"Nakamori-keibu, sir."

"What is it?" Nakamori Ginzo was highly irritated and in no mood to talk to anyone, and he'd also made that fact rather clear since his arrival in the office earlier that morning. All he wanted to do was finish processing the paperwork from his consultation with Hakuba Saguru and then contact the Osaka police to see if they'd made any progress in questioning the magician that had been left in the dressing room. After waiting a few moments for the officer to leave, he realized with mounting ire that the young female officer was still standing there in the doorway to his office while holding a cordless phone and wearing a somewhat stunned expression. "Well? I said that I wasn't to be disturbed this afternoon so out with it!"

"You, ahem…have a call waiting." She cocked her head towards the phone while holding her hand over its receiver after she finished the sentence, still wearing a somewhat surprised look.

"Take a message," he replied gruffly after returning to his paperwork. "I already said that-"

"I…really think that you'll want to take this particular call, Nakamori-keibu."

Ginzo looked up from his paperwork, narrowing his eyes and looking at the phone before turning his gaze to the officer. "Who is it? Unless it's Aoko calling in with an emergency I need to finish up this paperwork and then get on this conference call with the Osaka guys."

"It's Kaitou Kid." After noticing her superior's incredulous expression she quickly added a polite "Sir."

He must have heard about the second magician being returned last night on the news. We haven't released the note that was left publicly yet but it wouldn't surprise me if he's figured out that these guys are after him. Kid's a lot of things but stupid sure as hell isn't one of them. "Put him through, and try to get a trace going on the call if you can." He waited a few moments and then picked up the phone after half a ring, placing it to his ear before giving a gruff "The hell do you want?" that was a mixture of anger and curiosity.

"Afternoon, Nakamori-keibu. I would say good afternoon but it's not really a good one, now is it?" This was followed by Kaitou Kid's familiar chuckle, the successful-getaway one that always tended to leave Ginzo seeing the world in varying shades of red. "I'm sure that you're intelligent enough to not have your underlings waste their time with trying to trace this call." The statement was accompanied by just enough static on the line to make Ginzo suspicious that it was being artificially induced in order to drown out any potential background noise.

"Just get to the damn point already." I should have known; as if he'd ever make such an elementary, careless mistake. Ginzo decided he wouldn't call off the attempt to trace just in case Kid was bluffing, but another part of him already knew that it would likely be exactly as fruitless as the thief was not so subtly indicating.

"Ah, yes. The reason I called." Kaitou Kid cleared his throat carefully. "You could say that a little bird has informed me of the note that was left down in Osaka last night and what it asked of me." This was followed by a few seconds of tense silence. "I've decided that it's best to cooperate with them and hand myself over at my next scheduled heist; well, I'll do it as long as they meet some conditions that I've sent to several papers to be published. Now, what I was calling to arrange with you is-"

"Are you NUTS? We have absolutely no idea what the hell these guys are doing or where they're-" Ginzo leapt up out of his chair as he yelled, causing his chair to tip over with a loud bang. This in turned caused several officers in the next room to peer curiously from their cubicles and from their trips to and from the water cooler and coffee machines. He attempted to right his chair with one hand while giving the gawkers his best 'get back to work' glare.

"That's precisely why I've contacted you, Nakamori-keibu. So arrangements can be made for the police to follow me once this group started taking me to wherever they're hiding at. With any luck, the other magicians will be held at wherever they take me to."

Ginzo slumped down into his chair, rubbing his temples while wondering just how in the blue blazes Kaitou Kid had managed to get a hold of a copy of the note that had been left with the returned magician- or at least what the note had said. Then again, he supposed, it was Kaitou Kid. There had also been a part of Ginzo that had fully expected the thief to surrender himself once the contents of the note had been revealed to the public, though he certainly hadn't expected him to call and make arrangements to have him followed once he'd done it. "Look, this is dangerous, really dangerous. I don't know if it's the smartest idea."

"Please, Nakamori-keibu. What I do is dangerous. That goes hand in hand with performing quite a lot, especially my line of work." Ginzo found himself unable to argue with Kid on that point. "Besides, not doing something about this particular situation would very much go against my number one rule."

"Yeah, yeah. No One Gets Hurt." Ginzo rolled his eyes slightly as he began writing down some rather sketchy personnel logistics for a possible tail of Kid on the notepad in front of him. "How are you going to contact these guys anyhow, if the paper doesn't get through to them for some reason? And you haven't even announced a heist yet, have you?"

"If they want me badly enough, they'll figure out my usual riddle- they never said anything about me having to actually tell them what I'm stealing and when so they get to figure it out." This was followed by a particularly bad bout of static that Ginzo was fairly sure had covered up another chuckle. "Speaking of my riddle, for once your fine unit of law enforcers will not be subjected to having to solve it so you'll have ample time to scout out the surrounding territory before my theft. I plan on delivering my advance notice to the owner later this afternoon, as a matter of fact."

"So Kudo-kun," began Saguru when Shinichi answered his cell phone at the prearranged time they'd decided on earlier that morning, "I just had something very interesting passed on to me. Apparently, Kaitou Kid called Nakamori-keibu over at the station sometime after I left."

