Scott trudged up to modest home. It was simple, yet elegant one story home with white paint, grey brick, and a red door. Which meant in this area, it was worth around $500k. He remembered searching up several homes just north of him and being shocked at the steep increase in price. The yard was well kempt, like her sister’s home, and a brand new white BMW 3 series was parked in the driveway. He had searched through the files all morning, careful to compare Mike’s report with the eye witness’s account. They eerily lined up, almost word for word, which meant they either collaborated and got their story down before the responding officer got there, or Mike was telling the truth. Either way, it didn’t bode well for their police report. There was no way the media would buy it. He hoped that the police chief’s statement to channel five held over for the next 48 hours. They were all extremely careful to not share anything over the police radio, since the channel was open to the public and any key facts shared would be on Twitter in seconds.

The surviving victim’s name was Carroll Furuhashi, age 28. She had just finished med school and was interning under Dr. Steinberg at Medical City Dallas. She was on her way to becoming a neurologist. She was single and came from a wealthy background. It was obvious by the area that she lived in and her car. Not to mention, most doctors in training were normally in debt for the first five years paying off their student loans. He eyed the car and the newly remodeled home. So the sisters were on the same page with remodeling, apparently. This lady definitely wasn’t hurting for cash.

He rang the doorbell once, stepping back from the door so that he was visible. She had one of those doors that you could see directly into her home. From what he could see, it was all wooden floors and gauzy-white curtains with clean, white walls. He stood for several seconds, frowning when no one answered. He was about to ring the doorbell again when a woman appeared from one of the rooms. She slowly opened the door and peered up at him. “Good morning ma’am, my name is Detective Wallis with the Richardson Police department.” He removed his credentials from his back pocket and held them in front of her. After a few moments he placed it back into his pocket. “We spoke earlier about our interview today?” She had obviously been crying. Her hair was extremely disheveled and she was still in her pajamas. She nodded and stepped aside, “Yes of course, Detective. Please, come in.” He wiped his shoes on the brown mat by the front door and stepped into the small entryway. He paused, noticing the shoe cubby by the door and removed his shoes, placing them inside. The woman smiled up at him from the hall. “Thank you for noticing. Most people just sort of walk in and ruin the carpet.” He smiled warmly at her, “I was trained well by someone very special in my life. She feels the same way about dirt and white carpet.” She grinned, “she sounds like my kind of woman.”

* * *

“So tell me again what happened. I went over your report this morning, but I would like to hear it from you personally in case you may have remembered anything else since the incident this morning.” She looked over at him and smiled weakly, “I’m aware that our story sounds…unconventional, Detective. I am quite aware of all the signs of trauma and mental illness, of which I have none.” Daniel held her gaze, softening his tone, “Ms. Furuhashi, I am not here to judge. I have seen things in my field that were a mystery, even to me. I just want you to focus on what I ask and answer as detailed as possible so that we can get some answers for Catherine.” She reached for more tissues, tears welling up. He gave her a few moments to compose herself before gently prodding, “I know that this will be hard, but I need you to try and do as I say.” She nodded, “ok. I’ll do my best.” He always hated this part, it was rough on the family just having to hear that they will never see that person again. To actually have witnessed the death would have been hard on anyone, especially a sibling that probably carried a lot of guilt over not being able to help. Unfortunately, time was sensitive and he needed to get as much information as possible to help the team.

