File One Hundred and Forty-Three: Five O'Clock Tea

The victim was later identified as Henry Evans, thirty-three years of age. He had been murdered somewhere between eight and nine o'clock that morning by a single shot to the head ─ death was instantaneous, but as to be expected, bloody beyond imagination.

According to Aoko-san, she lost contact with Akako-san at exactly 8:35 AM. He would know, because he had made her verify the exact time she had called her friend, and how many minutes they had been speaking for. It certainly fits inside the window of time when Evans-san was murdered, but it is yet too early to tell.

The police had arrived at the scene in about five minutes and thirteen seconds, which was rather admirable. They had secured the area right away, denying entry to every other tourist that wanted to take a pleasant stroll through the woods, and those few human beings that wanted to take a look out of morbid curiosity.

Hakuba, being instantly recognized as a detective, had fortunately been allowed to stay without much convincing on his part. Thus, there he was now, crouched over the spot that had been occupied by a corpse just recently, eyes scanning the area in search of clues.

However, he soon realized there was not much to go by besides the pool of blood, or the smaller set of footsteps heading away from the scene, which had, in turn, led him to the crime scene at hand. There's something amiss, however, noted Hakuba, eyeing the larger stain a little further ─ the shape, it wasn't like what he would expect from a liquid naturally dripping because of gravity. It was partly smudged at the edges, as if something had been pressing against it.

Perhaps it was the owner of those bloody footsteps, kneeling on the floor in an attempt to assist the victim. Which would fit with the description Aoko had given him about the supposedly bloody girl Akako had met before going missing.

By now, Hakuba believed he had a vague idea of how the events of this morning might have looked like. Henry Evans had been shot in the head by the culprit, who had left the scene ─ possibly out of panic, or maybe in search of a way to hide the body. Whichever the case, they headed back, and came face to face with this girl ─ who had probably been dragged to the scene by the sound of the gunshot. The culprit had then chased her, and she ended up running into Akako.

The trail of bloody footsteps had vanished only a few meters further, and Hakuba suspected it had to do with the fact that it was a dead-away of their location to their chaser. She must have either taken her shoes off, or maybe Akako had picked her up.

Is she still somewhere in this forest? Hakuba wondered, frowning as he took a look around. The forest did not respond, and for some reason, he felt himself growing uneasy. Or did the culprit catch up with her?

Earlier on the phone, Hakuba had assured Aoko that her friend would be fine, but he could not tell if she had ever believed it. He wouldn't have been surprised if she didn't, Hakuba certainly wasn't capable of believing in his own lies.

Aoko had called Akako thirteen times after contact had been lost, and never once had she picked out. Before coming there, he had been hoping that he would find the phone next to the grave she had visited before disappearing off the face of the world, theorizing that she might have dropped it after her supposed encounter with the mysterious girl.

Perhaps, the culprit had taken it with them. Or perhaps, she had had that phone with her the entire time ─ he preferred not to think that was the case.

"Saguru," an investigator called his name as he crouched next to him to check on how he was doing, a thick English accent in his voice. "Anything yet?"

"Nothing concrete," he answered. The police had already been told about the high school girl that had gone missing at that time, so there wasn't really anything else to inform him about. "Did you find anything?"

The man nodded his head, eyes cast over his notes. "Apparently, the victim was on a trip with a group of friends," he told him.

Hakuba went pensive for a second, before he got back to his feet in a swift motion. "Please, lead the way," he said.

And even though the investigator could not remember the exact moment he had told him he could come along, he did as told.

Their trip was surprisingly short, and before he realized it, they were at their destination. Though he refused to state it out loud, the young detective had to, at least mentally, admit to being surprised to see that certain hotel from behind the police car's window ─ the same hotel he had visited earlier, where Akako had been staying at.

"You're joking, right?! He can't be dead!"

Shock seemed to be soon to become a permanent state of mind. Certainly, Hakuba had seen many things over the years, but coincidences of this magnitude were things he did not think he would get used to ─ even though he knew he should, seeing that chance had led him to share a class with the Kaito KID and the renowned detective Kudo Shinichi. That without taking into consideration the insane amount of murders he had started to casually stumble upon since two years ago.

To be fair, being a detective himself meant that he had seen his fair share of crime, though he had specialized more in burglaries than homicide. Though those cases had been brought to him by the police, he had never walked in on them as they were happening. Before Hirai Arthur came, of course.

That being said, he was surprised to see the same group of friends he had run into that morning. There was a woman weeping, and it fell on Hakuba that she was the one who had asked the receptionist if they had seen someone else ─ that someone else must have been Henry Evans, Hakuba assumed. Beside her, the screaming man, was who Hakuba had learned to be the disappeared man's older brother. There were another two in the scene, a man and a woman he also remembered seeing there.

"The crying woman is Lily Morgan, the victim's fiancé," the inspector explained to Hakuba. He nodded lightly, as he watched as the man who had been screaming finally stepped down and bit his lip, only for the blonde woman to settle a comforting hand over his arm. "The ginger-haired man is Harold Evans, the victim's brother."

"What about the other two?"

"He's Fred Palmer, just a friend. And that's Jenny." Hakuba arched an eyebrow, so the man explained with a small laugh. "Oh, Jennifer Bell. Sorry, she's actually a member of the police, so…"

A policewoman. How interesting. "She has a gun permit, I presume."

"I know what you're getting at, but she has an alibi. At the time of the crime, she was sleeping in the room she shared with Morgan. None of them left the room until ten in the morning."

Hakuba watched the group for a moment, his eyes narrowed lightly.

"Does she keep it with her at all times?" Hakuba questioned.

"She doesn't like taking it with her when she's on vacation. But she said she placed it in a safe box in her room."

"Did she check that it wasn't stolen?"

