There was a heavy silence to follow that announcement. Hakuba was still uneasy, still coursing with anxiety. If they planned to use Nakamori's daughter then it stood to reason that she and Hakuba were close, meaning that Hakuba may not be the best person to work on this case. Nakamori opened his mouth again and he was telling something to Kogoro but Shinichi filtered it out as it was only in regards to keeping Conan safe. While they argued about protocol, Shinichi thought back to that letter-so it had been a countdown. Someone wanted him to know that he had forty-eight hours left. Were they that sure that Hakuba would meet the demand or were they planning to kill him if Hakuba didn't?

"N-ne," He spoke up. "Could this have to do with that weird letter I got this morning?" He asked, turning towards Kogoro. The older detective stiffened and pulled the letter out of his breast pocket to show the inspector. Hakuba moved over glance over Nakamori's shoulder and his face paled.

"In-Inspector, I think this is-" He started but Nakamori folded the letter up and cleared his throat, he too having gone a little pale.

"We'll-We'll run it through the lab." Nakamori decided, obviously the two had come to the same conclusion. "There's no need to jump to conclusions." He said stiffly. Conan stared at the usually impulsive inspector-he supposed that having his daughter's life on the line changed how he would normally go about things-then again, he'd heard from several sources that Nakamori was quite competent when Kaitou Kid wasn't involved in cases.

"Why would someone want Conan-kun-?" Ran started, reaching forward to pulled the little detective into her, causing him to let out a small squeak. Again, Hakuba and Nakamori looked at each other.

"We think it has something to do with Conan-kun being known as the Kid Killer." Hakuba admitted. "Nakamori and I have reasoned that if I were to-erm-" He cleared his throat, obviously uncomfortable even thinking about it. "-I would certainly be arrested and I too, would no longer be able to challenge the Kaitou Kid." Kill two birds with one stone-so to speak. Most likely, Hakuba and Nakamori were right as there wasn't much else to link Hakuba and Conan to. Speaking of Kid though...

"Are you sure it's a fan of Kid? This is something that Kid-san would get upset over, isn't it?" He chanced asking. "He may even want to investigate." Hakuba muttered something under his breath but the only part Shinichi caught was 'no idea.'

"It's inevitable that Kid will find out." He said aloud. "However, for now the only people aware of the situation are in this room." They wanted to keep the news contained for obvious reasons. It didn't seem that the kidnapper had expressly said that Conan couldn't know about that threat on his life and the creepy letter lended support to the idea that the sender wanted Conan to know that he was going to die. It was highly likely though, that Hakuba was not supposed to have gone to police and in a way he hadn't-he'd gone to the girl's father.

"I'd like to offer my services as a detective in this case." Kogoro stated, causing Conan to look up at him. "As a father, I can't imagine what you must be going through and I'd like to help find your daughter."

"D-Dad..." Ran reacted and Shinichi smiled softly, of course Kogoro would want to help-for all his faults and flaws, when push came to shove Kogoro's heart was always in the right place.

"I appreciate that." Nakamori said gruffly, shifting so he could pull out a picture of the girl in question. The picture had undoubtedly been sent by the kidnapper as it had the girl-gagged and bound-leaning against a wall with a newspaper. There was a fresh cut on her arm that hadn't even been bandaged but that wasn't what alarmed them-the three of them-Ran, Kogoro and Shinichi stared transfixed as this girl looked very similar to Ran.

"Aoko." Hakuba spoke up to kill the silence. "Her name is Aoko-She and I go to the same school." Aoko. Shinichi stored the name away for later. "You must have noticed that Aoko-san and Ran-san look similar-although I believe Aoko-san is several inches shorter."

"Mm." Nakamori confirmed. "Her mother wasn't very tall either-but always full of the same energy." Wasn't. Past tense. it seemed that Mrs. Nakamori was no longer around. Shinichi looked back down at the picture and frowned. Was someone really dead set on stealing the life of Inspector Nakamori's only relative because of Kaitou Kid? Shinichi couldn't even imagine how angry the thief would be when he found out about this.

