Jade: A big Thanks to my bestest friend Sumi-kun (KasumiKyofu on for helping me write this in my time of writers block. glomps Sumi And now over to the lovely Disclaimer! Buahahaha!

Disclaimer: groggily Bleh. Leave me alone! turns over and goes back to sleep

Kasumi: It's me Kasumi, I love to make Disclaimers. fun and joyful! -just read my stories, there's a joke in every disclaimer- ...-thinks- Ok, Jade and I think that Conan and Ai should be together... so, if we owned Detective Conan, you would see them together instead of Ran -Rachel-. Proof enough?

Jade: Oh...and Kasumi makes MAJOR spelling mistakes in EVERYTHING she writes so if I miss anything in her part (which is like the ending) i'm really really sorry! XDD!

Chapter 8: Rising Suspicions

The few days after Jake's death had been quite uneventful, with the exception of his funeral, which they all of course attended. Emotions were still stirred up from the event but none more ever than Tess'. She kept feeling as if it was her fault he was dead, that somehow she could've saved him if she had given more effort in the act.

It was now Tuesday, four days after the whole incident, Maxwell was placed in the care of another FBI agent in order to give Tess and the others some time away from their work, mainly to get over their loss. The loss of a close friend.

Tess was still asleep, having been up all night trying to find as much as she could about Keina by hacking into every police database that she could think of. But of course it was all in vein, they had nothing, nothing that she hadn't already gotten (which wasn't much at all.)

Conan and Ai were on the couch reading; Conan was reading his favorite Sherlock Holmes novel...again, while Ai was reading a science fiction book.

"How many times have you read that one?" Haibara glanced over at the pint-sized detective, who merely grinned back at her.

"This is the twelth time." At that the biochemist scowled with disdain.

"How can you stand to read that detective crap over and over again? Doesn't it get old after a while, knowing the technique in the end that the murderer used everytime?"

"Nope, not at all." Conan replied, satisfied with his answer at seeing how it irritated her. Ai just gave up on the subject and continued reading her book, which she was nearly finished with.

"Morning guys, what's up?" Jade bounded cheerily into the room, brightening the lingering dismal mood fairly.

"Good morning Kasahari." Ai muttered dully, Conan rolled his eyes and replied to Jade with a big grin.

"Morning! What're you all happy about?" He asked.

"Hmm? OH! I'm expecting a call from my boss back in Japan, supposedly he has some leads on this mysterious group we're after."

Conan nodded in understanding, watching her pull out a chair at the kitchen table and sticking a piece of toast in the toaster.

How can she be so excessively happy? Especially when someone she knew recently passed away? Conan thought, well, I guess the information her Chief is supposed to be giving her could be the reason. She could be excited about moving one step further to catching Keina and that crime organization...

Conan was brought back to reality with the phone ringing and Jade rushing to answer it, seeing as Tess was still asleep.

"Hello? Oh hey Chief Johnson! Huh? Oh yeah sure, wake her up? Er...alright I'll tell her. Ok, bye." And with that Jade hung up and started for Tess' room. A few moments later Jade came out and went to finish her toast. Almost ten minutes later Tess came out, fully dressed, though still groggy from the abrupt awakening that she had recieved from Jade.

"What's going on?" Asked Conan as Tess grabbed her jacket from the coat rack and was heading towards the door. The jet-black haired teen turned her head to him and smiled weakly.

"Chief called for me and wants me to come down to the precinct and do some file work on what happened. I should be there a while, I'll see you guys later." Tess then proceeded through the door and out to the street to her car and drove off.

"Guess it's just us for the day huh?" Jade rinsed off her crumby plate and stuck it in the dishwasher, recieving a nod from the two 'children'.

Then Jade's cell phone started ringing to which she immediately unhooked it from her belt and answered. She talked silently on it for a few minutes before heading towards the coat rack, grabbing her jacket, and exiting the building. Her actions baffled to two to some extent, but shrugged it off figuring the information her boss was telling her must've been classified or something.

"Since Tess is gone for most of the day, and we don't even know when Jade's going to be back, i'm going to start on the laundry so Tess doesn't have to do it when she gets back." Conan called over his shoulder to Ai who quirked a brow at him and smirked.

"How thoughtful of you, Kudo-kun, I can see you have a thing for this girl." She taunted. Conan chose to ignore her comment, feeling his cheeks rise in temperature and was glad his back was to her otherwise he would've been embarassed for her to see him blushing the way he was.

He went into everyone's room to get their basket full of dirty clothing and brought it back to his spot infront of the washing machine. Conan then set to work, tossing all the clothes in the machine that was filling with water. He stopped, hearing something drop to the floor, making a light clattering noise as it hit the tile. Glancing down he noticed a contact container.

"Weird, nobody here wears contacts..." He mused to himself, picking up the container and opening it. It was empty, but on the container it said that it was for blue colored contacts. He tilted his head slightly and started searching through the pile of clothes to find out which one it had fallen from. He did find the article of clothing that it came from, it was a pair of blue pants, but what shocked him the most were the dried bloodstains on the pant leg of it. He narrowed his eyes at it and tossed it in the contraption designed for cleaning clothes.

He hadn't even noticed that he had nodded off to sleep until the beeping on the washing machine woke him up. Dazedly he glanced around the room, trying to get his bearings straight, then he remembered the laundry.

