"Hey, Sato, want some? Mmph—!"
Wataru Takagi returned with the popcorn he had bought and was about to hand it over when Miwako Sato, who was staring intently at something ahead, immediately covered his mouth and pushed him back out into the aisle.
"Shh!" Miwako Sato caught the nearly toppled popcorn bucket and made a quiet gesture. Then she swiftly pressed her sunglasses onto her face and pointed toward the area behind her, signaling Wataru Takagi to look.
Wataru Takagi glanced in that direction and his eyes immediately widened.
Juzo Megure, Hitoshi Shiratori, and Inspector Yokomizo from Kanagawa, among others, stood near the people still lining up at the front of the roller coaster. They spoke quietly while looking around, as though searching for something.
"...Did something happen?" Wataru Takagi, understanding what Miwako Sato meant, first breathed a sigh of relief, but his heart quickly tightened again. "Why did Inspector Megure specifically come all the way here...?"
Strictly speaking, Yokohama was also within the Metropolitan Police Department's sphere of influence in Tokyo. But unless a major serious incident occurred, officers from different police stations rarely conducted joint operations.
It was not merely a question of jurisdiction. It also involved the handling and storage of physical evidence, interrogating suspects, and much more. It was difficult to proceed without first establishing the lead agency, yet establishing one was troublesome in itself.
In short, whenever police from multiple jurisdictions were seen acting together, it was best to first suck in a breath and prepare yourself for something big to have happened.
"Hard to say. Maybe it has something to do with Miss Mouri..." Miwako Sato's mind was clearly no longer on their date, and her face beneath the sunglasses was exceptionally serious.
She was considering how to end this amusement park outing she