"I need to check on Kaito-kun. I'll leave this to you." Nakamori stated, excusing himself to the door. Hakuba froze.

"Shouldn't he be at school?" The detective asked. "He'll probably just think that Aoko-san's out with a cold." Nakamori sighed.

"No, he's... probably still asleep. Aoko's usually the one to wake him up and this isn't the kind of news I want to give him over the phone."

"Kaito-kun?" Kogoro asked.

"He's my daughter's best friend that lives next door. We've been looking after him while his mother is in Vegas." Nakamori explained. Hakuba moved over to the inspector to whisper but this time Shinichi caught every word.

"Inspector, are you sure it's a good idea to tell Kuroba-kun exactly what's happened?" Hakuba was asking. Nakamori put a hand on his shoulder, giving him a look.

"I'm aware that you and Kaito-kun don't get along very well, but I can't lie to him about where Aoko is. That boy's sharp-even if I wanted to keep this from him, I couldn't." He removed his hand from Hakuba's shoulder and turned to the others.

"I'll be back in a few hours-considering the nature of things, I'd like for you all to stay here." With that, Nakamori disappeared out the door. Shinichi looked at the picture again, as it had gotten a little too quiet. He was hoping to see if there was anything about the location that stood out but whoever had kidnapped the girl-Aoko, had made it nearly impossible to distinguish anything other than that ground she was laying on was concrete and the wall she was leaning against was made of dark brink. It at least suggested a western style design but it didn't narrow things down much.

"Don't worry, Hakuba-kun." Ran had gotten out of her chair and was trying to cheer the other up. "I'm sure Aoko-chan will be fine." Hakuba tried to meet her optimism with a smile but it faltered as it was clear he had his doubts.

"Thank you, Ran-san. I'm sure she will be." He tried to sound sincere.

"Ne, Hakuba-niichan." Conan piped up. "Could it be that you like Nakamori-keibu's daughter?" Hakuba sighed, considering if he wanted to answer the question, but then again, why take her if he didn't have a strong attachment to her?

"Yes." He admitted bluntly. "However, I'm not the only one so it's a bit complicated."

"That Kaito-kun that Nakamori-keibu mentioned?" Ran pressed.

"Yes." Hakuba admitted again. "Although, if you were to ask him, he wouldn't admit it." Shinichi made a face at the idea of this possibly involving some kind of convoluted love triangle.

"And how does Aoko-chan feel?" Ran asked. Shinichi raised an eyebrow at her, now wasn't really the time to discuss Hakauba's relationship with the girl but then, it could just be that Ran was trying to distract him. He was sure that if that wasn't the case than Kogoro would have stepped in.

"I don't know." Hakuba admitted. "There are points in which I think she must like me a little-though it's undoubtedly only as a friend. She and I keep up with each other through twitter since I'm often out of the country." That was an interesting point-Hakuba did tend to be out of the country so how did they even know he was in Japan now? Lucky guess? Everything up to this point had been meticulous so Shinichi doubted that it was just a coincidence.

"Ne, do you and Aoko-oneesan have any of the same followers?" Conan asked. Hakuba paused, pulling out his phone to check his list of followers. Though, Conan secretly doubted if it'd be that simple.

"Aoko-san doesn't have too many-I think her's are mostly her friends from the task force and her school friends." Hakuba stated. "And even then, I'm hard pressed to believe that the culprit would be careless enough to follow my twitter feed as they must know that I'm aware of the fact they're watching my movements. They'd have to be, to know that I'm even in the country."

Of course Hakuba would have thought of all points that Shinichi himself had thought of but that didn't help matters any. Shinichi stole glance over at Kogoro as he'd been unusually quiet during the exchange but then again, things like twitter and social media were hardly his strong suit.

"Did you post anything when you got back to Japan?" Conan questioned.

"Not me, but Aoko-san did inadvertently. However, that was over a month ago." Hakuba explained. It could still be twitter that the culprit was watching them through but with a month's time in between there would have still been the risk that Hakuba wasn't in the country. Shinichi let out a deep sigh and sank further into thought, trying to think of anything that might give them at least a list of suspects.

ooooOOOOOoooo

Kaito was still sleeping. He'd been up late the night before planning out his next heist so with no Aoko to wake him up he slept well into the morning. It was only just passed nine when he was finally pulled from his dreams by someone gently shaking his shoulder. He mumbled something about 'five more minutes.'

