Amuro Tooru had just parted ways with Kurosawa Hoshino when his phone rang.
He glanced at the screen, his expression shifting slightly. He left the hotel, heading in the opposite direction of the cliff, and stopped beneath a large tree before answering. "Gin. What's up?"
"Tequila is dead."
"Hmm? How?" Amuro Tooru was curious. The Public Security Bureau hadn't made a move. The Metropolitan Police Department was useless. Who else would target an organization executive?
Then he remembered what he'd learned earlier: the FBI was in Tokyo. Without waiting for Gin's reply, he blurted out, "Was it the FBI? Hmm? Hey—no signal?"
Amuro looked at the suddenly silent phone, tapped it, then raised it again, turning it around.
A long pause.
Gin's cold voice finally returned. "It wasn't the FBI. He was killed by a bomb thrown by an ordinary person. Today, when he went to make a deal—"
Gin recounted what had happened at the Beika Hotel.
After listening, Amuro fell silent. His mind filled with the image of Tequila's tall, imposing figure. He hadn't expected someone so intimidating to be all show—dying so casually.
"Then why did you call me?" Amuro asked helplessly.
"I want you to cooperate with Vermouth. Steal the box containing the list from the Metropolitan Police Department."
"Not tonight. I'm no longer in Beika Town. I'm out here because of a part-time job. Oh—and I ran into that high school detective who's always in the newspapers. Kurosawa Hoshino."
On the other end of the line, under the night sky, inside a Porsche 356A parked by the roadside, Gin sat in the passenger seat. His grip on the phone tightened slightly at the name, but his breathing and expression remained unchanged.
He asked casually, "Can't you make it back in time?"
"Three-hour drive. Are you sure you want me to come? Maybe have someone else assist Vermouth."
"Don't go to such distant places next time."
"I'm in my silent period. You're the only one who gives me missions without even notifying me. How am I supposed to react?"
Gin didn't answer. He said, "Vodka, are there any other organization members in Beika Town?" Then he hung up.
Amuro Tooru had been about to eavesdrop, but seeing the call end, he felt a pang of regret. A few more seconds, and he might have learned about other organization executives in Beika Town—people he'd never seen before.
Meanwhile, at Kurosawa Hoshino's location, he took out his phone, turned on the recording function, and slowly approached the garage door.
The door was half-open. Pitch black. Nothing visible.
But he could clearly hear something being dragged inside.
The garage light switch is right by the door, he remembered. He groped along the wall until he found it.
Click.
The garage lit up instantly, revealing everything inside.
The person inside froze, then spun around to see Kurosawa Hoshino at the doorway.
"I remember. Your name is Toba Kento." Kurosawa pointed his phone at him, looking at the rope in his hand—tightly strangling Kanaya Hiroyuki's neck.
Kanaya's eyes were wide open. Motionless. Likely dead.
"Kurosawa-kun, give me a chance." Toba Kento loosened the rope, letting the body fall to the ground. He approached, pleading. "I promise to turn over a new leaf. Just pretend you didn't see anything."
"Heh." Kurosawa Hoshino remained unfazed. "Mr. Toba, I forgot to tell you. Mr. Amuro is also looking for Mr. Kanaya. If you're going to attack me, you'd better find a weapon. Or at least not come empty-handed. Otherwise, I won't be able to use one."
"What?" Toba Kento was stunned, then his expression darkened.
He didn't understand what Kurosawa meant, but he knew one thing: killing Kurosawa with just a rope was nearly impossible. He'd strangled Kanaya by sneak attack—not a frontal assault.
While he hesitated, Amuro Tooru's voice came from a distance. "Kurosawa-kun, have you found Mr. Kanaya?"
"Found him. He's dead. Please call everyone over."
Toba Kento's face went pale. He finally gave up on silencing Kurosawa, collapsing to his knees in despair.
A few minutes later, everyone in the hotel came out and gathered at the garage door.
They stared wide-eyed at the scene before them.
"Kento, what happened?" Ayako Kinoshita, Toba's girlfriend, asked anxiously.
"It's obvious. He killed Mr. Kanaya." Kurosawa Hoshino glanced at her. She's lucky.
In the original story, she was killed by her boyfriend, Toba Kento.
"Kurosawa, tell us what you found," Hattori Heiji said.
"Nothing to say. See for yourselves. Return my phone when you're done."
Kurosawa handed his phone—still recording—to Hattori Heiji, letting them pass it around.
A short while later, everyone had seen the footage. They stared at Toba Kento, whose face was ashen.
Amuro Tooru shook his head. "Last night, I wanted to discuss tomorrow's plans with Mr. Kanaya, but he was missing. Later, I ran into Kurosawa-kun, told him, and we split up to search. I never expected it to end like this. So, Mr. Toba—why did you kill Mr. Kanaya?"
"Haha! Hahaha!" Toba Kento burst into manic laughter. He glanced at Kanaya's corpse, then fixed his gaze on a man named Fujisawa Toshiaki, revealing his motive.
Toba Kento was a true Sherlock Holmes fan.
Last year, Kanaya Hiroyuki had published a novel titled Irene Adler's Mockery—a book that ridiculed Sherlock Holmes.
Among Holmes fans, it was widely accepted that Irene Adler was the only woman Holmes ever loved. She held special significance.
In Toba's view, Kanaya's novel had insulted not just Holmes and Irene Adler, but him—a fan. He couldn't accept it. So he wanted to kill him.
Fujisawa Toshiaki, who had helped Kanaya publish the book, became his second target.
Gasps rippled through the crowd.
"You—you—you—" Fujisawa Toshiaki stumbled backward. "You're going to kill someone over something like this? Are you insane?"
"You're the insane one!" Toba Kento roared. "You call yourself a Holmes fan, yet you do things that insult him. You don't deserve to be a Holmes fan at all."
Hattori Heiji's scalp prickled. He couldn't help but glance nervously at Conan.
Tonight, he'd seen how obsessed Conan was with Sherlock Holmes.
Now, seeing a fan like Toba Kento, he grew wary of Conan—even a little afraid.
I absolutely cannot say anything bad about Sherlock Holmes in front of this kid. Otherwise, if he snaps and kills me, that would be too unfair.