He looked in his hand and saw the contacts container still in his grasp.

He re-read the label to make sure it was blue contacts. He must've read it five times. All the same. Blue. He pondered and stared at the tiny label across the back. Over and over in his head the same question flashed, Who is wearing contacts? As far as he knew, no one wore them.

-else where-

It was bright sunny day, and happy childern ran joyfully around a playground. But in an un-wanted dark alley, a black haired woman glared. She hated happy kids. She much preferred to see them miserable in their own tears. As it was, she had no time to think of ways to make them miserable. She had to listen to her boss who was very pleased with her work. And now, inspite of her work, she had to go and do more.

"Right now? Yes I understand, I'll go now and take care of them. Yes sir, no trace of the killings. Trust me, it will be done." Her eyes narrowed, as she hung up her flip phone, and walked out of the alley. As she passed the children, she thought Your gonna get yours, you just wait.

-back at the house-

Conan had skipped lunch, he was in his room still trying to figure out a reasonable answer to his dilema. Damn it, if only we all didn't have blue eyes! Maybe I could ex- clude some people! I know Tess wouldn't kill her own partner. But before he could think any more along the lines, he could hear Ai scream "Kudo-kun!"

Conan raced out of his room, and down the stairs to see Ai standing in front of a broken window. There was no sign of the person who did it, nor any sign of an object that could of caused it to break.

"What happened!" Conan shouted at Ai.

"I don't know! I was getting a drink and I saw this!" The strawberry blonde haired girl explained quickly.

"Ok, let's not panic. We can fix this! Just get some duct type and Tess will never notice!" The pint-sized detective said. It would seem that his mind was slightly out of it with thinking at the moment.

"Conan, there's someone in here! We're being broken into! I think we should worry about more important things besides Tess killing us!" She paused. "Get the duct type."

Conan had wanted to laugh, but he heard a creak in the kitchen. He held out his hand to Ai, and got up against the wall. Trying to peak over the corner, his foot slipped on the hard wooden floor, and he fell to his face. He looked into the kitchen and saw a shadow run through an open door that lead to the hallway.

"Crap!" Conan thought out loud as he ran to Ai. "Listen," he spoke in whisper. "Keep on your gaurd." He spoke fast, and for good reason. Keina was back and this time, she was going to kill them if her life depended on it. He signaled Ai to follow him into the kitchen. She did, staying close to him.

They walked unusually softer than normal, and still it sounded like it wasn't enough. Keina knew where they were. If she let them out of her sight, she would lose them, and possibly more.

Conan walked up the stairs, as slowly as he could, but the slower you go, the louder it gets. The wooden creaks echoed throughout the halls. Ai grabbed onto his shirt to keep up with him. -for she was more cautious than he was- They were upstairs, and were pretty sure that Keina wasn't. Conan walked into his room with Ai and closed the door, securing it tightly.

"We have to call Tess, Jade, someone!" Ai whispered to Conan who was looking outside.

There was a loud bang and the door was thrown opened. Conan and Ai could see Keina's pure black hair and her emerald green eyes facing towards them. Her gun was held up taking her aim as she glared darkly at them. Without saying anything, she pulled the trigger towards Conan. Ai pushed him out of the way. Conan looked back to see Ai's face as she was shot. Her body fell to the ground and blood leaked from her shoulder. She bit her bottom lip in pain, willing herself not to cry out and give Keina the satisfaction.

"Ai! Are you alright?" Conan asked in great concern as he bent down to asess the damage done to her.

She gave a weak smile, still holding her arm tightly, and answered, "Of course...I've been shot numerous of times before and i'm still here. Besides, do you even think i'd die before avenging Akemi's death?"

"We'll get you to..."

BANG!

Keina wasn't going to let them have a conversation. She was actually disappointed that she had let them talk for that long. The shot was meant for Conan, though it missed him by three inches.

Conan smirked, "Gee Keina, your losing your touch. The Keina that I've been reading about never misses."

"Oh? I see you've been doing you're research, I was only trying to fake you out with that shot, Kudo." Her expression was so smug that it made Conan want to kick her with his turbo-powered sneakers. But at catching the last part of her statement his eyes widened considerably. How could she possibly know who he was? How'd she figure it out?

He glanced back at Ai, only to notice that she had disappeared, but he noticed a trail of blood leading over towards the bed. He followed the trail with his eyes, Ai was dialing a number on the phone, which he figured must've been someone to come aid them.

Keina aimed her gun again, this time she knew she couldn't possibly miss at this close of range. She cocked it back, put her finger to the trigger and...

RIINNNGG RIINNNGGG!

Keina abruptly looked down in surprise, her phone was ringing, but who would be calling her? Gin knew better than to call her while she was working. She spun around to see Ai grinning triumphantly over by the phone.

"Haibara! Who did you call!" Conan called out to her from across the room.

"Jade."

Conan nodded and gritted his teeth at the assassin before him,"Why do you have Jade's cell phone! What did you do to her!"

Keina let out a laugh, a cold bone-chilling laugh, and held up the phone, letting it drop to the floor where she brought her foot down on it hard. The dark navy blue cell broke into many piece under the impact of her boots.

"Wouldn't you like to know. Unfortunately, my time here is coming to and end and I must depart. Until next time, Kudo, Miyano." She let out another laugh and leapt through the window, vanishing into the shadows of night.