Emiko was sitting on the bed next to Kioshi, they both had a sheet of paper and used a copy book as a support. For once Emiko was the one who was intending to help Kioshi with the English grammar.

"I'm telling you it's an adverb not a damn preposition. Kioshi, are you listening?" However Kioshi did not answer, instead he was typing on his phone. "Don't tell me that you're googling that. Can't you just trust me?"

"Gomen Emiko..." The boy was ready to move on to the next sentence of their exercise but he soon realized that she was off it. Emiko didn't seem to be looking at the piece of paper in front of her nor at anything else. She didn't seem to be actually there and for a second she seemed to be crying. "Are you okay?"

Two days had passed and Emiko never opened the file. She didn't even actually know what it really was nor who could have sent it to her. Emiko didn't verbally answer the question, she just opened the drawer as she once did. Kioshi calmly walked to the girl's drawer, he took the tropical land picture and placed on the bed. He quickly found the file, he sat next to Emiko, he brought his fingers to the corner of the file.

When he was about to open it, Emiko got up and stood behind the window. "I don't want to see it, would you mind reading it for yourself?"

He turned the first page, there was a small portrait of Shinichi and generic information, nothing interesting. The few pages following were way better, it was a collection of reports from cases the high school detective had solved.

"Wow!" he exclaimed.

"What? Is it that horrible? Tell me please but don't show me." She kneeled down in front of him.

"Did you know that your father was a famous detective? Looks like he solved many complex cases for the police."

A detective...

Kioshi went further in the pages, he felt a shiver going down his spine as he discovered the crime scene pictures. A simple empty room in an apartment, there was nothing besides a carpet and what seemed like white painted walls. Actually what truly stroke him was the blood that was covering everything, it made it hard to distinguish anything. He quickly went through the police conclusion to find pretty much nothing. "Well there's a crime scene picture, there's a lot of blood to say the least. But..."

"But what?" Emiko suddenly got up as if she was ready to bounce.

"There's not much... I mean there's no body, just blood that has been confirmed to be his and some DNA. But really that's it."

"That's weird... Give me that!" She took the papers off him. Emiko tried to decode it for a little while. With her friend's help she found out that a witness had apparently heard gun shots, someone else saw two persons running with knives in hand and apparently at the same time someone set fire to a trash can. "It doesn't make any sense, like not any sense at all."

"Emiko, we're just two high school students. What did you expect? We need help... What about your grandfather he is a detective right?"

"No I can't ask this to Kogoro... I'll find someone else, okay?" She checked her watch just to realize that it was almost diner time. "I think that we have to end the investigation for today." Kioshi agreed with a nod and grabbed his stuff. Emiko followed him to the door, she opened it and without saying a word brought the Japanese boy closer to her. In front of both of her grandparents she hugged Kioshi, both of them didn't quite understood what was going on and had dropped their jaw. Emiko actually didn't really think about giving him a hug, she somehow felt incomplete and the hug was enough to fill her need. She released him and closed the door behind him after he had recovered from the awkward moment.

Seeing how dumbstruck her grandparents looked, the girl just threw a "I'm British" on her way back to her room. The teenager was passing through that sort of moment when you want to do something but you don't feel like doing anything. There was just too many things on her mind and she obviously ended up on whatever social network. After a quick update on her friends and an eternity answering her messages Emiko came back to square one. That's when a name came up, Emiko searched "Edogawa Conan" on that very same website and through as many posts as she could. Something was fascinating and she somehow couldn't stop. However one thing did temporarily stop it and that was dinner.

The family enjoyed their oden quietly for most of it, until Emiko came back to it. "Who's Edogawa-san again? I didn't quite understand the first time."

"He lived here with your mother and Kogoro for a while when he was a kid." Eri went for the short explanation.

"A long while..." added the old man.

"Well that's weird... Why?" Emiko frowned.

The couple exchanged looks as if the other was the one who had an answer, they hummed trying to think about something but in the end they could only shrug.

The British girl tried to move on "He is quite different from what I'd expect a football player to be like... I don't know, dare I say it? He nearly seems too intelligent."

"I haven't talked to him much lately but I remember him as a very sharp kid. He sort of was your assistant, always helping you in your demonstration and really attentive." She turned to her husband.

"The brat, he was always getting in my way. Annoying... I don't remember asking his help."

The two continued to talk about Conan and drifted to old time glory. The stories were always the same and so was the winner who took it all. Emiko had drifted away on her own, she had made her mind and took a decision. Something was definitely off with Conan and she would use his proposition both to discover the truth about her father and to satisfy her curiosity.

Due to the logistic she had to wait almost a full day to transform her plan to an action. Emiko hadn't said much during the day, she looked rather absent even with Kioshi when they walked back home. She became more active all of sudden. "What do you think about Edogawa-san?"

"I guess you're not talking about the J-league... Well I don't know him much but he seems to be a nice guy."