They were seated in her living room. She had a very feminine color palette going with whites, teal throw pillows, and white furniture. She had a small, white sofa and two matching chairs seated across from each other. She chose to sit in the chairs so that they could place their coffee on the table. Judging by the sofa, it looked as if it was never used, or not used often. “Just so you are aware,” he began, “I will be equipped with a recording device on my chest. I am using it for evidence purposes only and trying to protect both you and myself. It isn’t standard protocol, but I prefer this method so that I can watch this later and see if there is anything that I missed in my hand written report.” Her hands went up to her face and she squirmed uncomfortably, “No one else will see this, right? I’m sure I look dreadful right now.” He shook his head, “it will just be myself, my supervisor, and the other detective that will be assigned to the case. I assure you that it will not be uploaded on anything that can be accessed from the public and will stay in this case’s profile in a secure location.” She shook her head, a little flustered at the attention. “No, no, I want to help Cathy, I just hate being filmed.” She looked to the ground and sighed, “I always have.” Carroll smiled and looked up at Daniel, “Cathy was the sort that enjoyed that. Did Mike tell you that she is─ err.. was, looking into modeling and film?” She sniffed loudly at her use of tense. Poor girl, he felt for her. That twinge of guilt was back again, this time it was his turn to look at the ground. There was so much he didn’t know about Mike’s life. Even this woman was on a first-name basis with him. He shook his head, “No, I had no idea. I did read that she recently turned twenty-four, back in─” he looked over his notes on his tablet and froze. January, same month that Celeste was born. Suddenly, he felt sick to his stomach. He was willing to bet that all the girl’s shared the same winter birthday. “January.” He looked up at her, recovering himself a degree, “Yes, that’s right. Thank you.” She inclined her head and shifted. He needed to reserve later for this, it was time to keep himself focused. He flipped the tablet to where the keyboard expanded and he leaned back in the chair. He flipped the switch, focusing on the present moment.

“I want you to think back to when you first arrived early this morning. In your statement, you said that you came over after your sister called and complained that she kept hearing sounds and that something didn’t feel right.” “Yes, that’s right,” Carroll said. “OK, Ms. Furuhashi─” she shook her head, “can you just call me Carroll? My father and mother prefer formality, but it isn’t necessary with me.” He smiled warmly, “No problem.” She relaxed a little more, sitting back in her seat. “Dispatch records show that the call was placed at 4:38 a.m. by a neighbor. It was originally called in as a domestic disturbance and the first responding officer was later updated en route when you called dispatch at 4:45 a.m.” she remained quiet, her features tightening but she managed to eventually nod. “I need you to do this for me, it may seem very odd, but I promise you that it will help, OK?” She again shook her head in acknowledgment. “Try your best to remember what the pool smelled like and what your sister was wearing.” Her eyes dropped down to the right and she adjusted herself in the chair. “OK,” he continued, “I also want you to think about any smells that you noticed when you walked through the house and if anything looked out of place when you entered.” Her eyes met his and she shook her head. “No, nothing out of the ordinary. She had baked cookies last night with me, so it did still smell a little like that when I walked in.” He typed that in. “You mentioned that you just walked in. Was the front door unlocked?” She shook her head, “no, I have a spare key for the house.” He wrote that down, “Does she have any health conditions or animals that needed tended to if she left?” “No,” she answered, “it was in case of emergencies if the other person couldn’t get in, or the house started flooding. We are very close, and with both of us living alone, and with my hectic schedule, we wanted to be able to help one another if we needed to.” “Forgive my question Carroll, but why aren’t the two of you living together if you are both single?” She flushed a little and then looked away. “Cathy has a bit of a wild streak, she would always come home and blare music or movies. And she had friends over quite often. I’m more of a homebody, and prefer my privacy.” “I understand,” he said typing, “please, continue. What happened this morning?” She took a long breath and sighed. “Cathy called me this morning after I got off of work. I’d actually just pulled into the driveway. Normally, we reserve calls for when there is too much to text, or if something is wrong.” Daniel nodded as he typed. “She was extremely beautiful, so she often had guys chasing after her. Nothing serious happened, but she had a lot of online creepers that left inappropriate comments on her Instagram or Facebook. I warned her that she shouldn’t use tagging on her photos or post too often from home. Mike warned her of that too.” He kept silent, knowing that she was probably building up to something. “In any case, when she called, she kept complaining that someone was messing with her. I thought it was just harmless and that maybe she had over-worked herself this week. She did a modeling job two days ago that had run over twelve hours and I just thought─” she started crying again, unable to hold in her own guilt. “I told her to see if she could get ahold of Mike, I had pulled a double shift and was exhausted.” Daniel reached across and grabbed her hand, “Hey, this isn’t your fault, OK? Anyone would have reacted the same way.” She sniffed, “yes, but my second mistake actually cost her life.”

