Matt looked at his screen through his goggle, not really paying attention as he thought about the case they were looking into. At first when L had asked them to assist him on it, he had been excited, but now he could see why they were really called in. This case was hopeless. It was really like looking for a needle in a haystack. There had been six missing person and one homicide so far. All of them seemingly unconnected; except the fact that they were all pure-bloods. Which is why this had been a high enough profile case to fly into L's radar.
He looked up to see Naomi Misora walk into the room, looking frustrated.
"I don't know how much of this bickering I can take" She said as she took a seat on the couch beside him.
He understood exactly what she meant. They were used to Mello and Near's constant rivalry on a normal day (well, mostly on Mello's end). But when they were on a case, they go on hyper drive, and it didn't help that they were stuck in this hotel suit with no escape in site.
"Where is Watari and L anyway?" Naomi asked him frowning. They had left a couple of days ago, with no real explanation. "You don't think he's looking for her do you?"
Matt knew exactly who she was talking about. Lyanna Gilbert. Being a Wammy kid, there really weren't many people who he could actually call friends there. But Lyanna was one of them. So it really did hurt that she had just disappeared on them six months ago. He knew for a fact that she had been having a row of sorts with L the weeks past it but she had refused to talk to him about it; and if the detectives recent brooding is anything to go by, that had something to do with his friend's disappearance.
"Ha!" They looked up to see Mello at the doorway, seething. "She can go to hell for all I care!"
"You don't mean that" Near said as he walked past him and sat on the floor in front of them, setting up his robots in front of them, not looking at Mello as he continued to speak in his signature matter of fact tone. "You're just acting out because you feel betrayed that she left".
Matt sighed in resignation; although what Near said was undoubtedly true, he wished he had enough tact to not say that to Mello, but then again this was Near he was talking about, he probably doesn't even realize he has said anything that would definitely set the volatile blond off.
"Listen you little Robot!" Mellow yelled mincingly. "You-!"
"Hey!" Naomi snapped in a no-nonsense voice. She had undoubtedly had a similar conversation with the two geniuses in the other room before accepting defeat and joined Matt to enjoy some relative peace and quiet but the chaos seemed to have followed her. "Knock it off the both of you. I'm in charge while L's gone and Mello I mean it when I say this, I'm going to make sure all of L's new cases goes to Near if you don't stop with this endless bickering!"
"He started it!" Mello exclaimed like a ten year old.
"Well I'm ending it!" was Naomi's retort. Matt couldn't help but chuckle at the scene in front of him. Naomi really was left to play the mother in Watari's absence, she was no doubted missing him the most of all of them. Matt wondered if it would have been less chaotic if Lyanna was here and instantly berated him for his own stupidity. Chaos was her element. If anything she would have added more fuel to this fire but somehow he found himself missing her special brand of chaos.
He looked up from his thoughts to find Mello storm off in anger to god knows where.
"Matt?" Near asked, still seeming to focus only on his robots. "Do you think it's a coincidence that Beyond Birthday broke out of his confinement a month after Lyanna disappeared?"
Matt gasped in shock as he realized what his albino colleague was implying. Had Lyanna aided in the maniac wizard's escape? He realized he wouldn't be all that surprised if that were the case. Back when they were kids at Wammy, Lyanna was the only one that Beyond was close to. Even back then, Beyond was pretty much insane with his radical approach to magic. He had no reservations about dabbling with dark magic even at a young age, but somehow even when everyone else had shied away from him, Lyanna didn't seem to care about it. But as they had approached teenage, L had taken B under his wing, preparing his to be his predecessor, something that Lyanna had never shown any interest in. So that had left Lyanna at Wammy's House with them and she had not really spoken to B since, as far as Matt knew. At the back of his mind, he did wonder if L had intentionally separated the two and had taken B with him to keep an eye on him; it that was indeed his plan, it had not worked out so well because, as they years went by, B had gotten obsessed with dark magic and people had gotten hurt which is why L had to lock him up four years ago; that's all any of them were told about it. Matt remembered that Lyanna had been upset about it at the time and had a talk with L over it; she seemed to accept it and move on after that.
So was it possible that even after all this time, Lyanna had gone back to B and freed him for some reason? "I really don't know" He found himself, answering honestly. "You know how Lyanna is. I wouldn't really put it past her. She is known for being reckless after all..."
Near nodded but didn't say anything as he seemed to accept his answer.
Naomi on the other hand looked horrified at the discussion that they had just had. BB was a sour spot for her. They knew that she had met L and subsequently joined their team after the BB case that she and L worked on. They didn't really know to what level she had been involved in the case but did know that it had become personal. In her time at the Wammy house, she had gotten close to Lyanna. They had bonded as the only two women there. Even though Naomi was just as worried about Lyanna as any of them, she had told Matt that she believed that Lyanna had a good reason for disappearing the way that she did. But something told him if their suspicions turned out to be right and Lyanna had indeed broken BB out of his cell, Naomi wouldn't be so understanding.
He was about to reassure Naomi that they were probably wrong when his screen lit up with the signature gothic L. He frowned slightly as he felt a speck of irritation as he realized that the detective had managed to tunnel through his firewall. He hadn't completely made it impossible for his boss to get through but he had thought it would be harder than this. Maybe L was getting better at hacking.
"Hello Matt" Matt rolled his eyes as L's synthetic voice addressed his. He knew that even though the detective enjoyed accessing the camera while he talked to them, in this case he wouldn't be able to as Matt had the foresight to disable it; and as good as the detective was at hacking, Matt was better.
"Hello L" He said back in a monotonous voice in the same tone that the robotic voice conveyed through the system. He knew that even without the synthetic voice, L would have a similar tone. "What can I do for you?"
"I have been reliably informed that our friend is back in London." He said. That caught Matt's attention. "I need you to find her."
"Will do" Matt replied; and just like that, the screen was back to normal, L having signed off without any parting words.
Matt quickly began hacking into the street camera footages from all around London and ran his program to find if the face recognition could pick up his scarlet haired friend. She had never really been a fan of disguises (that had always been Mello's thing), so there was a chance that if she was in London she could be on the feed; well, unless she really doesn't want to be caught, in which case all this was hopeless. The Wammy kids, as a rule, were good at being invisible when they wanted to be.
He gasped as the program did indeed seem to find match. His reaction seemed to alert Naomi and she too came to look at the result, even Near looked up from what he was doing, although he didn't bother coming to them.
He played the footage and sure enough, there she was. His best friend who hadn't even bothered to give him call for the past six months was walking leisurely down baker street, London. She paused outside 221 and looked back at one of the cameras and waved, grinning cheekily as she walked in. Matt shook his head and let out a chuckle as he realized – Lyanna had just joined the game.