"Are you sure about this?"

It was a stupid question. It really was, and Naomi knew it, but she asked it anyway. The moment just seemed to call for it.

"Yes," L muttered in response. His eyes were dead ahead as they walked side-by-side, his hands in his pockets like always.

It was nighttime now, and the looming sky above was cloaked ominously in a ceiling of clouds. L's and Naomi's footsteps mixed with the whooshing hum from the overhead highway and the clipped chirping of a cricket somewhere close by. The two of them had waited until dark to return to the industrial complex to retrieve the unidentified victim's body. Naomi had at least cut the rope he'd been dangling from and laid the still form carefully on the metal floor of the unit as respectfully as she could, but it still felt so horrible just leaving him there like that... all painted and mutilated.

Naomi shivered now as she thought about it. She tried not to dwell on the fact that Watari had been taken by the very psychopath that set up this disgustingly morbid exhibit. Instead, she willed herself to concentrate only on the facts and not on speculation- just as she would with any other case.

They reached the "L" storage unit, and Naomi pulled open the groaning, steel door. L held a flashlight horizontally up by his shoulder, the neck of it pinched between the tips of his first finger and thumb. His other hand remained pocketed as he followed Naomi through the unsettling array of hanging puppets and to the back of the unit where the corpse lay on his back against the wall. Naomi had at least done him the decency of closing his eyes.

L crouched down and held the flashlight up a little higher, his other thumb immediately lifting to his lip. The single beam shone down through a haze of floating dust particles, and L's eyes followed the end of it as it slowly traveled the length of the victim's body.

"He's the only one?" he asked after a moment, his voice sounding hollow against the metal walls.

"Yes, the others are all wooden. I checked." Naomi nodded, standing beside and a little behind him.

L turned on his feet a little and shone the light upwards as he scanned the spectacle of frilly costumes and painted grins. Then he stood, the joints in his knees popping as he did.

"I'm not happy with our limited resources," he grumbled, scratching to back of his head. "This crime scene should be swept thoroughly for fingerprints and other evidence. Buuut, I suppose..." He sighed, looking around again. "...putting me at a disadvantage is just what Beyond wants." The shadows under L's eyes looked especially prominent in the eerie lighting. "Here." L handed Naomi the flashlight. Then he crouched down and lifted the dead man into a sitting position before slinging him limply over his shoulders and standing back up again. He looked at Naomi with his round, tired eyes, one arm slung over the man's leg and the other hand holding a pulseless wrist.

Naomi pursed her lips together and furrowed her brow as if asking once again... Are we doing the right thing? But she said nothing aloud, only turned and made her way out of the large, metal unit with L shouldering his burden close behind her.

Naomi was met with the coolness of the night air against her face as she stepped back out onto the pavement, and she looked down through lightly windswept strands of hair as she switched off the flashlight. Her fingertips brushed her breezy locks aside as she looked up again, her eyes scanning the premises to ensure they were alone. Then, glancing at L, she began walking back to the car, the soft crunch of the crumbling blacktop beneath her boots and L's sneakers doing little to disrupt the white noise of the traffic on the overpass.

They reached the car- a simple, black sedan L had purchased under an alias for the sole purpose of transporting the body- and Naomi unlocked the trunk. She stepped aside, and L ducked his head to roll the corpse off his shoulders. It landed inside with an unsettling thud, and Naomi blurted out, "Careful!" before she could think.

L stood upright and looked at her, exhaling a little from the effort. "Why?"

Naomi stared at him dumbly. "I... don't know." She looked at the poor, desecrated man, lying haphazardly in an odd and rather uncomfortable-looking position, all twisted up with one arm flopped over his face. But... it didn't really matter, did it?

L just looked at her a moment longer, rolling his problematic shoulder as he pressed his fingertips against it. Then he turned on his heel, his shoe scraping against the asphalt, and he moved to open the passenger side door.

