Interlude: Inoue Hideki
Inoue Hideki is your typical grouch – a tall, lean man with sharp, grey eyes and a pointed nose. He's always strict; always clean. And although he isn't particularly handsome, he always looks presentable – lavishly dressed in dark blue suits, black hair neatly swiped back, Bally leather shoes always scott-free.
He sees himself as a very respectable man, thank you very much. And as a very respectable man, taking care of hostages should be the last thing he'll do. He scowled as he adjusted the rearview mirror so that he could see the unconscious boy in the backseat, his body below the neck covered beneath blankets to hide his handcuffed hands.
Who was he again? Kaito-kun? He usually came with the Inspector's daughter, and maybe it was a blessing in disguise that he was caught and stumbled upon him. He's important to the Inspector too. Maybe, just maybe not as much as the daughter, but enough to convince him to step up his game. After all, Nakamori did speak fondly of him.
"That's Kaito-kun, an aspiring magician." "He's a nice boy, that kid."
The higher-ups are getting edgy, hands itching to take a shot at Inoue ever since they found out about his mistake with the hostages. He should consider himself lucky that the girl he took in place of the Inspector's daughter just so happened to be the daughter of a prominent figure in the police.
Mouri Ran's disappearance made itself known, and Nakamori Aoko's appearance in the office came later. They decided to keep her alive. Nakamori was working hard to keep her alive anyway.
Also, it wouldn't hurt to get Mouri Kogoro involved. If he can crack most of Kid's codes, then with a strong drive, he could surely track the thief down.
He glanced back at the boy, body moving with the bounce of the car.
How old was he? Seventeen? That's how young he was when both his parents took their own lives due to the business coming down, all thanks to that cheeky, white-clad asshole. That's how young he was when his relatives – being bastards that detested his parents – turned against him, kicking him out of school due to the lack of expenses. Half a year later, he stumbled across their boss, who decided that a manic young boy that had nothing to lose, seeking revenge on the Kaitou Kid was someone they needed. They trained him for five years; recruited and then gave him his very own codename later.
Guiness. That's what they called him. And since then, never was he addressed by his real name.
He supposed that it was right for him to feel mad that despite the reputation, his sole role was to take care of hostages. After all, his aim wasn't precise enough to make him a sniper or a gunman, and despite his smarts, his brain certainly wasn't big enough to put him in the drug production section. But the infiltrators managed to find him a place in the Task Force, anyway.
And in the end, as long as he contributed to the Kid's demise, he really didn't mind where he ended up in.
Inoue made a turn at a sharp curve, the road beyond it bumpy and unfinished. There was an abandoned warehouse ahead, and the hostage was inside. Gentle and sweet as she may look, she had a knack for slamming her iron fists into burly men's guts and faces. They had to tranquilize her twice, starve her, and then handcuff her to a pole, just to calm her down.
The boy looked like he'll be easier to handle. He's weak, and although the chloroform didn't immediately put him to sleep for some odd reason, it wasn't so difficult to pin him down. He seemed meek, and he was definitely not feisty. He wouldn't give them a hard time.
Pity he's the first one they'll have to kill if the Inspector and Detective don't manage to deliver the Kid by Sunday – being the less important hostage of the two and all.
The view was shifting now – from buildings and old houses to long, twisting trees. He parked his car behind the warehouse, which was a small, greying trailer with metal sheets for walls, and stepped out through the door. Two rookies came running to him, and he instructed them to bring the boy in. They easily lifted his body – blanket falling to the car's floor with a loud waff. Then he followed the rookies in.
The trailer was dark inside, with thin streaks of light illuminating from small cracks and holes. It only served to show the shadows of obstacles, which were barrels and small iron shelves. Far into the corner, however, there was a bright orange illumination. A window cast long, prison bar-like shadows on a large circle of light – in the middle of it being the girl.
The sharp contrast of light served to emphasize her features – the sharp nose, the bruises, the brown, messy locks and the eye bags. It showed the clear scowl in her face when she saw Inoue; the tight twist in the lips and the abrupt gasp; the sheer shock and the pure horror when her eyes travelled to the boy they carried.
They dropped him carelessly on the ground before her, body rolling for awhile, dark head lolling.
And then the girl was hysterical, handcuffs clanking violently as she desperately lunged herself forward in a feeble attempt to reach him.
"Shinichi!" she screamed in horror.
Inoue looked down, arms crossed as the rookies cuffed the boy's limp hands to the pole just beside the girl's. She was still screaming, and the boy still wasn't responding.
"Guiness-san...what now?"
"He inhaled a lot of chloroform," he stated. "Doesn't look like he'll wake up in a long while."
"So how do we make him speak to the Inspector? The boss wouldn't want to delay this."
He thought for awhile, staring down the small frame of the teenager beneath him, before a malevolent grin painted itself across his face. "Get me the kid's phone. It's at the dashboard of the car," he instructed one of the rookies. "A sad picture of him out cold like this will do."
A cloud must've passed over the sun because for just a moment, the light dissipated, darkening the room and shadowing the two hostages from view. That was a good thing.
Because Kaito was smiling like a cat.
Author's Note:
Okay, wow this is really short. But it is barely a real chapter, just so you know. I decided to make this to sort of introduce Inoue. Such a kind-hearted dear, isn't he?
Oh, and yeah. Here's a heads up on Ran's situation!