"Do you think that you could trust him if you ever needed to?"

Kioshi stopped, the question was definitely weird but still interesting. He thought for a second before saying "He is a friend of my sister and I think he is a good guy. So yes..."

"Okay, fine..." Emiko brushed her bang back, placed the hanging shoulder strap on her shoulder. "Lend me your bike then." Indeed Emiko didn't wait for his permission she jumped right on it, adjusted her skirt and started her GPS. A bit surprised Kioshi made way for her and just watched her go. She biked passed the agency which to be fair was pretty close from the place where she lent her friend's bike to herself. The way to the address written on the business card from Conan was really familiar to her, she quickly recognized it as the way to the Kudos mansion. She slowed down as she passed in front of it just to take a look at it. The grass was cut to a week length, the flowers looked fine and the windows were opened. The Kudos were definitely there, for a split second she wondered if it would be more simple to just pay them a visit but she knew that she wasn't brave enough after what she had already done in the very same house.

The GPS signalled her soon that she had reached the destination. Pretty close from the Kudos mansion. A nice coincidence I guess... Emiko jumped off the bike and called on the intercom only to hear a feminine voice asking who was calling. "It's Mouri-san, I..." she never managed to finish her sentence, the voice never answered either, the teenager just heard the sound of the gates unlocking. After she got rid of the bike, Emiko walked towards the entrance massive door. Before she even made it to the stairs, the door magically opened letting Ai face an rather unprepared Emiko.

The girl instantly recognized the woman who used to water the plants when the Kudos were abroad. It was a way stronger link than simple houses proximity, still it meant nothing. Ai knew exactly what this visit was the beginning of and it was just for her one more reason to run away from the house.

"So you're Mrs Edogawa, what a coincidence!"

Ai smirked "Ai will do, please. Conan is taking a shower right now, you can wait for him in the living." The woman continued, carefully not letting Emiko interfere nor taking a breath and put a coat on. "I am sorry, I was about to leave. So... Bye."

Left alone in an unknown house the girl really slowly headed to the living room as the house mistress had suggested. The decoration was minimalist giving even more space to the huge rooms. It was heavily inspirited by the Scandinavian style, the walls were painted in clear colours mostly white and wood was everywhere. However the decoration was minimalist, Emiko was still impressed by the lack of personal effects. She looked at the very few pictures on display on the chimney, actually there were only two pictures. One of them was a picture of the couple wearing kimono and it took her quite a while to realize that it was a wedding picture. A bit further on the left Emiko found what probably was a honeymoon picture, indeed it was a selfie of Ai and Conan somewhere in the southern American mountains dressed like real mountaineers.

The tour was already done much to Emiko's disappointment who was starting to like doing that sort of thing. She walked towards the sofa, but stopped on the way. Her eyes were caught by a thick book, she sat on the wooden seat and read the author's name "Higashino". She nearly read the back cover but at last she got lazy and placed the book back on the low table carefully avoiding pair of glasses. She put it on just like a kid and took a picture with her smartphone to check herself.

Conan run down the stairs as fast as a lightning bolt, checking every table. He thought out loud "Where the hell did I leave my..." There he was, glasses-less facing his own daughter who actually was wearing the glasses. Emiko jumped off the seat and said slightly stuttering "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to." She walked to him handing the glasses, he was pretty embarrassed to be seen without his disguise and yet he was thankful that the girl had never met his old self.

The man cleared his voice, wondered what he should say before finally asking "So... What brought you here?"

"Well you kind of gave your card." Emiko smiled proud of herself, she thought it was funny but Conan clearly didn't get it and didn't even laugh a bit. "More seriously, since you said you'd like to help I am curious to have your opinion on this." She took the file from her bag and lent it to him.

"What do we have here?" He pretended not to know the content when he was actually the one who sent her the letter, when he actually was Shinichi Kudo and when he actually faked his death. Still he took the time to read it after the report part which could just be summed up as "Shinichi Kudo was a famous detective." Conan closed the file after spending almost 40 minutes reading it in silence and looked at his daughter. "That's interesting to say the least but tell me first what did you think of it?"

The teenage girl got up and trying to sound rational she calmly said "In my opinion it's a bunch of nonsense. People running with knives in the street, gunshots, no body and now that I've seen the pictures I have to say that ketchup on the walls would have made more sense."

Conan stood up and without any sort of explanation pushed the sofa against the wall. He finally spoke as he did the same with the low table "Let's imagine that I'm the victim. What would happen if you shoot at me with a gun?"

Emiko played along and even pretended to hold a gun. "If I am not too bad with guns I could kill you with just one bullet."

The man rested his right hand on his chest "Okay, let's say you just did that I'd obvious be lying on the floor dead, but what would have happened with the blood projection. Also there would something missing, right?" It had been so long and it felt so good for him to finally take a moment to reason logically. But more than anything he was curious about the way his daughter would reason and tried his best to give her the space needed.

