Next, the two split up. Tim headed to the room on the seventh deck to see if Jack was inside, while Darren went elsewhere to search.
"Very good. Everything is proceeding according to plan."
Watching Tim's receding figure disappear around the corner of the corridor, Darren nodded in satisfaction and quickly left the area, his footsteps light and purposeful on the plush carpet.
However, judging by his brisk pace and focused gaze, it didn't look like he was searching for someone, but rather heading toward a clear destination.
The reason was simple. Darren had known Jack's whereabouts all along.
In fact, Jack's disappearance had been engineered by Darren himself.
Just as they were boarding the cruise ship after passing through security, Darren had taken advantage of Tim's moment of inattention—when both of them were briefly distracted by the sight of the GCPD police boats circling in the distance—to inject a small dose of sleeping medication into Jack.
At the time, drowsiness overtook him quickly. Jack had murmured something about feeling tired and returned to the room to sleep it off.
By now, Jack had likely been in dreamland for quite some time, safe and undisturbed behind a locked door.
The purpose, of course, was to create the perfect opportunity for Darren to act alone.
Jack was Tim's biological father. Suddenly losing contact without warning would inevitably distract some of Tim's attention, pulling his focus inward even if only for a few hours.
For ordinary people, occasionally being unable to find someone was not a big deal; they might not take it seriously until the next day. However, given the nature of Tim's work, it was normal for him to overthink and grow suspicious over small details.
Darren needed that sliver of divided attention.
Heh~
Before long, Darren reached the entrance of a restroom near the mid-deck promenade.
He casually glanced behind him, noting the empty hallway lit by soft overhead strips, and walked straight into the third-to-last stall.
His luck was good. He was currently the only one in the restroom. The faint hum of the ship's ventilation and the distant murmur of water against the hull were the only sounds.
Darren stood on the toilet lid, reached for the ventilation vent above his head, and removed the protective cover with a quiet click.
Then he reached into the ventilation duct and pulled out a tightly wrapped package, its plastic crinkling softly in the confined space.
Opening it, he found none other than the full set of Kaitou Kid's uniform and standard gadgets: white suit, cape, monocle, card gun, smoke pellets, and the rest.
"Fortunately, this is a brand-new ship fresh from the factory, so the ventilation ducts are still very clean. If it were an older ship, this package would definitely be too dirty to clean. More importantly, clean ventilation ducts will be very helpful for my next move."
Darren quickly concealed all the equipment on his person, changed into his night suit, and silently crawled into the ventilation duct, pulling the cover back into place behind him.
"That Director James... no matter how I think about it, something feels off. As expected, I still need to investigate further. I remember the film director's room is at..."
Since a moment ago, one thing had been weighing on Darren's mind.
It was the four prizes from Director James's lucky draw event.
First prize: a Tourbillon watch. Second prize: a refrigerator. Third prize: Apple wireless earphones (AirPods). And a fountain pen given to everyone.
Looking at these four items individually, nothing seemed particularly strange, and there was no obvious connection between them.
But if you took their first letters individually, you would get a brand-new word.
T-R-A-P.
Trap.
A trap, or a snare.
A very interesting coincidence, or a meticulously designed code.
Although there was no evidence, Darren instinctively felt the latter was more likely.
If he had to give a reason, it was simple. This was Gotham. Coincidences here rarely stayed innocent for long.
The question was, who was the "trap" Director James was secretly trying to warn?
Combined with Director James repeatedly emphasizing Kaitou Kid's appearance earlier, a bold hypothesis formed in Darren's mind.
He was actually reminding him that there was a trap here.
The GCPD police boats were out in the open for everyone to see, so the trap Director James mentioned obviously was not that.
So what exactly did he mean by this trap? Why did he want to warn Kaitou Kid? And why did he pass the message in such an acrostic manner?
Darren did not think Director James was a Kaitou Kid fan deliberately sending intel to help him. There were likely deeper reasons behind it.
At least one thing was certain now.
Director James did not want anyone to easily decipher the message he was sending.
It was highly unlikely for an ordinary person to associate the names of lucky draw prizes with a secret message.
To be honest, if Darren's own notice this time had not also involved an acrostic, he probably would not have considered this possibility either.
And even if he had thought of it, he could not be certain whether it was merely a coincidence.
Therefore, Darren decided that from now on, he would pay special attention to this bold director who wanted to film a movie in Gotham.
Taking advantage of the fact that the vast majority of people on the cruise ship were currently gathered in the restaurant, he planned to sneak into James's room to take a look.
Buzz... buzz...
After crawling through the ventilation duct for a while, the narrow metal tunnel cool against his palms and knees, Darren suddenly felt the phone in his pocket vibrate.
However, he had already set it to vibration mode in advance, so no ringtone sounded to give him away.
Hmm?
Darren struggled to take out his phone in the confined space and saw that Tim was calling.
He glanced down at the vent below him, listening for footsteps or voices in the corridor beneath, and after confirming that no one was nearby for the moment, pressed answer.