Chapter 61
Yoshijima Echiri was terrified.
Her mother held her hand tightly. The woman’s hand had calluses from years of painting. Her tone of voice was no different from usual, and her eyes, as she looked at her daughter, were full of love.
Yoshijima Echiri had originally been happily going out with her mother.
Her mother, who had left her to paint in the studio while she went out to buy groceries, had returned, saying she would take her to the mall to play and buy her lots of toys and pretty clothes.
She had held her mother’s hand and left the house.
Yoshijima Echiri was very close to her mother. She could smell the scent of cosmetics on the woman, a brand her mother often used.
There was nothing unusual, but she was inexplicably uneasy.
The rich scent of cosmetics, from a certain brand. Her mother loved this brand very much. Yoshijima Echiri had secretly used her mother’s cosmetics before. She could recognize the smell.
But that was not her mother’s scent.
“There’s no smell of paint,” the little girl said, her voice trembling. “Mom is in the studio painting all year round. When I hug her, I can always smell the paint. It’s not a very pleasant smell, but I like it.”
“On the way, I chatted with my mother. She was very gentle, but I always felt that she wasn’t really listening to what I was saying, like an imposter.”
“But she clearly has the exact same face as my mother.”
Yoshijima Echiri was about to cry from fear. “Has my mother been possessed? Sister, you must know an exorcist, right? Help me!”
She was terrified. The moment she saw her favorite actress, she had run over to ask for help without a second thought.
After hearing everything, Fan An asked the most pressing question in her heart:
“When did you become a fan of mine?”
Yoshijima Echiri: “Is that even a question? Of course, it was your debut work, ‘The Evil Spirit in the Pitch Black’!”
“I love it,” she said, her eyes sparkling. “Especially the scene where the evil spirit kills people. It’s great for whetting your appetite.”
Fan An: Is this the new generation of Beika Town?
As expected of a senior to the Junior Detective League. Terrifying.
“This is Beika Town. We have to believe in Conan Science,” Fan An said, patting the little girl’s head to comfort her. “Compared to possession, it’s more likely a head swap.”
Yoshijima Echiri: Isn’t that even worse?!
This isn’t the Lego universe! You can’t just pull heads off and put them on!
Fan An readily changed her explanation. “It’s cosplay.”
The elementary school student Yoshijima was at the perfect age for otaku culture. Aha!
She understood everything. It wasn’t her mother’s imposter who had tricked her into leaving home, but her mother’s cosplayer.
Seeing that the little girl had calmed down a little, Fan An took off her own woolly hat and put it on Yoshijima Echiri’s head.
The large hat covered the little girl’s head. She had to hold the brim with both hands to see.
Fan An glanced at Yoshijima Echiri’s bright yellow coat and the small boots that had been through the snow, and took her to the bathroom.
Take off the coat and shoes, and then…
“Whoa!” the little girl exclaimed, her head poking out of the down jacket, her arms wrapped around the dark-haired girl’s neck.
Fan An, who had easily stuffed the child into her own down jacket, nodded with satisfaction.
“Are you cold?” she asked.
Yoshijima Echiri shook her head. She leaned against the dark-haired girl’s shoulder and melted into a small, buttery rice cake in the faint, pleasant floral scent.
“If anyone asks about our relationship, I’ll say you’re my sick younger sister, and I’m rushing to take you to the hospital,” Fan An said, coordinating their story. “Bury your face in my shoulder. Don’t let anyone see you.”
Yoshijima Echiri nodded and said, “Sister, how are you so skilled at this…”
Miss An: It’s probably a talent.
No, Fan An denied. She was not Suspect An today. She was a righteous passerby who was taking a pitiful little girl home, not a kidnapper.
“We interrupt this program for an emergency news bulletin.”
The music playing in the mall was suddenly interrupted, replaced by the standard, articulate voice of a news anchor.
“Yoshijima Echiri, the daughter of Senior Superintendent Yoshijima of the Metropolitan Police Department, went missing an hour ago. Senior Superintendent Yoshijima has now held a press conference.”
Senior Superintendent Yoshijima’s stern and solemn face appeared on the mall’s large screen.
“To the suspect who kidnapped my daughter, listen up! All major highway exits, ferry terminals, train stations, and airports have been completely sealed off by the police. I advise you not to be lucky. Confess and you will be treated with leniency. Resist and you will be treated with severity. Justice will always prevail over evil!”
Fan An looked down at the little girl hugging her neck, then up at the photo of Yoshijima Echiri on the screen.
Suspect and Kidnapper An: Me again?
No, can’t I just have a good-guy script for once?
“Sister, don’t be angry,” Yoshijima Echiri said immediately. “I’ll explain to my dad. Sister is a very, very good person.”
Fan An stared at the looping emergency news for a long time.
“No,” she said thoughtfully. “I’m afraid I have to be the bad guy.”
“Echiri, I don’t know Senior Superintendent Yoshijima. Maybe he is as righteous as the face he shows on the screen, hating evil as he does.”
“But,” Fan An frowned, “this is not the attitude of a father who wants his daughter to return home safely.”
His words were full of harsh threats, without a single benefit for the kidnapper. It was as if…
The dark-haired girl held the little girl in her arms. She was so young, just a weak lamb in the eyes of a bad person.
“It’s as if he’s forcing the kidnapper to kill the hostage,” Fan An murmured.
Yoshijima Echiri stared blankly at her favorite actress.
