Takigawa and Ayako want the spotlight and they want it now! In this chapter, they do as they said: they investigate the woods all by themselves, and it goes pretty well all things considered. It's when they try to leave when crap hits the fan.

By the way, this is also on AO3, in case you prefer that website's format.

.o0o.

Houshou arrived at Ayako's apartment complex at around eight in the morning. When he called to let her know he was there, she said, "Thanks for doing this." He didn't exactly know what to make of her sudden candidness. Usually it took Naru or Mai to get non-sarcastic or non-dramatic statements from her. Whatever was going on was really rattling her.

"Want to get something to eat first?" he offered.

"Yes, please," Ayako said.

She came down to his car with a rather large backpack, and he drove them to a small café. Neither of them felt like sitting down for a meal, but it was also important that Monk not eat and drive. Things like that never ended well for him. So coffee and a light breakfast it was. Monk's treat, of course.

"So before we go to your spooky forest, I just want to know if there's anything else I'm missing," said Takigawa as they sat down. "A lot of things went down even before I got to the hospital yesterday."

"Was it really yesterday?" Ayako asked, echoing Takigawa's own thoughts. The scale of their investigation was much larger than usual, adding to just how out of whack their sense of time was. "I don't think you missed all that much. You came just around the middle of our investigation phase, and all of Naru's explanations you heard."

Takigawa nodded. "Right. Okay. What's going on with Lin though?"

Ayako shook her head. "Not sure, but I don't like it."

"The way he looked at me, after I cut his tether…" Takigawa lowered his gaze to the table, trying his best not to flash back to the fury and the fear in Lin's one visible eye. The fear was not directed at the woods as they had been that day—this time, they were directed at him. For that split moment, Lin was afraid of Takigawa.

"Naru was right. I was reckless. Had that gone wrong, I could have killed him," said Monk. Having that kind of power and influence over another person, having Lin's life in his hands, even for less than a minute, was sickening to him.

"You made a split second decision for the well-being of your co-worker," Ayako said. "Whether or not they died was both in your hands and fate's."

Takigawa glanced up at her, amazed for a second that she understood his feelings. And then he remembered, "I guess you doctors have to make those calls every day."

To that, Ayako nodded. The waiter arrived with their small orders.

Takigawa leaned froward, pensive. "You know, this whole business with the peeping Tom ghost and Lin's problems… it kinda feels like we're dealing with two cases at once."

Ayako nodded again. "The connection between the two things is difficult to reconcile. I've driven by these woods so many times and never felt anything out of the ordinary."

"Maybe we should have called Masako. She can see spirits too."

"Well, Lin can't see spirits," Ayako said, and Monk waved his hand.

"Yeah, his shiki can. But he and Masako are the two on our team who can directly confirm or deny the presence of spirits."

Ayako still looked doubtful. "It's not the same. We should eat."

Monk still had more questions, but none that couldn't be answered on the drive over. So they finished their food, Takigawa started to pay, but Ayako took the check from his hands. At his questioning glance, Ayako said, "You're already doing me a favor. I can at the very least be a gracious recipient."

Takigawa couldn't let the opportunity to tease her pass. "Recipient yes. Gracious…?"

Ayako tapped him on the head with the check before handing it to a waiter who didn't know whether to be amused or not. Once the waiter left, Takigawa ribbed her again. "Your whacking arm's gone weak."

"Don't worry, once we're in the car, I'll give you one to remember," Ayako returned. She was half annoyed, but it was clear that she could see what he was doing—providing a playful atmosphere that lightened the tension of leaving so many case threads unsolved. In essence, the SPR had rolled over a huge log and found all sorts of supernatural creepy-crawlies. But instead of doing their jobs and exterminating, they left it for someone else to deal with, all on a legal technicality. Takigawa was familiar with those, as his band absolutely had to deal with the lawyers when booking venues. And Ayako's dealings with legal were a migraine and a half, if just the conversations she had with her boss were anything to go by.

They left the café and got back in the car. Ayako gave Takigawa a good thwack upside the head, as promised, and then they drove. It was around nine-ten when they arrived at the spooky woods. It was as Takigawa remembered—old and dead, with almost no leaves on the trees, even though the rest of the trees everywhere else had them. He wondered why this didn't strike him as odd before. He supposed he had just chalked it up to being by the highway and pollution.

There was nowhere to park, just the shoulder off the side roads, which wasn't really legal. There were no sidewalks. Clearly these woods were not for the enjoyment of the public.

