(Detective Conan disclaimed)

Well, I promised that this chapter would be up, so here it is (even if it's a bit late). Let's just say that I'm working my butt off for these, haha. Between work and class, I hardly have the time to roll these out… But, I am doing my best!

The pain was just too great. Chianti could not help but collapse into a heap on the floor. With only one month to regain her former strength, Chianti was being greatly pressured to recuperate, but there was only so much that she could take. The doctor and nurse rushed to her side once again, telling her that she should rest and wait to start her rehabilitation so that her bones had more time to heal. She shrugged them off.

It had been a whole day of slowly driving herself into insanity through pain and frustration. Taking a hold of the side table, Chianti gingerly pulled herself to her feet. Her body was on fire it seemed, but she pulled one foot forward regardless.

She collapsed again and the great amount of pain kept her from retaliating when they pulled her back into the bed to rest. After a few minutes of checking her for numerous minutes and administering more pain medication, they left her alone.

"Damn it…" She felt helpless and she absolutely despised it. It had been three days since the incident and she was already aggravated by her position. If only that American bitch hadn't been so sneaky. The fact that she underestimated her adversary was just another subject on the list of things that were pissing her off at the moment.

Calvados was probably on another mission and she could only guess where Korn had ended up after his mission with Ouzo.

She sighed, finally feeling the effects of the medication.

"I'm sorry, but I can't give out any information on the case," the officer stated, brushing off the reporters. Korn stood amidst the crowd of curious faces, mentally scoffing at the lack of information. Ouzo was being held at the Metropolitan Police Station under heavy surveillance; it would be impossible to get her out right then. He decided that he would report back to the Organisation as planned and ride the current from there.

As he turned to walk away he began to wonder whether or not she would be in this position if he had listened to her and waited. He countered his doubt with the thought that she wouldn't be in this situation if she had listened to him and waited as well.

After grabbing all of his bags and wiping the room clean of any evidence that would suggest that he had been there, Korn left the hotel and traveled a few short blocks to a real estate company. He took a shortcut to the back of the building and ducked inside. Traveling down a few secluded halls, Korn ended up in the lobby, bypassing the security checkpoint that would be sure to sound off at the sign of his weaponry.

Korn slipped into the third line behind two other groups. It wasn't a long wait. After a few short minutes, Korn was taken into an office to exactly the woman he was looking for. The plate on the desk read Kuroki Hisa. He sneered at the blatant assertion that name held. Written with the kanji for "black" in Kuroki and "everlasting" in Hisa, it was almost begging for someone to realise the lie.

The woman, with her short orange bob cut and familiar European face, stood out greatly against the mainstream population.

"What can I do for you?" she asked with a condescending smile, leaning back and folding her hands over her stomach as he entered and shut the door behind him.

"I'm sure you've heard. A woman has been taken into custody in regards to the Itou assassination, Raki," he answered calmly.

Her mouth twitched. "My sister, I suppose?" she asked quietly. Korn nodded. "And? Have you come all this way to tell me this, Korn?"

"Of course not. I have a report that needs filing," he said, dropping the folder on her desk. She glanced at it before returning her gaze to him.

"A report? That must mean you don't plan on rescuing her."

"No," he said simply. She nodded with a frown, sitting up and picking up the folder.

"Alright." She brushed the wrinkles out of her dark jade dress pants before walking over to the bookshelf. She pulled back one of the books halfway and a whole section of the floor slid open.

"How European…" Korn sneered. Raki only smiled.

"I like to do things like they do in my homeland," she chirped, pulling up on a handle until the filing cabinet stood as tall as she. She yanked one of the drawers open, depositing the file and shutting it, before pushing it back into the floor. The floor slid closed of its own accord. "Well, your report has been filed. The runner will be here in two days."

Korn nodded, taking his leave.

Raki slid into her chair, leaning back and glowering at the ceiling. "Bloody eejit…"

Rye was never a man of many words, and luckily, neither was Calvados. For that, both were very thankful. They got things done and didn't have to worry about the chit-chat that most of the Organisation members seemed to be so fond of.

They were currently at the airport terminal, waiting for their plane to America. They were to be tracking down the mysterious American from before. Calvados was surprised to find out that Rye had worked with her in the past and that was the reason he was there. In one of their very short conversations, Calvados had found out that the woman's alias was "Betty-Ann". She was somewhere around twenty-five or twenty-six years old with naturally sandy brown hair and pale blue eyes.

Though the fact that bothered him most was that he now knew more about Betty-Ann than he did about Rye.

