A/N: Early chapter, with minimal notes! Last update's migraine was followed by a cold but now I am going on vacation so early chapter before I end up in the land of no wifi. As-is, I am posting from bus wifi, heh.

By next chapter I will have a new job; posting times may be affected so please keep an eye on my blog around that time if you're super-concerned. There is some art of Kaito on tumblr, also.

This chapter exists because miladyRanger is an awesome beta. Warnings in the end-note, as always.

Chapter 36

Hakuba ducked his head. "I ran afoul of some of the organized crime there," he said. "Their arrival coincided with my realizing how serious the trouble I was in had become. If they hadn't arrived, I might have simply gone to ground, but it's a bit more difficult to do that with three other foreigners and a child in tow."

"I should think," Koumei said sedately, pouring coffee into Kansuke's collection of chipped mugs. "Comin' to Nagano seems an odd solution, though."

"We didn't exactly look for Hakuba quietly," Eisuke said. "If someone was looking for him, or people who were looking for him, they would get our names and descriptions pretty quickly. And Hattori-san and Hakuba-san are minorly famous; so's Kuroba-san, in the right circles."

Kansuke glanced at him, taken aback.

Kuroba pulled a string of handkerchiefs out of his sleeve with a little flourish. "I'm a magician. Dad was world-famous; I'm technically professional-level but everyone keeps telling me I have to stay in school and graduate before I start touring."

Eisuke just nodded; this was obviously not news to him. "Even Conan-kun has a bit of a reputation, after all those KID heists. It wouldn't be hard to figure out who at least one or two of us were, and that our most likely destinations were Osaka or Tokyo."

"So if they went to the airport and got at the flight manifests, we could be easily found," Hakuba said. "The obvious solution was not to go to either of those places. And while I suppose we could have gone to Osaka from Sapporo…"

"Mom and Dad woulda kicked the rest of them out on their ears while they were groundin' me, which wouldn't've really helped things, especially when Conan already wasn't feelin' good on the flight over."

"You still have to go home sometime," Kansuke pointed out.

"I'll live with however I get punished, after I know ev'ryone else is home safe," Hattori said flatly. "Or at least on their way." He ran a hand through his hair. "I knew this was gonna land me in hot water, but it was important enough ta do anyhow."

Kansuke nodded; he could respect that attitude even if he didn't agree with Hattori's assessment of the situation.

"As glad as I am and his father will be to have Hakuba-kun back, doesn't it strike you as even a bit unreasonable to drop everythin' and leave for London to find a missin' person whom you had no reason to believe was in danger?" Koumei asked, disapproving, as he began bringing over the coffee.

Hattori seemed confused by the question. He glanced at Conan, of all people, who glared back at him before turning to Kuroba.

"We found him, but we didn't think we'd be able to find him again, and we didn't think it would work if we just contacted the local police," Kuroba said.

"Why am I not surprised that you tried to bypass the police?" Kansuke asked. He turned toward Hattori, and considered his next words, then decided the risk of pushing too far was worth it. "That story you told me about Kudou and the other witness who wouldn't come to the police was crock, wasn't it? You were just trying to keep the adults out of your case."

He'd expected Hattori to explode, and he'd half-expected a reaction from Hakuba, too-that was why he'd said it in the first place. But he'd expected the same anger that was on Hattori's face, not a quickly-buried flash of grief or guilt, gone too fast to really be identified. And he sure as h*** hadn't expected to watch Conan fight down the kind of anger that Kansuke had only seen him direct at culprits in seconds before making a childish racket in defense of his nii-chans-Hattori and Kudou both.

Hondou, however, kept his head. "He didn't lie, but we split off from both of them in London, so how would we prove it?"

"If the situation was as precarious as you said…" Koumei began, sitting down.

"They were looking for Hakuba, not the rest of us," Kuroba said smoothly, expression absolutely placid. "Didn't we say? And while the rest of us needed to return to normal life on something like a regular time frame, those two don't have our obligations."

Kansuke had to hand it to the kid, he was an excellent liar. But there was a giant hole in his story, and also Hattori was practically gaping at him, impressed in a way that he wouldn't be if he knew he was listening to the truth.

"So if you were returning to your normal lives, what's the American doing here?" he asked.

Hondou blinked. Opened his mouth. Slumped. "It's complicated. And involves Kudou's mother attempting to do me a favor."

"Does it now?" Kansuke pressed. "Pretty weird favor."

"I thought so too," Hondou agreed.