"Should we maybe park in the park?" Takigawa suggested.

"We might need to make a hasty retreat," Ayako cautioned. "It would be best if we had a car nearby."

Takigawa nodded. The reasoning was sound. He wasn't terribly worried about the ticket. They were annoying, but he could afford to eat one. He was more concerned with getting towed.

Ayako folded her arms at his concerns. "If you're so worried, why don't you stay with the car and I'll investigate the trees?"

"Not a chance," Monk said. "Don't you remember what Mai said? Giant rolling pin of doom? You're not going in there alone."

"I'm just going to investigate the trees by the road. It's not like I'm going into the forest alone. What do you think I am, stupid?"

Knowing nothing less than a speedy answer would get him whacked, he put his hands up in surrender and said, "No, not at all. I just think two is better than one. That's all. And besides, if you're just checking the trees by the road, then I can keep an eye on my car."

Monk pulled over. He and Ayako stepped out. Ayako thankfully had worn heavy jeans, and both of them rolled their socks over their cuffs. The last thing they needed was to pick up a tick. Ayako walked over to the nearest tree. She put her hand on it and looked down, sensing for spirits. Monk leaned against the hood of his car, keeping an eye out for anything funny.

"This one's dead," Ayako said.

"I could've told you that," Monk muttered.

"Let me finish. It's entombed. Its spirit is still here, but it's dead."

Takigawa blinked. "What does that mean?"

"When trees die, their bodies stay as they are and help the ecosystem, like all dead trees. But trees that have spirits, when their bodies die, their spirits are released into the earth and transcend into new energy. These spirits are still trapped inside the dead trees, as though the wood has become a tomb."

"What would cause that to happen?"

Ayako shook her head. "I certainly don't know. I wish I could ask, but I have never heard of this before." She wandered over to another tree and put her hand on it. "This one too." She turned back to Monk. "I need to find a living tree."

"We're going deeper?" Takigawa surmised.

"I would like to," said Ayako.

Monk gave one last look at his car. A thought occurred to him. "Woods. Forest. Safety first!" He realized he only vocalized a small bit of his thought process, but in order to be a good hiker, he had to be smart about this. He unlocked his trunk and pulled out several things. He grabbed his beads and his tokkosho, naturally, but he also grabbed a large roll of duct tape, a folded bit of tarp, and a portable battery.

"What do we need all that for?" Ayako said, walking up behind him.

"A good camper is never without his equipment."

"We're not camping."

"We're walking into a spooky ghost forest with no paths or landmarks. It might be a good idea to bring some stuff, just in case."

Ayako nodded, clearly seeing the logic. "What do you want me to carry?"

Monk tied up the folded tarp in the cable and strung it over his shoulder. The tape fit in his large hoodie pocket. "I got this. You should lead the way."

And boy, Ayako led. Monk didn't take her for much of a hiker, but she was whipping and weaving through trees and undergrowth like a jaguar. They stopped every now and then. Ayako checked a tree for life, always finding the same thing. It was either dead and gone, or dead and entombed. Monk took their frequent stops as an opportunity to place an X in tape on the side of a tree, marking their path. Ayako looked around.

"I'm glad you thought of this," she said, gesturing to the X. "All the trees look the same."

Monk nodded. "Yup. Last thing we need is to get lost out here. And this way, we also know that we're traveling in a straight line."

"We were close to the middle of the woods when we got out of the car, right?"

Monk tilted his head up, trying to remember. "I think so? Do we want to try to find the middle of the woods?"

"What was it that Naru said before? The woods were bigger but they were cut back. The original middle of the woods might be long gone by now."

"Right, but whatever's causing our ghost problem is still here."

Ayako clicked her tongue. "I think we should head back. I want to check the trees on the other side of the road."

Monk thought back. There was another, thinner stand of trees on the other side of the road. The trees nearly matched the ones that made up the woods they were currently in, but they were considerably healthier than these. Squinting, one could even see the backyards of houses in the residential areas through the stands of healthy trees. Monk wondered if the residents ever asked why there was a stand of sickly trees just smack dead in the middle of their neighborhood. Regardless, it would be quite a trek back to the road.

"Are you sure? We can always check them when we want to go back," Monk said. "After all, I'm pretty sure the trees over there were in much better condition than these."

Ayako's gaze flicked downward. Monk could see the wheels turning in her head. She eventually nodded. "Let's keep going."

They resumed their quick pace, Ayako leading, Monk following. Ayako was no longer checking trees, so Monk had to verbally stop her so that he could mark their path.