"It's password locked, but she did. Once per hour. Last time had been at around seven, but she got carried away drinking out with Palmer. She said she headed straight to her room."

At the lack of verbal response, the inspector deflated with a heavy sigh. "We took it, just in case. We are going to run some tests to check if the bullet that killed Evans matches Jenny's gun."

"Please, do that."

It took the man a second to notice that the teen had switched languages, by accident, he supposed. He turned towards them to ask him what he had said, but found himself staring at an empty spot on the floor.

And Hakuba walking straight to the suspects. Uttering no word to explain, or to even introduce himself, he stopped right in front of Harold, his gaze unwavering at the clueless look he was receiving.

"What were you doing last night?"

Again, the inspector sighed. He was severely underpaid.

Harold blinked twice, exchanged looks with his friends, and looked back at him. "Last night?" he asked. "Not, like, this morning?"

"Exactly."

Hakuba did not even need to explain what his reasoning was, so he simply stared back; he was sure that they would have figured out his reasoning if they only tried. Jennifer had an alibi, so she was unlikely to have committed the murder.

If the gun used in the crime was confirmed to be Jennifer, then that meant that it had been stolen from her safe box. Her friends, having known her on a more personal level than any unknown party, were then the ones who had a better chance of knowing the password and getting to her room.

Since she had religiously checked for it, he knew that the gun, if it were confirmed to be the murder weapon, had been stolen after seven.

Lily, being her roommate, had plenty of opportunities, but she had an alibi for the murder. Fred had been drinking with Jennifer, so he was unlikely to have done it, but he wasn't discarding him as a suspect yet. Technically, he could have stolen it while the women were sleeping, but the risk of being caught was too high.

"I met some colleagues," Harold finally explained. "We spent the night talking and I lost track of time."

The inspector suddenly appeared behind him. "Could they confirm it if we contacted them?"

"Uh, sure thing. Let me just…"

As the man began to dig inside his pockets for his phone, to give the police his colleagues' contact information, Hakuba watched attentively, but remained silent.

Harold pulled out his phone ─ an old model, decidedly more battered than usual. It's not Akako-san's, he noted. Perhaps he should ask the police to check their belongings, to see if they were carrying one like hers.

"Mr. Palmer, you were out drinking with Ms. Bell, correct?"

"Eh? Oh, yes."

"What did you do after she was gone?"

"I… uh, kept on drinking?"

A solid alibi, no doubt. Kuroba would have rolled his eyes at this point.

"Trying to deduce if someone got to my safe box?" Hakuba looked up, and saw Jennifer crossed her arms over her chest. "I would chase another lead if I were you?"

"Oh?" Hakuba raised an eyebrow. "Why would that be?"

The woman paused minutely, her gaze trailing downwards ─ narrowing in something that the detective wasn't sure he would very be capable of seeing.

"Because there is not a single soul that could ever figure out my passcode," she answered, her voice strangely distant. "None in the world of the living, that is."

Hakuba said nothing at all, solely stayed there, unwilling to take his narrowing gaze out of the woman in front of him. That sight was stripped from him, however, by the victim's fiancé standing in between them.

"She didn't do it," Lily remarked, lowering him with a glare.

"I didn't say she did."

"Yes, but you're going to. That's how you detectives are." Unsure of how to react, he chose no reaction at all. "She's been with me all night, I would have known."

"You kept an eye on her all night long?"

"Well, except while we were sleeping. But I'm a light sleeper, I'd have known if she had exited the room… And probably when I took my shower."

Oh? That was new, so Hakuba made sure to pay extra attention.

"But it only took about ten minutes. Surely, that's not enough to murder someone in a forest, right?"

Jennifer smiled. "Thanks, Lily," she said, placing a hand over her friend's shoulder. "But the murder happened in the morning. I'm sure this detective knows I couldn't have done it." Then, giving Hakuba a pointed, if challenging, look, added, "Am I wrong?"

Hakuba's lips curved in a pleasant smile, but hardly replied to her otherwise.


Conan had never been this glad to be back in Tokyo.

Granted, that statement just now might not be all that accurate, actually, since he had been through his fair share of trouble while far from home, and therefore he might have already experienced this kind of relief when finally allowed to return. But as it was, the feeling was potent enough for him to feel that way, so he didn't give it much thought.

Especially because of the aftermath of that case. Being stuck in the middle of nowhere did not leave out much option regarding places to stay. Tamami and Ninda had been nice, yes, and had assured them that the quartet staying the night at the rental cabin was no trouble at all.

But Conan could sense the uneasiness every time they even breathed in their direction. Which was understandable ─ throughout the span of a single day, the number of friends in their group had gone down to half, one ten feet underground, and the other on her way to be incarcerated for quite a while.

Sleep was hard, but manageable for all four of them. Cohabitation not so much, though, so they left as soon as it was possible.

So there they were now, heading away from the train station after an insanely long trip from Nagano. In unison, all four sighed in relief, feeling home closer than never before.

Though a voice in the back of Conan's head reminded him that it might be too early for it, as home was still ways away from him ─ but decided to indulge in it, anyway.

"The Red Woman was seriously scary!" Sonoko was the first to break the silence. "Though I guess it wasn't the actual Red Woman who attacked us."

Ran nodded empathically, then, for some reason, smiled down at Conan. "Who knows what would have happened if Conan-kun hadn't brought that soccer ball with him."

It never ceased to amaze him how much of a skillful liar this girl could turn out to be. Appearances can be deceiving, for sure. But he wasn't complaining, it wouldn't be good if Sera knew he had a ball dispenser on his belt, even though she might already know ─ he wasn't about to find out.

But it surprised him that she would willingly hide things from her ─ weren't they friends already? Conan suspected that it had to do with the fact that she was a detective, and that it wouldn't be good to give a detective a reason to suspect someone who was legally dead.