Naomi lifted her hand to shut the trunk, the small lamp from within casting soft light on her troubled countenance. She paused as she looked inside one more time. An image of Watari in place of the corpse flashed briefly in her mind, and a sickening knot formed in her stomach. Scrunching her eyes tightly, she shook her head and recalled her own words from earlier that day...

"Until we know for certain, we should proceed as though he is alive."

Without looking again, Naomi pulled down forcefully on the trunk. She walked around to open the driver's side of the car and climbed in before shutting the door and extending the seatbelt over herself to click it into place.

"So..." She looked over at L. "We're just gonna... leave him in there?" Her expression was uneasy as she turned the key to start the engine.

"Only for a few hours," L responded. He sat crouched in the passenger seat rummaging through the glove compartment. "I'll need you to deliver the body to a drop site at 3:15 in the morning."

Naomi cringed at the term 'drop site.' As if this poor man was just a package... a satchel of cold, hard evidence.

Clearing her throat and shoving down her feelings, Naomi flicked her finger over toward L. "Seatbelt."

"Oh, right."

-click-

The rummaging resumed, and Naomi sighed as she put the car into drive and turned it around to head back to the hotel. Neither she nor L spoke as the street lamps briefly illuminated their features in passing intervals. Naomi plunked one elbow against the base of the window and rubbed her forehead with her fingertips.

L produced a butterscotch lollipop and shut the compartment after opening the packaging. He leaned back into the seat and draped his lanky arm over his bent up knees as he stared out the window. Holding the very end of the stick between his first finger and thumb, he listlessly rolled the candy around with his tongue, knocking it lightly against his back teeth.

Naomi sighed again. "It's gonna be a long night," she remarked numbly. "I need a coffee." She put on the turning signal and slowed down to turn the car into the parking lot of a fast food restaurant.

"There's coffee at the hotel," L muttered.

"I want a mocha," Naomi stubbornly told him as she pulled up to the brightly-lit drive-thru. She rolled down her window and was met with a polite, staticky voice.

"Hi, can I help you?"

Yes, hello, we have a dead body in the trunk.

Naomi cleared her throat loudly. "Hi!" she returned, a little too cheerily. "Can I get a large mocha please?"

L poked her arm, and Naomi glanced at him, then nodded before turning back toward the speaker.

"...and a hot fudge sundae... extra hot fudge."

Moments later, they were on the road again. L still sat shrunk back in his seat, but now he delicately held a plastic cup of hot fudge and ice cream by its base in one hand and the end of a long, red spoon in the other.

"Naomi..." he said slowly. The spoon was in his mouth, pressed against his tongue.

"Hm?"

L was deep in thought as he tapped his finger against the red, plastic handle. "The man who died in the hospital explosion... the man we thought was B. He was identified as such by his dental records."

Naomi nodded. "Right. Beyond must have found a way to change the records somehow."

"...or he changed the teeth."

"What?"

"..."

L just continued tapping the end of the spoon with his fingertip.

Naomi thought about that. Change the teeth? How would Beyond have had the time and resources to manage such a thing? Unless... it wasn't Beyond. Unless someone else did the dirty work for him. She looked over to L. "Teppei Tani."

L nodded slowly.

The young Japanese inmate whom B had befriended in prison ("Pip" as the Warden had said he'd been referred to), was still the number one suspect in the LAPD's case on the murder of Beyond Birthday. Of course, they were still ignorant to the lie of his demise.

Naomi furrowed her brow and tilted her head, her face turned toward L but her eyes still on the road. "How would that have been possible? He would have had to somehow get a mold of B's teeth."

"Uh huh." L's wide, grey eyes stared out at the passing city lights and colors amid palm tree silhouettes.

He said nothing more, and neither did Naomi. They returned to the hotel, both of them in a weighted and troubled state of mind. So many things weren't making sense. So many questions were unanswered, like holes dotting an incomplete puzzle.

How had Beyond managed to use Pip to replace the dead man's teeth with a copy of his own?

Who was it that had really died in that hospital bed?

And how had the blast occurred without the use of an explosive substance?