"What exactly is it we're looking for?" he asked on one such occasion. "And how will we know when we find it? We don't exactly have Lin's help right now. We could be walking into a death trap and know nothing."

"Well first, we're looking for anything that looks out of place."

"Like what?"

Ayako pointed. "Like that."

Monk squinted, following her arm. He shook his head. "I don't…"

Ayako rushed ahead.

"Hey, wait!"

They stopped at a small patch of open ground. The circle of bare ground was no bigger than ten meters in diameter. Dead leaves covered patches of ground, but there was absolutely no plant growth here. The trees made a near perfect circle surrounding the area, and their branches bent over the gap to catch the light, hiding the area from the sky. Unless they were in a helicopter flying right overhead, this tiny area would have been completely unnoticeable.

"Fairy circle much?" Monk mused. He began walking in a circle around the circle, kicking up leaves as he did so. As if to disprove him and also spit in his face, Monk uncovered no mushrooms. Fairy circle it was not.

Ayako moved over to a tree on the edge. As soon as she touched it, she jumped back, retracting her hand as though she had been burned.

"What is it?" Monk exclaimed, instantly at her side.

"The tree… it's… there are so many spirits inside…"

Monk frowned. "What does that mean?"

Ayako put a hand to her mouth. Takigawa noticed a slight tremble in her hand. His eyes widened when he realized that the miko was significantly disturbed.

"They're all… crammed into the bark, like a mass grave."

Images of faces smooshed together, folding over each other, finding every last bit of empty space, flashed through Takigawa's head. Further images of the suicide forest as depicted in Dante's Inferno trailed after, but Monk shook his head to keep himself focused. "Are they dead? The spirits?"

Ayako took a shaky breath. "The tree spirit is long dead. The spirits inside are… they're ghosts. But they're unresponsive. It's like they're in a coma."

"Is that possible?" Monk asked.

"There are several ways to rob a spirit of its autonomy, of its consciousness. I've never seen this before. Usually, when spirits are so drained, they're under enthrallment or are otherwise being used for some other purpose. These spirits are… it's like they've been discarded. Crammed into these trees and forgotten."

"It's like the cadaver room," Monk observed. Ayako's head snapped toward him. Had she forgotten that he, John, and Lin had been to the morgue the previous day? "Storage for spirits. Except with more than one spirit in each container."

He looked at Ayako. She was staring at him with a lost expression, like she couldn't even comprehend that this had been done. From her perspective, Monk mused, this was a violation of nature. And when Monk recalled Mai's report from last night, tidal wave of melted spirits started to make more sense. He folded his arms. He wished he could tell the girl what they found—it would perhaps give her some closure.

"What could have done this?" Ayako asked.

Monk shook his head. "Like you said. Unnatural spirits are usually the result of some kind of plan or usage. But I've never heard of spirits being thrown away without exorcising them. Though when I put it like that, would it be more accurate to call them imprisoned? Because why would you trap a spirit in a tree in a coma? Wouldn't it be easier to just exorcise it?"

"What if you didn't know how?" Ayako mused.

Monk sent her a dismissive look.

"No, I mean it. Remember back at Yasu's school, the students only half knew what they were doing."

"Normally, I'd agree with that. Sending a spirit back is a lot harder than summoning one. But doing something like this—" Monk gestured to the trees. "—This feels a lot less like the work of an amateur, and more like the work of some sick eldritch horror."

As Monk turned to gesture to the trees, he noticed something at the middle of the circle. He began to walk over, kicking leaves away as he did so.

"What is it?" Ayako asked, picking up on his behavior.

"Doesn't this ground seem a little… light and soft? And it looks raised here. It's subtle, but the middle of the circle is higher than the edges."

Ayako looked down. It was true. The earth seemed rather bright and rich, lighter than normal dirt. Then again, neither of them were professional dirt connoisseurs. Monk stooped down and picked at the dirt. It flowed through his hands like sand. Some of it stuck to him, just by the nature of dirt and physics.

"It's almost like something you'd find in the store," he observed. And then he began to tear at the dirt, digging down.

"What do you think you're doing?" Ayako exclaimed.

"The ground is higher here. It only stands to reason that there's something buried—ow!" Monk sat back, shaking his hand. "I just hit something."

Ayako joined him. She took his hand, revealing scraped fingers and scratched knuckles. The two of them peered into the hole Monk had dug. A slab of concrete stared back at them.

