Just as Vermouth could connect the fact that she had been shot unconscious and the chain of events afterward to Mouri Kogoro, once she knew her Cool Guy had shrunk, the method Sherry had used to escape was no longer a mystery.
It was even extremely easy to confirm, because Sherry had not so much as changed her hairstyle after shrinking.
It was a little rushed, but tonight was an excellent opportunity. Vermouth had originally planned to find some party or dance, send an invitation to Kudo Shinichi to lure him away, then see if she could find an opportunity to execute Sherry.
Sherry's situation within the Organization was not really Vermouth's concern. But as long as Sherry lived, she might expose the fact that Kudo Shinichi had shrunk too. Vermouth had no intention of letting her Cool Guy, who had barely escaped death, become a target of the Organization again.
Things had not gone the way she wanted, however. Just after she mailed the letter to Kudo Shinichi, Jodie, the new foreign teacher at Teitan High School, beat her to it and took Ai away.
At this moment, though, Jodie was also a little puzzled. She had expected Vermouth to follow closely behind, but only after driving quite a distance did she suddenly remember that "Dr. Araide's" driver's license had apparently been suspended...
"After circling around and driving all the way out to a place this remote, what exactly are you planning?" Conan squeezed his legs together somewhat uncomfortably and lightly stroked the watch on his wrist.
After his mother's makeup work, he currently looked like Ai.
Vermouth's invitation had been sent to the Kudo residence. She had also sent one to Mouri Kogoro, making a show of specifically inviting detectives. But to make sure Kudo Shinichi took the matter seriously, she had even written the codename "Vermouth" directly as the sender.
Conan immediately saw that she intended to lure him away. The date on the invitation wasn't for today, but after remembering the listening device, he still asked his mother to disguise him as Ai so he could see what was going on.
Previously, he had believed Dr. Araide was an undercover agent connected to the Black Organization, which was why Yimi had discussed his shrinking in front of the listening device. Given Yimi's childish understanding and ability to express herself, rather than first prying the information out of Conan and then relaying it to Dr. Araide, it would be simpler to let Dr. Araide listen to them directly.
But the more Conan thought about it, the less realistic that seemed. Compared with the shrunken Kudo Shinichi, both the Black Organization itself and any spy infiltrating it should have been far more interested in finding Haibara.
The opportunity for him to expose himself in front of Yimi should have been the day of the stage play, but even then it happened only after Haibara tried to help him conceal his identity and accidentally tipped Yimi off. If Yimi truly passed this information to someone else as casually as she had asked about it that day, Haibara would probably have no way to stay hidden either.
"I'm sorry. You noticed." Jodie smiled at him apologetically. "Actually, I was wondering whether we might have an unwanted tail behind us..."
"You mean you wanted to make sure the person behind us followed, using me as bait." Conan showed her no mercy.
Although he was disguised as Ai, he was not wearing a voice-changing mask. The Professor, apparently having learned absolutely nothing, had given that thing to Yimi. It did not affect Conan much. An unaltered child's voice could sound very much like a girl's if he pitched it slightly higher.
Jodie did not respond. She simply drove in silence.
Aside from official business, she had a personal grudge against Vermouth. When Jodie was still very young, Vermouth had already looked exactly as she did now. That vicious woman had murdered both of Jodie's parents, and Jodie herself had barely escaped death.
"Do you know about the Witness Protection Program?" Jodie suddenly asked.
Conan's expression changed at once. "Hey! Watch the road! Don't get distracted!"
Jodie focused ahead and saw someone holding a cat walking right in the middle of the road. On a stretch notorious as the "Deadly Curve," she had no time to brake and struck the person with a bang.
Even after flying into the air, the person refused to let go of the cat in his arms. He landed on the back of his head, suffering a second impact.
Jodie's face went white with fright, and she hurriedly got out to check on him. Yet the person stood up again as though nothing had happened, gently brushing the dust from the kitten, apparently caring more about that than whether he himself was injured.
"It's you?" Jodie had been on the bus that day too, so naturally she recognized the beggar who had displayed such astonishing ability.
He had actually survived an explosion like that? No—the bigger question was, why was he fine after a collision like that?
The beggar raised his head slightly, seeming to study her for a second. He gently shielded the cat in his arms, and his lips might have moved—or might not have.
"Police?" Yimi buried her cat face in her Stand's chest and asked into the mask.
"What?" Jodie's heart tightened.
Conan's heart tightened even more, because he recognized Gin's voice.
Conan, brave as always, sat in the passenger seat and stared at the man. Yet even with the headlights shining directly on him, Conan could barely make out his face. It was as though the shadow cast by the hood was simply pure black.
"Police?" the beggar asked again. The air seemed to gain a trace of danger, even though there was nowhere on the beggar's body that visibly concealed a weapon.
Jodie answered in English, pretending not to understand his Japanese. "Sorry, my Japanese isn't very good. Are you hurt?"
Yimi replied in English too. "You have a gun. Why is there also a... boy in the car?"
A boy?
Conan's breath caught. He was currently disguised as Haibara. Looking in a mirror revealed almost no flaws, and even his clothes had been chosen to match what Haibara normally wore. There was no angle from which anyone should have mistaken him for a boy.
Had this person known from the beginning that Conan was the one sitting in the car? Yet Conan hadn't even told Jodie—an FBI agent—his own true identity!
"This child? She's my daughter. She's a girl. I'm a police officer. Are you really all right?" Jodie's hand shifted a little closer to her gun.
The beggar said nothing more. He quietly stared at Conan, who lowered his head as much as possible to hide his face, just like the real Ai would when facing someone from the Organization.
"Mom, are you okay?" Conan pitched his voice higher and called out to Jodie.
"..."
Yimi had completely lost track of what they were doing. Why did people always like pretending to be each other? Was this woman who kept speaking English Ai's mother?
She turned her head and stared at Jodie for another long moment. Her Stand followed her gaze. Then Yimi had Famine carry her away.
* * *
Beep-beep-beep-beep-beep-beep—
The ringing phone woke Gin from unconsciousness. He stared for several seconds at the car that had crashed into a shipping container while he was out, then checked his watch.
He paid attention to the time almost constantly. After the sudden pain in the back of his head, he had apparently been unconscious for only about five to ten minutes.
The Stand's physical condition was still stronger than Yimi's own. The misfortune transferred from its head striking the ground had not made Gin bleed, but it had still knocked him unconscious for a short while.
Gin answered the phone. "Who is this?"
"Ha... ha... You finally picked up. If you hadn't answered... I would've died with this question still bothering me..." The voice was extremely weak. It belonged to Calvados, Gin's secondary target.
"You sound like you're in bad shape." Gin frowned.
"Yeah. I'm probably going to die... I only have one question. Did you... cough... take my scope?"
"Your scope?" Gin frowned even harder, unable to understand what that had to do with him. He asked, "Who did this to you?"
"Wasn't it you...? That one didn't feel like you... but also did. I don't understand..." Calvados's consciousness was clearly fading. He muttered one final phrase. "Got hit by a car..."
He died before he could get out the words "hurts just as much."
Got hit by a car? Like you, yet not you?
Gin's gaze locked onto the front of the car smashed against the shipping container, and his mood grew heavier.
Eventually, in a gap between the containers, he found Calvados's body looking as though it had been smashed apart by the collision. But he did not find the man's scope.
Gin himself had no idea where he had thrown the scope.