It made sense. Ran made sense. Most of the time.

"I think we could've easily subdued her without them," Sera commented.

"But you didn't," Conan rebutted, unblinking.

But rather than being bothered, Sera conceded with a nonchalant shrug. "Maybe I should have gotten into football instead of jeet kune do when I was younger," she said, head tilted backwards in contemplation. "It would have come in handy."

Conan raised a single eyebrow. And knowing a martial art doesn't?

"Well, I suppose I never was too interested in it to begin with. The closest I got to experiencing football was when I watched TV with my mom."

Curious, Ran leaned forward to look at her friend. "Is your mother still in America?"

She isn't, Conan wanted to correct her. She has never been there, either. Well, to be fair, he didn't know that ─ but Sera had, at least, never lived there, that much he could say for sure. It still didn't explain why she didn't feel the need to explain it. Perhaps it had dragged for simply too long that correcting them now was awkward?

As Sera nodded with a broad grin, Conan decided that didn't sound like her. He had to clarify the matter soon, maybe he would find the opportunity later at home with Ran. But as it was now, he found the opportunity slip from his fingers as the conversation continued to flow without any restrictions.

"I've been living in a hotel since I returned to Japan," Sera was explaining. "I tried to move in with my middle brother, who's been living in Japan this whole time, but he turned me down."

Her middle brother, the one that had originally been asked to look into the Red Woman case in Nagano, if Conan remembered correctly. She had said it before, hadn't she? That she was the youngest of three siblings, and absolutely no mention of a younger, middle-school aged sister.

I could have sworn the girl on her phone was her sister. The resemblance was too striking not to be that closely related ─ they were the splitting image of each other, so he knew that had to be the case. Granted, his own family might have convinced the world that he and his brother were distant relatives even though Conan was basically a carbon copy of Shinichi's younger self, but it didn't mean it would fool Conan ─ if he was a mere spectator of his own life, of course.

"Hey, is that hotel around here?" Sonoko's question almost made him halt. What did she say? "Do you mind if we stop by?"

He was a mere minute away from groaning, and maybe emit an age-appropriate whine about how he just wanted to go home. The Red Woman case had been taxing on its own, he didn't need a visit to Sera's ─ Sera's for crying out loud ─ house to make everything a hundred percent worse ─ because he could not think of anything but trouble coming for him if he agreed to that.

Yet, no sound ever left his body. Staring ahead in contemplation, the boy realized that maybe, just maybe, it wouldn't be as bad as he would have believed. The girl. She could be there, or at least, there could be something there to hint at her existence.

Or not, but it was worth a shot.

"Sure, I guess."

Though the way she was agreeing to it so easily was suspicious at best, so he probably wouldn't be able to find anything even if he tried ─ or maybe he would, actually. He didn't exactly stumble upon that photograph by chance, she had pulled the strings so that event actually happened.

But then, why didn't she outright tell him about this girl? It was as if she both wanted him to discover more and wanted to keep it a secret ─ or maybe she wanted him to find it out on his own?

Even though it was nothing but a supposition from his part, and lacked actual confirmation of any kind, Conan could not help but huff at the thought. She had to be teasing him ─ and he absolutely despised it.

Unaware of the resentment welling up in the child's chest towards her, Sera brought out her phone. "I should email my brother, then," she explained. "I had actually promised to meet him to discuss the Red Woman case in person."

"Why don't you invite him along?" Conan pipped in with a bright grin. "If he's as cool as Sera-neechan is, I'd love to meet him!"

Sonoko sent him a look, which he brushed off like it was nothing. Ran's had been harder to ignore, but managed to push it away from mind, too, either way.

Sera, however, merely waved a hand off at him. "He isn't that impressive."

That… was a little mean, actually. But he guessed that it had served its purpose, one way or another, because it chased away all the other words that had been waiting in his mouth to be expelled. The older detective pretended not to notice, shoving her phone back inside her pocket and, with a grin a little too broad to be comfortable with, led the way.

Their journey was surprisingly, and fortunately, a short one, and in no time at all, the three girls plus the kid made it to the hotel ─ a building that Conan could only describe as tall, seeing how he had needed to throw his head back to see it, and even then, he failed to make out the last few floors with his eyes.

She's living in a fifty-floor hotel, Conan realized, bemused. It's kind of an overkill, if you asked me.

The elevator pinged and left them at the thirtieth floor just as Sera was beginning to tell them that she was planning on moving soon ─ so it didn't matter, even if they knew where she lived, Conan would have added to her statement, even though the girl had omitted it altogether. He wanted to ask if there was a reason beyond this, but he knew he wouldn't get a straight answer out of her, so he didn't exactly bother.

That, and he couldn't bring himself to do anything but to stare. Not at Sera, for a change, but at the dozen middle-aged men who gathered in every corner of that floor, their eyes, sharp as a hawk's, darting from place to place ─ as if afraid they would lose something, or someone, important if they looked away.

Sonoko beat him to voice his inquiry, however.

"Apparently, they're waiting for manuscripts from a popular author living in this hotel," Sera explained, and Conan had to physically ward away the wave of déjà vu that struck suddenly ─ were all authors like this or did he have just an abysmal amount of bad luck? He decided he didn't want his answer. "I think his name was-"

"Hiura Keigo. I'm what they call a romance novel author."

The group flinched as one, startled by the smooth voice that had come from literally nowhere. Together, too, they turned over to see that the door to one of the hotel rooms was wide open, and in the doorway, stood the man who had just spoken up ─ a bald head, a confident smirk on his lips. He liked to wear shades even though he was indoors, too, even though Conan could not figure why someone would do that ─ or, alternatively, how could he still walk around without bumping into everything.

To be fair, he supposed he had met someone who used to do the same thing before ─ and definitely did not want to cross paths with again, if he could help it.

