Confrontation at the Harbor
After all, when Aether had finally bothered to send her a message a few days earlier, it had been for one purpose only — to order her to attend that Halloween party, and to do her makeup so she wouldn't look anything like her usual self. Gin might send someone to inspect the queue at the venue, he'd said; this wasn't the time to let Gin learn too much, and so on, and so forth.
Not one word about anything else. It had very nearly reignited the anger Xia Yu had worked so hard to smother.
Thankfully, he'd at least had the sense this time to leave her a way of reaching him instead of dropping off the face of the earth again. Otherwise...
And that was the reason Xia Yu was sitting in the Mouri Detective Agency right now. Annoyed as she still was, she had ultimately decided not to make things any harder for her brother than they already were. Just this once, she would do as he asked and show up at that ridiculous Halloween party.
"Xia Yu, what are you daydreaming about? Look, look! What do you think of the makeup I did for you? Cute, right?" Sonoko held the mirror up to her face, watching her expectantly, waiting for her verdict.
Xia Yu studied the girl in the glass — a version of herself rendered almost unrecognizable. Her hair had been dyed black, demon features painted around her eyes in bold red shadow, the effect finished off with crimson contact lenses, a dusting of pink blush, and — just to be safe — an eyepatch. The result was less a creature of the underworld than a mischievous, rather adorable little demon.
She couldn't help giving Sonoko a thumbs-up.
Basking in the compliment, Sonoko turned to her own reflection, ready to paint herself up as a little witch.
Xia Yu, not wanting to disturb her while she worked, found a flattering angle, snapped a few selfies, agonized for a moment over which one to keep, and sent the winner off to a certain number.
Just then, she saw Ran set her phone down after finishing a call. "Ran, you're really not going to the party?"
"Mm..." The sound Ran made was faint, and a shadow had settled over her expression. "There's something I need to check on," she said quietly.
Mouri Ran's thoughts drifted back to the photograph of Haibara and Conan she'd glimpsed behind the bathroom glass at Ms. Jodie's house — and unease coiled in her chest.
Over at Professor Agasa's house, meanwhile, Conan was holding the invitation the professor had passed along to him. He stared at the salutation at the top of the letter — Dear Mr. Edogawa Conan — and made up his mind.
Ignoring Haibara's furious protests, he raised his wristwatch tranquilizer gun and fired. "Sorry, Haibara. If I don't do anything, I'll never move a single step forward."
Time slipped by, and the night of the Halloween party arrived.
Haibara waited alone at the professor's house. Before long, the phone rang — Dr. Araide, offering to drive her to a fully equipped hospital for a proper examination of the cold she'd caught a while back.
But when the knock came at the door and she pulled it open, the person standing there was not Dr. Araide. It was Ms. Jodie.
Haibara's face drained of color. She tried to slam the door shut, but Jodie was ready for it, jamming her foot against the frame. A few carefully chosen words later, she had coaxed the reluctant Haibara all the way into her car.
In the passenger seat, Haibara ignored Jodie's reassurances entirely, silently fixing her gaze on the rearview mirror and the car of the "doctor" trailing behind them, her expression unreadable and thoughtful.
As the two vehicles rolled into the harbor one after the other, Jodie seized her moment — spinning the wheel hard, swinging her car around, and squaring off head-to-head with the one behind.
In a corner a short distance away, Cointreau — once again wearing the face of Morikawa Shiro — listened to the confrontation between Jodie and Vermouth with naked boredom, lifting an eyelid only when Jodie finally confirmed that Sharon and Chris were, in fact, one and the same person.
Everything so far had unfolded exactly within Vermouth's expectations. From a high perch nearby, Calvados put a single round through Jodie's abdomen, robbing her of the ability to move — and so Cointreau saw no reason to reveal himself.
Just as Vermouth was preparing to send Jodie off to reunite with the family she had so neatly disposed of long ago, a soccer ball came hurtling out of nowhere and smashed into her gun hand. The pistol spun away and landed somewhere far off.
Haibara climbed out of the car — and then, before Vermouth's stunned eyes, tore the mask away. Standing there was Edogawa Conan, the boy who was supposed to be at a Halloween party right now.
Cointreau watched the farce unfold and let out a silent sigh.
He had guessed from the start that Vermouth's plan wouldn't go smoothly. When he'd first offered to take part, she'd been none too eager; had he not dangled the possibility that Akai Shuichi might show his face, the woman would probably never have agreed to disguise him at all.
He allowed himself a flicker of schadenfreude. Heh. So stunned by a single Conan. And if his instincts weren't wrong, there was someone else hiding in the trunk of Jodie's car. If that someone happened to be Mouri Ran... well, then the show was really about to begin.
But when he saw Edogawa Conan leveling a tranquilizer dart at Vermouth, he could no longer remain a spectator. He stepped out of the shadows.
"Hello there, little guy. We meet again." Morikawa Shiro greeted Conan with an easy smile.
"It's you! The guy from Twilight Mansion!" Conan gaped at the uninvited stranger. Never in a million years had he expected to run into this man — a man he'd all but forgotten — here, in a scene eerily identical to that night. Back then, too, this "Morikawa Shiro" had materialized out of nowhere at Twilight Mansion.
Could it be... that the Organization had already noticed me back then?
Vermouth seized on Conan's moment of distraction, flipped his wristwatch around in his hand, and fired his own tranquilizer dart into him. Then, once he had slipped into unconsciousness, she lowered him gently to the ground.
"Being that careful with this boy?" Morikawa Shiro noted her every movement, a smile with layers beneath it playing on his lips.
Vermouth turned to face him. "I thought you already knew."
Shiro's eyes flicked to Jodie, who had not yet lost consciousness, and he chose not to spell things out too plainly. "If you mean the reason you're so concerned about him — then yes, I do know. The boy makes almost no real effort to hide it. Notice the oddities, do a little digging, and the truth is easy enough to guess."
"But when I actually confirmed it — honestly, even I was startled. I never imagined Sherry's research had come that far." He looked at Vermouth with a smile. "If the Boss found out, it would be very dangerous for him, wouldn't it?"
"But you're not going to tell the Boss, are you?" Vermouth paid no mind to the threat folded inside his words. After all, the moment he'd discovered that secret, they had become allies of a sort. "I know you've been making contact with certain people in Europe lately. What exactly are you planning?"
Morikawa Shiro didn't answer. He asked a question of his own instead. "It would seem your plan has failed. Sherry never showed up, did she?"
Vermouth's position within the Organization was a peculiar one, and she had spent so long stationed in America that some traces of her movements were simply impossible to erase — traces he could not entirely avoid. Then again, he had never intended to hide from her in the first place. Certain things were coming that would require her cooperation.
That was the real reason he had come to "help" at all. Vermouth could not be allowed to fall into their hands here.