Could it be... Thinking of a possibility, Vermouth felt a chill run down her back. "Could Uzo already know my plan, so he had Cool Guy disguise himself as Sherry?"
"...No, I can't be so pessimistic. On the bright side, Cool Guy is sharp to begin with, and Kudo Yusaku has several FBI friends. It would be perfectly normal for them to see through my luring the tiger off the mountain and step in themselves."
No matter what, there was no turning back now. It was too late to back out.
So, after discovering "Haibara Ai's" true identity, Vermouth had quickly devised a second plan despite her shock.
—She would follow Cool Guy's method of verification and send the answer to "Dr. Araide" beforehand, allowing him to answer successfully and pose as the real Dr. Araide.
"Like a game of Eagle Catches Chicks, the mother hen at the front steps forward to confront the Eagle and protect the Chicks behind her.
"And when he suddenly realizes that the 'Eagle' before him is merely a harmless passerby, what will the hen, as the protector, do?"
—Usually, she would naturally turn around at once to check on the Chicks behind her, to see whether the real Eagle had already circled around behind her and was waiting for a chance to launch a sneak attack.
To make Conan instinctively check on what he was protecting in his panic, Vermouth had deliberately called him out of the car as "Jodie," further stripping this Mini Detective of his Sense of Security.
The plan had nearly succeeded. Vermouth had even seen Conan take out his phone and open his address book.
But unfortunately, perhaps because the earlier shock had been too great, combined with her excessive eagerness to capture Sherry as quickly as possible, there had