Ran stepped up, a faint blush spreading over her face. "Um, I read your books," she said timidly. "Right now, I'm really into 'The Phone, the Ocean and I'."

Conan perked up at the familiar book title. Oh, it's that guy, he realized, more surprised at the bizarre coincidence than anything else.

Hiura laughed awkwardly, but properly thanked her anyway. He called someone over his shoulder, and a peek inside the room told Conan that he was talking with the hotel staff, who seemed to be preparing a feast or something, judging by the large quantity of plates that were settled on a large table.

Room service. Conan tilted his head slightly to the side, frowning. Isn't… this too much food for one person? Or even three or four. It's big enough for a party. Maybe he was inviting multiple people over.

He walked away without giving it much thought. But as he was leaving, he heard the author calling someone over ─ three of those editors that had been waiting for him, he presumed. He asked them if they wanted to join him for lunch, because he 'thought' he 'might have ordered a bit too much food'.

You think?! Conan thought, incredulously. He wasn't having a party, he had bought all of that for himself. Seriously? I swear, if there's eel in there, I'll just assume he's Genta's long-lost uncle or something.

Ran was smiling to herself, unaware of everything else going on around her. "Say, Conan-kun!" she called, effectively drawing his attention back to her. "Let's get his autograph later."

Conan stared hard, unblinking. "Why would I want one?"

His indifference seemed to surprise her, which, in turn, surprised him as well.

"Eh? I thought you liked it!"

He didn't miss the way the other two girls' necks almost snapped as they turned to him, to stare incredulously, and flinched violently at the sudden attention.

"Where…" He swallowed, then began in a firmer, more confident voice. "Where did you get that idea from?"

"I saw you reading it last week."

"Only because you recommended it to me because it was a, quote-unquote, mystery book!"

"It is! It revolves around a mystery, so doesn't it make it a mystery book?"

"It's a romance novel."

"Come on, it wasn't that bad." Conan shot her a sideways glance, but Ran deflected it with a broad smile of her own. "Didn't you enjoy it? Just a teeny little bit?"

"Look, I appreciate you way too much to answer that question, Ran-neechan."

She dropped the topic right away, yet not exactly because of him, but rather, because her interest was drawn to something else entirely. Sera had stopped walking in front of a certain door to unlock it ─ one whose number Conan made sure to remember just in case she was lying about her plans of moving out.

She opened it wide enough to let them inside. "Here it is!" Sera said ─ more like exclaimed, Conan could not help but notice. "It's actually not all impressive, is it?"

Her voice had lowered to a more normal volume right afterwards, falling into a comfortable chatter like she would usually engage in with her friends. So what had that been about? Maybe it had been a fluke, maybe a result of a concealed excitement she hadn't been able to retrain. Or perhaps…

Conan allowed his eyes to roam freely around the room, and realized that, for such a luxurious hotel, there was nothing remarkable about this place. There wasn't much besides a few decorative plants, a small table and a couple of chairs tucked around it, and a coffee table somewhere on the opposite side of the room, complete with a couch and another two smaller sofas.

While a little too big for a single person, there wasn't anything particularly out of the ordinary here.

The girls were instantly drawn to the balcony, gasping in delight at the beautiful sight that they were witnessing. Yet, Conan thought against joining them, and began walking the opposite direction.

Inexplicably, his eyes had been drawn by a door ─ there was nothing more to it, really, it was just, that, a door. But a frown had pinched his face before he had realized, born because of a hunch he couldn't get rid of ─ a feeling that there was something more than what it met the eye.

Just now, when Sera-neechan opened the door, she was definitely speaking louder than usual. He allowed his feet to take him closer, creeping up on it as if it would notice him coming, despite being a non-sentient being. Perhaps she was doing it on purpose, to warn someone else of their arrival…

Someone that refused to meet them. Someone that must be here, hiding somewhere.

His mind immediately went to that certain blonde girl that looked almost exactly like Sera.

And his hand reached over to the doorknob, fingers barely even grazing it.

"Ah, Conan-kun!"

Sera's voice made him stand away immediately, hands latched behind his back in an attempt to convince her that, no, he hadn't just been snooping around his house. But Sera neither seemed to believe him nor mind at his blatant attempt at a privacy breakout.

"That's the bedroom," she explained, instead. "It's kind of a mess, so don't go in there."

"Really?" he chirped cutely ─ not that he thought it would have any effect on this detective, but he tried anyway. "I'm sure it's not worse than Occhan's. And I sleep there, so there's no problem, really."

Sera hummed, as if she was actually considering, even though he knew ─ and she knew that he knew ─ that she was only joking about it.

"Well…" She then broke into a bright, if teasing, grin. "If you want to- What are you-?"

Never before had he witnessed her make such an expression ─ eyes open wide and ways from their maximum capacity, color slowly draining from his face until she looked like nothing but a sheet of paper and a mouth that hung open without ever pronouncing a word; if Conan were to describe it in a single word, it probably would have been 'horror', and it was a strange sight on that usually carefree face of hers.

Rare as it was, Conan would probably regret not being capable of appreciating it before it faded from existence altogether, possibly forever. The sight that awaited once he threw open the door was one that had drawn every bit of his attention, gathering it to itself and the blonde girl that sat on top of a bed, a faded-out version of Sera's expression staring back at him.

And for a single heartbeat, everyone had forgotten how to breathe.

Until, "Conan-kun!" that came, setting the world back to motion. Conan heard Ran's footsteps threading closer, and that certain pressure of her hands on his shoulders did not take long to appear. "I get you're curious, but you can't just barge into Sera-san's room… and…"

Ran's words blended with the silence, blinking twice as she processed the situation she had just walked into. Gathered by curiosity, Sonoko peered from behind the doorway, gasping in unbelief at the stranger she had not expected to see.

