Author's Notes: Sorry it took me so long for this chapter but life went POP! So once again I don't own them the plot is not mine and I promise it won't take me this long for the next chapter. I swear…. A lot actually, like a sailor – but that isn't' the point. Focus. Focus. Sorry. Here it is….

V

I walked around the crowded streets of the office high rises, looking for my prize. I must have passed her twice because Kayama Mika was a girl. When I say girl I mean a girl- a maiden of youth, a child. She was so small and sitting on one of the many small benches the city had put up for show but not for comfort. She must have felt me looking at her because her eyes met mine and I had a feeling that she knew a lot more about life than any little girl should.

"Kayama-san?"

She nodded with a wan smile. "Tenoh-san. Sit down."

Used to being given orders I sat next to the girl. To my amazement, Kayama-san was dressed like an office secretary. The woolen dress and matching jacket, even the adjoining hat. On her it looked displaced like a little kid trying to play dress up.

"Thank you." It was now or never. "So what do you know of horse hair buttons?"

Kayama-san sighed. She ruffled through her purse and brought out a cigarette. She tapped it four times before she lit it and turned to me. She had become another person.

"All right," she said blowing smoke. "But do you have the money? The hundred dollars your ad promised?"

I reached into my coat and pulled out the bill I had folded. If I had put it in my wallet and she saw the cash I carried in there, Kayama-san would ask for more. But it was enough for her so she started to gab.

"I hate being a secretary. It's a good profession and honorable for part time work but I want to be more than that. I want the world to see who I am and my high goals for myself. I try out for idol competitions. You know about idol competitions don't you?" I nodded. "Then you know how competitive all the girls get. I know I'm not as good as some of the others but I can't give it up. I know there's something better out there for me and maybe when I'm around your age I'll have that dream. Maybe Aino Minako will be already be an idol and I won't have to compete with her anymore. Aino-san once wore a jacket with horsehair buttons. Judges love originality. I'm sure you'll love her too."

Kayama-san put out her cigarette on the arm of the bench and stood up, hand outstretched. "My money please." When the bill slipped into her hand it was strangled in her tight grip. She bowed to me and left.

Not really knowing just how good of a source Kayama-san would be I hated to part with the money. However, when I spoke to Aino Minako I knew I had hit the jackpot. We talked over the phone a little bit about my being a button collector. It wasn't a lie. For this case I was a button collector who just so happened to need to know about babies as well. Aino-san agreed to meet me at a small eatery a block away from her house.

She kept me waiting a good hour before she graced me with her presence. Now this girl knew how to make an entrance. She swayed as she walked; her high heels clicking on the tiles sending little shivers up and down my spine. Light blue eyes that were almost gray scanned the room, her electric smile never faltering.

"Tenoh Haruka?"

Her voice wasn't as smooth as I would have liked it to be but the curves were in the right spot. "Aino Minako?" She nodded and I went around the table I had reserved to pull out her seat. "A pleasure to meet you Aino-san."

"Please call me Minako or Minako-chan. Calling me Aino-san makes me feel like an old lady."

And there was certainly nothing old about her. Aino-ahem- Minako was in the bloom of her prime and if she kept herself well would not see it wither for a long time. She certainly had an effect on people - boys and girls alike.

Minako leaned forward chin resting on the back of a hand. "Are you really a button collector, Haruka-san? You don't look like a button collector. I'd say you're into other things." Her eyes darkened. "Dangerous things."

She was also a flirt. It was going to be an even match then. "For now I am. We all have to have our vices, Minako-chan. Button collecting just happens to be one of them. Right now I'm interested in horsehair buttons. Horsehair buttons that I've been told only you know how to get."

With a flip of her long golden hair Minako shook her head. "I'm not that easy, Haruka. Buy me a drink."

I caught the waitress as she went by. Minako took a milkshake of some sort and I went for my original sin, coffee. She returned in a couple of minutes with our order.

"So, Minako-chan what do you do?" It took all my strength to ask her that. Minako was doing some rather interesting things with the cherry from her shake.

"Oh I model from time to time. Other times I fill in as a secretary for revenge."

"Revenge?"

"Yes. Sometimes a secretary gets fired, not by the boss but by the boss' wife. I'm the revenge."

