* * *
On the way, Conan said in a low voice, "...I keep feeling that person was a little strange. Although all his actions seemed to have reasonable explanations, taken together, they were too much of a coincidence—almost like he had deliberately guided us into discovering this Murder Case.
"Also, I don't know if it was just my imagination, but the soil in one part of where the body was buried looked slightly different in color. Unfortunately, Mr. Koda rushed over too quickly, so I didn't have time to tell whether it was a trick of the light or there really was a problem..."
Haibara Ai saw things differently.
She had always been instinctively wary of strangers appearing around her.
—In the Organization's eyes, "Sherry" had surely escaped far away already, so they had eased up their search in this area. Besides, Anonymous always provided Haibara Ai with information in advance and had even personally helped her escape... But even so, Haibara Ai had not been free for long, and her instinctive fear of the Organization had yet to fully fade.
Under those circumstances, she had naturally observed Okiya Subaru carefully as well.
Okiya Subaru... In Haibara Ai's eyes, he did not seem to carry much of the Organization's aura.
Even though she had spent so long around Jiang Xia that her senses in this regard had grown a little dull, setting that aside and judging only by good and evil, Okiya Subaru did not give her much of a "bad person" impression either.
"If it looks like such a coincidence, then maybe it really was one. People under enormous pressure can do anything strange. And the closer they get to their deadline, the more they like to avoid things and steal moments of leisure—like getting absorbed in cases