The shock had seemed to pass, and the middle-schooler was now giving them a rather stern look at each and every single one of her unexpected guests.

"Oh, sorry for the intrusion," Ran said, fully recovered, with a kind smile on her lips. "We're-"

"Mouri Ran." The girl's voice was cold as ice, each of her words bit on and pronounced perfectly. "Suzuki Sonoko."

Conan had not been able to conceal a flinch as emerald green pierced through his very soul, squinting on contact as if they had picked something apart from it, then decided she did not like that one bit.

"And Edogawa Conan," she said, after a pause that Conan could have sworn it was a bit longer than the rest. "Masumi has told me a lot of you."

"Well, she hasn't been talking about you, in turn," Conan blurted out, a little unnerved by all that staring. Now he knew this girl and Sera had to be related in some way.

But the girl hardly seemed fazed at it, lifting her head until it met Sera's. Curiously enough, that had the detective waking from whatever stupor she had been immersed in, and if the small laugh that followed had sounded forced to anyone but Conan himself, nobody pointed it out.

"I thought you didn't have a sister?" asked Sonoko, unable to take her eyes off the middle-schooler.

"I don't," Sera replied, smiling apologetically. "She's my cousin Mari."

Brief as it was, Conan could have sworn he spotted Mari sending a pointed look to her older look-alike.

"Stuff happened, so she's been staying with me for a while now," Sera added, as though nothing had happened at all. "She's a bit shy, though, and even asked me to pretend she wasn't here if we're having guests." She scratched the back of her head and said, "Sorry for not telling you earlier."

In response, Conan hummed, staring at the girl for a while before turning to Ran, and asked, "Next time Sonoko-neechan comes over, can we, too, pretend I'm not there?"

Before Ran even had the chance to react, Sonoko was immediately pushing Sera away to make herself and her glare visible to him. "Why would you do that?" she hissed, her eyebrows raised.

Conan stared back, unblinking. "I'm shy."

Her expression morphed into one that Conan could not completely decipher, but it was as though she could not believe what she had just heard ─ mixed with that tint of annoyance that was all too usually present in her gaze, whenever it fixated on his. Briefly, he wondered if that was supposed to hurt his feelings, but, oh surprise, he felt nothing at all.

Nothing, besides the steadily rising curiosity that pulled, drawing his attention to this strange girl that sat there, unnerving still at her bed, her expression stoic yet sharp beyond her years; he knew that kind of look, he had seen it on Ai's face, he had seen it in the mirror. It spoke of something else, something deeper than what was told by appearances alone.

It didn't help that Sera's grin had grown strangely strained, shooting glances every once in a while to Mari ─ was she nervous? Was that person even capable of that, to begin with?

"Well, anyway," Sera said suddenly. "Is anyone else starting to get hungry?"

"I sure am!" exclaimed Sonoko, suddenly bright. "Why don't we order something from room service like that author?"

"That's a great idea!" Ran nodded with a smile. And just as Conan thought she was about to leave, she moved further inside, her gaze taking a strange, softer turn as they fell on the blonde girl. "Is anything you'd like, Mari-chan?"

Mari scrutinized her before answering, "Tea would be nice."

So tea it was ─ for everyone, absolutely no exception, as loudly declared by one Suzuki Sonoko who, not wasting a single second lest be told otherwise, made a beeline to the phone. It left Conan standing there, hand idle in the air, the words stuck to his throat, having lost their chance of meeting the world and destined to suffer from a slow death in solitude.

I wanted coffee.

Not that Ran would have ever agreed to his choices, but the truth still stood ─ he was in Sera's house, he needed one, desperately so. Alas, that didn't seem likely.

Heaving out a heavy sigh, the boy left the room with his head dropped in defeat, heading towards the couch he had spotted earlier. The best he could do, he supposed, was to settle down for now and recover as much energy as he could. That sinking feeling in his stomach had not vanished after all; something was about to happen, which wasn't unusual, but whatever. He just didn't have the energy to deal with it.

Especially when Sera sat down right beside him.

And especially after the tea came, alongside with some snacks they had ordered, and giggles started to fill up the room. Ran was beaming about a story Sonoko was telling who, in turn, was blushing lightly as she told a story about her boyfriend Makoto that Conan had not paid attention to. Sera continued to laugh, her attention off him for once, way too engrossed in the story for anything else.

At that very moment, Conan realized ─ he was trapped in an all-girls' afternoon tea party he had no wish of being part of. He failed to remember when exactly he had been roped in such a thing.

He buried his face behind a cup as he sipped in his tea. Maybe, just maybe, they'd just forget he was there if he remained silent enough.

But of course, of course, Sera had to run his plan. She turned to him, she smiled at him, and talked to him even though he clearly didn't want to be spoken to ─ a hint she didn't seem to take, or care enough about.

"Do you have any love stories, Conan-kun?" she asked him.

Conan blinked as he looked up from his tea. He was genuinely confused, he had to admit to it. Because, granted, his life was already busy as it was, but still, what kind of love stories did she think he would have experienced when he was only eight?

She smiled wider, however, and added, "Maybe one about a girl you once met who you can't forget?"

Conan stared deep into her eyes. "That's… oddly specific."

Sera studied him for a little longer, and he titled his head slightly to one side. She broke into a chuckle before he could say anything and reached forward to grab a muffin from the coffee table. "It was, right?" she said, laughing. "Don't worry about that."

He wasn't sure what to make of the situation. Or the fact that Mari's eyes seemed to pierce through his soul from the opposite side of the table. Can I leave, please? he wondered, biting into a cookie with a faint slump of his shoulders.

Sonoko, on the other hand, leaned forward with that kind of smirk on her lips that spelled trouble for the young detective.

"Well," she began. "I bet this kid is totally into Ayumi-chan."

