He stopped pounding and listened, but he couldn’t hear it anymore. Maybe it was his mind playing tricks on him…
There was a familiar rattling sound nearby. Hinata rushed over to the table with Hammy’s stuff on it. The hamster was running as fast as he could inside the little exercise wheel. His cage was clean, and he had food in his dish.
Oh, good, Hinata thought. Akane was taking care of Hammy after all. The hamster wasn’t just a tool, an excuse for her to visit the clinic.
“Hinata,” Mayuka said, her voice trembling. “Why did you think Chris would come to the mansion? Is he really here?”
Hinata looked around the still-dusty room, then replied with a question of his own.
“Why do you think Chris would ignore my command and rush out the door like that?”
“Why?” she repeated, thinking hard.
Hinata hurried around the room, checking the windows. For some reason, all of them were nailed shut and couldn’t be opened. This wasn’t a haunted mansion; it was a prison!
The exercise wheel stopped, and the room was quiet again. The club members from the college weren’t here this time. There were no laptops or smartphones on the big table to the right; it had been cleared off. The only junk in the room were a few scrunched-up pieces of paper on the floor.
Hinata picked up one of them and smoothed it out on the table. There were names and addresses scribbled violently across the page. Next to them were dates and foreign locations, like Hawaii, Phuket, Paris, and Las Vegas.
Mayuka approached the table, shaking her head. “I have no idea why Chris would bolt out the door like that. And…what’s that paper?”
“Do you think those college students were really working on a video…?”
Hinata picked up the other papers and smoothed them out, too. The next one had the same kind of list, written up in the same way.
“Maybe they’ve been looking up the blogs and social media posts of people who are on vacation overseas and breaking into their homes while they’re away…”
“Huh…? Oh! You mean like the break-ins Mr. Shunya and his dogs were helping out with?”
“Yeah. When you go on vacation, you want to show everyone your pictures, right? So you upload them online right away. But all that’s doing is telling everyone, ‘Hey, I’m not home right now!’ And if you’re able to go on vacation to another country, it probably means you’re pretty rich…”
“Oh, I get it!” said Mayuka. “And if you do a little extra research, you can find out their home addresses.”
Hinata nodded. Maybe the “horror video” was all a lie, too. In fact, was anything Akane and Yuuma had said true?
The place they had found the safe full of treasure was picked clean. Maybe that treasure was the only real thing here, and Hinata and Chris had led them right to it. The treasure hunt had been fun, but in the end they’d just been handing valuables to thieves…
“Hey! Earth to Hinata!” Mayuka said with irritation. “Why would Chris have run outside?”
Oh, right! Chris! Hinata started to look around.
“Chris and I make really good partners. You agree, right? But there’s someone who means more to Chris than I do. And I think maybe Chris would ignore what I say if it had something to do with him…”
He felt his eyes grow hot. He didn’t want to admit it, but it was the truth.
“You mean, Mr. Kobayashi…?” Mayuka murmured. Hinata nodded.
“Yeah. If Chris smelled Mr. Kobayashi’s scent, he probably couldn’t control himself. He’d lunge for the scent no matter what I tried to do. I think the first time we came here, Chris detected Mr. Kobayashi’s scent and forced his way inside. But the trail must have gone cold after that.”
Mayuka was wide-eyed with shock. “You think Mr. Kobayashi has something to do with the haunted mansion?”
“I mean, there’s no other way to explain Chris’s actions. I think the reason Chris was chasing after that car yesterday was because it was carrying something that had Mr. Kobayashi’s scent on it. And I think that’s what happened today, too…”
“B-but Mr. Kobayashi’s not here,” she argued, looking around. “So what trail was Chris following?”
“When I saw Akane at the clinic earlier, she was wearing a man’s windbreaker. It was different from her usual fashion, which struck me as strange… But then she pretended to trip and rubbed it against me. I’m sure that was originally Mr. Kobayashi’s jacket. So when I walked upstairs and went inside, Chris got excited and knocked me over to get a good sniff. And that’s why Chris bolted out the door, to go after Akane and Mr. Kobayashi’s scent…”
“So where is he, then?”
