"And you're absolutely sure that there's a staff meeting going on right now?" Conan asked for the millionth time as they stood in front of the most vanilla house he'd ever seen. It looked more or less like all the other houses in the neighborhood—a red brick house with some bushes by the front porch and neatly cut grass. A moth flew by the outdoor light in the rapidly fading sunset, and Conan briefly wondered how many rules he was breaking by being there. He hadn't told Jodie-san about Fenton's identity, and he definitely hadn't told her that he'd told them his identity. He could only imagine the earful he was going to get when the FBI found out about it.

"Yes, I'm sure. Mrs. Mattioli explicitly said that she wasn't going to be doing her usual after-school tutoring sessions today because of it." Sam rolled her eyes before frowning and glancing at her skull-shaped watch. "Where's Tucker? He should be here by now."

Right on cue, Tucker skidded around the corner panting, his backpack hanging from one shoulder. He almost crashed straight into Fenton, but stopped himself just short. Everyone stared as he pulled off his backpack and reached inside, producing the skeleton mask he'd promised the week before. Considering the situation, his one-man a capella fanfare seemed a little loud and a little much, especially when he held it over his head like The Lion King. The mask itself looked like it was made of metal smoothed to perfection and painted white.

"Why, I do thank thee, Fryer Tuck, from the bottom of my heart," Fenton proclaimed, puffing out his chest and resting one hand over his heart.

"It's not like I could fit that many features into it with my relatively limited skills in building hardware, but I think I managed to get in some pretty wicked stuff," Tucker boasted, lowering the mask and flipping it over to reveal a black lining on the inside. "I've put fireproof rubber on the inside because it would probably be bad if the mask got hit and caught on fire with Danny's face in it. But anyway!" Tucker smiled and looked up at Danny. "Lucky for us, Sam was willing to part with some money for materials. This thing would be so dangerous otherwise."

Leaning forward eagerly, Sam ran a finger over the side of the mask. "What all does it do?"

"Look, I hate to be a spoilsport, but staff meetings don't last all night," Conan interrupted, impatience finally getting the better of them. Sure, the mask was great, but they were on a bit of a time limit and they had a whole house to investigate. Besides, they weren't exactly hidden from the view of any nosy neighbors at the moment.

"Okay, yeah, fair enough. But I brought it today 'cause I thought it might be useful. Also to give it a test run, I guess. Right now, it's got night vision and…well, I may have sort of taken a look at the beta notes for the Fentons' ghost tracker the last time I was at their house. It's actually quite fascinating; it utilizes what they've coined as an 'ecto-signature' to—"

Conan sighed. "Tucker."

"Yes, yes, pressed for time and all that. The tracker may or may not work, depending on if Danny's parents' plans are sound or not. Seemed that way to me, but like I said, I'm more of a software than a hardware kind of guy. But anyway, I thought the night vision might be useful."

"Thank you, Tuck," Fenton said. "Really. This is really cool."

Finally, they all turned towards the house and walked around it to the backyard, which looked equally boring with a small patio and a green lawn chair. Otherwise, the yard was completely empty. The backdoor was, of course, locked (worth a shot), and all three of them glanced at Fenton.

"There better not be any security cameras," he muttered. White rings enveloped his waist and spread outwards, turning his hair white and replacing his clothes with his suit. "I'm holding you all personally responsible if my face is plastered all over the news tomorrow."

"You checked if there were security cameras, right, Tucker?" Sam asked nervously, scanning the back wall for any signs of spying eyes.

"Of course I did! I'm kind of offended that you would even ask." Tucker handed the mask to Fenton to try on. "I didn't find anything, so I don't think we have anything to worry about."

The three of them grabbed on to Fenton as he made himself intangible and phased through the old wooden door. It was a weird feeling, like if someone had poured cold water over Conan and lightly shocked him with static electricity. But hey, what works works. If it got them into Lancer's house, then he could hardly complain.

The back door led into the kitchen, which was completely spotless. Not one pan out of place, not one stray bread crumb, nothing. Hell, it looked like a cleaning service had been living there for a month. It was one thing to be a neat person, but given the circumstances, it warranted a second look. A room that was hyper clean was less conspicuous than one left to gather dust if someone ever decided to look, after all.

The rest of the house looked much the same. It was all very ordinary—couch, TV, desk, small dining table, tasteless paintings, etcetera. It was pretty much exactly the sort of interior design that Conan would have expected from an American middle-aged English teacher.

"So if you think that the Mr. Lancer at school isn't the real one…what do you think this person wants with us in detention?" Sam pondered as she peeked under the sofa cushions. "I mean, Tucker and I were in detention yesterday and I can't remember anything bad happening."