Only a puzzled glance was what she received, maybe an arched eyebrow because he was feeling generous today. It had the exact opposite result he had been expecting, as she crossed her arms over her chest, lifting her chin slightly to look down at him.

"You can't fool these eyes, kid," she said, her voice somewhat deeper and ominous. Conan privately wondered if there was actual tea in that cup of hers or if she had put in something else entirely to explain these… claims. "You're ten years too young to think you can-"

"Wow, would you look at that? I'm actually concerned." Conan lifted the cup to his lips. "About your sanity."

"You can deny it all you want, but-"

There was a giggle, yet surprisingly enough, it didn't come from her. Blinking owlishly at space, the girl halted, slowly yet surely craning her head until she met with a sight that stunned her like any other. Her best friend was covering her mouth with a delicate hand, her eyes twinkling as she gazed back at Conan ─ who, after a brief period of confusion that he, too, experienced, froze in his spot.

His eyes widened behind glasses, and Ran winked at him. For a moment, Sonoko thought she had missed something important.

"Oh?" There was a grin etched on Sera's face. "Maybe you do know."

Ran hummed mysteriously, unable to get rid of the smile that had blossomed on her face. Conan went all red suddenly, and that was when realization finally struck. Mouth wide open, she turned back to her friend, her mouth opening and closing soundlessly with a hundred unasked questions.

"What do you mean?" she said, leaning over to the little boy whose eyes shied away from everyone else's in the room. "I know nothing at all, do I, Conan-kun?"

Still unwilling to look, the boy scowled. "Leave me alone."

Ran giggled, no doubt finding the sight in front of her absolutely adorable. Sonoko might have found it, too, but she had been around the brat for simply too long to be fooled by what might suggest. It didn't stop her lips from curving in a smirk, enjoying the situation fairly more than what she should. But it was rare, so she thought she would be forgiven if she did smile for a moment longer than necessary.

"Oh~?" she murmured. Conan winced, but otherwise, said nothing. "I think I can guess who our mystery girl is?"

"You do?" Sera asked.

"Well, there aren't many girls who hang around this brat."

The aforementioned boy suddenly jumped in his spot, embarrassment shifting into horror quickly enough ─ way too quickly to be natural. She had imagined the boy would be protective of his little secret, but she wouldn't have imagined it to be this bad. Interesting, she thought.

"You know, that overly mature girl-"

"Say, say, Mari-san!"

Ah, there he was at it again. Deviating from the topic on hand when he didn't like where it was going, beaming so innocently at the silent middle-schooler as if he could hide the demon he hid within himself if he shined bright enough.

Mari was the complete opposite, though. She glanced back at him in askance, producing not a single noise at all ─ as if she wasn't really there to begin with.

"What about you?" he asked her. "Is there someone you like?"

She took her own time to respond, gazing back at the inquiring child for a single heartbeat, before it fell to the cup she cradled in between her hands. Eyes as emotionless as mystifying must have met her sight, and maybe something else, reflected on the surface of a tea that grew colder and colder as time ticked by.

"There is," she finally replied, in a barely audible whisper. "A very special someone that I haven't seen in a while."

And said nothing else, merely raising the cup to her lips and savoring the beverage. Conan studied her for a while, watching out for anything that her eyes would tell, whether on purpose or not. He found nothing.

He did catch Sera looking away, though, a small frown on her face.

Mari continued to drink, unbothered by the looks she was receiving. Conan sat on the edge of his seat, leaning over so that he could look at her directly from over the female detective.

"You do enjoy tea," he observed.

She shrugged. "A little."

"Oh, I see." He nodded, his eyes a little wider. "The habits you adopt when you're aboard are quite hard to break. Or so I've heard."

Finally, there was a reaction. Shock, bewilderment ─ all focused on him, for the better or the worse. Probably the latter fit the most.

Conan batted his eyelids innocently, glancing over to the rest of the group, as if in a silent plea for help in his unsettling confusion.

"I thought tea was common in England? Since everyone talks about that 'five o'clock tea' thing…" he said, haltingly. "Sera-neechan said Mari-san has been living with her for a while, so I thought she, too…"

And went silent again, busying himself with studying the wide variety of expressions that passed through Sera's eyes, even though they were far too foreign to that face of hers and he got to process none of them.

The blonde girl, unlike her, had a more subdued reaction. Though he might have noticed her shoulders tensing in response.

"What are you talking about, Conan-kun?" Ran asked, genuinely confused.

"Right!" Sonoko was the same, perhaps a little louder ─ and ruder ─ than her friend. "She came from America. America."

"Sure she did," he said, sarcasm dripping from his words. "She doesn't handle a fork and a knife the American way and actually calls soccer 'football', but yeah, America. Let's go with that, because why not?"

Sonoko looked as if she was about to say something, then thought about it better, and turned to look at Sera instead. Her response was to laugh it off and scratch the back of her head as she explained, "You just assumed I was from America when I said I came from overseas…"

Ran lowered her cup to the table and just observed her. Conan could have sworn that her eyes had, for less than a second, narrowed in something akin to, dare he say, doubt, before it smoothed out once again. "You could have just told us," Ran remarked, her face pinched in a frown.

"I didn't get the chance to, in the beginning," Sera explained, an awkward grimace that tried to resemble a smile, still present. "It would have been weird to bring it up after a while, so I thought it would be easier to say I'm from America. It's not like it changes anything, really."

Ran stared, unblinking. "I guess," she murmured. "Because it isn't weird now."

Conan full-heartedly shared that feeling. The sarcasm had, that so odd sounded in that voice of hers, thrown the female detective off, or so the boy assumed from the notorious delay of her reaction. But, even though he could think of a thing or two to add to the conversation, he contented himself with only watching their silent glances, that ironically enough, seemed to speak loud and clear.