What the h***, Kansuke thought, slowly realizing he'd been led off on another conversational tangent, and arrived at the end of it with almost no usable information. Yes, I know they're lying, but not about what. They can't just come here with 'case updates' and then tell me nothing!

"You are lyin' to us," Koumei said flatly.

Kuroba's false smile was more plastered-on than ever. "Yes."

"What's the point?" Kansuke demanded. "We're the police. We can help. I already let you have a d*** sleepover in my spare room, didn't I? What is with you kids?"

Kuroba's expression just stayed cheerily blank, Hondou only worried his lower lip slightly, Hakuba took a sudden interest in the food he'd been picking at, and Conan just stared back as if Kansuke was the one being unreasonable. Only Hattori actually reacted, and a slightly guilty expression wasn't information. It wasn't enough.

He was about to give it another shot when Koumei spoke.

"'Be very careful whom you trust. Fear everyone, guard against everyone.' So said Zhuge Liang's letter to Meng Da, who was at Xingcheng." He gave Hakuba a careful look. "It seems none of you have any need of such advice, however. You're already wary. What is it that you're runnin' from?"

Hakuba ducked his head further.

Kansuke sat up in his chair. "You told me he didn't leave under duress!" he snapped at Hattori.

"He didn't!" Hattori protested.

"Then why are you all checkin' for exits and jumpin' at noises like you expect somethin's gonna come out of the woodwork and bite you?" Kansuke asked. "Don't feed me some story about London's organized crime, at least not one without details. Something happened, to get things to this point. And you're all mixed up-"

He stopped short, realization hitting hard.

"You're mixed up in Kudou's case, aren't you?" he asked.

Hakuba looked up quickly, eyes wide and face absolutely bloodless; Conan was in a similar state. Kuroba looked like he was preparing to make a break for it. Hattori's expression had turned mulish, while Hondou just looked resigned.

None of those reactions indicated that he was wrong. He didn't like this one bit.

"That's why you risked getting Kudou involved in the first place, isn't it," Kansuke said, gaining momentum. "Because Hakuba was already mixed up in the same case, somehow. And it's why the heck you decided to consult with an American in the first place-but are you seriously trying to tell me the case wasn't why you ran?"

Hakuba took a breath. His hands were shaking. "It wasn't. It's nothing to do with you, Inspector, nothing at all, so please-"

"Look, if there's a bunch of kids running around and poking something that put one of them into hiding, it's sure as h*** my business, thank you," Kansuke said sharply. "I know you kids are detectives, but there's a time and place to leave things to the authorities-"

"No," Conan said, voice trembling, just slightly. "You're wrong. This has nothing to do with my nii-chan's case and if it did it wouldn't be your business and I think it's time for us to go."

"Excellent idea Conan-kun," Kuroba said, with that creepy smile right back in place, and his hand was suddenly inching backward like he was going for a weapon.

Koumei noticed that right away, and raised his hands quickly. "Perhaps we could take the time to discuss this..."

Kansuke, meanwhile, tried to figure out whether he'd be able to follow through if he tried jumping the table to grab whatever the kid was carrying.

The other kids noticed the change in atmosphere immediately, of course, but seemed confused. Kuroba, however, didn't move an inch, until Conan fixed him with a glare and cleared his throat.

Kuroba blinked, and looked more puzzled than anything.

"Kuroba-san, when a person who has been cornered attempts to pull something from their pocket, most police officers are trained to expect something other than magic supplies," Hakuba said, a breathy, almost hysterical edge to his voice.

Kuroba startled so badly his chair creaked with the movement and then started spilling denials like someone had actually accused him. "N-no, I wouldn't-s***-it's a freakin' smoke bomb I was gonna use it as a distraction you can see it if you want-no guns ever no."

"Breathe, Kuroba-san," Hakuba said.

"He's telling the truth," Hondou said. "He did the same thing the first time we met, because the topic of conversation made him uncomfortable enough that he needed to leave."

Kuroba flushed.

"I get why," Hondou said, completely casual. "It's fine. If I'd had a way to leave faster back then I would've used it."

Wow, but the Hondou kid is good at defusing the rest of them, Kansuke thought. And at getting me off track!

"Kudou's case," he said flatly. "You're all involved." It wasn't a question, and they all knew it.

Surprisingly, it was Hakuba that replied, drawing himself up shakily. "And you can't be."

"Excuse me?" Koumei asked sharply.

"You're right, I have been involved in the case Kudou went into hiding over," Hakuba said. "And I'm telling you to leave it alone."

Kansuke bristled. "And I'm telling you we aren't-"

"Do you want to die?" Hakuba bit out, still pale. "Because that's what you're asking. You're asking me to assist you in getting killed."