"Actually," Tucker glanced at Sam, a hint of worry appearing in his eyes. "I can't remember anything at all. I remember walking in and sitting down, but after that I come up blank."

Sam stopped in her tracks. "Me too."

Well, that was worrying. Memory loss wasn't really something up Vermouth's alley as far as Conan knew. It wasn't like the Organization had some magical memory-erasing device even before the storming of the headquarters. If they had had one, they would have certainly used it on anyone who had any kind of information rather than killing them. Killing left a trail of blood the cops could follow, no matter how efficiently it was covered up. Even so, this wasn't something that Conan was willing to chalk up to the simple boredom of being in detention. Suddenly, everywhere they turned, there was a new oddity to be found in Mr. Lancer.

"I don't know what to tell you," Conan said. "We'll just have to keep investigating and see if we can figure something out. There might be a clue to the memory loss too."

"Hey guys?" called Fenton with a slight tremor in his voice. "I think that you should see this."

All three of them rushed over to find Fenton zeroed in on the wall above the bed, his mouth turned down into a frown. "Here, this spot on the wall."

Sam leaned in closer and furrowed her brow. "But there's nothing there."

Conan paused. Yes, but Fenton was also wearing equipment that the rest of them weren't, so could it be that…? "Luminol is a well-known substance for uncovering hidden blood splatters, but infrared imaging is also used in forensics," Conan explained. "And night vision goggles—"

"—also see infrared light!" Tucker finished gleefully. "That's not a use I'd thought about, but I'm suddenly glad I made the extra push last night to have the mask ready for today."

"So am I." Conan held his hand out in front of Fenton. "Can I see that for a minute?"

Fenton complied and Conan held up the mask to his face. Sure enough, it was blood. And judging from amount, there had been a struggle. "There's a larger splatter and then a trail leading downwards, like he hit his head and was dragged against the wall by the perpetrator. There's no dent though, and you would have to hit your head extremely hard to shed this much blood from a blunt-force blow. However, there's also a patch on the corner of the headboard, which makes me think he was woken up in a panic and opened a wound on the back of his head from that first."

He turned and followed some smaller blood splatters across the carpet, stopping at another large one. "It looks like the perpetrator picked him up and left him here for a little while, probably to find something to tie him up with. Did anyone find any rope or zip ties or anything like that in their search?"

"There was some rope in the garage," said Tucker.

Conan absently handed the mask back to Fenton and followed Tucker's lead back to the garage, finding a nice bundle of tightly coiled rope. Several tufts of frayed rope poked out at the bottom of the pile, not that he could say that any missing rope had been Vermouth's handiwork. "Are there any blood stains, Danny?"

"Not here," he replied. "Most of the house is clear, save the bedroom of course."

So there was no way to confirm or deny whether the missing rope was related, but as far as Conan was concerned, they had their evidence either way. The bloodstains were too fresh to be anyone else's. They were even painted over and the night vision lenses were picking up on them. Still, it would be a good idea to take a second look at everything to see if they missed anything. That was the first rule in the book for detectives.

So they reentered the living room and took another look around. The sun had sunk below the horizon and Conan was starting to get antsy—how long did a staff meeting usually last? They weren't about to be caught red-handed by Mr. Lancer, were they?

He glanced around the space, eyebrows knitting together as he noticed a gray smudge around the fireplace. Seems odd that whoever cleaned would have missed a spot given how meticulous they were, he thought. Fenton seemed to have noticed the same thing, and they glanced at each other as they cautiously approached the fireplace.

A charred log sat between the black bars in a mound of ashes. Nothing unusual. Unless, of course, one accounted for the fact that it was literally the only thing in the entire house that had visibly been used. Why would they not have cleaned the fireplace? Conan reached out his hand to start sifting through the ashes, but Fenton beat him to it, grays and blacks smearing onto the pristine white gloves.

A flash of red caught Conan's eye, and his stomach jumped a bit. "Wait, wait! I saw something!"

"What is it?" asked Sam and Fenton in unison. Sam came over to investigate, leaving Tucker to continue his search on the other side of the room.

He reached in and gently extracted a burned card from the mound. Half of it was missing, leaving a jagged black edge, but the other half was certainly recognizable enough. Conan could barely tear his eyes away from the smiling figure in the photo. The eyes of Penelope Spectra on her Caspar High ID card stared back almost mockingly, raising an eyebrow and demanding the truth from him: Do you feel numb, Conan? Do you care about anyone?

Of course I do. Everything that happened isn't my fault. I did whatever I could.

