Notes: This is a really late chapter, I just didn't feel up to writing yesterday so you're getting this chapter today. Blergh I feel so tired.

Quote Of The Chapter: 'allow me to personally invite you to the unmasking of KID'

X

"The culprit is you!"

Upon those words, there were mixed reactions. Some of the passengers looked fearful and disgusted, backing away from the woman who looked nervous and tensed, faintly reminding Shinichi of a cornered animal. Kaito had a look of absolute disdain on his face, conveying as much disapproval and rage as a blind man leaning on a cane could.

"W-what?! You have no proof! Where is your evidence?"

The woman frantically denied the claim, snarling slightly as she screamed at Shinichi. It was so evident even without evidence, the woman had basically given herself away. She had a terrible poker face, Shinichi mused, definitely tens of times worse than Kaito when Kaito was severely bothered by something but didn't want Shinichi to know. He took measured steps forward as if fearful of scaring away some timid animal.

"The victim was Yamamura Takeshi, aged 46. You were married to him for 14 years but the two of you haven't had a happy marriage and recently you've been cheating on him haven't you?"

The woman looked severely wronged and shook visibly with fury, whether it was fake or not was to be determined. Shinichi's smirk grew even larger and he was beginning to look somewhat like the Cheshire Cat.

"The evidence that you've been cheating on him and subsequently murdered him is your jewellery and the pills!"

"First, a day or so ago, you began to slip small dosages of the proteins found in peanuts that cause allergic reactions with the knowledge that your husband was severely allergic to them. There was no way that you wouldn't know since you had been married to him for so many years. One of the symptoms of peanut allergy is a runny nose and you tricked him into thinking he was coming down with a flu so he began taking those pills every few hours without knowing that the pills were also laced with the proteins and maintained the allergic reaction. As he had a runny nose, the mucus would block his nose and cover up his taste buds, making him unable to taste anything. While on the plane, your husband complained of blocked ears due to the sudden change in pressure. It would be all too easy to pass a piece of chocolate to him under the excuse of helping the ear block. Since his taste buds were covered, he wouldn't be able to taste the peanuts in the chocolate and would subsequently take a couple more pieces to help with the pressure. Since allergic reactions can begin anywhere from several minutes to several hours after the ingestion of the allergen, it would make sense that a few hours after he ate the candy he began to feel nauseous and got up to use the toilet, thinking he was motion sick. When he went into the toilet however, the nausea turned into a shortness of breath, a tightening of his throat and finally death by asphyxiation."

"You were obviously cheating since if we take a look at your jewellery, they are evidently very carefully cleaned and well-maintained but your wedding ring, on the other hand, is dirty and abused, going by the nicks and scratches on it. You evidently had a very unhappy marriage and yet the inside is shiny. The only way that could possibly happen is if you removed it often but there aren't many reasons why you would have to remove your wedding ring, therefore I deduced that the only possible reason would be if you were seeing someone on the side. As for why you tried to do it, it has something to do with your husband finding out you had been cheating on him..."

"...Isn't that so, Yamamura-san"

Shinichi watched the woman pale until she resembled a bedsheet before her face abruptly filled with colour, displaying prominent terror and fear, sweat positively running down her face in rivulets. She trembled hard in silence before, in a burst of motion, She removed one sharp heel and charged at Shinichi, screaming nonsense and very nearly foaming at the mouth. Shinichi narrowed his eyes and braced himself, grabbing onto the wrist that held onto the blood red heel and pinning the arm behind her back, effectively restraining the woman.

Well, there's as good a confession as any…

The policeman slapped a pair of handcuffs on the woman's wrists and led her to a vacant seat before sitting down beside her to keep an eye on the woman. It didn't seem to be necessary, however, as all the fight seemed to have drained out of her body and she slumped lifelessly into the seat like a ragdoll, eyes staring blankly ahead and seemingly not looking at anything, resigning to her fate. The body was covered with a thin cloth and the toilet closed off, the other passengers returning to their seats but still occasionally sneaking fearful and disbelieving, horrified looks at the toilet door, as if unable to believe that someone died in there.

Shinichi took Kaito by the arm and led him past the mass of people to their seat, sensing that the actor was still very much unnerved and ill at ease with the murder. Kaito had always really disliked murders to the point of hatred, even going so far as to fume silently with anger every time they came across a murder and channelling as much of that anger towards the murderer. It was somewhat odd since usually people wouldn't be that enraged towards a murderer. Anger yes, disgust yes, but rarely hatred. It wasn't unjustified though, his hatred, as Shinichi had shortly learned afterwards, it was because when Kaito was young, his father had been murdered in a sudden shooting by a crazy man who killed the people just because he could and because he enjoyed the thrill. A true psychopath.

Leaning back against his seat, Shinichi watched as Kaito hummed a short tune, a nursery rhyme, and fiddled with a deck of cards. They were halfway to New York and his nearly customary murder-on-airplane had already occurred, might as well get some sleep…

X

"But Kaito, I'm busy…"

"Just this once, Shinichi!"

"I still have cases to handle though, the NYPD has far more cold cases than Japan."

"Those people are already dead and for a long time already, surely they can wait a few hours!"

