Disclaimer: I do not own Detective Conan/Case Closed.
Pairing: KaitoxShinichi
Lure
Chapter 38 - Phantom
"I'd say the first step is to get them to stop sneaking pictures of you. All those candid photographs of you and the people you deal with on a daily basis are half the problem. Even your non-nuts these days are incurably nosy, especially about the lives of celebrities."
Shinichi grimaced down into his mug. It was empty again. "These people aren't the sort to be discouraged easily. And unfortunately, taking random pictures in public places isn't a crime."
Kaito lounged back in his seat, looking thoughtful. "That's because they think it's worth the trouble. We need the trouble of following you around to outweigh the benefits."
"That'll happen when the gossiping stops, I think," the detective sighed, resigned. "If only there was something harmless we could divert their attention to…"
Kaito snorted. "We're dealing with people who've decided to make a career out of turning harmless actions and words into vipers."
"Well, what would you suggest then?" asked Shinichi. "I take it from that gleam in your eyes that you already have something planned."
Kaito flashed him a grin that was all teeth, and Shinichi thought of dorsal fins racing really fast towards drowning men. "Of course. Did you want to hear about it?"
Shinichi eyed the thief's wicked grin and gave the question due consideration before replying. "I'd rather not hear anything illegal."
"I won't tell you about any illegal plans," the thief promised.
Shinichi knew a gaping loophole when he heard one, but he tactfully decided not to comment on it. There were, he strongly suspected, things that he was better off not knowing. Plausible deniability and all that. He trusted Kaito not to actually hurt anyone, and he felt he could be satisfied with that.
Besides, he had a few ideas of his own to put into action as well.
-0-
Having decided to adopt the "the less you know about it, the better" approach to whatever his cunning and ever so slightly overprotective magician was scheming, Shinichi was reviewing the facts of a case from Hokkaido that the police had asked him to advise on when his phone bleeped, indicating that someone had tripped the motion sensors that Kaito and Haibara had planted around his property to warn him of unwanted visitors crossing the property via an unapproved route. Shinichi paused with his finger on the page he'd been reading and listened—admittedly, he did this more out of curiosity than any real concern considering all the curtains were drawn and he knew for a fact that Kaito and the two mad scientists next door had put together more than sensors.
On cue, he heard the brief sputter that heralded the sprinklers coming on. As expected, it was followed instantly by the swishing of said sprinklers. The sound was a bit more vigorous than Shinichi recalled it being in the past, but he was distracted by the scream.
Shinichi was on his feet before the sound had finished registering, but there he stopped. The scream was followed by loud cursing. Sighing, Shinichi sat back down and wondered what Kaito had done to the sprinklers. He could almost feel sorry for the hapless photographer.
Almost.
Outside in the dark, a certain man with a camera staggered back to the sidewalk, still cursing and fumbling through his pockets for something with which to wipe his burning eyes. What the hell had been coming out of those sprinklers? Whatever it was, it certainly hadn't been pure water.
Did he smell lemons? Some kind of spice perhaps? Weird fertilizer maybe? Whatever it was, it sure didn't agree with his eyes—or his skin for that matter.
Wishing he had thought to bring a change of clothes, he staggered back to his car—or rather, he staggered back to where his car had been.
It wasn't there.
For a confused moment, he wondered if his watering eyes were deceiving him, but his car did not reappear no matter how many times he looked. Still, he spent several more minutes traipsing around the street in the vain hope that it was his memory that had been off and his car was parked in another spot. But he had no such luck.
Annoyed and now freezing because of his soaking wet clothes, the unfortunate photographer called a taxi before reporting his car as stolen to the police. When the taxi arrived, the driver was clearly hesitant about letting the suspicious, sopping wet man onto his car, but he eventually relented, though he kept a wary eye on the stranger throughout the entire drive.
When the beleaguered photographer reached his apartment building, he discovered that his car was sitting right where he always parked it.
Tired, cold, wet, and very, very confused, he retired for the night. Although first he had to call the police again. An embarrassing and awkward conversation later, he fell into bed. The last thought that crossed his mind before he fell asleep was that this had been one of the worst days of his life. And seriously, his job really sucked sometimes.
-0-
Tomoyama Anzu rolled her eyes as she read the text from her photographer explaining that one, he had failed to get any interesting photos the other night—again, this time due to a mishap with some sprinklers, and two, he wouldn't be getting any photos for her at all for a few days because he'd caught a cold. And all this after the three times in the last few days when he'd lost track of that detective brat because his car ruptured a tire (how careless could the guy get?), the time he'd accidentally trodden on a dog's tail and been chased through the neighborhood, numerous occasions of losing his wallet and misplacing his camera charger or film depending on the type of camera he had with him, and the time a bird had pooped right on his head.