“I don’t know… But Akane used his windbreaker to lure Chris here, so I’m pretty sure she knows where he is.”
Mayuka promptly ran up to the door and began to beat on it.
“Hey! Akane! Give us back Mr. Kobayashi! Give us back Chris!”
Hinata joined in: “Chris! Where are you, Chris?!”
If Chris really had evidence of a crime, they might kill him. I don’t care if I’m not the most important person in Chris’s life, Hinata thought. I just want him to be safe!
“Chris! Say something!!”
“Woof!”
There was a distant response. Hinata and Mayuka both froze and listened.
“Woof!”
It wasn’t their imagination. Chris was here!
“Where? Where are you, Chris?” Mayuka shouted.
“Shhh!” Hinata whispered, listening intently. Was it coming from outside? Or upstairs?
“Woof…woof!”
It sounded very far away. It wasn’t coming from above, and it sounded muffled…
“Below?”
Hinata pressed his ear to the dusty floor.
“Woof!”
The barking sounded louder than before. Chris was below the floor!
“Underground?” Mayuka asked. “In a basement? But where? Where’s the entrance?” Hinata found his eyes drawn to the hearth.
The secret door they had found containing the treasure was to the left of the fireplace.
So maybe…
Hinata hopped up and bounded over to the decorative relief on the other side of the fireplace—the right side. Here, there was once again a series of many chrysanthemum flowers. But none of them had an egg-shaped center.
Some of the chickens were hiding within the flowers themselves. One of them had its neck hunched up and its eyes closed, like it was asleep. What’s more, it seemed to Hinata that, compared to the others, the sleeping chicken was slightly raised off the wall.
He had seen many chickens decorating this mansion, but none with their eyes closed.
Maybe the one on the left side was the youngest chicken, and the one on the right side was the oldest chicken…
He reached out and touched the carving. It was rounded, just the right size to grab with one hand.
Would it move? He tried turning the decoration.
Ga-chunk! A vertical crack appeared in the wallpaper below the relief.
“Hinata! It’s a door!” Mayuka exclaimed, putting her hands over her mouth.
Hinata pushed on it and called into the opening, “Chris…”
“Woof!”
The sound was clearly louder than before!
Creaaak… He pushed the door all the way open, revealing a staircase leading downward.
Hinata ducked through the doorway and started down the darkened steps. Each one creaked under his weight…
Halfway down, the stairs made a U-turn, and at the very bottom he found a simple wooden door.
“Chris?” Hinata called out.
“Woof!” came the response from within.
Hinata quickly pushed the door open.
“Whiiine!”
Suddenly, Chris came barreling out through the crack in the door!
“Chris!” Hinata crouched and hugged his dog. “I’m so glad! I’m so glad you’re all right, Chris…”
The end of Chris’s nose was wet and cold. Hinata couldn’t stop the tears flowing from his eyes. He hugged the Shiba Inu once again before looking up.
The room beyond the doorway had a chair in the middle, upon which an adult man was sitting. A single, weak lightbulb hung from the ceiling. The room was barren except for a simple wooden finish. The only object was that large old cloth chair, lit by the meager bulb.
The man, whose elbows were propped up on its armrests, wore a tense smile.
Stunned and distracted, Hinata’s grip relaxed, and Chris slipped free and trotted back to the chair, then leaned against the seated man’s legs.
He had bedraggled hair, sunken cheeks, and unkempt stubble. He wore a stained white collared shirt and jeans. He was totally still and silent. Only his eyes moved, and they were trained on Chris.
Hinata didn’t need to be told who this was.
“Hinata…? Is that…?”
Mayuka came down the steps behind him and squeezed his arm.
Hinata swallowed hard and stepped closer to the man in the chair.
“Mr. Kobayashi? M-my name is Hinata.” The man’s tense cheeks relaxed slightly, and a light glinted briefly in his eyes. “I’ve been taking care of Chris for you…”
A single tear spilled from the man’s eye.
“Oh, dear. You’ve found him,” said a cold, mocking voice from behind.