For everyone but Sonoko, apparently. Her eyes darted back and forth, from one friend to another, picking up on speed with each second that nobody said anything.

She broke out of it with the noise of a cup being placed on a table, a little too roughly than necessary.

Mari lifted her head to face her relative. "It's already six o'clock," she told her. "Maybe your friends should head back home before it gets dark."

Ran immediately glanced over at her watch and gasped. "I need to get home and start making dinner!"

"Eh?" Conan half-whined. "Can't Occhan just buy something at Poirot? Please?"

Ran looked at him, glanced over at Mari, and then at the boy again.

"No," was all she said.

Conan did not have to pretend to be disappointed after that one, or to feign a sigh as he grabbed his things and headed over to the door, alongside the other two girls. Even the slump of his shoulders did not feel as artificial as it would be in any other situation ─ and no, it definitely was not because he was having a blast in the house of this girl he would prefer to keep his distance from.

But, if he were to walk through that door, he knew he would lose something. This precious clue he had gathered entirely by chance would probably disappear forever, and with that, the only way left to unveil the secrets Sera Masumi actively concealed so carefully within herself. And what her intentions were to begin with.

He still had not forgotten she had been investigating his brother, or rather, the victims whose life he had saved so long ago. An investigation that had presumably been cut short for reasons he couldn't, for the life of him, figure out.

His brother might have trusted her, might have brushed it off because she, quote-unquote, 'wasn't an enemy', but for as long as Conan could not get a clear grasp on her intention, he wasn't trusting any of it.

I was so close. If only I've been able to pry into this just a little further…

Mari's platinum blonde hair was everything he could see from over the hallway, still as a statue, silent as a stone.

I wouldn't have to be worrying that you made a fatal mistake, Oniichan.

Alas, he had to let go. Turn his face on her and go on his way, hoping that destiny crossed their paths one more time in the foreseen future.

Destiny had other plans, however.

"H-Hey! Ma'am?! Ma'am, are you alright?! Ma'am!"

Plans that involved screams coming from the floor directly beneath them, a situation that would lead him, rather than away from the hotel, to a room in it. It would bring him, and Sera, who had taken off turning with him, to a bellboy that could not stop staring at the scene, eyes horrified as if they had never seen anything like it.

Conan's eyes, though younger, had seen this plenty of times.

Therefore, when, upon his arrival, he found himself in front of a dead body covered in nothing but a towel and straight strangulation marks, he wasn't neither surprised nor amused.

Fate was getting way too predictable. It needed to step up on its game.


It's no use.

Hakuba sighed as he put his phone away. He had been trying to contact Akako for a few hours now, but she had yet to give any sort of answer ─ no matter how many times he called her, the result would always be the same; just the ring-back tone that stretched into the silence, marking a strong contrast to his own thoughts, echoing loudly within his mind as they ran in search of an explanation. One that wasn't unsettling as what reality was turning out to be, apparently.

Being honest, the detective had been counting on the criminal having taken her phone with them, but a thorough search through all the suspects' rooms had returned nothing at all, and Hakuba found himself losing heart.

Massaging his temples, he wondered what he was going to tell Aoko. I promised her. He had given her his word that he would bring her friend back safely, and he had been certain that would be the case, but now? It didn't seem like it was going to happen anytime soon.

Just… What did Akako-san encounter in that forest that morning? He might never get that answer for himself, even if it physically pained him to admit it. It was, after all, already ten in the morning of the day after he had encountered Henry Evan's body, and yet, the case wasn't getting any clearer. No matter how much he investigated, he seemed to be running in circles.

And should it even be that surprising at all? He wasn't even a homicide detective to begin with. At least, he didn't use to be until the individual who called himself Hirai Arthur moved to Ekoda, bringing a wave of deaths wherever he walked ─ he hadn't really checked, but Hakuba was almost one hundred percent certain that the crime rate must have risen exponentially ever since his fellow detective had appeared in that city.

Hadn't he known better, Hakuba would probably be suspecting him of secretly being a serial murderer in disguise. Well, he would be lying if he said the thought had never crossed his mind, even once, in the past.

But the idea had vanished as quickly as it had popped up, mostly because he had been able to see behind that clueless facade he used to pull up, the innocent commentary that happened to be crucial for the case in hand. A detective would always recognize another of his kind.

As he stood once more, alone in that forest ─ gazing down at that one tombstone that simply refused to give him the answers he oh-so-desperately needed ─ he wondered how drastically things would have changed if Kudo had been there. What would he say if he saw that body, or had been present at the scene of the crime? What would he be able to observe?

Would he have solved the case by now?

His hand had already slipped in his pocket when he came to, holding up a phone in front of his eyes. A scrolling finger halted its movements, hovering over a certain contact on his list. Hakuba frowned at himself.

What was he thinking? He could perfectly solve it by himself. Certainly, Hakuba could manage to find the truth on his own, unaided. What kind of detective would that make him, if he actually needed external help to solve a measly murder?

Suddenly, blue eyes blinking up at him flashed in his memories. A childish face, but a smile that was gone with the sea wind that surrounded them both ─ a solemn, if melancholic, gaze was posed on the waves ahead, somewhere far away from where Hakuba could reach.

"A detective's first and only objective is to discover the truth," he had told him, "not to step over everyone and prove you're correct, right?"

Gaze falling somewhere at his feet, Hakuba felt a frown pinching his face, yet his shoulders dropped as if released of a massive weight. This wasn't about him, he decided, but to discover the truth.

Yet, he did not get to commit to it ─ dropped somewhere close to his feet, the detective found something he had not expected to see there. He crouched over immediately, plucked out his handkerchief, and carefully picked it up to see.

On top of his hand, laid a tiny plastic soldier. The painting was chipped away around the corners, and it gave Hakuba the impression that it was probably a few decades old, maybe a bit older.

