry with him. And the few times she was he did apologize. But what was he apologizing for this time? She wasn't angry with him, and hadn't been since the nursing home case, but she was over that. She had been for a long time.

Then what could he have been apologizing for? She had accepted a long time ago that Naru really did believe in her and just had a rude way of testing her. But his intentions were good for the most part, he wanted her to realize that she couldn't always just go off of intuition if she were to ever be taken seriously in, well, anything. He taught her a lot as far as the paranormal was concerned. How to review evidence, set up equipment, realize when the activity is being cause by a human not a spirit. If anything she should apologize to him.

When she was dating Shouta, Naru really started to take Mai's potential seriously. It was when he started treating her as an apprentice instead of a tea-making slave. And she did notice the change and was happy that he was giving her more responsibility, but Shouta convinced her that it was the equivalent of a boss making his assistant do the dirty work so he didn't have to. That Naru couldn't care less about her potential and that he just didn't want to have to continue to do such menial tasks when he could sip tea. Telling her what Naru really meant, it hurt her in ways that made Naru the bad guy. She couldn't see that it wasn't Naru saying those things. It was her boyfriend who was telling her this. Her boyfriend saying what he really thought, not what her employer was saying. And she bought it. Hook. Line. Sinker.

To be perfectly honest, Mai still felt horrible and stupid from that relationship. How could she not see the monster that Shouta was sooner? Well, that was her own fault, and it still didn't explain what Naru was apologizing for. She should be apologizing. Right?

Then she looked at the clock and realized Naru must have really felt bad if he let her sleep in this late! Then again, after the torment she had been through, she definitely needed it. But how could the narcissist know?

Instead of pondering the reasoning behind Naru allowing her to sleep, she figured this was as good a time as any to actually get ready for the day. She got out of bed and grabbed a few things from her bag and headed to the bathroom.

"And that's everything you found?" Yasuhara said into the phone as he jotted down some notes on the pad in front of him. He was one of the few people who had decided to have lunch in the dining hall, sitting far off into a corner to take the call. "Thank you for all your help, Officer." He paused, clicking his pen. "Yes, I'll give my wife your regards. Thank you again."

Yasuhara hung up his phone and looked down at his notes. Their little plan worked. The officer from two days before had kept his promise and did some digging and then called them to report what he found. Granted he was expecting to have Kiko answer the phone, but that's another story.

A steaming cup was placed in front of him forcing him to look up. "They just pulled out the skeleton," Kiko said as she peered over his notes. "I overheard some of the guests talking about it. Granted they said 'body' but you and both know the body's long gone." Her brow furrowed as it came halfway down the page. "He actually called you?"

"He says hello and whenever you're ready he's willing to whisk you away to a deserted island in the Pacific," Yasuhara teased taking a sip of the tea she had brought him.

She rolled her eyes and turned to walk away. "Tell him I'll meet him there." She was walking away as Yasuhara smirked with a shake of his head. He gathered his stuff and chased after her.

"Is everyone in Base yet?" the college student asked catching up to her.

"I think everyone's up by now, though Mai was apparently still asleep the last time I stopped in Base," Kiko replied as they headed down the hall. "I'm surprised Naru isn't making us work doubletime because of our day off yesterday."

"Well, we did make some progress yesterday with finding the skeleton." There were very few people in the hall so Yasuhara wasn't worried about alerting the other guests if they didn't already know. "If Madoka hadn't forced us all to take the day off we probably never would've-"

"No, we probably would," Kiko said crossing her arms. "But I might not have been the one to find it."

"You sound awfully sure of that." He raised his brow at her. "Your sixth sense wouldn't be back would it?"

Placing a finger to her chin, she looked up in thought. "It would've been Mai to find the body." She blinked hard and then looked at the boy next to her. "Sorry, what did you say?"

Yasuhara laughed and patted the girl on her head. "Your sixth sense is definitely back."

"Well, good afternoon sleepyhead," Madoka chirped as Mai walked into Base. Judging by half of the team settling into their seats, Mai was certain they weren't completely waiting on her.

