Chapter 3- Hidden Truth

It was late at night when the household of the Mouri Detective Agency was startled awake by the doorbell.

Ran poked her head out of her room. "A visitor this late?"

Ding-Dong!

The door to Kogoro's room opened. "Ran-nee-chan?" Conan yawned.

Seeing him, Ran quickly wiped her eyes with a sleeve then hurried to the door.

Ding-Dong!

"Just a minute!"

Opening the door, she looked down at the ground floor and was surprised to see none other than- "Ai-chan!?"

Haibara leaned against the wall, panting heavily.

Ran hurried downstairs to the little girl. "What's wrong? You shouldn't be out so late at night!"

Haibara didn't answer for a while. How humiliating…to have to come crawling like a beggar to her. She looked up, and saw Kudo-kun peering down curiously from upstairs. Still, there was no choice…

"Professor went on a trip," she explained. "I…I need a place to stay."

"Well, that's fine with me. I'm not sure about dad though; but he's asleep right now. And you can't stay by yourself!" Ran smiled, but Haibara couldn't help but notice her tired, red eyes.

Haibara lay alone on the couch in the office, waiting. Ran had offered her room on the top floor, but she had managed to persuade her that she'd rather sleep alone. Reluctantly, Ran agreed, failing to realize the true reason for this.

There was a creak as the door opened slightly. A small form slipped in, tiptoeing so that he stood beside the couch.

"Something's wrong." Kudo-kun was in his pajamas, but his tone was entirely professional. His glasses reflected the streetlight flooding in through the windows, masking the serious eyes behind them. "What happened to the Professor?"

Haibara sat up, wrapping the thin blanket around herself. "I don't know," she whispered solemnly. "I just woke up the other day and he wasn't there."

"So you think…is it them?"

"From the circumstances, I find it unlikely. But with them, there is always a possibility."

He still seemed troubled. "He didn't tell you anything? Was he planning to go anywhere at all?"

"Not that I know of. I looked, but couldn't find any note. And there was no message on the answering machine."

"That's not like him."

"I know."

Conan sighed and sat on the couch next to her. Rubbing his eyes beneath his glasses, the former teenage detective murmured, "Tell me everything."

"So last night you went to bed early, while the Professor stayed up to work on his experiments?"

"I think he was trying to make a pair of spy-camera-goggles, but it was hard to tell."

"Great," Conan grumbled, jotting down notes in his small notebook. "As if I don't look stupid enough already, just wait until I'm wearing goggles on my head everyday. And? Did you hear anything? Did you notice anything unusual when you woke up?"

"I was…preoccupied. Besides, I thought he'd be back by the time I came home."

"Hmm. Why's that?"

"Because only his tennis shoes were gone. Rare as it was, I assumed that he'd just gone on an early morning walk."

Conan looked up from his notebook for a second. Haibara immediately recognized that look; something wasn't right with her story. But then it was gone, and he went back to scribbling notes.

"And when you came back from school, he still wasn't there?"

"Yes."

"So why didn't you call me right then and there?" he asked with a hint of suspicion in his voice. "I thought we were in this together."

"That's right. And that's why I came here now," Haibara said coldly. So after all this time, he still didn't completely trust her?

Their eyes met. For a brief moment an unsettling tension ran between them, as if they were testing each other. Finally Kudo-kun broke it off by shutting his notebook with a snap.

"Sorry. I'm just worried about him, that's all." He slid off the couch. "There's little else we can do right now. Tomorrow we'll take a closer look at the Professor's house, but until then we mind as well get some sleep with whatever is left of the night."

Conan headed for the door.

"Kudo-kun?"

"What?" he yawned.

"What was it like? Watching my sister die…"

The boy stopped dead in his tracks. "Eh?" he squeaked, bewildered.

Haibara felt just as surprised. She didn't know what had come over her to say that out loud, but she had to admit, it was a question she'd been yearning to ask.

Conan caught the ever-serious expression on her features, and took a deep breath. He looked away while he spoke, and seemed to be seeing something that was not there. "By the time I arrived, it was too late. Her wound was deep, and she was bleeding badly. I remember…I remember her telling me that she didn't want to be used by them anymore." He hesitated, then continued. "I'd already seen plenty of corpses back then, but never had anyone die right in front of me like that. And the worst part was…there was nothing I could do to help her."

Haibara closed her eyes and leaned back on the couch. "Thank you," she whispered softly.

Conan fidgeted. "H-hey, Haibara…"

"You can go now if you want."

Still feeling undecided, he slipped out the room and shut the door.

She was alone again.