He placed a hand over hers, “Carroll, I know that it is hard to imagine that you didn’t cause this, but you have to understand that it is in no way something that you could control. You did everything that you could.” She shook her head, “No, Detective, I didn’t.” She reached over and grabbed another tissue, blotting at her eyes. “The second time she called was just after she had tried to reach Mike. Admittedly, I thought this was another one of those moments where she was having bad anxiety.” Daniel cocked his head, “does she have those often?” She looked up at him, “high anxiety runs in our family. Our mother has been on anti-anxiety medication for years and Cathy had recently gotten an IUD.” He stared at her blankly. He remembered learning about those from one of his married co-workers, but wasn’t really sure of exactly what it was other than a form of birth control. Carroll smiled at him knowingly, “It’s a small device that is placed in your uterus─” “Thank you ma’am, but I think I will leave that to mystery.” She laughed for the first time since he arrived. “I’m sorry, I’m studying to be a doctor and forget people aren’t fascinated by such things.” He laughed with her, scratching behind his head. “Well, there are side effects for a small part of the population, Cathy was displaying high anxiety. She was having trouble sleeping, worried over every little thing, and usually had to take melatonin on her worst nights. I warned her not to use that unless she needed to. She had been working with her CBT therapist so that she could get more into healthier thinking patterns.” He nodded. Daniel had heard of cognitive behavioral therapy, it was something that people with OCD or any sort of anxiety disorder used to retrain their way of thinking or bad thought impulses. “It sounds like she struggled with this for a while.” He said. Carroll shook her head, “it actually only started getting bad this year. Right after she got the IUD, actually. Many people aren’t aware that birth control, especially those with hormones, can vastly affect a woman’s moods─ which in turn can cause depression and anxiety. She hadn’t been out of the house much lately, usually friends came to her or she would leave if she had to drive to a modeling or acting job. When I think about it now, I realize how much she had changed. I got so caught up with my work and I thought that maybe she was just going through something temporary. She used to go out every weekend.” She trailed off, lost in her thoughts. He sat back and placed his hand on his chin thoughtfully, “This isn’t the first time she’s called in the middle of a panic attack.” Carroll sighed, “No. I told her that it might be best that she look into other options, but she said that all of the forums told her that she should wait it out for about a year and that her body would adapt to it. I was doing what I always do, telling her to calm down and try her breathing techniques with her positive mantra the doctor told her to do.” Daniel jotted down the key points. “Was there anything different that she said this time?”

Carroll’s demeanor shifted instantly, she stiffened, her hands wrapping themselves around her body in a tight hug. Her eyes squeezed shut and she rocked slightly. He immediately softened his voice, careful to not frighten or startle her, “I know this is difficult, Carroll, but I need you to try and remember everything that you can. For her.” She bobbed her head up and down in a jerky motion, still hugging herself. She sniffed, and then opened her eyes. “What I’m about to tell you is something that, as a doctor, I know how it sounds. I have to try and keep an open mind that maybe it was my mind’s way of coping with my sister’s death.” “I understand,” he responded. “What really confuses me, is that Mike also saw what I did. We both did, so I’m at war mentally with myself. Surely we didn’t both have the same hallucination at the exact moment.” “Carroll,” he softly interrupted, “don’t worry about that, just explain to me what you saw.” She swallowed thickly, then her gaze took a faraway look as she stared just to the right of him. “Cathy sounded frantic. She normally would call with the usual cause for anxiety, like being upset over an audition, or asking if she was getting fat, or being worried over Mike.” He nodded. “But this time, she wouldn’t let me get off of the phone. She kept telling me that something was following her, that something was very wrong. She begged me to come stay with her, just for today until Mike could come by. But─” “You thought that this was just the anxiety eating at her and that she needed to get some rest.” She covered her face and moved her head slightly up and down, her body sagging as she sobbed. Daniel let her get it all out, knowing what that guilt felt like. He had felt the same way when Celeste slipped from him in a matter of moments. Carroll reached across at the box of tissues, swiping at her face. “After several minutes, I told her to let me take a shower first and then I would head over.” Daniel made a few notes about the anxiety and that the victim had been insisting that her sister come over. “When I finally got there, a little over thirty minutes had passed. Like I said before, I had a key, so I unlocked the door.” She quieted, shifting her gaze to the ground. “When Cathy was upset as a little girl, she used to take long baths. That didn’t change much as an adult, except that she changed that to long showers instead. I knew that she would probably be in the shower, or in the pool. Water has always relaxed her, mama used to tease and say that it was because she was a water tori and found herself centered in her element.” Carroll smiled. “Cathy was very into the Zodiac because she believed that her birth year defined her. To be fair, she was like her sign─ outspoken, taking on too many projects at a time and always got angry at herself if she didn’t get it accomplished.” Daniel smiled, “my buddy Mike is the same way. You said, tori, what is that?” “Yes, I know detective, that’s why the two of them got along so well, I think. Sorry, I do that sometimes. Tori is rooster in Japanese.” Daniel wasn’t sure why, but that sounded extremely familiar. He typed in everything, careful to make a note about the zodiac and the rooster. That sounded silly to actually put that trivial detail in, but it kept sticking out in his mind. Usually when that happened, he knew to pay attention to it.