"Sorry about that," Mai said sheepishly scratching her head. "I must've been more tired than I thought."

"Now that we're all here, it's time to get back to work," Naru said, reeling everyone back into focus.

Everything is suddenly back to normal, Mai realized as her eyes passed over the team. Naru is business as usual. Yasuhara seems like his old chipper self. Madoka looks like she calmed down. Lin is silent as usual. Monk and Ayako don't look like they're about to kill each other anymore. Kiko's definitely more upbeat than I've seen her in a while. And I still feel like I'm missing something.

"By the way, thanks for filling everyone in on the skeleton yesterday," Monk teased with a shrug. "I was not confused at all by the rumors circulating during breakfast."

"I'm surprised it took this long for word to get around," Ayako added, brushing her hair behind her ear. "I would've thought a team of divers would have been more noticeable to the guests."

"You didn't notice them," Monk teased.

THUNK!

"Ow!"

"Neither did you!"

"If you are both finished," Naru's voice ceased the argument. "And now that everyone is well rested," he shot a look to Mai who shrugged sheepishly. He couldn't blame her, it was the longest she slept in months and he knew it, "shall we get back to the case? Yasuhara-san?"

"Well, just to make sure everyone is filled in," Kiko said, before her "husband" could. "Yesterday, on our 'date,' I fell into the lake and found the skeleton that the police pulled out this morning."

"You were dragged in," Yasuhara corrected with a look. "You were too deep to have just fallen, unless you had weights around your ankles."

"Sounds like a successful date night," Monk quipped earning a jab in the ribs from the priestess next to him. "Gah-continue."

"Anyway, I actually just got off the phone with Kiko's boyfriend-" Earning himself a glare and a nudge. "And he was actually able to tell me something useful." Another nudge and an eye roll accompanied it. "While we weren't able to find any reports of a girl going missing in this town or anything to do with the hotel itself, it seemed that there was an abduction about three hours from here in Senboku." He flipped the page of his notepad and cleared his throat. "Forty years ago, Yukimura, Tomomi, was nine years old when she went missing, we was described as tall for her age with bobbed black hair and brown eyes and her favorite color was pink."

"Don't tell me her favorite flowers were daisies," Kiko groaned rubbing her temples.

"Yasuhara?" Naru beckoned.

"Bingo, Kiko," Yasuhara said with an apologetic smile. "The shirt the skeleton was wearing was pink with daisies on the sleeves. In fact, she was reported to be wearing a similar shirt when she disappeared."

"Wait a minute," Monk shook his head with a knitted brow. "If she was abducted why would the abductor let her continue wearing the shirt she disappeared in? That's a huge red flag."

"It wouldn't have anything to do with the abduction taking place in a different prefecture, would it?" Mai piped up.

"Right on the money," Yasuhara nodded.

"It is possible," Madoka added with a solemn nod. "The Senboku police would have alerted the other stations in the Akita Prefecture-"

"And we all know what dealing with the police in Akita was like," Ayako interrupted with a sigh. "If it's anything like the college we investigated someone could have covered it up, or kept it from other prefectures to save face."

"Too much speculation, nothing conclusive," Naru complained, crossing his arms. "We can debate about the reasoning behind covering up the abduction, if it was covered up and not a mistake on the department. However, now we have a body and a kidnapping report matching the possible description of the body. We still have yet to find out what happened to the Moto couple and why they are haunting the property."

The group sat in silence for a moment, letting what they found out sink in. Surprising everyone, it was Lin who spoke, "What's our next move?"

Naru thought for a moment with his hand at his chin, before he spoke. "Yasuhara and Kiko will monitor Base, I assume you two have had enough excitement for the moment."

"Works for me," the two said in unison.

"Lin and Madoka will speak with housekeeping and see if there were any strange occurrences yesterday or today." He turned to the monk and priestess. "You two will run a temperature sweep to keep some consistency with our data." He turned back to Mai. "We need to have another word with Kikuchi-san."

"So you finally believe the kooky woman's tale?" Mai teased as she followed Naru up the trail to the boathouse. "Will she even be there? The lake's pretty deserted and I still see some areas are taped off."