Kuroba put a hand on his shoulder. Hakuba flinched, then shrugged it off.

"What are you talking about?" Kansuke asked slowly.

"Official police involvement won't end well," Hondou said. "Not for you, and not for other people, either."

"And so we should leave the matter to a group of adolescents and a child," Koumei said flatly.

"And so ya should leave things to the people who're already involved," Hattori corrected firmly. "We ain't the only ones, but-"

"Let me guess, more secrets?" Kansuke asked.

Hattori nodded.

"I'm asking you again, there's an adult here somewhere, right?" Kansuke asked, feeling exhausted.

"There are multiple adults," Kuroba said. "Just not physically present right now. It's being handled. But, not by you. Please?"

"Look, kids, I know it can be scary the first time someone threatens someone you work with, but there's a world of difference between what Kudou can handle and what we can-" Kansuke broke off as he heard giggling.

"What exactly is funny?" he demanded, glaring at Kuroba.

Kuroba just glanced at Hakuba and whispered, "First time," then began giggling again.

Hakuba looked scandalized, let out a snort, and then looked surprised at himself. Next to him, Hattori snickered a little too loudly. Conan was rolling his eyes, and Hondou had the palm of his hand pressed to his face.

"Guys, you're being disturbing again," Hondou said.

"Seriously, half of us are homicide detectives, you really think that would've been a first?" Hattori asked, tone still very nearly laughing. "That happens. But the thing is, right after they said they'd kill Kudou, they made a pretty good attempt at it. Good enough that they left thinkin' he was dead."

Well f***, Kansuke thought.

"So it's less that Kudou-san is in hiding and more that he's attempting to play 'missing, presumed dead,' for the time being," Hakuba said. "And even then, it's mostly remarkable that he survived, and that he was near our age. Not that he was nearly murdered. Most encounters with this case do eventually end that way."

The look on his face was disturbing, a mix of grief and confusion. Kansuke had seen looks like that on the faces of people who'd lived through natural disasters, but weren't sure why they'd lived.

"Who'd you lose, then?" he asked, trying for 'gently.'

"All of them," Hakuba said, staring down at the table.

Kuroba grabbed his shoulder again, and then shoved a poker deck, of all things, into his hands, muttering something that sounded like the date at a volume Kansuke could only barely make out. Hakuba barely reacted, only tensing a bit in response.

"We found out in London that Hakuba's life before coming to Japan was a bit more...eventful...than he'd led people to believe," Eisuke said quickly, in an undertone. "He should probably talk to someone about it."

"Ya think?" Kansuke asked.

Hondou's eyes narrowed. "If he chooses to, yes."

"Is anyone going to remark on the fact that Conan-kun has been present for this entire conversation?" Koumei asked. "Including the part where we discussed his older cousin's near death?"

"I knew about that," Conan said, quite flatly, and for the first time it occurred to Kansuke that maybe they should all be a little more concerned about the kid's precociousness, instead of just flat-out fascinated by it. "Don't try to baby me."

"We weren't, but...isn't it upsettin'?" Koumei asked carefully.

"He's okay now, isn't he?" Conan muttered, suddenly defensive. "I'm fine."

Hattori made a noise like someone had just hit him. "Ku-Conan-kun-"

Conan glared at him, hunching up his shoulders a bit in his seat. He was clearly not fine, but any efforts to point that out obviously wouldn't be well-received

"And you two are involved in this how, exactly?" Kansuke asked, looking from Hondou to Kuroba.

Kuroba looked up from worrying over Hakuba to exchange a very uncomfortable glance with Hondou. Hondou grimaced.

"It's a long story?" Kuroba tried.

Kansuke just glowered.

"We didn't even pretend to be surprised at anything about Kudou; they know we're involved somehow," Eisuke said. "But-" he broke off, biting his lip.

"Yeah," Kuroba said.

Eisuke swallowed. "We both...lost people," he said. "And since then, our families have gotten mixed up in the whole thing pretty well."

"That's a good way of putting it," Kaito said, voice very nearly hushed.

"So now we're involved, whether we want to be or not," Hondou said. "And if given a choice, I'd rather know things, you know?"

Think I've got an answer about where Hondou's parents are, Kansuke thought. Kuroba mentioned his dad bein' famous past-tense, and given circumstances, I don't think it was because the guy suddenly got unpopular. The h*** have I gotten into here?

"But you won't tell me anything about these people?" Kansuke said.

"You'll die trying to arrest them," Hakuba said, rough-voiced, in a tone of absolute certainty. "People die for just knowing that they exist; openly going against them is courting death."