Tomoe-san might have used her so I asked, "Have you ever had to work with strange, eccentric types? Like say, an author or a mad scientist? Scientists who build robots and such?"

"I've worked with a lot of eccentric types, Haruka. But I have never worked with one who built robots. I mostly try to stay with the other secretaries. Some employers like to try to take advantage of my good nature." She popped the cherry in her mouth, then placed a neatly knotted stem on her napkin. "Are you eccentric?"

"At times, but I'm a bore." I glanced at the stem. If that was just one of the things she could do with her tongue, its no wonder that Minako won the idol competitions. Hell I was ready to give up asking for the buttons and asking if she had a boyfriend/girlfriend/anything friend.

"You're anything but that, Haruka."

Oh yeah. She was good. If I had to stay any longer Minako could have me on melt down. "Remember I collect buttons. Normal people would find that boring."

Minako batted long lashes. "Everyone has to have something to do."

"Does that mean that I can count on you to help me out?"

She giggled. "You're persistent, Haruka. I like that. Yes, I'll help you out."

Minako told me about her strange aunt that lived in the country all by herself with a three legged dog named Scotty. She was often alone so much that she had taken up the hobby of making horsehair buttons. It took her hours of spinning with just her hands to make them. Then she would sell them or put them on the clothes of her loved ones. Minako never understood why her Aunt Haruna labored over something only to give it away but that was her nature - to make then to give.

All this I got out of a thirty-minute conversation with Minako. We exchanged phone numbers. She to add mine to her wall of fame and myself just in case I needed to speak with her again. Besides I needed someone to tell me more about Aunt Haruna, if she shut the door in my face. After we left the eatery I called Setsuna from a phone booth.

"I got lucky."

"Haruka, keep that to yourself. What did you find?"

"I found a three legged dog and an Aunt Haruna up in the country who just so happens to enjoy spinning thread of horsehair into buttons for her loved ones. Tell me that isn't luck."

"It isn't luck, Haruka. Though we are detectives and make our living off the wheels of other's misfortunes, you are able to deduce and process the facts given to you. You undoubtedly flirted with the poor girl, lowering her defenses. Luck was only involved so much as the fact that Ms. Kayama called you."

Point goes to Setsuna. I told her that I would not be available for the next five hours to which she replied that she had Makoto, Mamoru and Motoki to help her if anything came up - the 3 M's. What would we do without them?

I walked to Windsor Avenue to our garage and as always Kanaeda-san was there to greet me. He had his head underneath the Rolls giving her a tune up. The roadster was free as usual. Setsuna owned all the cars in the garage. The roadster, the luxury Rolls sedan, and my motorized death trap on two wheels as Setsuna called it. Kanaeda and I talked a bit about cars as he filled up the tank. He wished me a safe journey as I hit the road.

Minako may have been on the right track but she was horrible at giving directions. I stopped at a gas station to confer with the noted sages of the area and they put me on the right track. Just a little past three I pulled up to a tiny little cottage in need of some minor repairs with a junker sitting in what could be used as a drive way. It was now or never.

I knocked on the door all but once when the door swung open. A young woman opened with door with a shawl over her head and three-legged dog under her arm.

"Who are you?" she demanded.

"I'm in the button business. I have been told by a reliable source that you make horsehair buttons. Say can I come in? I'm really thirsty."

She gave me a good long scything look before nodding, "All right buster. Get in."

It struck me as rather odd that she would let a complete stranger into her house but then again the people in the serenity of the country often act differently compared to cityslickers. Then I looked down on the table and saw our ad. Okay so she knew. What now?

"So you figured it out, eh?" No need to be coy, at least not yet anyhow.

Sakurada Haruna sat down across from me, drooling dog still in hand. "What do you want from me?"

"Just what the add says. I want buttons."

"I don't have any just yet. I take awhile to make them. Besides what makes you think I would just give them over to you?"

She was getting touchy. She wanted me to go and fast.

"I have a buyer that is very interested in your style of making the buttons."

She didn't believe me. "All right buddy you've had your piece and now I'll give you mine. Get out."

"Can I at least have that glass of water? It was long drive up here."

"And it was for nothing. Now get out before I call the cops on you."

I went but not without some resentment. I really wanted that glass of water. Oh well I could just pick up a fountain at the station while I phoned Setsuna.