"Too many coincidences for there to be no connection," Naru replied. "We have Kikuchi's story, which is hazy at best, but then the store owner in town confirming it, and now we have a body and a missing persons' report from shortly before the former resort closed."

"Right, but what about the Moto family? It was after their disappearance that the activity started to escalate." She tripped on a stay stone but only stumbled. "Where is the connection there?"

Naru stopped short as Mai ran into him. She grabbed his arm to keep herself from stumbling backwards. He looked over his shoulder at her with a surprised look in his eye. She looked back at him in confusion.

But he never gave an explanation. He only smiled. "You're onto something, Mai," he said as he quickened his pace, forcing the girl to jog to keep up.

"Something's bugging you," Ayako said as she checked the window in the ballroom for drafts. Monk was waiting for the thermometer to settle. "If it's about-"

"It's Taro, the guy from the stables," Monk said, stopping the priestess from finishing. "He's the one who confirmed that the Motos' disappearance only brought more paranormal activity. But it had started long before."

"Yeah," the priestess answered, crossing her arms. "The couple disappeared and then guests started having nightmares and were waking up to blood written messages on their walls. What are you trying to get at? He answered all of our questions, do you think he was hiding something?"

"He was the last one to see the Motos alive," the monk said, jotting the temperature down before picking up the thermometer. "Or at least he was most likely the last one."

"Now, wait just a minute," Ayako chided as they travelled to another room. She kept her voice down so that the other guests in the lounge area couldn't overhear. "You can't seriously be thinking that Taro killed them!" she hissed.

Monk just shrugged. Tapping his pen on his pad of paper, he turned to her. "All I'm saying is now that I think about it, he was very vague when he spoke about them."

Ayako's brows scrunched on her forehead as she remembered speaking with the man a few days before. "Okay, I see your point, but I mean he was talking about a couple of guests who stayed here six months ago. Imagine how many guests he's had this past week let alone the last few months."

"He remembered Haruna's name," Monk replied, jotting down the number he saw. "Yet he didn't really tell us more than her being talkative."

"So he was vague, but specific, what's your point?" She followed him out the door as they turned in opposite directions. "Where are you going?"

"I want to know what they were talking about the day they disappeared," Monk said, turning around. He handed her the thermometer and notepad. "He said they didn't take horses for their hike, but Haruna wanted to talk to him. I know seeing a horse is the last thing you want to do, so you can finish the temp-"

"And leave you alone with a potential murderer!" she hissed, silently hoping no one heard her. She shoved the device and notepad back into his hands before poking his chest. "We're at a haunted hotel, on a case, and pretty much the unwritten rule is to not wander around alone. I'm going with you."

Monk was taken aback, but smirked. "Well, if you insist." He took her wrist and led her out toward the barn.

"Noll is not going to be happy about this," Madoka said as she crossed her arms. She paced her way toward the headboard of the bed in the hotel room. "This didn't happen overnight."

Lin had one knee on the bed as he took photographs of the writing on the wall. He took his eyes off of his phone and noticed the shininess of the words. Not only did this not happen overnight, "This happened within the last twenty minutes," he said as drops of blood bled down the wall. "Must've been after Mai left this morning."

"'Help me or you join them…'" Madoka read aloud as a shiver went down her spine. "'Pretty.'" She shot a knowing look to her partner. "I know the writing started after the Moto couple went missing and this was their room, but this seems different."

Lin slid the phone into his pocket and climbed off of the bed, before returning her look. "You're right, there's a difference." He looked back at the wall with almost a glare. "And that difference started after we arrived."

"The question remains, why?" Madoka bit her lip and shook her head as another shiver ran down her spine. "And another, is Mai going to be the next target?"

"What makes you think it will be Mai?" Lin turned back to face her, Madoka just lifted a brow.

"We're in their room and while Noll might pride himself on his looks, I don't think he would consider himself 'pretty.'" She pursed her lips. "Why wouldn't she be the target?"

"Because then up until now the haunting has only targeted couples." He watched as her face set into grim frown. "The message might refer to Mai as pretty, but unless it strays from its pattern, Naru is just as much a target."

