Secrets and Lies: Chapter 14
Vermouth knew that she needed to play for time. Kogoro Mori wasn't exactly necessary to her Silver Bullet anymore if he really was as close as he seemed to be to bringing down the Organisation, but he still would care if he was killed. She knew that he hated people being killed. She would stop them killing Kogoro Mori for as long as she could, but she wasn't going to stick her neck out for him. She knew that Gin was suspicious.
She had looked up when they had been changing vehicles and had noticed that Kaito Kid had been following them. Kid must have been told by her Silver Bullet to inform him where they were so he could rescue the people close to him. She hoped he had a good plan. All she could do at the moment was delay the killings. She couldn't bring down the Organisation by herself, she had attempted to a month ago and it hadn't worked.
What would Gin do now if he found put that a little boy called Conan Edogawa was knocking out Kogoro Mori and solving his cases? Vermouth asked herself to try and predict the flow of events. He would probably try to track him down immediately and kidnap him. Where would be the first place he looked? 2-22 Beika presumably. He wouldn't work out that he was actually Shinichi Kudo until later. Hiroshi Agasa's name and address had been noted as a likely secondary location if the targets hadn't been at the detective office. She hoped that Kid was listening so that he could warn her Silver Bullet and get everyone out the house. That way she could direct the conversation to Conan Edogawa safely to delay things.
"Mori-san," she greeted politely. "I'm sorry for that man's boorish manners. Just answer some questions truthfully for me and neither your daughter or you will be hurt. Are you prepared to do that?"
"Yes."
"Who is Conan?"
"He is a pest of a little boy that is living with is at the moment as his parents are in America. I think he is either 7 or 8 years old."
"What is his surname?"
"Edogawa."
"Anything else you would like to add?"
"The things that he point out at crime scenes are often key to solving the case and come up in my deductions. I have to watch the new reports afterwards to find out what I did."
Gin had enough watching her and interrupted. "I think that's enough now Vermouth. It's my turn now. We can move onto the daughter now and ask her some questions about her lodger."
Conan stared at the map pensively. In one of his phone calls Kuroba had given a detailed description of his location and the route that he took and Conan had been able to pinpoint it exactly on the map. He had informed Jodie and she had organised a team of FBI agents including herself to target the warehouse, rescue the prisoners and hopefully arrest the members of the Black Organisation that were present. The only trouble appeared to be actually getting to the warehouse. The traffic situation hadn't improved and he had been stuck in Jodie's car in a traffic jam for 20 minutes and they still hadn't moved. Now his seemingly good luck that had enabled him to track them was now working against him. The outlook wasn't good; the chances were that if they ever got out of the traffic jam and to the warehouse Ran and her father would be dead and the Black Organisation members would have disappeared without a trace. He had to do something.
He dialled Kuroba's number to see if anything major had happened since he last called which had been five minutes ago. A lot of bad things can happen in five minutes and he was very worried and his nerves were beginning to fray.
"Anything happened?"
"I'm afraid so. They have just realised that Kogoro Mori doesn't know anything and it's either you or Ran that does. How far away are you?"
"Around half an hour. We're still stuck in traffic."
"Hurry up. Oops, gotta go. The guard is coming near again."
Conan hung up too and placed his phone on his knee. He sighed and looked over at Jodie. Her face was staring ahead out the window with a ferocious and angry expression on it. He had told her that Vermouth was present and she was getting psyched up to get revenge for her dead father.
"Is there nothing we can do to get out of this traffic jam?" he enquired, attempting to sound calm and professional rather than desperate like he was.
"There are a few options," she answered coming out of her reverie and turned in her seat to talk to him. She held one finger up. "One, we wait for the traffic to move."
Conan made a face and shook his head. He couldn't stand to wait while Ran could be dying and they could be stuck in traffic for ages.
She held up another finger. "Two, we get out and run all the way there."
"That could be a possibility, but we would all be tired and exhausted by the time we got there."
Another finger. "Three, we get out and see what is holding the traffic up and we will see if we can do anything about it."
Conan considered the last two. He intensely disliked the idea of running there as it would minimise everyone's efficiency and energy. He didn't like the idea of waiting in the car for the traffic to move either. That only left the third option.
Heiji gripped Kazuha's hand in the back of the ambulance. He noticed how cold it was and frowned. Kazuha had stopped writhing in pain now and had become silent and unmoving like a corpse on a mortuary slab. Like a dead person. Her pulse was slower and weaker now and to Heiji it felt like her life and spirit were slowly fading away and leaving him. When she had been wake she hadn't been aware that he was holding her hand and kept screaming about seeing things that weren't there. It was understandable as he had been frightened and alone in the fire.
The paramedics had assured Heiji that she would be fine once she had surgery and had rested and her body had shut down to preserve energy. An emergency blood transfusion had been done to sustain her and keep her alive, but they were all aware that she had lost a lot of blood and inhaled a large amount of smoke.
She was lucky to still be alive. The Black Organisation must have expected her to die from her shot wounds or from the fire. Heiji swore that he would get revenge for her. Murderous bastards, he thought to himself as the ambulance turned into the hospital.