"However someone heard gunshots, I haven't read anything about a bullet nor gun powder. There wasn't any trace of a gun either."

"Also such blood projections are not coherent with amount of blood on the crime scene. Let's move on to the next hypothesis."

"Those people who were seen running with knives... It sounds more coherent, right?"

"Hmmm partially I guess... Did you know that to get much of the blood out of the body you need the heart to still be beating?"

"Then he would have been still alive."

"Exactly, it's called exsanguinations and it's not doable with a knife. Also what you can't know is that the supposed crime scene is in the middle of drug traffic a bit outside the city. Therefore the police are always somewhere near it and people are unlikely to run in the streets with knives in hand."

"Regardless the technique chosen the culprit would have had to spread the blood on the walls. What sort of person does that? It's useless!"

Conan shrugged "That's a good one." They had already danced around the living room in a ballet of deduction for two hours. When Ai came back from her promenade she was surprised to find them there, after she had taken off her shoes Ai tried to casually pass in the hall while showing her watch to Conan. 3 attempts later he had finally noticed that it was time to drive Emiko home.

"I'm sure you have what it takes to find the answers by yourself. It's already late I'll drive you back."

Emiko checked the time, even though it was late she was disappointed to stop there. However she could only agree. "Actually I came here with a bike and since it's not mine I don't really want to leave it here. "

"Then do you mind if I walk you back home?"

"Hmmm guess so..." Always agree with Japanese people remember? It's kind of way slower than biking but never mind.

Emiko placed the file back in her bag and once they had their coat on they left the comfortable house.

"Let me have a guess. That's Yoshida-san's bike, right?"

"Yep, I loaned it to myself." And so they walked together, Conan on the left and Emiko on the right pushing her bike.

"I am not surprised."

"Did I tell you that I had already met your wife?"

"No, you didn't. I didn't tell you that we divorced either."

"Wait, really? It doesn't show I guess... She's still living with you?"

"Well I am not going to kick her out, that's her house too and there's enough room for her to avoid me for a full week. There are still a few papers to sign anyway."

"May I ask you why?"

"That's complicated..."

"Oh come on! Can't I have a bit more than that? I mean you're both good looking young married persons, what went wrong?"

"Okay okay. Let's say that I had someone else in mind."

"Oh... I forgot to ask you something about the Kudos. Do you know them? Because, the first time I met your wife, I mean your ex-wife she was watering the plants."

The question really embarrassed him, he would have indeed have preferred it if Ai had told him before. "Well, I... Hmm, we occasionally meet."

"Okay... Did you actually ever meet my father?"

"A few times yes. I don't remember much, you know I was quite young. What did Ran told you about your father?"

"She never said much. Whenever I asked her she would always brush me off. I quickly noticed that it hurt her to talk about it so I stopped asking. Very rarely, she'd talk about some nice memory with him but she never named him."

Conan stopped speaking for a minute, he already knew what she said but it was still really hard to hear it, especially from his own daughter. Still there was one more question that he just had to ask. "Did Ran ever..."

"Nope she never married and until quite recently she had never introduced me to any man."

"So, she has someone?"

"Apparently she does. You're being quite curious for a Japanese."

"I guess I could tell you exactly the same." They had finally made it to the Mouri detective agency, both of them had the chance to ask each other the questions floating in their minds. Somehow the conversation eased them a lot giving them a feeling of liberation. Conan pointed at the window "Do you like it there?"

"Oh you know it's not home but it's alright..."

The agency door slammed and the sound of high heels quickly going down the stairs was heard. Emiko who was the closest to the stairs was actually the only one who could see who it was. Everything happened in a blink, the teenager ran towards the stairs while the steps were getting closer. A split second later, Conan discovered that Ran had decided to pay a surprise visit to her daughter.

The mother tenderly held her daughter against her, the woman hadn't seen Emiko for nearly four months and simply couldn't let go off her.

"Mom, I am going to need to breathe some air soon you know."

Ran finally complied giving Emiko a slight pad on the shoulder. "Don't play the tough girl, sweetheart!"

"Mom!" Emiko had tried hard to look and sound mature in Japan but this was all gone at the moment she ran to her "mom".

Ran was a beautiful woman for sure, she was in her early thirties and had learnt throughout the years how to make a good impression. Light makeup was perfectly used to sublime her porcelain skin, only the radiant red lipstick was there to flash it up a little bit.

"But Mom when did you..."

"I arrived right when you were supposed to come back from the high school and thought I'd surprise you. But no, you didn't show up." Ran finally turned to the man standing a few meters away.

Conan unconsciously took a step or two back, his whole body wanted to run away when his mind was fascinated. He had had far enough time to look at her from the toes to the eyes. His heart almost stopped when she spoke. "Would that be Conan-kun?"