Kuroba straightened, attention suddenly off Kansuke. "Then just what were you doing?"

"I wasn't being open," Hakuba said, as if the entire idea of openness offended him.

Then again, given how he acts… Kansuke thought.

"So, am I to assume that your choice to leave London for here, rather than Tokyo, had somethin' to do with all of this?" Koumei asked.

"Hakuba-san spent the last two months orchestrating large-scale arrests of these people," Kuroba said. "But when we caught up with him, we did something that had a chance of tipping them off to the fact that he was the one doing all the arresting. So we ran for someplace they wouldn't be expecting us."

"So that's it?" Kansuke asked, incredulous. "You ran off to arrest people? You can do that at home!"

Koumei and Conan gave him the exact same glare, even as Hakuba's body language turned just a hair more hunched and withdrawn.

"I...that really wasn't why I left," Hakuba said haltingly, never once making eye contact. "There were some things which I misunderstood. Regarding myself, and my place in Ekoda. It's been cleared up now, I think."

"Better be," Kansuke said. "You worried the h*** out of your old man, you know that?"

"So I have been told," Hakuba said, eyes still on the table.

"We're gonna get him home," Kuroba said, meeting Kansuke's eyes. "We are. We just couldn't go straight there. Someone would've been waiting at the airport, and if he was with us, they would have known it was him behind the arrests."

"Just from that?" Kansuke demanded. "What the f*** kind of game of spy versus spy are you kids playing?"

Hondou snorted, looking amused for half a second. "It's classified," he said, utterly deadpan.

"You're just screwing with me, at this point," Kansuke accused.

Hondou and Kuroba offered him wide, bright grins that were a bit too close to matching for comfort.

"Possibly," Hondou chirped.

Kuroba's smile was a bit strained around the edges, and next to him, Hakuba was flicking through the card deck he'd been handed earlier with the kind of careful deliberateness that meant he was trying to focus on it instead of something else. Conan was tucking into his food, head bent low over his plate so his bangs shaded his eyes, and Kansuke would bet a week's wages he was doing that on purpose. Hattori wasn't eating, but he wasn't paying attention to the conversation either-he was just sort of sitting there, staring at his food, though he was at least tuned-in enough to wince at Conan's chopsticks clattering against the edge of his bowl.

Hondou was trying to get them to ease off the interrogation, and it seemed he had the right of it. If they pushed these kids much more it was probably going to end in screaming or tears, and Kansuke really did not want to handle either of those things.

He stood, trying to ignore the way that every single kid flinched at the chair screeching against the tile floor. "Hey, Koumei, are the futons still in your car?"

Koumei blinked at him for a second, before his gaze sharpened with comprehension. "Why, yes, I believe they are. Shall we go get them?"

"You guys keep eating, we'll be back," Kansuke said.

Time to go get his friend's opinion on this mess.

:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

If Vermouth inhaled deeply enough, she could smell a hint of chemicals in the sweetness of the whipped cream topping her cappuccino. It was one of the things she appreciated about chain-store coffees-it added just the right touch of bitterness to the drink.

So she let the chaos of Tokyo International Airport wash over her and sipped her coffee. The next inbound flight from London wasn't due for a while yet, so she could afford to relax and wait for the caffeine to kick in.

Previously, she'd had an underling doing this, and another hacking the security cameras around the arrival gates, but her watch here had just moved up in priority, because Gin's people in London had turned in a report. They hadn't said outright that her information was bad, but they'd implied it, repeatedly, and in multiple phrasings.

Typical, of course, of members of the organization with loyalty to Gin.

She knew her information wasn't bad-in fact, she suspected that this meant that whoever had been causing the organization trouble had met up with her little Silver Bullet, who had no doubt conveyed her warning to them. Which hopefully meant they'd stop with the outright, large-scale arrests, but Edogawa gaining them as an ally could be...problematic.

Her Silver Bullet had a reckless streak that didn't need one bit of fuel from an outsider. And that person was deadset on chasing the person behind these arrests down; if they got Edogawa caught up in that chase with someone other than Vermouth at the helm, he could end up out of commission permanently, and that just wouldn't do.

So, she had to take care of this, and quickly. Edogawa wouldn't like it, but he was a big boy, or at least he had been, at one point. He'd recover.

"Oh, my, Chris Vineyard?"

Vermouth looked up, swallowing a groan. Not autographs, not now. I should have worn a full disguise instead of just a wide-brimmed hat and glasses.