He took out his phone and undid the lucky charm that Kazuha had made for him and placed it in her cold hand. It had saved his life before and he prayed that it would do the same for her. She had earned it. He bent down and kissed her pale forehead.
"I love ya by the way. Keep fightin'."
He drew away from her and the back doors to the ambulance were opened and her stretcher was carried out by the paramedics. Heiji sank to the floor and let a few tears drop. He couldn't bear to lose her now that he had only just realised his feelings. Now he understood why Kudo was so protective of Ran. If she came out of this alive he would tell her and hope she felt the same way.
It was Ran's turn now. She had had cold water poured over her and she had woken up with a start to find the creepy man that she had seen at Tropical Land and had shot Kazuha pointing his gun at her. She glared balefully at him and sat up slowly, noting that she had a mark on her leg and that she was still handcuffed. She looked to the side of the man and saw her father handcuffed to a chair. Sitting opposite to him was the famous daughter of an actress that Ran had always admired. It was Sharon Vineyard. Standing near her was the news reader Rena Mizunashi who she had met. Ran couldn't get her head around it. Why were two celebrities working with murdering criminals that shot innocent teenagers and didn't show remorse? It didn't make sense. Nothing was making any sense to her anymore.
"Hello Mori-san," the man with silvery blonde hair said as politely as he could muster. He spat out his cigarette onto the floor which ruined the impression. "What do you know about Conan Edogawa?"
"He is a 7 year old boy that lives with me," she stated simply as well as trying to plan how to take him down.
"Why do you think he is so clever? Tell the truth or your father dies," Gin threatened, nodding to Kir who aimed her gun at Kogoro Mori. Vermouth looked on uninterestedly. Vodka had left the warehouse briefly to phone headquarter and tell them to research Conan Edogawa so Kir had to take over doing Gin's dirty work temporarily.
"Because he was taught be Shinichi Kudo. They are distantly related, I think."
"I've heard that name before. Kir?"
Kir spoke up. "He was a famous high school detective that was popular before he suddenly disappeared. I had been lined up to interview him. He is dead; according the records that the Organisation has on him. You killed him at the theme park Tropical Land by administering APTX 4869."
Ran felt a shiver travel down her spine. That day at Tropical Land. After solving that murder case Shinichi must have gotten into trouble poking his nose in something involving the men dressed in black. He was good at poking his nose into things, but it seemed like he had bitten off more that he could chew that time. Apparently the men in black had killed him, but that couldn't be right. She had seen him since and it had definitely been him and not a doppelganger. But he hadn't been acting exactly right. He asked for his name to be kept out of newspaper reports which seemed out of character at the time, but now it made sense; he was hiding from the Organisation. A few times Ran thought she saw smoke or steam emitting from him and he always did seem to be ill and had to leave quickly. She couldn't think of anything that would explain those points.
Ran stayed silent and tried hard to keep a poker face to stop the shock that she felt from slipping through and putting Shinichi, wherever he was, in danger. She prayed that her father would do the same to protect him.
Gin cast his mind back. Tropical Land. He remembered that smart ass detective that solved that murder case he had been a suspect in. He recalled forcing the pill down his throat and leaving him to die. He had enjoyed it, but he wished he could have seen the life leave his eyes. That was the best part of killing people.
"I remember him. Yes, he is definitely dead. No one survives APTX 4869. It explains why this Conan is so smart, but it doesn't explain how he knows about the Organisation," Gin said, trying to work out the connection. The boy must have heard from somewhere else. "A minute after he found out about us Shinichi Kudo was silenced so it can't be him."
Ran hoped that Conan was safe and wasn't at Hakase's house like he always seemed to be recently; it would be the first place that anyone would come looking for him. He had to stay hidden. She couldn't bear for him to be killed and she didn't want Shinichi to be killed either despite that the man had said that he was dead. She didn't understand how he could be dead. The only possibility that she would think of was that the poison somehow shrank him and he was now hiding as a little boy named Conan Edogawa.
Vodka interrupted Gin's musings by running back into the warehouse with his phone in his hand. He ran up to Gin, whispered something in his ear and passed his phone to him. Gin scrolled down that page and smiled in satisfaction. It wasn't a nice smile and it sent more shivers down Ran's spine. Gin felt like his dream was finally coming true. He would be Anokata's favourite now.
"Vermouth, you have been busy," he congratulated triumphantly throwing the phone at her. "The photos were taken by Bourbon and sent to that person."
Vermouth caught the phone neatly with a raised eyebrow expecting it to be something trivial that she had done ages ago. Nothing could have could prepared her for what she saw. The blood from her face faded at the sight of the photos. There first photo was of her incapacitating the wanted fugitive Aoko Nakamori outside 2-22 Beika, the next was of her holding a pill of APTX 4869 and the last was of a shrunken Aoko Nakamori lying on the ground. Vermouth gripped the phone in fear. She had made her biggest slip up; she had been seen and there was photographic evidence. Anokata was probably fuming and her career with the Organisation was over however you looked at it. They knew.
Sorry that the Heiji and Kazuha part is so short, I'm not very good at writing romance so I kept their part short so there would be less chance of me messing up.