Anzu half suspected the man had been making up excuses. The man had never had any ambition.
Well, she would just have to use some of the photos they had already gotten for her next article then. She still had plenty stored up to work with.
Unlocking the door to her apartment, she stepped inside, kicked off her shoes and stepped into a pair of slippers. Then she strode into her tiny home office, stopping by the kitchen on the way to grab a bottle of ice tea from the fridge.
Everything in her office was just as she'd left it. Leaning back in her desk chair as she waited for her computer to finish booting up, she glanced idly over the dozen or so magazine issues she had propped up on stands atop her filing cabinets. Each featured one of her most, ah, sensational articles.
They were all about scandals because that was what people were interested in. The public was always hungry for dark secrets and cover-ups. And Anzu had built a career on telling people what they wanted to hear.
The stories didn't have to be true if they were interesting. People wanted to believe in interesting. That was the thing about people. Even when they said they wanted to know the truth, most of them only believed the 'truth' that matched what they wanted to hear anyway, evidence or no evidence. So really, there wasn't any point in wasting energy digging around for the truth. If you wanted attention, you had to give people sensation, not reason and common sense.
A small, self-satisfied smile tugged at the corners of her lips.
In all honesty, Anzu didn't care if people believed her stories or not. She didn't even care about those who actively criticized her work. After all, publicity was publicity. Thanks to the huge arguments and general buzz caused by each of her stories, her online following had swelled even beyond her initial expectations, which meant more money in the bank for her. She was her magazine's most-read writer and her articles the center of hundreds of discussions. It all gave her a feeling of power that she rather enjoyed.
Now, what to write about next?
She opened the folder on her computer where she kept all the clips and photos her team had gathered but not yet used. At that point, however, she paused and frowned.
Normally, this folder was always full of other folders as she sorted its contents by subject matter. But either her computer was taking an unusually long time to load or, somehow, the folder was empty. Annoyed, she checked her recycle bin then ran a computer wide search for some of the files she knew had been there.
Nothing.
She checked the drafts of as yet unpublished articles and found that the first file she opened read "Aa Aa Aa" from start to finish. Same with the second. And third.
The hell?
Had her computer caught a virus?
She spent the next hour running scans and testing things only to find nothing amiss with her computer other than the rewritten texts and missing files. But she always kept two backup copies of her work—one in her desk drawer and one in a drive hidden in her makeup cabinet, so she wasn't too worried.
Or she wasn't until she discovered that her backup copies had undergone the same transformation as the contents of her computer.
Frustrated and angry, she sent her photographer a text demanding that he send her copies of his old photos again and set about rewriting her articles.
She was almost done when he got back to her with a message that said he couldn't find the photos in question.
Hanging onto her temper with her teeth, she got up and stalked into the kitchen for a snack break.
When she got back, the draft of the article still open on her screen had transformed into "Aa Aa Aa" from start to finish. As she stared, a fresh line of the stupid letters appeared as though being typed by a ghost.
She stared, mouth hanging open.
In another part of the city, a small girl with strawberry blond hair smirked, trading thumbs up with the wild-haired young man seated beside her. Behind them, a certain professor pretended that he had absolutely no idea what the two were up to.
Nope Not a clue.
But that little device he had helped the two build for remotely accessing computers sure was working well. He just tried not to think too hard about how said device had been physically inserted into the Tomoyama woman's computer.
Shinichi-kun certainly found the strangest friends.
-0-
Kiseki Eri, one of Japan's most successful lawyers, turned another page in the hefty binder of materials she had been perusing, eyes sharp behind her spectacles. Eventually, she looked up. Her gaze met that of Kudo Shinichi, who had been waiting patiently in his seat before her desk since she had begun reading. It was he who had brought her this binder.
"What do you think?" he asked.
The woman smiled grimly. "We certainly have a case. They've been very careful with their more recent publications, but these." She tapped the binder before her. "There's more than enough here to build a bulletproof case."
Shinichi nodded, though he hesitated a moment before voicing his next words. "I understand this isn't the kind of case you typically handle…?"
"I will take the case," she said, answering his unspoken question. "These people have caused far too much harm already. Someone has to do something."
-0-
Tomoyama Anzu didn't believe in ghosts. She didn't believe in anything supernatural at all. Never had. Never would.