She plastered on a smile, which was fortunate, because when she looked up, she recognized the speaker, and not as a reporter or one of the fanclub presidents, either.

Kuroba Chikage, she thought, and swallowed a single, errant pang of guilt.

"I don't know if your mother ever mentioned me, but I was married to her teacher," Chikage said, grinning and adjusting the shopping bag slung over her shoulder.

"She said your name once or twice," Vermouth acknowledged, slipping into the role she'd created for herself. "I don't know if you were aware, but the two of us were on bad terms when she died."

"I'd heard," Chikage said, undaunted. "But I still wanted to say hello. I'd heard you were shooting a film in Japan, but coming by the film set would have been too much trouble, so it's lucky I ran across you!"

"Lucky how?" Vermouth asked, suspicious.

"Well, I wanted to meet you!" Chikage said. "Since you learned from Sharon and she learned from my husband!" She squinted at Vermouth. "You really look like her."

"So I've been told," Vermouth said, in the flat tone of someone who's heard something a dozen times and doesn't want to hear it again. "What brings you to the airport?"

"Oh, I decided to stop by the duty-free store," Chikage said. "There were some things I wanted to pick up. I was going to do it when my son flew in from visiting a relative a few prefectures over, but he got caught up in something and now I guess he's taking a train back." She sighed. "So I just decided to make the trip out here myself."

"Your son?" Vermouth had faint memories of a small boy that looked a bit like Toichi occasionally sneaking backstage during performances, but she'd never paid the boy much mind. Later on, she'd seen surveillance files for a Kuroba Kaito, and while she'd never been happy about the matter, she'd hardly had the power to get anyone to stop that.

"Oh, yes, Kaito, he's a dear boy," Chikage said. "Probably a bit shaken up right now, poor thing. Apparently he stumbled right into the middle of one of that Hattori boy's cases-oh! You're not in the country much, Hattori Heiji's a homicide detective, but he's still in high school, can you imagine, I don't know what the Osakan Superintendent-General is thinking, letting his son-Well, anyway, Kaito ran across him somehow, he wasn't very coherent on the phone, and I think it got a bit, well…" her voice dropped to a whisper, "violent."

Vermouth sat up straight. Her sources in the police rumor mill placed Hattori with Edogawa. "And this was where, exactly?"

"Nagano, I believe," Chikage said, blinking. "It turned into quite the circus, or so I've heard. Kaito wasn't very clear, but one of Ginzou-san's friends down there said that the Edogawa boy was even involved. Which is another matter entirely. I don't know what Mouri-san's thinking, allowing an elementary schooler at crime scenes-"

He was in Nagano? Then the charge on the card was a red herring? Or was the person we've been looking for in Nagano the whole time?

"I've heard that child's a bit of an exceptional one, though," Vermouth said.

"Even so, is it really all right?" Chikage asked, crossing her arms. "Oh, no, now I feel like a gossip!"

Vermouth waved her off. "I urged you on."

"You did, didn't you?" Chikage said. "You're like your mother, that way. Toichi told me about how she used to tell him about her fellow actresses' personal lives when they went out for drinks."

Vermouth didn't remember doing that, or at least not so often that her mentor's wife would remember it as something typical of Sharon Vineyard. She thought she might be a bit insulted.

"Still, I feel like I've taken up your time, and with such trivial things, too!" Chikage said, bowing quickly. "I really should let you get back to waiting for...well, whoever it is you're waiting for! I do hope they come soon!"

She bowed again, and slipped off into the crowd, leaving Vermouth as confused as she'd been in weeks, easily.

Nothing the woman had said matched what her spies in the police or her own background work had told her. The Edogawa child should have been in London. And yet…

The organization had wondered, for a while, if Chikage had been a threat, but she'd been cleared. The investigations had turned up nothing. No one was even certain if she'd known about her husband's illicit activities, and if she'd been involved, it had been so surreptitiously that no evidence could be found.

A woman who didn't even know her own husband had been a master thief couldn't possibly lie so well. There was no way. So she had to be telling the truth. She really had no idea who she was speaking with or why "Chris" might care about the miniature detective's whereabouts.

All of Vermouth's data was contradicting itself, now, and she had no other choice but to go back to the drawing board. Maybe she'd find a new angle from which all of this would suddenly make sense.

A/N: Warnings for depictions of paranoia and what comes pretty close to an interrogation, as well as an outsider depiction of what the reader (if not the narrator) can identify as Hakuba having or coming near to having a flashback (it is deliberately left unclear). Also more discussion of suicidal ideation, starts at "People die" and ends at "offended him" if you need to skip.