Murder Broods

Murder Broods

Chapter 14: Shadow Drawn

Hattori glanced around at the security surrounding the Elpis Jewel, the well-placed cameras and alarms reinforced by the division officers employed to capture the Kid. He chuckled half-attentively as he overheard Inspector Nakamori and Kogoro Mouri debating the meaning of Kid’s notice -- something that quickly turned into an argument. Hattori sighed, deciding to walk around once more to fully memorize the layout of the exhibit and points of entry.

Kaito Kid would make his move tomorrow. Or more specifically according to his notice, at midnight tomorrow. Hattori sighed again as he stepped down the corridor hung with Shinji’s paintings, the one from earlier catching his eye. He half-attentively read the title of the work, the rest of his attention on the cell-phone in his pocket and the conversation he’d had with Shinichi.

‘I can’t seem to focus on this case…Kudo is in danger, those men in black could be hunting him down…and here I am preparing to stop a nonviolent thief.’

“Have you had any luck figuring out Kid’s notice?” Someone stepped behind him and spoke, startling him from his thoughts. He glanced over his shoulder, eyes narrowed slightly at the man with short, light colored hair “That’s an interesting painting there, ‘Moonlit Pithos.’ Um….”

“Who are you? And how do you know I’m here for Kid’s heist?” Hattori turned to face the man, observing his appearance. Light-colored hair and dark, square-frame glasses greeted the high school detective as the man shifted his attention from the painting to Hattori.

0

“Impossible.” Gin glared out the window at the window at the Syndicate vehicles parked in the garage, cell phone to his ear as he sought out the parking space reserved at the far end. Its vacancy still screamed at him, his right fist tightened until the stitched cut throbbed -- his Porsche remained unrecoverable in the FBI’s hands since the detonation days earlier.

The voice burned in his eardrums as he listened to Snake’s excuses, the frustration that threatened to burst out every moment leaked into his reply rising onto his lips.

“Failure is not an option at this point, Snake. Find the Pandora, kill that thief, is it that difficult to follow orders? ‘That person’ even allowed use of our main faction’s snipers during that thief’s last heist -- you still lost him.” Gin’s jaw clenched, hardened eyes glinted as he listened; virulence spilling into his next words. “You expect me to believe that?! No one on that thief’s side could be that good a sniper to….Snake, you’re high ranked in the side faction, but if you fail again your position will be up for the Main faction to decide. And ‘that person’ shows no semblance of mercy.” The blond roughly pressed the end button and glared at the empty parking space before storming onto the center corridor.

The hair covering his eyes allowed him to see the orders sent to his cell phone earlier clearly in the shadows they cast. Orders for him to stay put at headquarters while other Syndicate agents dealt with Absinthe, orders that allowed him only to participate through phone calls -- and then only with the faction he controlled.

The faction he had headed before merging it with the Syndicate.

“To question my loyalty now, of all times….” Gin growled -- the accusation had been there even if not expressed in words, and the blood in his veins scorched at how easily his achievements had been dismissed -- hadn’t he obeyed every order, even the bitter ones without flinching? Without the pangs of conscience, of weakness that marked traitors? That now his loyalty was being questioned for a mistake made after he first joined the Syndicate tore his ambition, the carefully constructed threads unraveling. “Snake has to….”

He halted, the snarl etched ghostly over his lips, as Chianti entered the corridor and his sight. The woman sniper’s tattooed left eye locked on him and widened as he approached -- Gin could only half relish the idea of what expression on his face created such fear.

“Gin…that night….”

“Don’t screw up again, Chianti.” His low but harsh voice filled the silence as he passed her, the blood that pumped through him telling him he needed to calm down before he did something to regret.

“Snake told you right? If that unknown shooter hadn’t interfered….” Chianti felt the bile bubbling in her stomach from her bruised pride, the wound of missing her target raw and fresh. “That shooter deflected my shot with his own, the devil’s skill ricocheting bullet with bullet….”