"Something tells me that didn't naturally form under here," Monk quipped. "Help me dig?"

He saw the hesitation in her eyes, but she soon knelt down and started to dig with him. "Didn't think to bring a shovel, did you?" she muttered.

"Hey, I play guitar. What kind of guitarist needs a shovel in his car?"

Within a few minutes, they uncovered the rest of the concrete slab, and the metal hatch it was hiding. It was rusty, square-shaped, and bolted shut into the chimney-like brickwork. At one end, it appeared to have two screw holes with nothing else to show for it. Monk pointed at it. "I bet there was a handle here, but it got removed."

He heard a camera click. He looked up, seeing Ayako taking a picture of the hatch with her phone. Instantly, he was awed by her quick-thinking. It was unlikely that they were going to get inside, but having proof of the hatch's existence was something they absolutely should secure.

"Good thinking," he said. He took out his own phone and snapped a picture of it. The two of them stood up. A wind blew through the trees. There were hardly any leaves to rustle, which drew Monk's attention to one more eerie thing. "There are no birds."

Ayako glanced around, confirming his observation. "If there's no nature here, then this is truly a bad place to be. We should leave."

"What do we want to do about the trees?"

Ayako shook her head. "There are no living trees. I can't help any of the spirits without them." She turned to him. "What about you? What can you do?"

"I can try," Monk said. "But from your report, these spirits are almost dead bodies themselves. And I'm going to be honest with you—I'm anxious to get back to the car. I'd feel better regrouping and figuring out a plan when we're not surrounded by morgue forest."

Ayako gave him no grief on his opinion. She simply nodded. She gestured to the dug up hatch. "What about this? Should we cover it?"

Monk mulled it over. On one hand, this was a dead forest that even the birds kept away from. It wasn't likely that anyone else would stumble upon the hatch. On the other hand though, there was always a chance that someone who knew about the hatch would come back to it.

"The only ones who would ever find this are the ones who already know it's here," he said. "And I don't think we want beef with those people." He started kicking dirt back over the hatch. Maybe it was the subject of getting caught, or just being around entombed trees for an extended period of time that Monk's anxiety began to rise. He idly wondered if this was even a fraction of what Lin felt. He figured it wasn't, as the terror that Lin had been fighting had been constant and unyielding. Even when waiting for Mai's astral form and the two shiki to return from the park, Lin had been shaking. It was subtle, and Monk had really had to stare at Lin to see it, but it was there. Whatever had spooked Lin had to do with a bit more than just morgue trees and secret tunnels.

Monk kicked the last of the dirt over the mound, trying his best to make it look like they hadn't been there. He shuffled his shoes, covering his footprints, backing up to the edge of the circle. He hoped that would be enough to make it appear like they hadn't been there. Ayako tossed some leaves here and there, to better sell it.

"Which way did we come from?" Ayako asked.

Monk opened his mouth, and then he realized, "I didn't mark the circle."

"What?"

"I put a mark on the tree right before you spotted the circle. I didn't think to mark our entry point, because the circle was so obvious from when we saw it." He put a finger to his chin. "We just have to walk a little ways out and around. Then we should find it."

He led Ayako out of the circle and began to circle. To both of their relief, he found his X, but it had taken several minutes. By now, it was almost certain that someone else had found his car. He pointed in its direction. "That way."

He began walking. Ayako took down the X.

"What are you doing?"

"No one should know we were here, right?" she said.

He nodded. An idea occurred to him. He took out his phone. He snapped a picture of the tree, Ayako holding the duct tape X, and the circle in the distance. Then it occurred to him that Ayako shouldn't be in the picture. He deleted it and motioned to her to move. He took a picture again, this time without obviously incriminating her, and they moved on.

Whenever they encountered a tree with an X, Monk took a picture and Ayako recovered the X. They were nearly back to the road, with perhaps four or five more X's to go, when Ayako suddenly hissed to Monk, "Wait! I hear someone!"

Monk stopped to listen. He couldn't see anyone, as they were close to a natural cliff in the terrain, providing them with shelter. But as he strained his ears, he heard a single set of footsteps approaching.

Ayako, quietly as she could took Monk's arm and pressed them both close to the small cliff face. The overhang of dirt and roots kept them from seeing whoever was nearby, but on the other side, it kept them hidden. Whatever was going on, Monk didn't like it, and he didn't have any interest in getting caught today. So thinking fast, dirty, and pleaseforgiveme, he put a firm hand behind Ayako's neck and whispered, "Play along."

And then he pulled her into a kiss.

