More and More People Are Finding Out
Sensing Cointreau's gaze drifting his way, Conan confirmed that he had, in fact, been spotted. With a resigned sigh, he stepped out of hiding.
His expression was grave as he looked at her.
The two locked eyes in silence, neither willing to speak first — as though whoever broke the quiet would lose something by doing so.
In the end, it was Conan who couldn't hold out any longer. He had only just excused himself from Ran to come find Cointreau, and he had something important to ask. Wasting more time on this standoff would be pointless.
"You're Cointreau, aren't you?" Conan cut straight to the point.
"So you picked up quite a lot from that bug the other day, hmm?" Cointreau didn't answer his question directly, but her words amounted to a confirmation all the same.
"How did you know the bug was mine? The fingerprints..." Conan's face shifted slightly.
"Before, it was only a guess. Now I know." Cointreau raised an eyebrow.
She had already been eighty percent certain it was his, and her earlier remark had been little more than a casual probe — she hadn't expected Conan to give himself away so easily.
"As for those fingerprints..." Cointreau deliberately drew out her words, watching the small hands in front of her clench involuntarily before she finally continued. "The comparison results came back quite a while ago. And they were truly surprising — the prints on that bug belonged to a man the Organization had already confirmed dead..."
"...Kudo Shinichi." Her eyes bore into the child before her as she slowly pronounced the name.
Watching his face blanch in an instant, Cointreau felt not a shred of mercy. She pressed on. "And the name signed on Kudo Shinichi's death confirmation was Sherry. Who, as it happens, is another person who mysteriously vanished — a traitor who fled the Organization."
At that point, Cointreau put on an air of idle curiosity. "So tell me, Conan — wouldn't you say those two might have some kind of connection?"
"What are you talking about? I have no idea what you mean." Conan tilted his head, the picture of confusion.
Honestly, Conan had no idea how much Vermouth had told Cointreau, or how much Cointreau had dug up on her own. Afraid of slipping up again the way he just had, playing dumb was all he could do.
"Fine. If you don't know, you don't know. I'll keep the fingerprint business under wraps for you — so the FBI hovering around you can stand down." It would spare Xiaxi that girl's endless complaining about how someone had been shadowing her whenever she was with Ran lately, leaving her covered in goosebumps.
Glancing up at the sky, Cointreau decided she'd had enough of trading barbs with Conan. Having made the situation clear, she simply turned, pulled open the car door, and slid inside to head back to the base.
As the car rolled past Conan, she watched him step back a few paces to give it room, thought for a moment, and spoke anyway.
"Thank Vermouth for this. She paid a price for me to keep quiet. Let's hope you're this lucky next time."
Watching Cointreau drive off straight after delivering that parting shot, Conan lowered the transmitter in his hand with a flicker of regret.
He had been planning to find some way to plant it on her car — that might have revealed the location of the Organization's base.
But the warning in her final words, coupled with the keenness he'd sensed from her in every encounter so far, made him abandon the dangerous idea.
Still, judging by what she'd said, it was Vermouth who had asked Cointreau for help this time — just like at the harbor before. She seemed to have no intention of harming him or Ran.
Why? Was there some special connection between them?
Back at the base, Cointreau had the misfortune of running straight into Gin.
His face was dark as a thundercloud — one look was enough to tell he was in a foul mood. Cointreau silently wondered which unfortunate soul had botched a mission this time and earned his displeasure.
"Cointreau!" Gin, seeing the person who had been out of contact for nearly a full day, grew even more sour, calling her to a halt in a low, heavy voice.
At the tone of his voice, Cointreau sighed inwardly. Apparently, the person who had infuriated Gin this time was her.
His voice cold and hard, Gin demanded to know why she had gone an entire day without answering a single message.
"Ahem. I didn't have my phone today — left it behind in the safe house. Nothing urgent comes up most days anyway, so once I headed out, I couldn't be bothered to go back for it." Cointreau improvised the excuse with practiced ease.
In truth, Xiaxi was the one who had taken it. Back at the café, she had said she wanted Noah's Ark and Nahida to help install some protective systems and software on Cointreau's phone, so Cointreau had handed it over, agreeing it would be returned when they met tomorrow.
So her phone really was absent at the moment — a convenient enough explanation for the long silence.
"It had better be." Gin studied her for a few seconds, then said nothing more, his expression sour as he moved to brush past her.
Cointreau turned to watch him walk by, considered for a moment, and decided she should give him advance notice anyway. "I have business tomorrow too. But don't worry — I won't go dark again. That said, don't contact me unless it's truly important."
Without waiting for a response, she picked up her pace and kept walking.
Gin stopped dead in his tracks, turning to fix a murderous glare on her retreating back.
Behind him, Vodka watched his Aniki with a shiver of dread, stealing a careful glance at the man's hand, half afraid he wouldn't be able to resist drawing his gun.
Meanwhile, at the Beika Hotel.
Kaeya settled into the hotel sofa, picked up a bottle, and poured himself a glass, raising it to his lips to savor the taste of dandelion wine at leisure.
"So the Traveler's been getting love letters lately? And her freeloading brother knows about it too?"
Through their special channel of communication, Kaeya and Alhaitham exchanged intelligence mind to mind. In a lull between matters, their talk drifted to recent happenings and somehow landed on the Traveler — which was how Kaeya came to learn this rather entertaining tidbit from Alhaitham.
A smile crept across his face, the smile of a man anticipating a good show, and he pressed Alhaitham for the details.
Unfortunately, Alhaitham didn't know much more, and he had no surplus of curiosity to spare on asking around on Kaeya's behalf.
Out of options, Kaeya cut the connection and stroked his chin in thought for a while before contacting Noelle, who was helping out at the restaurant right below the Traveler's lodgings — she was bound to know the story in more detail.
A little while later, Kaeya set down the phone he'd just used to call her, a satisfied smile spreading across his face.
He rose and walked over to Klee, who was for once sitting quietly absorbed in a storybook, and gently patted her head. "Klee, we haven't seen the Traveler around much lately. Have you been missing her?"
"Klee has been missing big sis Xiaxi! Is big brother Kaeya gonna take Klee to go play with Xiaxi?" Klee looked up from her book, eyes shining with anticipation.
Then she lowered her head again, counting off on her fingers the friends she'd made before. "Hmm... and Ayumi and Mitsuhiko and the others too — I haven't seen them in ages either. When are you gonna take me to play with them, big brother Kaeya?"
"Then Klee needs to go to bed early tonight, because tomorrow you'll get to see your big sis Xiaxi. She's coming here to see Klee tomorrow, you know." Kaeya said with a smile.
Klee had been obsessed with her storybooks lately, staying up well past her bedtime night after night, and Kaeya had been racking his brain for ways to get her to sleep early. He could only hope the Traveler would be reason enough for Klee to turn in early tonight.