The last sentence was punctuated by puppy-eyes (minus, y'know, the eyes) and Shinichi felt the last dredges of his resistance crumbling into ash. Darn it, Shinichi was never able to resist Kaito whenever he pulled that face. Sighing deeply, he set aside the manila folder and pen, pushing his chair away from the small one-room flat he was staying in for the period of time he remained in New York and turned towards Kaito who had somehow discovered where Shinichi was staying, got someone to drive him here from wherever he was currently staying in (funnily enough, Kaito wasn't willing to tell him where he had his accommodations. That was suspicious too, in fact, many things were really suspicious about Kaito lately.) and was currently grinning a triumphant smile while he waved his cane in Shinichi's face.

Shinichi nudged it away from his face with a finger and stepped beside Kaito to grab his arm with a practiced motion. It had become a habit after Kaito had nearly lost Shinichi in a crowd one time too many that Shinichi would grab hold of Kaito's upper arm when they were heading out to keep him from getting lost. In fact, the only moments that he didn't grasp Kaito's arm when they were in public was whenever someone died and he had to rush over to the body or when they fought and either of them were still too mad to interact with the other.

It turned out that the one who drove Kaito here was Hakuba who was presently looking extremely peeved and irritated, a glare directed at the seemingly unaware Kaito though Shinichi secretly believed that Kaito knew whenever anybody was talking about him or just anything to do with him in general and that he just preferred to keep quiet about it.

"Kuroba. Just two hours ago I arrived in New York where I found out that you had been asking some of the staff at the set to drive you to Kudo-san's flat and not fifteen minutes later, I see you running towards me - I regret spending so much time with you that you have memorised my footsteps - and jumping at me to bring you to Kudo-san's flat. Can you please explain to me why before I throttle you for making me waste my time when I could have been sleeping in my room."

"Nope!"

Kaito replied with a sharp and brilliant grin, like a knife edge and hopped into the car fluidly with an ease that Shinichi was sure no blind person usually had. Hakuba looked ready to burst a blood vessel yelling at Kaito before he seemed to forcefully suppress his anger and muttered under his breath - Shinichi caught the man counting to twenty - with his face slowly losing the red colour of annoyance. Shinichi just shook his head faintly, all too used to Kaito's antics and slid into the seat beside Kaito.

Going to the set where Kaito was filming might prove to be… interesting. Who knows, he might get to see KID as well!

X

The director looked like he had swallowed a sour lemon as he stared at the smiling Kaito, his copy of the script crumpling up in his hand as he tried (and currently failing) not to let his blood pressure rise. Shinichi marveled at Kaito's ability to infuriate people within ten minutes. It only took a few missteps here, a few tricks there and Kaito already had the director ready to scream at him. It was a miracle that he hadn't been fired yet.

Still, it was beautiful to see Kaito act. He really felt like the character, even if it was only a supporting character that hardly spoke any and spent most of his time standing in the corner and listening to the main characters speak, the latex mask to change his features slightly to match the original actor's just making it even more real. He drew people in so thoroughly with clearly intoned speech and expressive body movement, it was surprising that Kaito was just an amateur actor that nobody really knew about and hadn't appeared in any major movies yet. It was almost like his production company was trying to conceal his identity. How interesting.

Shinichi narrowed his eyes and thought hard. Come to think of it, he hadn't seen Kaito in the credits of the movies that Kaito had claimed he acted in, did he? Surely even if he was a small and relatively unknown actor, he would have a fanbase and be credited at the end of the movie but he wasn't and Shinichi had a relatively good idea just what. The only logical explanation would be that Kaito was KID, wasn't it?

It couldn't really be the case though, could it?

X

When Shinichi got back to his flat, it was nearly 1 a.m. at night and he was utterly exhausted. Quickly popping into the bathroom to take a shower, Shinichi could feel the steam relaxing tensed muscles and sighed with contentment. He toweled dry his hair and made himself a cup of coffee before settling himself in front of his table and opening up the file he had abandoned and picking up his pen to restart his work. A knock on his front door startled him, however, and he jerked his head up from where he had been bent over the photo of a woman who was murdered in a particularly grisly manner, nearly knocking over his cup of coffee in the process and stood up, walking towards the door.

Peering out of the peephole, - one could never be too cautious - Shinichi saw… nothing. A spot of white on the floor caught his attention and he opened his door and picked it up. Flipping it over, it turned out to be an envelope with a ticket and a handwritten invitation card.

Dear Kudo Shinichi,

It has come to my attention that you are an avid fan of the actor, KID. If that is the case, allow me to personally invite you to the unmasking of KID next Saturday at the convention right here in New York City. Enclosed in this envelope is a ticket to front row seats at said convention. I eagerly await your arrival.

There was no return address and the sender hadn't left a name. Shinichi didn't seem notice those things at the moment as he stared blankly at three words in the letter.

'unmasking of KID'

KID was going to reveal his identity?

X

A/N: I don't think that there really is such a convention in the middle of August/September in New York City for movies and the ilk so let's just pretend that this is a really big convention in a really big exhibition hall that can fill like several thousand people, 'kay?

As always, please do review and favourite + like if you enjoyed the chapter. Thanks!

Have a nice day!

-SilvCyanide

P.S. The last chapter and epilogue is coming up tomorrow! Don't miss it!