A/N: Once again, you have asked, and I have provided.

Now, you all remember how every chapter I write out this big thing on "Hey guys! If this sounds OOC/Unrealistic/Third thing or there's some part that you just don't like, lemme know!"? Come on! It hasn't been that long, now has it? I thought not. Well, that still stands. Especially as I start giving out some deductions. If you don't understand them, well, how many times have we been able to guess the outcome of a case before its end? I bet they could be counted on your hands, right? But! If you do get the deductions, and they seem like outlandish exploitations of this wonderful series, that, too, would be good to know. Why? So that I can chop the chapter to pieces and paste it back together again, hopefully in a more pleasing manor, of course.

... Well, that made sense as I was typing it. Short version: Add "unrealistic deductions" to the aforementioned list.

Now, on to my reviewers! (And take this as a little reminder to review yourself. Please and thank yooooou. ^_^)

-In order of appearance-

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Chelseaj500: Haha well, I don't know how soon this is, but I updated at least. :P And I took a look, left a review.

Serial-Doodler: Thank you for your kind words. And, if you know any Detective Conan readers... hehehe.

blue-espeon: Now THAT is exactly the kind of review I've been talking about. Thank you very much! I have (hopefully) addressed those issues, and barring the slip of habit, hopefully you shouldn't see them again. I've also gone back and revised all the chapters so far. (So, uh, guys, don't freak if the chapters look a little different. I frequently do little spelling fixes too, and you wouldn't be the first reader to think that I edit my chapters every other day to include new details or something. :P)

Thriefty: Glad to hear it! And let me know if any suspicions do seem unfounded. This is my first shot at any kind of story like this, so I'm still learning as I go.

If you hadn't been there since the beginning, it might have looked like the crime scene was in a state of utter disorganized chaos with no pattern or reason to guide it. If you had been there since the beginning, then you knew it was more than just appearances. They had almost nothing in the way of evidence. What they did know, was that the cigarette surely didn't have any fingerprints remaining, and anything the culprit might have touched had long since withered away under the heat of the blaze. Every scrap of paper in the room, from the documents on the desk to the post-its on the wall, had shriveled into little more than a handful ash. And, should the culprit have taken any of those papers before starting the fire, we'd have no way of knowing.

The suspect list wasn't a long one, as it stood. If Kazuma had any ties to Isao, and seeing as how the man was found dead in his office it was likely he did, then he would be the prime suspect. The security guard, who'd been in the building alone much to Conan's surprise. And Mrs. Aisaka, who could have had a motive if her husband had debts to the man. But that wasn't a complete list. Not yet.

The last of the suspects had arrived shortly after, however. "Inspector Megure!" an officer called from the doorway, leading in a man by the arm who seemed far from pleased at the little pull on his arm. "We found this man sneaking around outside." The man in question roughly took his arm back from the officer, smoothing down his coat and straightening a tie that had been knocked askew. He was at least a head taller than the officer bringing him in, and very slim. He looked familiar, but Conan couldn't quite place from where.

"According to his ID," the officer continued. "His name is Aisaka Taichi, 48 years of age. He hasn't said a word to us though. Just that he wants a lawyer." That's it! Aisaka Kazuma. They could be twins if Kazuma were a few years younger.

The inspector gave a short nod, a deep grunt coming from the back of his throat. The officer, dismissed, slipped back into the crowd of blue. A critical eye passed over the man, then the inspector went back to his work.

Conan approached the man, apparently unnoticed as he visibly flinched when Conan began speaking. "Hey mister! You look just like Kazuma-san! Are you his brother or something?"

The man eyed the child before him for a moment, then his eyes softened somewhat. "Yes, I am. How do you know him, uh, little boy?"

"My name's Conan," he smiled. "And Aisaka-san, I mean, Kazuma-san's wife, asked us to find him."

"Hikari-chan?" he asked. "She's the one that told me he'd gone missing." Some dark emotion passed behind his eyes, but it was gone in an instant, replaced by a combination of curiosity and confusion. "Why did she ask you to look for him? Is your father a friend of his?"

Conan shook his head, then pointed toward the back of the room where Kogoro was... well, was doing whatever it was Kogoro did on a case. "I'm with Kogoro-ojisan. He's a famous detective, maybe you've heard of him?"

Taichi paled considerably, looking between the boy and the man mucking it up with a couple of policemen and the security guard, before settling his attention back on Conan. "So, you're staying with, Mouri Kogoro?" he managed after a few seconds. "That's... quite an honor."