Naturally, she was stunned, but she must have realized what Monk was getting at, and she leaned into him. They both leaned against the slope, and she let Monk press her downward. She began to reach down for his pants, causing him to jump.

"Play along less?" Monk whispered in between breaths.

Ayako just removed her hand when the footsteps stopped. A man in a police uniform jumped down from the rooted overhang.

"What are you doing here!" he barked, as Monk jumped away from Ayako. The man's voice was like rocks getting sucked into a vacuum cleaner. An odd simile, but it was what came to mind. There was nothing more frustrating than sucking up a rock or a paperclip—Monk shook his head. Not the time for his mind to wander.

"Holy crap, you scared us, man!" Monk shouted.

"This is private property," said the officer. His very presence sent shivers down Monk's spine, and the side glances he got from Ayako signaled that she felt the same. The worst was his eyes. They were cold and empty. They weren't haunted—actually, quite the opposite. It was like they were closed off, repelling everything and anything in the world.

"There wasn't a sign," Ayako said.

The officer didn't look impressed in the slightest. His eyes flicked back and forth so subtly that Monk almost missed it. He then realized that the officer was looking at his hips, his waist, and his shoulder, which still had the tarp hanging off it. The officer was frisking him with his eyes. A shudder passed up through Monk's legs to the back of his neck.

"Don't move. Do not reach for your pocket," he growled, eying the bulge in his hoodie where the duct tape was concealed. Did he think it was a weapon?

Monk slowly started to move his arms to the surrender position.

"I said do not reach for your pocket." The officer reached down toward his belt. Monk's heart began to race. What the actual hell was happening right now?

"Police! Freeze!"

All three of them turned toward the overhang. On top of it stood a much younger police officer, weapon drawn, darting confusedly between Monk and Ayako. When he saw that both of them had their hands up, he lowered the muzzle.

"What are you doing here? I told you to stay with car," said the old officer.

"I'm not supposed to leave my partner," said the younger.

"You are also supposed to obey orders. Now the tow truck will come to two empty cars."

"I'm sorry, officer Fusei." The younger peered back over toward Monk and Ayako. "Do we arrest them?"

"You tell me, Hattori."

"Oh uh… right." The younger officer mumbled something to himself. Monk watched, on edge. "They are legally, technically trespassing. But there isn't a sign. It really isn't right to just expect something like this would be common knowledge. After all, ignorance in and of itself isn't a crime, but it's also not an excuse if a crime gets committed…"

The older officer, Fusei, merely raised an eyebrow. How the younger, Hattori, wasn't completely quaking in his boots at his mentor's very existence baffled Monk. Or maybe he was, and he was doing his damn best to stay composed.

"We can let them off with a warning, right sir?"

Stiff like a manakin, Fusei nodded his head. Hattori still looked unsure, but he waved to Monk and Ayako to follow, which they did. Fusei took up the rear, which Monk didn't like one bit. He paused, allowing Ayako to walk in front of him. If anyone had to have their back exposed to this off-officer, Monk would make sure it wasn't Ayako.

"Though I suppose it's weird," babbled Hattori. Perhaps the younger officer was chatty when nervous. "We haven't gotten any calls to these woods since I graduated from the academy, and now we get two in a row. Well, I suppose the kid and his Chinese friend weren't really trespassing. They just got carsick or something."

"Hattori, enough."

To Ayako's immense credit, she did not turn around to face Monk at that very moment. It took every ounce of Monk's self-control to keep from gasping. These were the cops that terrorized Lin yesterday.

They finally made it out of the woods. A police car was standing behind Monk's car, and a tow truck was just pulling up. Monk and Ayako turned around to the two cops.

"Do you really have to tow it? We're here now," Monk said.

Hattori glanced to Fusei, who hardly looked his way. "Since you're here, and this car hasn't been abandoned, instead, you'll just get a ticket. I'll need your driver's license."

Monk nodded without a word. He dug into his back pocket and pulled out his wallet. He handed his license to Hattori.

"Thank you, Houshou Takigawa. This will only take a few minutes." Hattori went back to the car, leaving Monk and Ayako alone with Fusei. The older officer hadn't reacted at all to his student's policing. Instead, he just stared at the two spiritualists with an expression that neither of them could really read. Monk was almost tempted to start talking just to break the tension, but he decided against it, considering Lin's past experience with the man.