She was a fan of Fan An, which showed that Yoshijima Echiri’s usual viewing fare was not magical girl and Kamen Rider shows, but suspense, thriller, and mystery dramas.
Kidnapping was a common theme in dramas. Yoshijima Echiri had seen it many times.
A normal father… a haggard and anxious face, begging and pleading, willing to kneel to the kidnapper, willing to pay any ransom, humbling himself to the dust, just for his child to return safely.
He would absolutely not do anything to provoke the kidnapper. He would absolutely not say “justice will always prevail over evil” while not caring about his daughter for a single word in the press conference.
“The temporary password…” Yoshijima Echiri trembled slightly. “I remember now. The person pretending to be my mother used a temporary password to get into the house.”
Who had given her the temporary password?
Who would know Mrs. Yoshijima’s schedule, to be able to pick the exact time she was out buying groceries to come and take Yoshijima Echiri away?
“Because the moment she opened her mouth, she said I didn’t have to paint today and that she would take me out to play, I subconsciously believed she was my mother,” Yoshijima Echiri said in a daze.
“If she had said ‘you don’t have to study today’ or ‘you don’t have to do your homework today,’ I would have been suspicious.”
Yoshijima Echiri was a very sharp child. The person pretending to be her mother had handled every detail perfectly, only slipping up on the smell of paint that had accumulated in the studio over the years.
It wasn’t that the other party’s skills were lacking. After all, although Yoshijima Echiri and Edogawa Conan were both students at Teitan Elementary, generally speaking, no one would use the latter as a benchmark for elementary school students.
There was only one person who knew Yoshijima Echiri and Mrs. Yoshijima’s daily routines and language habits inside and out.
Senior Superintendent Yoshijima.
“Deduction is a detective’s skill. I’m not good at it,” Fan An said, looking at the righteous Senior Superintendent Yoshijima on the screen with a complicated expression. “But when it comes to the experience of being framed by the real culprit, I’m very rich.”
This was the dramatic life of Suspect An.
Yoshijima Echiri was so scared by the terrible news that her own father had orchestrated her kidnapping that her face turned pale. The dark-haired girl lovingly patted the unlucky child’s head.
An imposter mother, a cold-blooded father. In this terrible world, only the arms of the suspect and kidnapper Miss An had a trace of warmth.
“I can only take you with me for now,” Fan An said, pushing Yoshijima Echiri’s head down and helping her pull her hat down, not a single strand of hair showing.
Fan An memorized the layout of the mall. She had to take Yoshijima Echiri away before the fake Mrs. Yoshijima found her.
Senior Superintendent Yoshijima’s motive was very suspicious. He had orchestrated his own daughter’s kidnapping and had found an accomplice with disguise skills. What was his purpose?
Was it just to make the kidnapper kill the hostage, to highlight his own noble justice?
Fan An didn’t believe it. There must be a greater benefit driving him.
“We can’t go to the police station.”
Inspector Megure was probably trustworthy, but a higher rank crushes a lower one. Senior Superintendent Yoshijima’s position was clearly higher than Inspector Megure’s. If he were to give an order at the police station to “arrest Suspect An on the spot,” there was really nothing Fan An could do.
She couldn’t just fight her way through the police station with a single knife. She would be jailed for life.
“What about the Mouri Detective Agency?” Fan An thought for a moment, then rejected the idea.
The difference between a conscious Kogoro and a sleeping Kogoro was too great. She couldn’t just knock Detective Mouri out with a stick to guarantee a 100% case-clearance rate.
A strange intuition told Fan An that Sleeping Kogoro had a PTSD of sticks, as if a certain 174cm high school student had been hit with a stick and had shrunk into a 104cm elementary school student, an unforgettable psychological trauma.
Conan: My 70cm of dignity! How are you going to compensate me, Gin?!
She could only find a completely trustworthy person to help her take care of the child. Fan An took out her phone and clicked on the contact Hiromitsu.
It’s your turn, her good mama!
“Hiro,” the call connected. Suspect An dragged him into the water with a single sentence. “Yes, we have a child.”
Hiromitsu: “!!!”
Fan An attacked everyone without discrimination. She did bad things equally.
The victims included her good mama, and naturally, also the fake mother who had lost her target.
Less than a minute after Yoshijima Echiri had claimed to be going to the bathroom, the woman who had been picking out dresses in the children’s clothing section keenly looked up, put down the dresses in her hand, and walked towards the dressing room.
She pulled open the curtain of the dressing room. The little girl was not inside.
“Strange.”
The woman looked up at the security guard patrolling the mall.
This mall’s child-loss prevention was very well done. The patrolling security guards and the store associates would immediately take hold of any child without an adult and look for their family.
Unless, Yoshijima Echiri had an adult with her, and the passing security guard had seen their intimate appearance and had passed by without suspicion.
“Things are getting complicated.”
Walking to a place with no surveillance, the woman tore off the fake skin mask on her face. Her thick, blond hair fell to her shoulders, long and curly.
The face that was revealed belonged to a world-class actress, completely different from Mrs. Yoshijima’s gentle temperament, mysterious and dangerous.
“Gin,” Vermouth said the name on the other end of the line, her tone somewhere between subtle and intrigued. “The child I kidnapped seems to have been kidnapped.”
“The other party is not releasing her and is not contacting the police,” Vermouth asked. “What is this? Has the organization been double-crossed?”