"Yep! We haven't had much luck finding Kazuma-san though," Conan added sadly. "Hey! Maybe we can help each other out once we find out who started the fire!"

"Y-yeah, maybe," Taichi said quietly, something akin to regret coloring his voice as he took in the charred room once more, gaze wondering aimlessly. His eyes finally stopped on a few members of the forensics team, gathered around the trash can. They were carefully extracting several of the more intact pieces of paper, sealing them away in special containers. They were probably getting ready to send them off to headquarters, but any kind of recovery process would take days, if it was even possible to begin with.

It was then that a familiar figure appeared, bringing with him a thick stack of papers held between his side and forearm. He was walking with a purpose, straight for the inspector, and Conan didn't want to miss this. "Well, see you later, Aisaka-san!" Conan said cheerily as he ran away from the man.

A couple of words had already passed between the two by the time he was close enough to hear them over the ambient noise of the room. "So he hasn't received any large payments in the last few month then?" Megure was asking, even as he flipped through the pages of the thick report.

"No sir," Takagi said, for of course, he had been the one sent to gather the financial report. "We haven't been able to find anything suspicious, anyway. We also checked to see if he was making any regular withdrawals that could have been any kind of payments, but nothing raised any red flags that couldn't be explained."

"Explained?" The inspector asked. "By who?"

"Ah, well, Kazuma-san's wife is being counted as a suspect as well. She's in the office facing this one, said something about not wanting to see any bodies. I just asked her when-" Takagi stopped, the dark look the inspector was displaying stopping his words in his throat.

"And why wasn't I told about this?" the inspector demanded.

Hands raised defensively and a stutter in his speech, Takagi replied as best he could. "W-well, I-I assumed you already knew, sir."

As Takagi and the inspector continued on, Conan decided to put a little faith in the detective's ability to number crunch. If there was nothing there, he had one more place to look. The footsteps he'd heard earlier surely had to be connected somehow, and there could be something left out in the hallway. He knew the police had already searched there, but still, maybe it was worth a second look.

Ran, of course, would be less than happy with him running off on his own again, so he waited, watching from the side of the door to see when everyone's attention was aimed in some other direction, then slipped away into the hallway outside. He headed off in the direction he remembered the sound coming from, only to find the hall lights had only been turned on within a small radius of the crime scene. He would have thought that all of the hall lights would have been on, but apparently this area hadn't been considered important, or was too far away from the scene, or some other third reason that really didn't matter in the scheme of things, and thus it remained dark. With a twist, the light on his watch flickered on, illuminating the floor before him.

He stopped after another minute or two, shining his light over the floor. It was just about... Here. Well, I guess big Hollywood-style muddy footprints would be too much to ask for, he thought, casting the light from side to side. Then a tiny red dot near the ceiling caught his eye. He had a good idea what it was already, but shone his light at the the spot to confirm it. A camera.

He took off at a sprint, eyes shining as he felt victory within his reach. Gotcha. He only managed a few steps before he rounded a corner, running right into some dark object that hadn't been there a minute before. He heard a surprised shout, and before he knew what was happening he was horizontal and his nose was throbbing.

For a minute he just stayed still, then slowly rose to a sitting position. "Ta-Takagi-keiji?" Takagi sat up, if a little more slowly than his counterpart, one hand holding his head. Conan blinked again, a star or two dancing into view. "Were you, following me?"

Shock flickered across his face, as good a confession as any. He was about to deny it, but his shoulders fell a fraction of a degree, and it was clear he'd changed his mind. "I saw you slip out of the room, and I came to bring you back." He let out a nervous little laugh, and it was obvious that he knew that was far from believable. "You could get lost wondering around here, you know."

But, he could use this. Maybe. Climbing up to his feet, Conan looked to the man and said "Then maybe you can show me around! I was actually wondering where the security guards worked. I heard that they have cameras all over this place, so maybe they can tell Kogoro-ojisan whether or not Kazuma-san really came here last night!"

Takagi, with a look like a dear caught in the headlights, not sure whether he should believe that the boy bought his lie or he was just going along with it for his own purposes, could only stumble over his words. "Uh, actually, why don't we just head back to-"

"I think it's this way Takagi-keiji!" Conan yelled, moments before Takagi's arm was pulled taut and he was forced to stumble after the speeding child.

"Ah! Conan-kun!"

The two stumbled around until Conan came across the door he was looking for. "Here it is!" Conan yelled, Takagi's sleeve still grasped tightly in his small, yet surprisingly strong fist. The door stood open, and nobody was inside, so it was a simple matter to slip in and start looking for what he wanted. Even if somebody had been inside, he'd brought Takagi along as insurance.