"Oh! Hello…"

Aoko jumped up from her seat. "Okaeri, Obaa-chan." Minami was standing in the doorway in surprise in her pink and green dress.

"Ta…daima… Aoko-chan? Who..?" she asked.

The two girls stood up and gave small bows in greeting. "Hello, Kuroba-san. My name is Mouri Ran and this is Suzuki Sonoko." Sonoko waved. "We're friends of Shinichi."

Minami smiled at the girls. "It's nice to meet you, girls. Forgive me. I was expecting to come home to an empty house since the boys left this morning. Excuse me for just a moment while I put these in the kitchen."

The girls nodded and sat in silence as they waited for Minami to return. Aoko had even shut the television off. It didn't take long for her to return with a plate of cookies.

"I just baked these last night and heated them up in the oven so they should be nice and gooey," she said with a smile.

"Thank you, so much, Kuroba-san!" Ran replied in surprise. They each took a cookie and settled in.

"So, you're Shinichi's friends? He didn't mention having anyone come over," the woman prodded.

"Well, he didn't know, actually," Ran muttered.

"Yeah, the mystery-freak won't answer his phone and he's had Ran worried sick since he won't call her either," Sonoko added in rage.

"He hasn't contacted you at all?" she asked in surprise. Ran shook her head sadly. "Well, thank you for bringing them inside, Aoko. I would hate to have had them waiting on me."

"Of course, Baa-chan," Aoko responded after swallowing a mouthful of the chocolaty treat.

"Anyway, the boys should be home in a few hours. You're all welcome to stay until then if you would like," Minimi offered.

"You're sure that no explosives were actually found at the scene?"

"Positive. The call was definitely a hoax. Blasted prank calls…"

"Well, thank you anyway." With that, Kudou Shinichi ended the call, flipping his cell phone shut and checking the time. It was a little after eleven.

He had been correct in assuming that the bomb threat on the night of the crime had been a fake. If his second assumption was correct, the call had been a ruse set up by the culprit to waste Yamanaka-sensei's time. Looking around the side streets Shinichi was calculating the time it would've taken for each of the suspects to travel to the Rinosa building. They had found Rima's cousin, Shiki, at a crowded tavern about ten miles away. In a car, it might have only taken him about a thirty minute round trip. But that was assuming that he left at the same time as Yamanaka-sensei. There was still the possibility that he had been waiting for the woman to leave to strike and then hurried to the bar. With how much money he was owed, he definitely had the motive to kill her. As packed as the bar would have been the night of Shunbun no hi, Shinichi doubted that he could find someone that could verify his alibi as well. The problem with this theory was the bomb threat. It could have just been a coincidence but…

Without realizing it, he had bumped into someone. Mentally slapping himself for letting something like that happen two days in a row, he quickly apologized to the girl before continuing on his way. He really needed to learn how to balance thought and reality… It was already hard enough to just think with the construction going on down the street.

Regardless, from the site of Kishio Kaname and Yamanaka-sensei's house, it would've taken approximately forty minutes both ways, thirty if one was speeding. With Yamanaka-sensei having lived in Beika for most of her life, it would be safe to assume that she would be stuck in traffic. Even if Kaname knew these streets, there was no way he could have gone to the apartment, killed Rima, and returned before his fiancée. If that were the case then the only one left would be Yamanaka-sensei.

It was still possible that Yamanaka-sensei had simply killed the girl before she left. If what the neighbor said was true about Kaname and Rima having an affair, and Yamanaka-sensei had found out, she had plenty of reason to want her dead. The same went for Kaname if he wanted to keep her quiet about it.

He figured that the only way to find anything else out would be to ask, so he quickly traveled to the police department in order to find out a bit more about Shiki. He was surprised to find Kaito already there arguing with Megure-keibu.

"I understand what you're saying, Kuroba-kun, but it's against protocol to allow a civilian to question suspects," Megure explained to a nearly irate Kaito.

"I just want to ask him something about the dog!" Kaito replied loudly. "Is that really too much to ask?"

"Are you seriously still on about that stupid dog?" Shinichi asked in irritation as he stopped next to him.

"Ah, Kudou-kun!" Megure greeted.

"Yes, I am! You're not the only one who can think, Chikusho-nichi!" Kaito swore. Shinichi gaped at him.

"Does everyone in Ekoda have some weird obsession with tying insults into each others' names?" he asked, a little taken aback by the boy's rudeness. Kaito just stood there seething as Kudou turned to the inspector.

"What brings you here, Kudou-kun?" the large man asked. He was sweating a bit, Shinichi noticed. Obviously Kaito had been giving him a hard time for awhile now.