“Please, continue.” She nodded, tucking a strand of hair behind her head. “I first walked back to her room, and then the shower. When I noticed she wasn’t there, I walked back out to the kitchen toward the backyard.” She paused, taking a deep breath. “When I found her, she was standing next to the pool.” Her eyes rose up to his, they were dark, intense. “She wasn’t alone.” Daniel kept his eyes locked on hers, “who was with her?” “not who, Detective, what.” He remained silent. “Shinigami.” “Forgive me, what is that?” he asked. She blinked rapidly a few times, looking away at him. “You have something similar. Think of it like, a grim reaper.” She whispered. “But this one, this one took the form of a child.” He tapped away on his keyboard, letting her continue. “I say child, but it changed into something─ very different.” She shuttered, her hands instinctively covering her forearms. “I don’t even begin to know how to describe it. It wore a black mofuku kimono.” Daniel looked up at her. “Mofuku kimono is traditional kimono worn by women at a funeral” she explained. He inclined his head and took note. “It’s wings were some sort of black fluid that spilled over the ground. It had long claws.” she paused, her breathing picking up. “As soon as I saw it, I couldn’t move. I wanted to, I screamed at myself mentally to just move. But I was kept there.” He stared at her for a moment, “You mean you were afraid?” She shook her head, “No, it wouldn’t let me.” He pursed his lips, nodded and then typed it in. “That wasn’t the worst part.” She clasped her hands together, her knuckles going white. “When it─ shifted. All of her facial features disappeared, they just changed into blackness.” Daniel leaned in, his own anxiety rising. Where had he heard of this before? Jesus, it was killing him. This all sounded like something that he should remember. His dream from this morning popped back into his mind, then he remembered something from the dream that he had seen when Celeste was a child. There was something in the way the child had held herself. It was the second time his mind had brought up the rising flames along the girl’s body and later on his empress as they charged into battle. Yet, what he saw had been flames.

What was his mind trying to tell him and why was he remembering their former life? He needed to go home and read more over the statements and think back to what he had dreamt. These past few months he had approached this as a detective would. Perhaps it was time to give in to his mind. Matilda had told him that once he found himself, there was no going back. But he had allowed so little time to tap back into that feeling that he was going in circles and getting nowhere fast. If these murders were tied to Celeste, he needed to tap into every source he could. He knew that they were, there was honestly no doubt. Whether she had been committing them or not was the real question. If she was, why, and how could they stop it? He needed to go back to where they shared the vision together. It would be hard, but he needed to start from somewhere. First things first, he reminded himself. Carroll had been watching him lost in his thoughts. “Sorry,” he offered, “I was just thinking of something.” She shook her head, “No, it’s OK. I definitely understand.” “You said that you saw blackness. Did a face exist at all, or was it just totally black?” Air released from her lungs. She smiled at him, she looked as if she had been holding her breath the whole time. “Thank you,” she said. He cocked an eyebrow, “for what?” “Not asking me what really happened.”