So she couldn't entirely understand why she was researching paranormal activity now. After all, it must be some as yet unknown malware that kept corrupting and deleting her files (never mind that she had gotten an entirely new computer just two days ago). It had to be that same malware that had begun spamming her contacts and followers with dumb and suspicious messages and emails to the point where people were beginning to block her in droves (she'd changed her passwords eight times since it started, but it hadn't helped). And it had to be her own frazzled nerves that kept making her misplace the hardcopies of her work she had started printing (maybe she'd started sleepwalking? But she'd never sleepwalked before. Sleepwalking might also explain the notes she was beginning to find in odd places both at home and at work though—notes in her own handwriting about nonsense like reminding her to grease the tub or buy carrots for the cat. She didn't even have a cat! Yet one of her coworkers had given her a bag of kitty treats, telling her how she remembered Anzu saying they were her cat's favorites).
It was almost as though she was losing pieces of her memory, except that couldn't be right. Could it? Did that sort of thing just start happening to people? Surely not.
Yet lately she'd even begun hearing voices. If she'd had any roommates, she would have suspected a prank. But she didn't have a roommate. And while her landlord had a spare key to her apartment, Anzu knew that the old woman would neither have given the key to anyone nor come into the apartment herself. Anzu didn't much like the old woman, but she knew the woman was far from senile despite her age and far too responsible to allow any shenanigans on her property.
Anzu had still scoured her apartment several times in search of signs that someone was trying to pull something on her. But there were no hints of forced entry, and the home security camera she set up to watch her front hall with never showed anything untoward.
What was really beginning to get to her, however, was that the voices were her own. It had taken her some time to realize this as she had spent some time trying to convince herself that she was hearing the neighbors through the walls, never mind that this had never happened before. But there was no denying it anymore. Those whispers just beyond the threshold of hearing were her own voice speaking words that she sometimes remembered and sometimes did not.
The Anzu voice cooed at the cat (what cat?!) and told her photographer that she wasn't going to reimburse him for a set of heavy duty goggles, raincoat and boots. No, wait, that last one was her, wasn't it? He'd called to ask the other day because he'd been having terrible luck with the sprinklers and all other kinds of sprays and whatnots over at the Kudo brat's place.
Her voice bemoaned the austerity of her apartment and the slow, slow road to better things that really should have been hers already. She was so much smarter than her sister—had always been. But it was her sister who had gotten into that college with the famous journalism department, and her sister who'd gone on to be come a hotshot reporter with her own hour every night on prime time TV, talking about news. Ha! Talking about boring people doing boring things, trying, trying, trying but never getting anywhere.
Oh wait, that was Anzu talking too, wasn't it?
She looked down at the glass in her hand and found that it was empty. The air above it smelled faintly of alcohol.
Anzu couldn't remember deciding to drink beer, but she did always have a few beers in the fridge for when her photographer or other workmates came around. Today, she was alone, but there were four empty cans in the trashcan.
It's the stress, she told herself even as she wondered if it wasn't. If maybe it was something inside her—another personality even, speaking to her, doing things when she thought she was asleep…
The thoughts were so stupid that Anzu would have laughed them out of the park had she been feeling more herself, but, at that moment, she suddenly found that she was just a teeny,, tiny bit afraid that she might be starting to lose her mind.
-0-
"Mom asked if I would help you two on that case you brought her," Ran said as she sat down across the dining table turned worktable in the Kudo kitchen with several thin binders of documents.
Shinichi nodded, unsurprised. "I don't know if this will actually get those people to back off and start thinking about the repercussions of their work, but I thought it was worth a try."
"And at least we can make them pay for it," Ran added with a ferocious scowl that Shinichi had never seen on her before. As though sensing his unspoken question, she slid a magazine from the folder of case information she had brought with her and held it up.
The cover read, "Actress sleeps with director to get the starring role in Yume!"
"I went and looked this woman up," she said, voice tight with controlled fury.
The actress in question had only been nineteen. When Tomoyama's article had come out (using a photograph taken of the girl embracing the much older director), there had been an instant outrage, especially from the fans of the other actress that everyone had assumed should have gotten the leading role in what was one of the biggest productions of the year. The girl had denied all the accusations (in actuality, the photo had been taken when the director had given her the news that she had gotten the role, and she had hugged him in her excitement), but the more she had proclaimed her innocence, the more people thought it must be true. The director, though knowing full well that the girl had earned her role with her skills at the auditions, nonetheless chose to use the older, more well established actress after all in an attempt to salvage the film's reputation.
The truth of the young actress and director's innocence had eventually been confirmed, but, by then, the young woman who had been the victim of Tomoyama's lie had already lost not only that first chance at a major role but numerous other opportunities because people had been too leery of what others might think of them for hiring her to give her a chance. Depressed but still in love with her art, she had moved to a small town some distance from Tokyo and now worked at their small, local theater, writing plays under a pseudonym and avoiding attention like the plague.
