The Kite's Dream

"So, after finishing your visit at Ms. Jodie Saintemillion's home, you ran into kidnappers abducting a child while she was driving you home... Um, Miss Mouri?"

By the light of the harbor streetlamps, the officer struggled through a long string of awkward katakana before looking up at the girl sitting before him, wrapped in a blanket and lost in thought.

"H-here!" Ran Mouri abruptly snapped back to her senses. After glancing at Jodie, who was giving her statement on the other side, she hesitated for a moment, then nodded. "Yes."

"Because that child was a classmate of one of the children in your household, you noticed something was wrong, correct?" The young officer summarized the earlier account as he scribbled furiously in his notebook.

Because the harbor district was sparsely populated, most criminal cases here were limited to minor incidents like burglary and theft. He was still a little excited by the novelty of taking statements for a major case.

If this had been the First Investigation Division, they would have recognized the group by now.

"And the kidnappers? Do you have any clues about where they went?" the young officer continued.

When dealing with a serious criminal case, even an on-site interview required rigorous statements. He had to ask repeatedly, compare the accounts before and after, and ensure that the people being questioned were not concealing anything or lying.

He faithfully carried out the theoretical knowledge he had learned and waited for Ran Mouri's answer.

"...I don't know." Afraid to look too much at the others present, Ran lowered her head. Rather than answering his question, she seemed to be trying to convince herself. "After abandoning the car, the kidnappers blew up the fuel tank and left."

The real kidnapper had been that blond woman disguised as Dr. Araide,