Gin’s insides froze, his veins seemed doused in ice water as Chianti’s words clicked on a long dormant memory.

His sharp eyes glared at the man in front of him, at the dribbles of blood running from the temples and lips; the Beretta aimed between the man’s eyes. The black suit covered by a gray trench coat revealed no mark of their scuffle -- neither did the defeated man’s lips. The ingratiating smirk drew angry more than the cold blackness of those eyes gleaming up at him. Stone eyes that disregarded the Beretta a hair’s breadth away from skin.

“Seems you win. Youth eventually always does.” The man grinned and leaned against the wall, his nonchalant manner at gunpoint impressive yet infuriating.

“Now’s not the time to look amused, your life and position….”

“Shall both be taken by family…as it always has been for five generations or so…taken by my nephew….” The man inclined his head towards Gin and laughed; the next moment his black eyes flashed dangerously and he lunged -- knocking the Beretta to the floor. His knee slammed against the younger’s abdomen, the next kick sweeping the younger’s legs from under him.

Gin cursed and spat, the Beretta now pressed against his temple.

“17 is too young to try to claim the throne of this family, nephew. Wait some years, unless you’d rather try some sneaky way like your younger brother.” The man’s smirk broke at the last syllable, his eyes alight with anger that smoldered out at the teen Gin’s response.

“I’m not, nor will I ever be, such a coward. I’ll face you when I pull the trigger.”

“As befits a Kurosawa. I look forward to seeing if you’d beat my record of achieving the head position of the family at age 24.” The man removed the Beretta and pocketed it with a smirk. “When you do, you’ll get this firearm of yours back. But only if you beat my record.”

“Bastard….”

The shrill beeping of his cell’s ring-tone cut through his recollection, he drew it from his pocket even as he noted Chianti had left while he’d thought.

0

“What? Nothing could be traced? But….” Jodie grumbled and listened until the caller was done, then she hung up. She glanced at the room door behind which the girl-scientist continued working at the computer; her eyes strayed to the window as her ears registered the sound of the door opening and closing.

“Any new information?” Shinichi asked, knowing the answer from Jodie’s expression the second she turned around.

“Nothing more about Kir and that bombing, but we had managed to get a hold of Gin’s Porsche after the explosion two days ago, but the only thing we could find out is that it was registered in the States about fifty years ago. The original owner long since dead.”

“Gin’s Porsche…? But hadn’t that explosion completely wrecked it?” Shinichi felt his heart pound with fevered anticipation as the unexpected words reached his ears. His detective passion flared as he digested those words and the ones Jodie said next.

“The Porsche itself was wrecked beyond salvaging, but the ignition key wasn’t…and that held a secret I doubt anyone but the original owner knew. Within the plastic part was a metal engraved with a sequence that included the registration number and the word Pandora.”

“Pandora?” Shinichi repeated, recalling how Haibara referred to the boss’s email as Pandora’s Box and shook his head; the familiarity of the word didn’t fade and instead pulsed strangely at the forefront of his thoughts. ‘I’ve come across that word very recently, but….’

“The name it’s registered under is S.J Corvintine, an art collector and archeologist who died 43 years ago.” Jodie continued, reading her notes from the phone conversation, her eyebrows furrowed in thought before she heard Shinichi gasp.

“Corvintine? Of course! That’s where….” Shinichi dug into his pocket for his cell-phone, his body shaking from excitement as he opened up the email he’d received from Hattori during their last conversation. The email containing Kaito Kid’s latest notice:

--As Pandora delivered Zeus’s Will basked under the Moonlight, I’ll deliver Elpis from its Manmade Tomb in two days at the hour of Death and Birth. --

‘This is it, if there’s a connection….’ All the color suddenly drained from Shinichi’s face, his exhilaration changing to fear as swiftly as a storm. Ran and her father would be at the heist…if there was some connection, if the Corvintine family did have something to do with the Syndicate….

“Shit.”

A/N: I’ve decided to add so much more than I’d originally planned to this fanfic that it seems I should update the summary soon.