"Oh really? What did he have to say?" Time to see what Kuroba Kaito is going to do now that he knows about the letter, if that guy really is Kaitou Kid like Hakuba-kun suspects… Shinichi was only half-focused on completing some very basic math homework from earlier in the week in his bedroom, the door locked and slightly barricaded in case Ran decided to check on his progress with the work like she often did.

"He told Nakamori-keibu that he found out about the contents of the note that was left addressed to him down in Osaka." A screech from Watson drowned out the blonde briefly; neither meitantei needed to mention how the event seemed to solidify Saguru's theory on who Kaitou Kid really was. "He's decided to surrender himself to them at his next heist exactly like they want him to do, but only if they'll agree to a small list of requirements that he's sent to several papers to be published in today's late edition."

"I don't suppose he told Nakamori-keibu what exactly he had in mind." Shinichi turned his pencil around and erased an answer he'd just written with a cross expression. How on Earth did I manage to get five times five wrong? Gah, I need to focus at least somewhat on this stupid homework...

"No he didn't, even though Nakamori-keibu asked him more than once. Kaitou Kid did, however, very kindly provide Nakamori-keibu with the precise time, date and target of his next heist so that the Kid task force could plan a good tailing route for once the group takes him away. He's seemingly operating off of the theory that the other missing magicians will be detained at whatever location they're taking him to."

"So what's he stealing this time?" Shinichi grabbed a piece of blank paper so he could write down the information. Now to figure out how to get that Kid-freak Sonoko to drag Ran and I to the robbery…of course, all it should take with that girl is the mere mention of a Kid heist.

"The intended target is the film star Takiguchi Hiroki's large emerald, the Forest's Crown. It's currently on loan because it's going to be a centerpiece at the grand opening of a new designer jewelry shop- err, the Raven's Nest; Takiguchi is good friends with the owner of the shop so he agreed to let it be displayed. Kid is going to schedule the theft for ten P.M. on the twentieth."

"And then he's just going to turn himself over to these guys afterward? I really don't know if that's such a good idea. The Black Organization is expert at slinking into the shadows and just disappearing when they need to." Shinichi frowned and studied his now-smudged eraser. "Of course, I have to admit that I have a weird, nagging feeling in my gut that this group after Kid may not necessarily be the same guys that shrunk me."

"Why exactly is that?"

"There are a few different reasons I'm wondering about it actually." Shinichi lifted himself up from lying on the floor and walked to his dresser, tucking the completed homework into his backpack. "The biggest thing that sticks out to me is the magicians being returned by them alive, if it is the Organization behind this. They're usually ruthless about tying up loose ends and anyone that could potentially reveal anything about them would count as a loose end to those guys."

"I see. What are the other reasons?"

"The note also feels off...it seems way too flashy and obvious for them, the more that I think about it. If the Black Organization wanted to talk to Kaitou Kid they'd find a much more subtle way of contacting him, if what I've seen in the past is anything to go on."

"You said that their members usually wear long black trench coats and black hats, correct? Do you know if one of them also happens to have long blonde hair and a rather well-preserved antique black Porsche?"

Shinichi felt a large shiver go up and down his spine involuntarily, and it was a few moments before he could bring himself to reply. "Gin. That almost has to be Gin; he's the Organization member that force-fed me the poison I was supposed to die from." Suddenly finding himself wondering why Saguru had asked that question, he became puzzled. "When did anyone see an antique black Porsche?"

"Kuroba saw the car, actually. It was the getaway vehicle for a pair of men in black trench coats and black fedoras that put his mother in the hospital a few days ago." There was a light shuffling of paper followed by Watson's irritated-sounding screech before Saguru continued. "I managed to…acquire a copy of the statement he gave police the night that he and a family friend, Konsuke Jii, drove her to the hospital before reporting the attack. She packed and went to stay with relatives somewhere up north almost as soon as she was released. I'm more than willing to bet that 'vacation' was at Kuroba's request in order to get her out of harm's way."

Then the Organization really must be after him…but if it was Gin then their MO is even more out of whack than I first thought. So what exactly is going on here? Especially since the fact that they showed up on his doorstep seems to point to them knowing who Kuroba Kaito's alter ego is, which would make the kidnappings unnecessary. Shinichi was growing more and more convinced with every passing moment that Hakuba Saguru's theory on Kaitou Kid's true identity was correct."Why'd you go checking on that in the first place?"

"Let's just say I grew rather curious as to why Kuroba's mother suddenly had to leave town and why Kuroba called me in particular to stay with- well, besides the obvious fact that he wanted me working on the case. He and I aren't exactly on the friendliest of terms despite being classmates so I assumed that something quite untoward had happened and it looks like I was correct."

Just then, Shinichi heard Ran knock on the door loudly. "Conan, it's time for dinner! And why is your door locked?"

"Be right there, Ran-neechan." Shinichi then hung up his phone after quickly hissing "Gotta go, sorry" before unlocking the door and heading out to dinner, hoping to distract Ran from the topic of the locked door. I guess all we can do is wait and see what exactly Kaitou Kid has in mind…if the guy doesn't get himself killed first.