Conan: The Phantom Heart Thief

"Senior, if there's a change of plan, isn't it common sense to notify colleagues involved?" At this point, Akechi Goro spoke with displeasure. "Miyano Akemi is running all over the place… I'm tired of following her."

"The plan has nothing to do with you." Gin bit down on his cigarette and squeezed out his words, "You're only responsible for tracking her. The rest isn't your concern."

"Come on, it's hard enough to handle you people changing the plan on your own. Don't force innocent juniors like me to work overtime, alright?" Akechi Goro sighed helplessly. "Anyway, I don't know his name, just that he's a big guy. His murder's already been exposed... If the police catch him and you have to break into the station to silence him, don't blame me for not giving a heads-up."

"Already exposed?" Gin's brow furrowed. "The police are onto him?"

"More than that." Kazawa, who was leaping across rooftops while tracking the Tarot card, crouched atop a shop's roof and looked down at the confrontation between Miyano Akemi and Hirota Akira. In his vision, another Tarot card on the map was approaching fast—the skull on it looked especially ominous. "I estimate the police will detain him in another twenty minutes."

"So soon?"

"You shouldn't be asking me. You should ask this idiot how he killed someone." Kazawa replied coldly using Akechi Goro's voice, fully covering Miyano Akemi and Conan's traces. "Next time, notify me at least. Not only did he kill so sloppily, but he even dared to strut around in public. If I'd known earlier, I could've cleaned up the mess. Now I'm stuck reacting passively."

Gin snorted in frustration. "Can we silence him before the police arrest him?"

"Hah? Are you serious, Gin? You want me, a famous detective, to kill someone in public?" After a period of training, Kazawa's sarcasm flowed naturally. "What if I don't even have time to change disguises, and after I silence him, you have to break into the station to silence me?"

"What about taking him away now?"

"With the police already tailing him?"

"...Really troublesome."

"All I can do is buy you some time. Whether he can shake the police or you can get into the station to shut him up isn't my business." Kazawa cleanly shifted responsibility and said in a fake sympathetic tone, "The money should be with Miyano Akemi now. From her behavior, she clearly knows where this idiot stashed it... Hurry and shut down this network already. Wandering Tokyo is getting boring, senior~"

A sharp click sounded—Gin on the other end clearly didn't want to listen anymore.

No patience at all.

Unaware of how annoying the role he was playing had become, Kazawa sighed about the poor workplace culture and squatted down to continue observing below.

"You only get to act all high and mighty because of that organization backing you!" Kishii, with the gun pointed at him, raised his voice. Though he sounded fierce, it was clear he was just bluffing. "If it weren't for them, how could you get the biggest cut? If you had just killed that loser Kaizuka earlier, none of this would've happened!"

"'That organization'..." Miyano Akemi narrowed her eyes, catching this keyword keenly. "They contacted you?"

"Hah, yeah! I'm directly connected to them now!" Hirota Akira's face was filled with uncontrollable excitement. The more he spoke, the more worked up he got. "Get out of my way. As long as I hand over the money, I'll be an official member of the organization. You got the guts to shoot me? Go on, do it! I dare you! Hahaha—"

Bang—!

His laughter was cut off abruptly.

Startled, Miyano Akemi instinctively pulled her hand back from the trigger and looked down, trying to see if she had fired by mistake.

"Don't look. It was me." A white-haired head poked out from above. Miyano Akemi looked up toward the voice and saw Joker holding a long-barreled gun, standing on the second-floor roof, gazing down. "It's just a model gun. He's not dead. He'll be out cold for a few hours, that's all."

"It's you..." Miyano Akemi's face froze beneath her coat and wide-brimmed hat.

The moment she saw that white head, a jumble of emotions surged up.

Unfolding that weird note and facing that ridiculous string of nonsense—her confusion, shame, and tangled embarrassment—all rushed back at once.

...Why on earth did I actually say that… and even said it three times!

"Well… I received the spell. Don't you think a thief and a magical girl make a great match?" Joker's smile was almost over-the-top. He solemnly placed a hand over his heart and bowed to her as if performing a magician's salute. "Magical girl Mingmei's request—Kaito Joker has fully accepted it. Dream an adventure with me, my lady?"

Something in Miyano Akemi's head snapped. She raised her gun and pointed it at that infuriating face. "Enough already! Do you think this is funny?!"

"Hahahaha!" Joker laughed heartily, then pointed at the unconscious Kishii. "Don't worry about that fool. The killer will be caught soon. As for you—you should go. Run."

"What?" Miyano Akemi looked down at the collapsed Kishii, then glanced toward the alley behind her.

"Be careful where you step, and walk softly." Joker adjusted his sunglasses and gave her a sharp red-eyed look. He pointed a finger downward. "'Heel'—the police dog is watching you."

With that, Joker ducked out of sight, disappearing as if he'd gone another way.

Heel... Miyano Akemi frowned. Thinking of Joker's earlier behavior, she instinctively looked down—at her feet in shiny, open-toed heels.

...Did he mean that?

She squatted down, suspicious, and felt along the heel.

She found a small, round piece of tape stuck to the side of the narrow heel.

"When did this get here..." Tearing it off, she found an electronic component the size of a fingernail hidden underneath. Miyano Akemi stared at it in shock.

After leaving the hospital, to avoid the police, she had changed her makeup, hairstyle, and outfit completely—except for her shoes. After all, hats, sunglasses, and coats are easy to stash, but shoes are much harder to carry.

Was this a tracker planted by the police? Did they let her go just to lure someone else?

No wonder Joker said the killer would be caught soon.

Closing her eyes, Miyano Akemi quickly worked through the whole situation. She looked at Kishii on the ground, pressed the tape onto his coat, then tossed her heels into the nearby trash can.

Wearing only stockings on her feet, she stepped over Kishii's body and sprinted barefoot across the alley, leaping up and flipping over the wall at the far end.

Kishii had no other residence in Tokyo. After thinking it over, the only possible place he could've hidden the money was the hotel suite they used while tracking Kaizuka Shirou.

She couldn't fall apart here. She still had something important to do. She had to prepare for the worst.

At the very least... she had to leave everything behind—for Shiho.