Kaiya POV

(at Poirot Cafe)

"Ne Kaiya-chan, does Amuro-san seem slightly quieter today?" Azuza whispered as we prepared the orders for customers.

"I hope he's alright." I agreed.

Before we could continue the conversation, Sato and Takagi entered with the Detective boys.

"Oh welcome to Poirot!" I greeted them."What brings you here today?"

"Just another day's work, apprehending culprits." Sato explained proudly. "Takagi's treating everyone today." she said, much to Takagi's chagrin.

"Conan-kun's solving another mystery!" Ayumi chirped.

"Not surprising at all." Haibara shook her head.

"Kaiya-neechan, take a look at this." he handed me a notebook with some symbols and numbers in it.

"Say, isn't this Takagi-san's notebook?" I asked. "It looks like a message. Could this be the reason you all came to Poirot?"

"That's right." Sato replied. "But Conan-kun, how did you know that this message leads to this place?"

Conan pulled up a chart on his phone and explained that the numbers and symbols corresponded to that of an SMS phone. "So to demonstrate, Kaiya-neechan can you dial this message on the cafe phone and text my phone?"

"Oh wow it reads Sunday afternoon, Beika City 5-6" Azuza read. "Poirot window wear a red tie."

"But before Date handed me this, he told me it would make me a 'man'. What does this message have to do with that?" Takagi wondered.

"Perhaps he meant he'd turn you into a proper police detective by letting you solve this case." Amuro suggested as I helped him bring the trays of drinks for everyone.

My eyes widened in realization. That's why Amuro has been acting slightly off today. It has been a year since his friend Date passed away.

"It's possible that Date wanted Takagi to interrupt some shady deal and let him take the credit." Sato agreed with Amuro.

"Still, that was a year ago and there's no way to confirm that." Takagi replied.

"Why did that message say to wear a red tie?" Haibara wondered.

"So that the people could confirm their dealer was inside the restaurant without stepping inside, like a signal." Conan reasoned. "But if it were me, I'd have left something underneath the table." Conan began to search. "Say, Azusa-san, Kaiya-neechan did you recall anyone leaving anything behind in this seat or requesting this table in particular?" he asked.

"Oh! Azuza-san told me she once found an odd gaming console left behind at a table!" I recalled after a moment and went to find it.

************

"The batteries are dead." Conan fiddled with the device. I found a spare charger in storage and the detective boys offered to charge it.

"It was in some sort of sleep mode when I found it." Azusa explained. "I don't think there was anything unusual except that there was a gesturing boy. He kept making a signal from the car, with his thumb on his palm and he kept curling his fingers."

"Was that boy a foreign kid?" Conan asked. Azusa nodded, and Conan explained that it means he was signalling for help.

"That was over a year ago though" Sato said.

"I wonder what we can still do about it." Takagi agreed.

"Umm actually I saw that boy's car pass by again." Azusa said.

"When was the last time you saw him?" Conan asked.

"Last week, around 12 pm actually." she replied. "I had no idea he was signalling for help, that poor kid! He comes here every week, so I thought he was just saying hi because he remembered me."

"I usually have an afternoon shift so that car must have come before my shift at 1pm." I realized.

"Amuro-san have you seen this car?" Conan asked.

Amuro shook his head. "I usually work in the afternoons as well so unfortunately no."

***********

"Detective Takagi, are you able to recall any kidnapping cases from a year ago that might be relevant to this?" Amuro asked.

After a moment, Takagi recalled a kidnapping case regarding the son of Pierre Cassel, the VP of a large automobile company working at a Japanese branch. He had two sons, and the kidnappers took the younger one, Alain Cassel, when he and his friend were playing in the park. Date had a leading suspect, Kido, a former gang leader. After they received a ransom call for 50 million yen, Takagi and Date staked out Kido's apartment. On the third night, Kido got into an accident after being hit by a drunkard, and they found this message written on a paper on the ground. Takagi copied the message into Date's notebook before forensics came, and that's when Date said he would make a man out of Takagi if he came on Sunday. Kido passed away before then since he was in critical condition.

"That means Kido is most likely the one who kidnapped Alain-kun and his friend." Sato deduced.

"Then the question that remains is, why is that deal still ongoing even after a year?" Haibara pointed out.

"Maybe a lackey working for Kido wasn't aware that he was dead." I suggested.

"If the lackey is still following orders, then we still have a chance to rescue Alain Cassel." Conan said. "Takagi-san were there any specific instructions Kido provided on how he wanted to receive the ransom money?"

"The money was to be placed inside a suitcase with specified dimensions." Takagi vaguely recalled.

"It might not be related, but there were some weird marks on the chair that I noticed last time I helped clean up the shop." I said.

"Right here, there were diagonal lines." Azusa indicated to the chair by the window. "I also remember someone leaving a paper bag once."

