No escape—time to defuse the bomb.
Hayashi Shuichi, unfamiliar with timed explosives even from his past life, had no clue.
Then it hit him. He shoved Kudo Yusaku toward the suitcase. "Defuse it! Your dad taught you in Hawaii, right?"
"My parents divorced early," Yusaku said, eyeing the bomb. "But my mom did teach me defusal in Hawaii. I never told anyone. How'd you know?"
Hayashi Shuichi froze. He'd just thrown out a wild guess, not expecting the Kudo family's Hawaii training tradition. "Just a random guess. Believe me?"
"Heh," Yusaku smirked, now certain Hayashi Shuichi had met his mother.
"Hey, stop chatting!" Inspector Samezaki snapped, frantic. "Defuse it! Less than ten seconds!"
"Inspector," Hayashi Shuichi grinned, "Yusaku's got this. He's calm, so why panic?"
"Right!" Samezaki realized, turning to Yusaku. "So—"
Before he finished, the timer hit zero. No explosion. The room stayed quiet.
"A fake bomb?" Samezaki frowned.
"Only the timer's real," Yusaku explained. "It's not connected to the explosives. The shooter left it to stall us."
"Damn it!" Samezaki, furious, moved to kick the suitcase.
Hayashi Shuichi stopped him. "The hotel's explosions were real. Be careful."
"You think there's another trap?" Yusaku crouched, inspecting closely.
Moments later, he looked up grimly. "Hayashi's right. There's a smaller bomb with a balance sensor. Tilt it, and it blows."
"If I'd kicked it…" Samezaki swallowed, pale.
"That's not all," Yusaku pointed to debris by the inner room's door. "A wire ties the suitcase to that mess. Entering there would pull it, triggering the bomb."
"Can you defuse it?" Hayashi Shuichi asked.
"It's complex," Yusaku frowned. "Safer to detonate it. Its power should only destroy this room."
"The shooter wants to keep us out of that room. Are they hiding there?" Samezaki ordered his officers to stand guard.
Hayashi Shuichi peered inside but saw nothing through the debris. "They're not dumb enough to trap themselves…"
A thought struck him. He left 1206, racing downstairs.
At room 1106, the door was ajar. He cautiously entered, finding chaos. In the inner room, he gaped—both ceiling and floor had half-meter holes, clearly from bombs.
Peering down, he saw similar holes in the floor below, and the next…
"Inspector Samezaki! They blasted through the inner room's floors to escape!" Hayashi Shuichi shouted through the ceiling hole, then jumped through the floor hole to the next level.
The escape route's creator was a demolition expert. Each hole was uniform, staggered for easy descent.
Hayashi Shuichi followed the holes to the sixth floor. There, an open window revealed a rope tied to the wall, dangling outside.
He pulled it up—over ten meters, its end neatly cut.
At the window, facing the hotel's back, he saw a five-story apartment opposite. The rope had likely been tied to its roof. The shooters slid from the sixth floor to the apartment, then cut the rope.
Hayashi Shuichi looked down, spotting a black sedan pulling away from the apartment. In the dark, he couldn't see the plate or confirm the shooters were inside.
With no time to waste, he rushed downstairs, informing Officer Sato to search the apartment behind the hotel.
He didn't join the search—too much time had passed; the shooters were likely gone.
Police reinforcements arrived, questioning guests evacuated to City Hall's plaza.
Seeing Hayashi Shuichi safe, Mouri Kogoro, Hibari Eri, and Fujimine Yukiko sighed in relief.
"Where's Sharon Vineyard?" Hayashi Shuichi scanned the crowd, not seeing the blonde.
Though he hadn't seen the shooters' faces, their brazen style and Belmod's presence made him suspect the Black Organization.
"Vineyard was smoking at the entrance earlier," Yukiko said. "She's probably gone. Why?"
"Just checking she's okay," Hayashi Shuichi said casually.
Eri and Yukiko's gazes sharpened. "You said she's mature and beautiful, sneaking glances at her…" Eri huffed. "So you're into older women."
"Foreign women aren't that great!" Yukiko pouted. "She's pretty now, but foreigners age fast. In a few years, she'll be a hag!"
"What are you two on about?" Hayashi Shuichi laughed helplessly. "I was just asking…"
(End of Chapter)
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