"Hey!" Mai called as she jogged behind her boss. "You never told me if they would even be here or why they would, the lake's closed-"

They had reached the boathouse, which was, as expected, closed up. Mai shot Naru an I-told-you-so look, via side eye. But Naru was undeterred. "Kikuchi-san!" he called. He stood some distance from the small building, with Mai next to him.

He's just going to shout? Mai sweatdropped. Even if she's in there, I doubt she can hear-

"We're closed until further notice!" The shout came from the opposite side of the building, just as shrill and obnoxious as the day they met the middle aged woman. "You're just going to have to have at it in your room like civilized people!"

Meanwhile, I'm pretty sure civilized people wouldn't randomly accuse people of having sex on their rowboats, Mai thought, fighting the strong urge to roll her eyes.

Unfazed, as always, Naru called out again, "Kikuchi-san! I have some questions for you!"

"If it's about the body, I've got nothing to say other than 'I told you so!'" Mai was sure now that the woman's son must've been in the hotel or had taken the day off. Takehiko would have reprimanded her by now.

Naru paced his way around the building with his assistant trailing behind him. Behind the boathouse, Kikuchi was tending to some maintenance on one of her boats. She did not seem herself from the look of her.

She kept her eyes low to her work and was biting the inside of her cheek. Mai pitied the woman, she might have been a bit overbearing, but she had been right. "Forty years…" the woman grumbled as she sanded the patch she made. "It took forty damn years for a search party! I knew something was wrong and everyone called me crazy! A fool! Not a soul would listen to me without laughing it off." Her head shot up and looked Mai directly in the eye. "Do you have any idea what it's like to tell your mother about your friend going missing only for her to dismiss it as your imagination?"

Mai's heart went out to the woman with a pang. Her own son also believed she was crazy, yet here she was reliving the death of a friend. She couldn't find the words to tell the woman that it wasn't her fault. Luckily, Naru managed to come up with something.

"We're sorry for your loss, Kikuchi-san," he said taking a step forward. "If it's any consolation, we're not here to ask you about the body in the lake."

The woman sniffed and wiped a tear from her eye. "You two are ghost hunters but you don't want to ask me about the body in the lake?" She managed a smirk. "I somehow don't buy that."

Naru himself smirked as he knelt down to be closer to the woman's level. "The topics may overlap, but when we stopped by a few days ago, we never asked you about the Moto couple that went missing." He rested his arm across his knee. "Do you remember them?"

"Yeah, I remember them alright," she said, turning back to smoothing the patch she made on her boat. "They never rented a boat, but the wife liked to talk to me. She would come over nearly everyday for a chat."

"And what would you talk about?" And Mai finally understood as she saw the sad look in the woman's eyes.

"What else has this old kook been screaming about for the last forty years?"

"Shizumu-san!" Monk called as he and the priestess made their way to the barn. The middle-aged man turned around and smiled at the approaching couple.

"Back again, I see!" Taro called, hands on his hips. "Lucky for you I have a couple of horses unoccupied-"

"Sorry, but we're not here to go sight seeing," Ayako answered as they reached the barn. "We have a few more questions to ask you about the Moto couple."

Taro tilted his head and scrunched his brow in confusion. "Oh, I'm sorry to disappoint you two, but I believe I told you everything I remember about them."

"But you saw them they day they disappeared, correct?" Ayako asked, placing a hand on her hip. "But they didn't rent any horses?"

"I see," Taro replied with a solemn look on his face. His hands slid from his hips to his denim pockets. "The police thought the same of me when they were here six months ago."

"So you were a suspect?" Monk asked crossing his arms. "And there wasn't enough evidence that wasn't circumstantial to arrest you."

"There wasn't any evidence to begin with," the man said earnestly. He brought his hands out of his pockets and held them out in defense. "I was the last one to see them on the day they went missing, or at least the only one to admit they've seen them. That day I was very busy with the amount of guests who wanted to ride on the trails. And after the police did an extensive search on the grounds the likelihood that I could have killed them and disposed of their bodies was too slim for them to even bring me in for questioning."