"Kaito-kun, I need you to wake up." Nakamori told him urgently, shaking him a little more. "You overslept." Again, Kaito mumbled something and tried to fall back asleep but his brain registered something as wrong-why was Inspector Nakamori in his house? Overslept? Where was Aoko? His brain slowly came back online and chanced peeking his eyes open at the inspector-he was pale and it looked as though he'd aged since Kaito had seen him yesterday at dinner.

"In...spector?" He asked curiously. "What's wrong?" Nakamori bit his lip, sitting on the edge of Kaito's bed. Kaito sat up, a feeling of dread was pooling into his stomach and he didn't want to hear what Nakamori had to say-whatever is was couldn't have been good news. He grabbed his phone off the nightstand and paled at the realisation that it was just after nine. How could he have slept so late? "Wh-Why didn't Aoko-"

"She couldn't." Nakamori answered before the question was asked. Kaito swallowed-his mind was starting to piece something together but it was repulsive that he rejected it on principle.

"Why-?"

"Kaito-kun, I'm not going to sugar coat this for you-Aoko's been kidnapped." He revealed. Kaito felt all the color drain out of his face and his insides dropped somewhere under the bed. Kidnapped? Why? What had Aoko done to register as a good kidnapping target to someone? She kept her nose clean.

"Wh-what?" He swallowed. He'd heard perfectly well it was just that he didn't want believe what he'd heard. Nakamori just set a hand on his shoulder and Kaito noticed a slight tremor.

"Hakuba-kun received a ransom note this morning-"

"Hakuba-kun? Why? They aren't that close." Kaito objected immediately, his mind jumping on the ability to blame Hakuba for this. He knew that Hakuba probably felt bad enough but right now he didn't care. If Hakuba would learn to just stop flirting with Aoko at every oppertunity then this wouldn't have happened.

"They're close enough, Kaito-kun." Nakamori stated calmly, trying to keep him from throwing a tantrum. "We're doing everything we can to find her."

"What did he do to get her kidnapped, anyway?" Kaito's voice dropped, venom dripping slowly into it. Nakamori gave him a look and put both his hands on his shoulders.

"Kaito-kun, I need you to look at me." He said seriously, staring directly into the magician's eyes. "What happened is not Hakuba's fault. Do you understand?"

"He's the one that got the ransom note, as far as I'm concerned he is responsible." The words were out before he could stop them, and the moment they were he knew he didn't mean them. He swallowed and looked away from Nakamori to the portrait of his dad and then down at the floor as he's sure that if Toichi were around to do so then he'd have told him exactly what Nakamori had-it wasn't Hakuba's fault.

"He already feels responsible. Don't make it worse-I need him at the top of his game for this." Nakamori squeezed the magician's shoulders. Kaito's breath caught and he didn't exactly relax but he tried to let go the bitter feeling he was holding towards the detective that had gotten his best friend kidnapped.

"What do they want from him anyway?" Kaito chanced asking. Nakamori let Kaito go and turned back towards the portrait that was currently hiding the secret entrance to the secret room.

"They want him to kill someone." He began. "Not just anyone but Edogawa Conan-the boy living with that detective." Kaito felt his insides drop even lower, now somewhere on the first floor of his house. The miniature detective? Did this have something to do with Kid?

"Does this-Why him?" Kaito barely managed. Nakamori got up from the foot of Kaito's bed and let out a sigh.

"We don't know." He admitted. "Hakuba-kun and I think it's likely that someone doesn't want either challenging Kid. I have to go to the station-do you want to come with me? Hakuba-kun and the Mouri family are down there now." Despite that it meant Kuroba Kaito would meet face to face with Edogawa Conan, Kaito considered it. Aoko's life was on the line and if he could lend any help to the investigation then, of course he would. No matter what the risk.

"Yeah." Kaito finally nodded. "J-just… let me get dressed?"