"What?!"
"What did you say? Masao's body was found in the forest?!"
"Even if you found some bones, you can't be sure they belong to Masao!"
Nonomiya Etsuko had only just recovered from that hand chop when the people who had returned to the villa told her they had found her fiancé's body.
She was astonished, confused, and unable to believe it.
She shouted emotionally at everyone, arguing her case. Whether she truly did not believe it or simply did not want to accept the truth, no one knew.
Fujino quietly took out a ring and placed it on the table. "We found this near the body. Do you recognize it?"
"Th-This is..."
Nonomiya Etsuko stared at the ring, her eyes frozen as her face turned deathly pale.
Her name and his were clearly engraved on it.
She had given it to him...
She had personally commissioned it when they got engaged and handed it to him herself. There was no mistaking it.
People did not share the same joys and sorrows. While Nonomiya Etsuko stood there stunned, Mikami Heihachi and Futagawa Hajime watched from the sidelines and made snide remarks.
"A ring was found beside the body?"
"I've seen this on TV before. Maybe Kono Masao killed someone and deliberately left it there..."
"Now that would be interesting."
"He killed someone, then pretended to be the dead one himself. A cicada shedding its shell."
Fujino quietly looked at the two of them, a thoughtful glint passing through his eyes.
Excluding the hotel owner and the fiancée, those two were the most suspicious.
As he remembered it, Mikami Heihachi, the editor with bald patches on both sides of his head, had killed Kono.
As for the man beside him, he had discovered the editor's murder and extorted quite a lot