"You sound confident in your innocence, but why do you look so worried?" Monk pressed with narrowed eyes. "You can't blame us for being suspicious."

"The fact that I was a suspect even briefly was a hindrance to my employment here!" The man's eyes grew wide. "I had to take several days off because of the publicity, I'm lucky to still be working here."

Monk seemed to eye the man up and down, still not convinced. Taro simply shook his head as he closed his sad eyes.

"I had no motive to kill them, they were very nice people. If I knew what happened to them, I would have told you by now-"

"I'm not here to accuse you, Shizumu-san," Ayako interrupted him, sending a side eye to the monk next to her. "You said Haruna would stop by and chat with you. She did that the day they disappeared, right?" The man nodded with a breath. "What did you talk about?"

"Prior to that day she would just ask me about the horses and we would just tell riding stories to each other," Taro explained, sliding his hands into his pockets again. "But the day they disappeared, she asked me about something else."

"And that would be?" Monk asked crossing his arms, not quite yet convinced.

"She asked me what I knew about Kikuchi-san's story. About the little girl she says went missing." The monk and priestess sent each other a look. "She wanted to know if I played here as a child as well or if I had heard anything."

"And?"

"I did grow up in the village, but I never played here. It was too far of a walk and I had friends much closer to home. Kikuchi-san and I did go to the same school so I knew all about where she would sneak off to. I heard all about her friend that went missing, but figured the girl was just a guest and her family left."

"And where would they sneak off to?" Ayako asked.

"Anywhere, honestly," the man said with a shrug. "They'd explore the trails and forest, swim in the lake, sneak into the kitchen, they were just a couple of kids causing mischief. She also said they'd sneak down and explore the basement and even the caves behind the lake."

"And that's what you told the Moto couple?" Monk asked.

"Yes, and then they headed off to the trails. I never saw them again."

"Naru's not going to be happy when he sees the tape," Yasuhara chuckled as he took a sip of his tea. He leaned back in his chair with a grin on his face.

Kiko raised brow and peered up form the notes she was looking over on the table. "Run out of K-Dramas and turning to SPR for your soaps?" she asked.

"One cannot run out of K-Dramas," Yasuhara replied, taking another sip. Kiko rolled her eyes and resisted a groan. "Satoshi and I just need to find one that peaks both of our interests. And is available online, we've been having an issue trying to not illegally download anything."

Unfortunately, Kiko's groan slipped out as she shook her head. She knew her "husband" was wearing a cheeky grin on his face. He had been giving her the play by play of everyone's movements since they dispersed earlier. After going on a rant of how Monk betrayed him by bailing on temperature duty to sneak off to some closet with Ayako, he went back to describing everyone's activities and whether or not they were following orders.

She flipped the page of her notes as she said, "It's a shame you don't have any popcorn to enjoy."

"Popcorn would be lovely, dear," he beamed wearing his silly grin. Kiko chucked an eraser at his head. "Ow!"

"Sorry, it slipped." It was her turn to smirk as he rubbed his head. "Just because they ran off doesn't mean they're making out in a closet somewhere." She continued to skim over the notes of the history and the activity. "They could have realized something Naru and the rest of us missed."

"And when has Naru missed something?" Yasuhara raised a brow.

"I haven't been on many case so I don't know," she answered with a shrug. "Or perhaps they realized the same thing he has and are looking to find the same answers so they don't have to be filled in later."

"True, being out of the loop sucks."

Knock. Knock.

"My apologies for the disruption," Saburo said as he stood in the doorway. "However, someone has requested to speak with you about your case."

The man stepped aside and revealed a woman somewhere in her seventies with her gray hair cut very short and thick rimmed glasses over her eyes. Kiko immediately stood up and pulled out a chair for the woman while Yasuhara offered her tea. She politely refused as Saburo darted out of the room.

The woman sat down across from Kiko as Yasuhara pulled up another chair to sit at the table as well. "I apologize that our manager, Shibuya-san, isn't here to discuss what you've experienced but-" Kiko began only for the woman to give a solemn shake of her head.