Who could have left this here? Hakuba wondered, unsure of what to believe. And why?

Overtaken by a sensation that came from practically nowhere, the detective glanced over his shoulder. His eyes scanned the scenery, to the most insignificant detail, yet there was no movement. Would have been silent too, if not for the occasional shouting of another police investigator combing up the area for clues ─ a thorough search that would leave not a stone unturned, he had been assured.

Yet, at times like this, Hakuba could not help but wonder if there was something out there, hiding in the depths of the forest. Something watching him from afar.

He shook his head tiredly, his eyes dropping back to the ground ─ there should be something he had missed. Something that he had seen but not, as Sherlock Holmes had once said, observed. There, in this place, there should be…

Blinking, Hakuba's fingers grazed the ground, edging carefully around the irregular surface. Something has been dug out from here. Not too big to be a human body, but maybe up to the size of an egg, maybe a little larger. Could this be…?

Right next to it, there were more marks, stretching along the ground in a certain way that indicated that something had been dragged about ─ an object large enough, if he wasn't mistaken. And it seemed to be leading up to…

"Saguru!" he heard his name being called, and right away, came the inspector running. Pale faced, sweating up a storm as he came to a stop right in front of him ─ it did not help with Hakuba's exponentially growing impatience, but he did his best to hide it until, at least, the man seemed to recover his breath. "We… We found a…"

Hakuba stood back up, tucking the soldier figure alongside his phone inside his pocket without even thinking about it. "What did you find?" he asked, trying to ignore the bad feeling settling into the pit of his stomach.

The inspector fixed him with one long look before he frowned profusely.

"A body." The news had shocked Hakuba into silence, eyes snapping open violently. "Another one."

He didn't wait to be led to it, and promptly took off running ─ the marks, the dragging marks, there was no mistake in it, how had he failed to see it? All he needed was to follow them, and it would take him to it.

It would take him to the body. Stopping in his tracks, Hakuba found himself staring at the half-buried corpse that had just been discovered, surrounded by several other investigators that, much to his bewilderment, were staring at the poor deceased man as if they had not seen several other unfortunate individuals through their careers.

Wondering what was wrong, he quietly slipped by and found himself stilling as well.

For there was Fred Palmer's face in full display ─ his expression permanently fixated on a muted scream, features contorted unnaturally into one of utter and unbelievable horror.

Hakuba felt his brain stutter for a whole second, before he managed to shake it off.

He sank on his knees, crouched right next to the body and, making sure not to establish any further eye-contact ─ because the sight made him, who had already seen his fair share of horrors that humanity had ever seen, uneasy at best ─ and started digging into his pockets, hoping against hope that he could find anything of use.

And against all odds, his fingers twitched at that certain metallic cold feeling. "There's something here," he murmured, not bothering to switch over to English, and swiftly, pulled out the object for his own bewildered eyes to gawk at.

A phone. The same model Hakuba remembered seeing Akako holding in her hands.

"What's that, Saguru?" The inspector said, as he crouched right next to the teenager. "Is that the victim's phone?"

Hakuba did not answer, but a light pressure in the 'home' button lit up the screen. The detective stared at it for a whole second, until suddenly, he deflated with an exhausted sigh. "It is," he declared, narrowing his eyes at the man that winked at the camera ─ Palmer's phone wallpaper was apparently his own face, and Hakuba wasn't feeling great at the realization.

This is not Akako-san's, he decided with a sigh, allowing the inspector to claim the object for evidence. Strange. I was certain this was it.

Fred Palmer and Koizumi Akako shared the same phone model. What were the chances of that happening? Come to think of it, I believe I was informed of it when the police searched for it. At his request, too. But since they were able to confirm it was Palmer's, I did not spare it much thought.

"Huh?! What in the bloody hell…?!" Hakuba immediately looked over at the inspector. He was staring at the phone, eyes wide with shock. "There are… so many photographs in it."

"I believe that is the norm for most phones, Inspector."

"No, no. You don't understand… Here, look at this."

The teenage detective complied, unsure of what he was expecting to see. But as the inspector scrolled, passed over the several dozen of photos stored in that seemingly unimportant storage media, even Hakuba was unable to keep himself staring, unable to decide if what his eyes were seeing was real, or a mere figment of his own imagination.

All of them had been taken from odd angles, in what seemed to be a café that could be found in London, Hakuba recognized the place easily enough ─ the coffee was excellent there, so there was no mistaking it. The same couple, a man and a woman, appeared in each and every single picture taken, holding hands in some, taking a little too close with each other in others, and even kissing in the few last available.

It wouldn't have been strange at all; there were some people out there that liked to have these kinds of photographs to keep a special moment close to their hearts. The problem was that the man was a little too tall, his hair a fiery red in contrast to his darker, usual shade. And that woman, blonde, eyes dark as the night, was one that Hakuba remembered clearly enough.

"Henry Evans, who was murdered yesterday, and the suspect, Jennifer Bell…"

The inspector finished the idea with a flustered, "... were having an affair?!"

"And Fred Palmer knew everything." His eyes slid closer, as if painting an image of the culprit inside his head. "I see… It's taking shape."

He could almost see it. The truth of this case, it was just about to be unveiled. It was just there, grazing at his fingertips, but he couldn't yet seem to reach it.

Just a little more…

Too immersed in his thoughts, he failed to realize the tiny figure that stepped back behind a tree, terrified at the prospect of being spotted. Large red eyes blinked as they risked just another look, a glint of utter admiration as they took into that wide smirk that had blossomed in that face.

Is he… the one I was told to…?

Casting him one last glance, she hurried away.


A/N

BT: I'm not sure how to answer to that, actually xD

CherryGirl 21-6: Really? So lucky! Hope you have fun 3 (and no spoilers, please xD)