"I see. The person most likely was instructed to bring in the suitcase and pretend to put it in the paper bag, but in reality stash the money behind the suitcase facing the window along the diagonal line. The money would be hidden with the suitcase or a jacket even, and the culprit could come later and stuff the money in his own duffel bag and leave. That way the exchange of money would be hard to trace and the empty suitcase could just be reported as lost ." Amuro deduced.

**************

"Everybody in place?" Conan asked over our earpieces as he told us his plan. We nodded.

Amuro pretended to be working for Pierre Cassel since he looked forgein enough and sat by the window wearing Conan's bowtie. Soon the car with the boy passed by again and Amuro nodded at the driver and gave a thumbs up, pretending that he recieved instructions on the gaming console, which was still low on battery.

As the driver got out of the car, I purposely bumped into him, discreetly swiping his keys.

"I'm so sorry sir!" I apologized, pretending to be in a rush.

"Watch where you're going girl!" he pushed me roughly, heading towards Poirot.

"Excuse me, I have some questions to ask you." Sato stopped him with her badge.

"Darn!" he exclaimed using pepper spray on Sato and running away.

"Hurry Kaiya-chan, rescue the boy first, we'll handle chasing after the culprit!" Sato instructed, wiping pepper spray away from her face.

I nodded and used the key to unlock the car to free Alain. The detective boys came as well.

"It's alright, you're safe now." I told Alain, who wiped away his tears.

"We scared the bad guys away." the detective boys reassured Alain. But he grabbed onto my sleeve and started speaking urgently in French.

**********

"It's weird, Alain-kun didn't run away even if he could." Conan noticed. "Could it be that his friend also kidnapped?"

I knelt down in front of Alain "Was your friend taken as well?" I asked him in French.

"Eh? Kaiya-neechan you can speak French?" the detective boys asked in amazement.

"Just a little bit that I learned from my mom." I replied.

We headed into Poirot and Alain explained that his friend Yuuji was taken when he wanted to return Alain's soccer ball to him in a park. Alain couldn't remember what road the driver took but he recalled hearing the car radio. Conan and the others soon deduced that Alain must have heard the Nichuri Traffic News, and that the location he and Yuuji were held captive was approximately 30 minutes away. Takagi, Sato, and Amuro then split up to search nearby areas, and through Alain's description it was deduced that Yuuji was being held at a 5 story hotel that overlooked a Turkish restaurant.

*********

"Jeez, you should be more careful." Sato scolded Takagi, bandaging his wounds. Takagi had reached the hotel first and bluffed to the culprit that he was the one who killed Kido. This diverted the culprit's attention from Yuuji to buy time for the others to rescue the boy.

"Stay safe from now on, alright?" I told Alain and Yuuji as their parents arrived to take them home.

A black car pulled up and Jean stepped out, hugging his brother Alain. Jean wanted to come in person to thank everyone for saving Alain.

"Where's the policeman with the funny toothpick?" Jean asked Takagi, expecting Date to be there instead. "He promised to help my brother, and I always believed in him!"

"Well he-" Takagi wasn't sure how to respond.

"Here, can you give this to him?" Jean pulled out a box of toothpicks.

"Policemen normally shouldn't accept presents, but just this time I'll make an exception." Takagi smiled, with a slight tinge of sadness. Afterwards Takagi went with Sato to pay respects to Date and left the box of toothpicks there.

************

"Amuro-san" I addressed him as we closed the shop after our shift. "I thought you might want this. Jean-kun had an extra one." I handed him a box of toothpicks, which were Date's favorite.

"How-" he looked at me in surprise.

"I'm sure Date-san was a great friend." I told him.

"In that case, I'll head out first." Amuro said, wanting to go and pay his respects to Date.

***********

(The next day)

"I'm home!" I called as I returned from school. I headed towards the living room where I heard some voices.

"Oh Kaiya-chan, you came just in time." Yukiko greeted me.

"This is Mr. Pierre Cassel and his wife, they're good friends of ours. They were on a business trip until yesterday but as soon as they arrived they wanted to come in person to thank you for saving their son Alain." Yusaku introduced the other guests.

"An honor to meet you both and I'm so glad Alain-kun is safe." I shook their hands. "But respectfully, I do think the credit goes to the police." I responded politely. And especially Conan of course...

"Regardless, we want to thank everyone by inviting you all to our gala at our place later this week to welcome Alain-kun back home." Pierre said, pulling out envelopes for me, the Kudos, and Takagi and Sato. Even the detective boys were invited since they had become friends with Alain and Jean.

************

"It's a masquerade party!" I gasped in excitement, opening the envelope.

"Time to go shopping for a dress, Kaiya-chan!" Yukiko insisted, dragging me out the door on a shopping spree.

I turned to Shuichi and Yusaku "Help me" I mouthed silently.

They just stifled their laughter.