"Oh, I'm not here to see a Shibuya-san," she said, nervously looking around the room. "Forgive me, perhaps that man led me to the wrong room, but I'm looking for a Yasuhara-san."

"Well, that would be me," Yasuhara said with a charming smile. It only added to the woman's confusion.

"You are?" Her brow knitted together as she processed it. "But my husband-"

And then it clicked, causing Kiko to snap her fingers. "You're Kuroki-"

"Hanako. Kuroki Hanako." The woman smiled as she nodded. "I wanted to apologize for the way my husband spoke to you on the phone the other day. You see the hotel is a bit of a sore subject for him. He honestly didn't mean to be rude to you, Yasuhara-san."

"Call me Kiko," the psychic said, resting her elbows on the table. "If you don't mind my asking, why is the hotel a sore topic?"

"Because we didn't willingly close the place down."

Mai crossed her arms once they reached the bottom of the staircase in the basement. It's cold down here, she noted, resisting a shiver. Naru hit a light switch and Mai squinted at the initial brightness. She wasn't sure what to expect out of the basement of a hotel. But this certainly wasn't it.

It looked much like the basement of an old house. A very old house. There were plenty of cobwebs. And old furniture pushed against the walls, covered in white sheets. Everything covered had a layer of dust over it. If it weren't for the furnace and filing cabinets that were much less dusty, Mai would have suspected that no one had been down there since the previous resort was still functioning.

Curious, Mai walked up to one of the covered piece of furniture and lifted the sheet. Her suspicions were confirmed that she was looking at the leftover furniture from the previous resort. The style had died out decades ago.

"Do you really think the Moto couple came down here?" she asked crossing her arms.

"I think it's very possible," he admitted, knocking on a wall.

Does he really think he'll open a secret passageway? Mai thought with a sweatdrop. This isn't some movie.

While Naru continued to knock on the cement walls, Mai decided to explore the wide arrange of old furniture. Walking up to what was once a dining room chair, she felt the floor sink suddenly. She jumped back with a squeak, as she looked down and noticed a small rug where she had stood. "Naru?" she called quietly.

He turned around and saw her kneeling on the ground. He watched as she pulled back the rug to reveal a small wooden hatch. Naru pushed the dining room chair as well as a plush office chair away from the area and with some effort managed to open the hatch.

"Wait a minute," Mai said with a furrowed brow. "If the Motos really did come down here wouldn't the police have figure it out with their dogs?"

"Only one way to find out," Naru said, swinging his legs down into the hole and jumping down. He pulled out a small flashlight from his pocket and turned it on. "There's a tunnel, if this leads to the caves by the lake then it will match Kikuchi-san's story."

"Now you want to believe her," Mai commented with a roll of her eyes.

"Now we have proof that her story wasn't made up."

"Yeah, but we wouldn't have her story at all if I hadn't pressed for it." Mai was getting irritated now. Before, Naru wanted nothing to do Kikuchi and now he decides she's credible?

"We didn't have a body to start with, therefore we had no proof of Kikuchi's credibility." Mai just chose to huff and shake her head, there was no point in arguing with him.

I swear, if he thinks- But she never finished her thought. She held her breath as her heart rate quickened. Goosebumps raised along her arms and neck while a shiver ran down her spine.

"Mai?" Naru's voice called, but sounded far away. Mai let out a shaky breath only to be able to its fine mist.

She gave a halfhearted squeak as she felt an icy hand push against her back. Before she could quite register what was happening, she was falling into the tunnel, her boss trying to catch her before she hurt herself.

She ended up knocking Naru down as well, but they both laid still on the ground as they saw and heard the hatch door being closed and furniture being moved over it. Mai managed to turn her head and look up at the cracks from the doorframe, only to see the light coming through had gone out.

There were no footsteps, Mai's mind raced to her horror.

Poor Kikuchi she wasn't so crazy after all. And as for Mai and Naru, we're going to see more action with them in the next chapter. Again if you guys have any ideas as far as where their next case should let me know in your review!

Side note, which character (or characters) from previous cases would you like to see reappear? Either from the anime or from my story. I know I asked this before, but I'm curious lol