Naomi sat down on the couch with a heavy sigh and picked up the case file on Beyond Birthday's murder. She crossed one leg over the other and tipped the paper coffee cup against her lips as she opened the folder of documents and photographs and clips. Her eyes scanned over the autopsy report, the interrogation transcriptions, the evidence records...

...a mold of his teeth.

Naomi brow knitted together as she tipped her head. "L?"

"M'yes?" He didn't turn around from his perch at the desk.

"In the Warden's report, it says that all those news articles and photographs B had all over the walls of his cell were taken down the day before Teppei Tani was released."

L swiveled to look at her. "...so?"

"SO," Naomi emphasized, leaning forward. "I was just thinking... Prisoners aren't allowed to have sharp objects like tacks to hang things on the walls."

"No, they would have to use something like tape." L's thumb was shoved up into his top lip.

"...or sticky tack," Naomi said slowly. "You know, like... adhesive putty."

"Right..." Then L's eyes widened and he sat upright, his thumb lowering from his mouth. "...oh!"

Naomi nodded, standing up and quickly moving over to the desk. "It's how he made the mold! It's why he took down everything he had hung on the walls! He used all that sticky tack to cast his teeth-"

"...and he gave it to Tani, who then went and had dentures made," L finished in a mumble.

"And once he had them," Naomi went on, "he replaced some dead guy's set of teeth with an exact replica of Beyond's."

L thought this over for a moment, then sighed heavily. "That's brilliant, Naomi. But it won't help us find Watari."

Naomi was clutching the folder in front of her, and she lowered it a bit, the muscles in her fingers and shoulders relaxing. The high of the moment was gone in a whiff.

"...right."

"Still." L looked up at her from where he sat and reached out to take hold of her hand with just the tips of his fingers. "That was good detective work."

Sadly, Naomi smiled at him and squeezed her hand against his. "We're gonna find him," she said softly.

L returned her gaze and slowly nodded. His hand lingered in hers for a moment longer before he let go and swiveled around again to get back to work.

The clouds parted like heavy velvet curtains in the night sky, unveiling a vibrant and silvery moon. Enchanted and glowing, it hung like a gossamer orb in a murky expanse of black, casting long, finger-like shadows over the hills and the headstones of the cemetery. The chirrup of insects and the thrum of not-so-distant traffic blended together in an ambient duet that was broken only by the hushed and earthen sound of digging.

Two hooded figures were silhouetted against a backdrop of looming buildings and chromatic lights, and one of them stood abruptly to catch his breath.

"So when do we kill him?" The rather nasally voice held a blatant tone of enthusiasm that felt obscenely out of place in such ghostly surroundings.

The second digger stood upright, thrusting his shovel into the earth beside him. "What?" The single word was clipped with annoyance.

"Well, we're digging his grave, aren't we? So it's soon, yeah?"

The lower of the two voices breathed out a miffed exhale as its owner looked sideways and rubbed his forehead with the side of his wrist. "We aren't digging a grave... we're robbing one. Hello?" An arm gestured wildly to the headstone bearing the name Bianca Boringstory.

"Who's Bianca?"

"Did-?! Okay. Did someone juice your brains? It doesn't MATTER. She's not why we're here." The shovel was lifted again as its bearer bent to collect another spadeful of dirt.

There was a dull thunk.

The shovel was discarded as two pairs of sneakers dropped down into the hole.

The more eager of the two was fairly trembling with excitement, his high-pitched mutterings bordering on the psychotic.

The second was much more methodical. His gloved hands pushed away the earth covering the lid of the casket before his fingers curled under the hinged opening.

With a heavy creak, the contents of the coffer were revealed, and the mousey mumblings gave way to a bewildered sound of curiosity.

"...what's in the box?"

A twisted smile formed upon burned and gnarled lips as the gloved hands carefully lifted a small metal strongbox from the padded interior of the casket. The man made no reply. Instead, he turned his gaze to the degraded remains of Bianca Boringstory.

"Thanks for keeping this safe for me, gorgeous."