What had really gotten to Ran, however, was that there were still plenty of people in the online forums gossiping about how the poor girl was a conniving slut and that the evidence of her innocence was just the film industry people trying to save face. It was maddening and sad and just wrong, but there was no turning back time.
And the young actress's story had not been the only such pointlessly tragic tale. Hers had only been one of the most high profile.
"Mom says all the evidence you found proving that Tomoyama and some of her colleagues knew several of these stories were lies from the very beginning and the evidence of the damage the stories did to these people's lives will be helpful, but the hard part is going to be convincing the victims to speak up and testify. Most of them probably won't want to relive their experiences or have their humiliation dragged out into the attention of the public again."
Shinichi sighed. "I understand. And if they really don't want to, we shouldn't force them. But I'm not sure this will work if we can't get at least a few of them to step forward."
"Don't worry. We'll manage," Ran declared, looking determined. "In the meantime, you can forward any potential contacts to me, and I'll go over them with Mom."
"You're really getting into this," Shinichi observed, and Ran laughed.
"I guess it's a little exciting," she admitted. "Getting to work on a real case with Mom I mean. I'm getting to see the entire process this time. I've been learning a lot, and we're doing something worthwhile. It's nice to get to be one of the people actually doing something to make a difference this time."
Shinichi nodded, glad to see Ran so enthusiastic. They spent some time chatting about the things Ran had been learning from her mother and her renewed determination to pursue a career in the legal field. Eventually, the conversation moved on to more casual topics.
At one point, Ran mentioned that Sonoko had had a copy of the painting of the ghostly couple from her Halloween ball put up for all to see at the very resort where the ball had taken place. Shinichi had to fight hard to keep the mortified blush off his face. He hastily changed the subject.
Once Ran had left, Shinichi spent ten minutes on the now familiar routine of skimming the latest output from Tomoyama and the magazine she worked for. He had noted a marked decrease in content by said woman in addition to a drop in the number of photos of him, and he wondered if Kaito had had anything to do with that. The discussions were still quite active, but they did appear to be losing steam with the decrease in new "facts" to chew on.
That didn't mean that Shinichi was going to let either the tabloid magazine or its contributors off the hook though. This was no longer just about the invasion of his privacy. It was about justice and plain human decency.
"Anything interesting?"
Shinichi awarded himself a mental pat on the back for not jumping today when Kaito suddenly spoke up behind him.
"It's mostly the same old stuff getting rehashed over and over again as usual," he replied. "There's been a lot less from Tomoyama, and they appear to have started reusing old photos. I take it that's your work?"
Kaito smirked. "It may be. Though we may also owe your neighbors dinner."
Shinichi blinked. So Haibara and Agasa were in on whatever Kaito had been doing. Part of him was surprised, but part of him wasn't. Ai had a wicked streak in her nearly as wide as Kaito's. It probably wouldn't have taken much convincing on Kaito's part to get her to help him mess around with Tomoyama and her lackey. In all honesty, just thinking about Kaito and Ai putting their heads together was making Shinichi's hair stand on end. He was glad they were getting along and all, but still…
He decided that, for the sake of his sanity, he had better shift his train of thought to something else.
"The news yesterday about that upcoming VR game is diverting a lot of attention."
"Ah, right." Kaito nodded sagely. "The one based on the technology from that case you were in involving all those kids. I remember all the bad press from that incident. Plenty of people were calling for the whole thing to be scrapped—literally. I didn't think the company would ever recover."
"It's a different company now," Shinichi replied. "And they almost didn't. They've worked hard on ways to make sure the systems are safe and secure in every possible way, but I think it's still going to take a lot of work and time before people really trust the technology."
"It'll happen. People have been crazy about the idea of honest to goodness full immersion virtual worlds for far too long for it not to."
"I'm sure you're right," Shinichi agreed.
"By the way, I saw Ran-san leaving earlier with a most determined look on her face. Did something happen?"
"She's started assisting her mother with her work. She's very invested in the most recent case, and we'll be working together." Rising from his desk, Shinichi stretched then headed for the kitchen. "I'm going to make dinner. Did you want to join me?"
Kaito beamed. "Love to."
-0-
"Dancing pink pandas."
Anzu stared at her computer screen, trying to make sense of the nonsensical words being displayed there. Not only did the comment appear totally out of the blue and entirely meaningless but it also claimed to have been her most recent post. But that couldn't be right. She couldn't think of any reason she would have written such a ridiculous phrase. Besides, she wrote articles. She'd never seen the point in one-liners that didn't at least have a picture attached. But there it was.