"She knows something is up," I told Setsuna from the phone booth. "And she gave me this look like my old junior high teacher used to give me – she always knew when I was lying too."

"It doesn't matter. When are you coming home?"

"That's just it. I'm not. She bound to make a move sooner or later. Maybe she could lead us back to the person who left the baby on Kaiou-san's steps."

"But when are you going to eat?"

"I'll figure that out later. I just thought I should give you my progress report."

"But-"

The thing with geniuses is to know when and when not to argue with them or to simply hang up the phone. Hanging up seemed to be the easier route. However when I came back to the house the junker car was gone and the place locked. I used expletive monologue for it was the proper time and place for it. Then I decided that this might make for a good advantage. Perhaps good Aunt Haruna had just gone out to talk to her niece about talking to strangers or for a quart of milk. Either way it gave me a window, literally, of opportunity to sneak in and see what all the fuss was about.

Like any recluse's cottage there were a lot of old things hanging around. Postcards, cedar chests, old letter from family and friends. I'd say that it made the cottage just a little more cozy. It made you feel at home being around the things of the people that you loved most. But one room was certainly out of place – a crib and rocking chair in the east room. In that room I found the great treasure throve, a complete closet set with baby clothes from Precious Memories all neatly decorated with horsehair buttons – just like Hotaru's.

I went back to that quaint little gas station and informed Setsuna of the changes. I told her that I could stay up at the cottage and wait for her return but that was quickly shot down. No she was going to pull Seiya off the mother hunt to stake out the woman's hut. I agreed. I didn't want that knave coming close to my aqua haired princess. So when my relief showed up and cleverly hid his car in the bramble covering Aunt Haruna's lot, I was more than happy to get back to the city.

Was. The moment I got into the office Setsuna latched onto me wanting to leech any and all information that I could have gathered.

"What sort of woman are we dealing with, Haruka?" she demanded.

"The womanly kind. You know," I speculated behind my desk, "the two of you would have gotten along. Same short acerbic speaking, then again she was hip to my coming and didn't seem surprised."

"Anyone with half a sense would agree to that." Setsuna buzzed for Makoto. "Why do you think she went away?"

"I scared her. I scare a lot of women who don't know what to do in my presence. Then again there is you-" I stopped as Makoto entered the room. "Makoto, tell her. I scare a lot of women, don't I? It's the charm. A supreme curse."

Makoto and Setsuna exchanged a look. "You don't scare women off as much as you think – at least until they see the size of your ego."

This earned a chuckle from the boss. Makoto, pleased with herself took the tray and left the room. I would owe her for that.

We sat around for a little while before Setsuna decided it was that time. She went upstairs to the laboratory and disappeared. I thought about going to see Ms. Kaiou to tell her about our progress except for the fact that there wasn't even all that much progress to begin with. Maybe when Aunt Haruna came back I would be able to ask her questions whether she knew Kaiou outside the newspaper. That was a plan and all I had for the moment. I spent the rest of the night playing billiards with Makoto down in the basement. She's a decent player – when I'm shooting left handed and one armed. We went on until dinner. Still no word from Seiya, the little bastard was playing with me. He liked to make me wait. Little did he realize just what I was going to do with him when he finally decided to call.

Seiya, I thought, was a lazy no good womanizing mooch. He knows just how to pour on the charm. That charm had worked its magic on an unsuspecting girl. It wasn't that he loved them and left them, they usually got smart and left him before he could do any of the dumping. It doesn't bother him much. In fact it gives him more chances to practice whatever lines he was going to use for the dumping and guilt free. To each their own I suppose.

He kept me in suspense up to the next morning. He sounded tired and worried when I picked up the phone I hardly recognized it was him.

"Haruka?"

"This is Tenoh Haruka."

"Where's Setsuna? Is she there?"

"Yes but she's not up yet and neither should I, Seiya. This had better be good."

Seiya chuckled, that dry chuckle I hated so much. "Oh it's good all right. Guess who just showed up at Aunt Haruna's charming cottage? One Sergeant Kumada. Where there's a Kumada there's an Inspector Hino which means –"

I groaned and starting banging my head on the doorframe. "No more Sakurada-san. Seiya come to the office. It seems that whatever happened Aunt Haruna was not only involved with horsehair buttons." My day had just gone to pots.