Only a few people knew Mrs. Shimada. The media in J Country hadn't interviewed anyone from the Shimada family, and naturally, nobody online on our side knew who owned the Ootama Hot Springs Resort or could tell us anything about them. We could only watch from the sidelines.
I was full of doubts, and even when I went to bed that night, I couldn't sleep soundly.
After I drifted off, I felt someone stroking my head.
Had my mom come into the room?
That didn't seem right... The hand was rough. It was a man's hand.
Could it be Dad?
My head was stroked a few more times before I woke up.
My point of view was very low. I saw tatami mats and a paper door. The sight of them brought me fully awake.
I detached myself from the person I'd been possessing and saw an unfamiliar man and a familiar cat.
It was the black-and-white cat.
The man stroked its head gently, feeding it little pieces of dried fish with his other hand.
"Meow, meow!" Other cats were in the room too, rubbing against the man.
The black-and-white cat jumped down from the man's lap, licked its paw, and ambled into the sunlight. It curled up, yawned, and dozed off with its eyes half-closed.
I stared at the man's face for a while before recognizing him as someone I'd seen in a dream. Not one of my own dreams, but Bai An's. The corpse that had floated up from the hot spring pool was this man.
He must have been Mrs. Shimada's husband.
I turned to look at the cat.
Was this the one Mrs. Shimada had killed?
Footsteps sounded in the hallway.
The door slid open with a sharp rasp.
The cats in the room either fled