"Conan-kun, I really think we-"

Completely and utterly ignoring Takagi's words, Conan jumped into the swiveling office chair in front of the bank of monitors. "Hey! I wonder if this is last nights tape?" And with those words, Conan began prodding every button in front of him in a seemingly random order. Or, prodded dangerously close to them, so that he didn't cause anything to blow up but wouldn't appear to be heading straight for the one he was looking for.

"C-Conan-kun!" Takagi yelled out as he jumped forward, ready to snatch him away from the controls, when the video started to rewind.

"Oh, this one is from today. Oh well, I wanted to see something anyway!" Hands stopped, still outstretched, Takagi found himself interested in what he might or might not be looking for. He himself had watched the security feed earlier that night, and had confirmed that a dark shape had entered the office. But it was too dark, and the shape too indistinct, to identify a culprit. But, if Conan knew that and wanted to see something for himself, maybe it would be a good idea to let him have a look? He always seemed to pull evidence out of places that the police had already combed or make deductions out of thin air.

Just as he remembered, Takagi watched as a dark figure approached the door. Conan tilted his head to the side, but kept watching silently. The figure reached out a hand, turned the knob, stepped inside- and the image froze, at exactly 6:27 and 32 seconds. "Well that's weird," Conan muttered, finger drawing away from the pause button.

"You saw something, Conan-kun?" Takagi asked. Whatever it was, he sure hadn't noticed it.

"The door wasn't locked," he pointed out. "You'd think that, if he had hidden somebody in there, he would have at least locked it."

"But he was tied up, Isao-san couldn't have possibly-"

Conan shook his head, pointing to the video again. "But what if somebody else had come along and found him? If all they had to do was open the door..."

Understanding blooming, the detective leaned in closer to get a better look. The image before him jumped back a few seconds, then clear as day, the black mass that was a hand reached forth, grabbed the knob, and turned it once more. "See? Even I could have done that. What would they have done if Isao-san had been found before he'd come back to set the fire?" There was another question there as well, that Conan hoped he received.

"But why even leave in the first place?" Takagi wondered aloud. Conan barely suppressed his grin. My thoughts exactly.

"Say, Takagi-keiji?" Conan inquired. "How much of this tape did you watch?"

"Until smoke started coming out from under the door. Here," Takagi reached forward, letting the tape resume. The figure was looking down as they took a few steps inside the room, their attention on their hand as they wiped it against their pants, the door swinging shut behind them. It was only a minute later that the door was swung wide open and the figure took off at a sprint, taking off in the opposite direction from the camera. There was a short stretch where nothing happened, then at exactly 6:29 and 27 seconds, smoke started streaming out from under the door.

"So then you never saw when Isao-san went into the office?" Conan inquired.

"I did, actually. It was only about five minutes back. Here." He rewound the tape, stopping it at a little over 6:20 as two dark figures appeared at the bottom of the screen. One was on the shorter side, fairly slim, and could only have been Isao. He was following the same figure that Conan'd seen a minute ago run away from the room just before it burst into flames. Only, now, he seemed to be wearing a waist length coat, one that was a size or two too large for him.

The figures entered the room and the door shut behind them. "They stayed in there for a minute," Takagi commented as he began to fast forward the tape. "Then Kazuma-san leaves, but we don't see anything from Isao-san." Indeed, as the tape resumed, the figure reemerged from the office and walked calmly away after making sure that the door had latched, though not bothering to lock it.

"So you think Kazuma-san is the culprit?" Conan asked.

"You don't?" the detective asked. "The culprit looks to be about his height, and nobody knows where he's been for the last 24 hours."

Conan smiled, if only slightly. "Kazuma-san is the least suspicious to me. If he wasn't in debt to Isao-san, then he doesn't have a motive. There's no way he would kill Isao-san in his own office and leave him there, even if he did set it on fire. It would be way too suspicious to disappear if he was planning murder, that'd put him right at the top of our list of suspects. Plus, don't you find it suspicious at all that he was so calm when he left the room the first time, then ran away the second time?"

"But wouldn't he have been worried about getting caught if the smoke attracted any attention? Of course he would have run." Takagi was getting more confused by the minute, but as usual the bits he was getting were making perfect sense. There was a little click in the back of his mind, telling him that letting Conan watch the videos had absolutely been the right thing to do.

"Yes," Conan smirked. "If he was worried about being caught. But..."