Stranger still, scrolling down, she found more such content, all originating from her own account.
"The cat is wet."
"The jellyfish were late."
"Feed the cat."
"Smell the green."
"The cat is in the cream."
"Bungalows in the bathtub tomorrow."
"Put the cat in the laundry."
It went on like that for another fifty posts.
The last, "Put the cat in the dryer" had, however, gotten several angry comments about animal cruelty and one tasteless joke about microwaves. Anzu felt a sudden irrational flash of anger at the bastard suggesting microwaving her cat before she remembered that no, she didn't actually have a cat even if, sometimes, she had been telling herself that she did.
What was this nonsense? Her account must have been hacked. That was the only explanation. But what exactly was the point of all this drivel?
Scowling, she logged in and spent a good half hour deleting all the pointless content before changing all her passwords.
That night, her restless dreams were laced with whispers and half-coherent words and phrases that sounded suspiciously like notes about pink pandas and jellyfish and nonexistent cats.
The following morning, she turned on her computer to find that her account had spawned more stupid, one-line posts overnight.
Rinse and repeat.
And it was only as she was storming into her kitchen for a mug of strong coffee that she saw the litter box sitting primly in the corner of the kitchen.
A litter box. A litter box of the sort used by cats.
She didn't see the cat though—or should that be a cat? When exactly had she gotten a cat? Or maybe she'd just been planning to get a cat and forgotten to let herself know about it.
Staring at the litter box, Anzu felt for the first time in her life like she might be about to have some kind of nervous breakdown. She had always considered herself to be an extremely practical, the opposite of fanciful, and therefore totally sane person. So this latest thought was like a cold shock to the system. But how else could she explain this apparent other self that she was so obviously sharing her apartment with?
Was she going crazy? Developing a second personality that thought she owned a cat and wanted to post weird things about it online?
Or maybe it was the stress of her work disappearing without warning and those pictures never coming out right lately. Not to mention all that backlash they had gotten from the families of those KID Task Force officers who had claimed defamation and threatened to take the case to court.
Standing there in her kitchen, eyes still locked on the pristine litter box like it was the center of the universe, Anzu barely even noticed the television at the end of her kitchen table coming on.
What she did notice, however, was her own face plastered on the screen behind the morning anchor.
"Tomoyama Anzu of the Daikura Magazine and her photographer and associates are being sued by numerous former victims of their libelous claims and defamatory articles. The prosecution is being handled by the renowned Queen of the Courtroom, Kiseki Eri, who has stated in no uncertain terms that there will be justice, and this magazine is going to have to pay the price for maliciously ruining innocent lives in the name of profit and fame."
Anzu screamed. It was a scream of fury and frustration. But it was also one of fear because she had just seen it.
A small, gray tabby cat. It was hiding behind the leg of one of the kitchen chairs and peering up at her with the largest, most adorable green eyes.
The cat she did. Not. Have.
-0-
"So that's what you've been up to," Kaito said with a broad and decidedly toothy grin. He and Shinichi were sitting together on the couch before the television in the Kudo Manor. The news was on. "I take it this is also the case Ran-san was so steamed about."
"Yep." Shinichi knew the lawsuit was only beginning and would be far from simple or straight forward, but he allowed himself a small smile.
"It's certainly everything they deserve," Kaito noted. "I have to admit though, I'm surprised they weren't sued ages ago."
"Most people would rather not have to go to the trouble—or the cost," Shinichi replied. "And it's too easy for people to claim they're just expressing their opinions or joking and that the responsibility for believing their junk or not was on the readers. And of course people also make honest mistakes. But I've been helping Kiseki-san gather evidence that they knew their lies were lies. Speaking of what we've been doing, I assume you're the reason the people who contacted Tomoyama-san and her photographer about the lawsuit thought they were both more than a little nuts."
Kaito affected an air of surprised interest. "Really?"
Shinichi gave him a look, and Kaito laughed. Sliding an arm around Shinichi's waist, he pulled the detective flush against him and ducked his head to steal a quick kiss.
"You know that promise you had me make about not telling you certain things relating to these people?"
"Yes?"
"Let's just say a Kuroba keeps his promises and leave it at that."
"Ah." Shinichi considered this for a moment then conceded. "Probably for the best. But I do have one question."
"Which is?"
"Where did the cat come from?"
"She belongs to a friend of Aoko's. She should be getting home to her adoring mum right about now."
"Good."
-To be Continued-