"Actually, I have a few questions that I was hoping that you or a couple of the suspects could answer."

"I'll do my best, Kudou-kun."

"Alright, you caught the victim's cousin, Shiki, at the Gendou tavern?"

"Yeah, he was completely trashed by the time we found him," Megure responded, shaking his head. "On of our rookies, Takagi-kun, took a blow to the nose before Satou-kun finally subdued him. At this time, he's still claiming to have no connection to the crime."

"I see…do you mind if I ask him a question or two?"

"Kudou-kun, you know that I can't let you speak with him directly…" Megure muttered sadly. "As much as I would like to let you, you're still a civilian and a boy no less…" Kaito smirked at him.

"Is one of the officer's questioning him now?" he asked, refusing to be deterred.

Megure nodded. "Satou and Chiba were headed to do that just now, actually…let me guess. You want to speak with them before they go in there, don't you?" Shinichi smiled thankfully in return and the inspector sighed, motioning an officer over. "Please contact Satou-keiji and Chiba-keiji and tell them to meet me in my office immediately." The officer saluted and rushed off to perform his duties.

"How come he gets special treatment!" Kaito whined. Megure frowned.

"Kuroba, it's not 'special treatment'. I-" Shinichi began but was cut off by Megure.

"No, he just knows how to work the system to his advantage," Megure harrumphed, eyeing the young detective ruefully. "Much to everyone around here's aggravation." Shinichi almost looked apologetic before Megure led the boys to his office. It didn't take long for Satou to come rushing in, followed closely by a panting Chiba.

"Megure-keibu! What's wrong?" Satou asked in a panic.

"Calm down, Satou-kun!" the inspector replied in exasperation. "It's nothing that would require you to sprint all the way here."

She visibly relaxed and Chiba leaned against the door clutching his chest as he attempted to regain his breath. The man really needed to get out and exercise more often, but the same could be said about Megure-keibu. Glancing around the room, Satou noticed the two boys.

"Megure-keibu?" she asked, motioning toward them.

"Ah, Satou-kun, this is Kudou Shinichi and Kuroba Kaito. Kudou-kun has aided the police with investigations in the past. Boys, this is Satou Miwako and Chiba Kazunobu from Division Three. We're currently combining the efforts of both Division One and Three due to the shortage of personnel. With that bomb hoax finally being cleared up, maybe we can get a bit more work done…"

Shinichi bowed slightly. Noticing that Kaito was still standing there sulking, he grabbed the back of his neck and pulled him down into the same position before addressing the officers. He received an impressive scowl from his identical counterpart.

"Domo," he greeted. Sawako repeated him and Chiba waved a bit.

"The truth is that Kudou-kun here wanted to talk to the both of you before you began questioning Kitamura Shiki. It seems that he has a few questions that he would like you to ask the suspect," Megure informed them. Satou looked like she was about to laugh at the suggestion.

"You must be joking, sir," she chuckled nervously. "You can't really expect a kid to have any insight on this case."

"Strangely enough, I do. Anyway, it can't hurt to see where this goes."

"I'll write them down for you," Shinichi offered, ripping off a piece of paper from the notepad on the inspector's desk. He began scribbling each of his questions before setting the pen down and looking over it. Immediately, Kaito grabbed the pen and bumped Shinichi's hip, knocking him sideways.

"Oi, Kuroba!" he hissed.

The boy scribbled a few things down before handing the paper to a bewildered Satou. Shinichi glanced at his writing, frowning at the boy.

"That damn dog is not important, Kuroba. Stop wasting their time," he complained. Kaito stuck his tongue out childishly. "Tch…Megure-keibu, is Yamanaka Sawako still here?"

"Why, yes. She should be in with the psychiatrist right now on the fourth floor."

"Thank you." He roughly grabbed Kaito's arm and began dragging him from the room. "Can't you ever behave?"

GAAAAHHHHH! I love having the boys interact! And as for Chiba's name...well, I am unaware of anytime they have ever said his full name (if you know, tell me) so I just went with the birth name of his voice actor.

Sorry that I'm late again. The background of this chapter was giving me a hard time... But everything is as it should be (I think) and the plot is progressing!

Congrats to Kayla Edogawa and DetectiveConanFan13 for guessing the boy's theories! I won't tell you guys what really happened yet, but they get the points for getting something right! Two free one-shots! JUST TELL ME WHAT TO WRITE, KIDS!

Thank you to everyone who reviewed!

Mel72000
Lazy 3
Kayla Edogawa
random reader
LugiaObssesedKid
DetectiveConanFan13

-DiGi