When he could take the staring no longer, Monk folded his arms and turned his head toward the police car. Hattori was still writing the ticket and checking the records or however cops did that. But in the distance, the appearance of a familiar gray car caught Monk's attention. He forgot to school his expression of recognition, but he did manage to not call out to Lin's car. The car's front wheels wavered, as though the driver couldn't decide whether to stop or keep driving. That meant that Lin was here for them.

Loop around, Lin. You have no chance of fighting off cops, thought Monk.

To his relief, the gray car did not stop. Though as it came in close, Monk could just make out the license plate. It was indeed Lin's. Monk had ridden with him enough times and fed enough parking meters to know that plate by memory.

"Interesting car?" asked Fusei. It was too sharp a tone to just be small talk. Monk swore in his head.

"Just watching it go by," he lied. "Looked kinda drunk, maybe?" He took a chance and looked back at Fusei's eyes. They were still boring into him. Like looking directly at the sun, they burned. Monk had to fight the urge to flinch away.

The static on Fusei's radio fizzled. The older officer hardly blinked. He just lifted it up to his ear.

"Fusei," he said.

"This is dispatch. You got the warrant you wanted for Koujo Lin," said the radio.

At this, both Monk and Ayako gasped. Fusei narrowed his eyes. He clicked off his radio. "Friend of yours?" he asked.

"What do you want with Lin?" Monk blurted, tossing caution to the wind.

Fusei sighed. He then said, "It saddens me that today's Japanese citizens have dulled themselves to this degree. Do not warn him, or you will be arrested for obstruction."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Ayako asked.

At that moment, Hattori walked up to the three of them. He handed the orange envelope to Monk. "Here you go."

Monk took the ticket. Fusei nodded at Hattori, indicating it was time to go. Like an obedient dog, the younger officer followed his T.O back to the car. Neither Monk nor Ayako moved as the two officers drove away. But once they were a block away, the two of them darted to their own car. They got in, put on their seatbelts, and Monk drove. They let the police car speed off into the distance and out of sight. At first, Monk was surprised that they didn't circle back to follow Lin. Then he realized that just because the cops had a warrant didn't mean they committed Lin's car to memory.

In any case, Lin was here for them, and Monk had to catch him. So he drove back toward the highway while Ayako dialed Lin frantically. She swore when she got his answering machine. They circled back around to the woods, finally spotting Lin's car in the distance.

Monk pushed on the gas and honked, catching up to Lin before he turned the corner. Monk's overly aggressive approach caused Lin to swerve. Thankfully, nobody crashed, and Lin managed to pull over. Both Monk and Ayako got out and made their way to Lin. They were not prepared to see the man staring straight ahead, a hand pressed to his heaving chest, and gripping the wheel with his other hand like it was his last lifeline. Monk swore in his head. He didn't mean to scare the poor man like that.

Ayako knocked on the passenger window, finally getting his attention. He looked up, seeming to realize what was going on. He unlocked the door and stepped out. He stumbled to his knees, nearly losing consciousness. Monk was there instantly, an arm wrapped around his chest to keep him upright.

"I'm fine," Lin said, to everyone's disbelief.

"Are you sure?" Monk asked. "You almost passed out on me."

Lin steadied himself and stood up. His legs appeared a little wobbly. Then again, his entire form was trembling. "You need to call off this investigation."

"Why?" Ayako demanded.

"We shouldn't speak in the open."

Ayako thought. "How private do we need to be?"

Lin motioned for them to get in. Neither of them did.

"Listen, man. I don't trust you behind the wheel right now. Not in this state. Ayako, why don't you drive Lin's car, and we'll follow you back to the office?"

To this, Ayako nodded. Ayako walked in front of the hood to swap places with Lin. Lin began to do the same, but Monk held tight to his arm. Lin whipped his head around to look at him.

"You're riding with me."

"Why?" Lin asked.

"Because there's something you need to know right now. We just had an encounter with the cops who threatened you yesterday, and they have a warrant out for you."

Monk felt Lin freeze. "Why? What kind of warrant?"

"I don't know," Monk said with a shake of the head. "I just overheard it on his radio."

Lin ran a palm down his face, taking a deep breath. "This isn't good. I think I know why this is happening. Come on. I should tell you on the way. Leave my car. I'll recover it from the city, if the city doesn't make me disappear first."

To that statement, Monk and Ayako exchanged worried glances. Lin ducked into his car, grabbing a few key things out of the glove compartment and overhead visors. They followed Lin to Monk's car. He went for the backseat, behind Ayako. None of them objected. Once everyone was buckled in, Monk sped back toward the highway.