A Love Broadcast Staked on Life, Part 1
Amuro Toru left the Metropolitan Police Department in low spirits. He had just learned a piece of unfortunate news: Captain Date had died in a car accident a year ago!
Of the four close friends he'd made back at the police academy, only Matsuda was left now.
The thought left Amuro's heart even more tangled than before. If not for Cointreau, he might have lost even this one remaining friend — and then he really would have ended up all alone, just as Cointreau had said.
At that, Amuro found himself recalling what Matsuda Jinpei had told him just now, when he'd questioned him after the interview — the scene of his rescue: a blond man appearing out of nowhere at a dizzying height, taking a blast at close range and plunging from the sky, and yet shielding Matsuda so thoroughly that the man had come out of it virtually unscathed.
And judging from Cointreau's tone earlier, the man hadn't even considered that kind of danger worth worrying about. Just how vast were his abilities, exactly?
He hadn't taken more than a few steps from the police headquarters when Amuro spotted a cluster of three or four children gathered a short distance away.
Three of them were members of the Detective Boys, the group that always tagged along with that little boy Edogawa Conan who lodged with Professor Agasa — no, with the Mouri household.
The last one, a little girl, he recognized as well: Klee, the child under Kaeya's care. When Klee had been kidnapped some time ago, he'd even gone along with her brother to search for her.
Come to think of it, Amuro remembered hearing from Professor Agasa yesterday that the Detective Boys were coming to the police headquarters today to shoot a crime-prevention pamphlet.
"Mr. Amuro?" Just as he was hesitating over whether to step forward and greet them, Conan's voice rang out from behind him.
Amuro turned around to find Conan standing a short distance away, calling his name with a note of surprise.
Conan jogged a few steps over and rejoined the Detective Boys.
"Oh, it's you, Conan. What a coincidence, running into you today." With that, Amuro briefly explained, in two or three sentences, what had brought him to the police headquarters.
He then learned from Conan that the shy little girl from the Detective Boys had come down with a cold and couldn't make it today, so Klee had come in her place to help out.
Amuro's gaze shifted to Klee, and he greeted her first. "And Klee, too — it's been a while."
He was perfectly composed, not the least bit worried that Klee might let slip something she shouldn't. Going by their previous encounters, Kaeya clearly doted on his little sister, and Amuro hardly thought Kaeya would ever allow her to know anything dangerous.
"Hmm..." Klee thought about it for a moment. "You're... Mr. Amuro!"
Eh?! Klee knows Mr. Amuro?!
Conan's head whipped around at once. "Klee, you've met Mr. Amuro before?"
"Uh-huh!" Klee nodded vigorously. "Mr. Kaeya and Mr. Amuro took Klee to see a magic show together once!"
"I met Mr. Kaeya while I was working a part-time job at a hotel, and he happened to have a spare ticket, so he invited me along," Amuro added.
It never once crossed Conan's mind that the magic show Klee mentioned was the very same one he himself had attended with her — back then, his eyes had been fixed solely on Kaeya and Alhaitham, and he'd never noticed Amuro standing in the protection of the shadows.
Still, the fact that Amuro knew Kaeya left a faint trace in Conan's mind.
Amuro wasn't really in the mood for chatting, so after exchanging a few more pleasantries, he bid the children goodbye and went on his way.
It was then that Conan noticed the strange box Ayumi was holding, and he found it rather odd.
When he asked about it, he learned that a strange old man had just handed it to them, telling them to deliver it to Officer Takagi's girlfriend — along with a message: "This is fresh perishable goods. Open it and look right away. If you wait too long, by tomorrow or the day after, it may no longer be usable."
Having gotten his answer, Conan didn't think much of it.
Before long, they arrived at the Metropolitan Police Department and called to notify Sato Miwako.
Up until she received that call, Sato Miwako had been puzzling over something — Officer Date's memorial day was only days away, and she and Matsuda had already agreed to visit his grave together — so where could Takagi have disappeared to instead of coming in to work?
The call from the Detective Boys pushed her questions aside for the moment.
When she came out to meet them, Ayumi handed her the box.
Told that it was a "fresh" delivery from Takagi, Sato Miwako opened it with a flicker of anticipation — only to find a tablet computer inside.
The moment the screen lit up, her eyes went wide.
Takagi Wataru, who had vanished to who-knows-where yesterday, appeared on the screen.
There he lay on a narrow wooden plank, his hands and feet bound with rope, a noose looped around his neck and tape sealed over his mouth. One turn of his body and he would plunge off the plank; one careless slip, and the noose around his neck would strangle him.
Then the camera cut through several more angles — directly overhead, from the right, from below — switching at random to show Takagi's situation from every side.
The crime-prevention pamphlet shoot was now impossible, of course. Knowing that Officer Takagi's life hung by a thread, the entire police department sprang into action, gathering around the delivered tablet to analyze the situation together.
Matsuda Jinpei, brow furrowed, gave the tablet a careful inspection — and found that the criminal had already destroyed every port, every button, every function. It couldn't even be charged; the only thing it could do was light up the screen and play the stream. Whoever had delivered the tablet was a professional. Prying it open to trace the signal source would likely be a wasted effort at best, and one wrong move could destroy the live feed entirely.