But that was only an empty mantra Conan told himself to get away from the guilt and he knew it. He didn't have the mental space to deal with Spectra right now—how was he supposed to handle someone like that, always two steps ahead and laughing along the way?

Automatically dropping the card back in the ashes, Conan quickly and quietly composed himself. He mindfully took each breath to shove down the ugly feelings resurfacing in his chest. The last thing he needed right then was a confrontation with his own feelings. "Looks like you were right after all."

"So Spectra really is involved in this," Fenton thought out loud. Reaching over to pick it back up, he examined the card more closely. "But if it's her who's been impersonating Mr. Lancer…then how did she hide herself from my ghost sense? Lancer's room isn't cold like the counselor's office was. I should have sensed her forever ago."

"Unless—" Conan paused as Fenton drew his hand across his lips. Sam and Tucker fell silent on cue, and they all stopped to listen. For a moment, there was only the sound of the wall clock ticking, but then he heard it: the sound of quiet footsteps on the tiled floor. His mouth went dry as Fenton's arms shot out and made all three of them invisible.

"Get over here, Tucker! Now!" hissed Fenton urgently, pulling them all forwards to meet him in the middle. The footsteps got louder and louder, and Tucker dived behind a chair as "Mr. Lancer" came into the room. Conan dared not breathe, keeping one hand over his mouth to keep in any unintentional noises.

"Mr. Lancer" set down his briefcase and keys on the coffee table and produced a sleek Blackberry phone from his pocket. He took a quick scan of the room before apparently deciding that nothing was out of place and settling down on the couch. Inputting some number Conan couldn't catch on the phone, he yanked out some kind of device hidden under the collar of his shirt. "Brandy," a hauntingly familiar feminine voice started coldly, "I've finished the job, so he's all yours. I'll be sending the samples along to you tonight as directed. And you had better hold up your end of the bargain. I don't want to see any kind of law enforcement on my back ever again, got it?"

A pause as "Brandy" responded.

"All right. Yes, I'll see you there. I'm skipping town as soon as we're done." Vermouth lowered the phone from her ear and hung up as she sunk further into the couch. "I need a drink," she muttered grumpily.

Conan's gaze shifted to Tucker, who had peeked out just a tiny bit from behind the leather armchair, eyes wide with horror. Conan looked over at the empty spot next to him, silently pleading Fenton to pull some magical ghost trick to cross the room without making any noise and without dropping him or Sam. But all they could do was stand there and pray.

Vermouth turned her attention towards the fireplace, her expression darkening as she got up and examined the ashes around the log. Taking the card sitting on the top of the pile, she narrowed her eyes and grabbed a lighter from her pocket. After setting the rest on fire, she threw it back in and took another look around the room. She moved as if ready to drop into a defensive stance at any moment. Fenton, Sam, and Conan all scrambled backwards to avoid her.

She frowned and picked the briefcase back up, heading in the direction of the bedroom. Still, they weren't out of this yet. Fenton jumped on the window of opportunity, stealth be damned. They had to get out of there, and they had to get out of there now. He shot forward, Sam and Conan in tow, letting Sam scoop Tucker up as they barreled towards the wall. He could hear Vermouth running back into the living room as the feeling of cold water came back and they phased through the wall. They didn't dare stop until they ducked into an alleyway from sidewalk.

"That wasn't Spectra," Tucker wheezed out between heavy breaths. He opted to slump against the dumpster for support. "That was…the 'Vermouth' person you mentioned yesterday, I take it?"

Conan also rather felt like he needed to sit down. "Yeah." He ran a hand through his bangs, feeling not twenty-four, not fourteen, but forty. "Yeah, that's her. We have no time to waste. We have to know what she's doing and where she's going."

What was Vermouth's connection to Spectra? The most logical conclusion was that they had somehow formed an alliance. Sure, all right. Conan could roll with that theory. The problem was that he had no idea what the goal was. Vermouth had mentioned something about samples…but samples of what? For what purpose? This seemed to be the result of something that had been in the works for a while. He was supposed to be the experienced one. How could he not have seen Vermouth right there under his nose?

He had obviously been getting too wrapped up in his own affairs. Ever since he'd come to Amity Park, it was always one thing after another. He was too deep investigating the details to see the bigger picture around him. But if Vermouth was working with Spectra, then it didn't seem to him much of a stretch to say that Spectra was also likely working with Gin. He was just stuck on why. Not to mention this Brandy character. Brandy was not a codename that he had ever encountered in the past and it was not one on the member list pulled from Ano Kata's computer. A whole host of new questions and theories flooded his mind.

There had to be some kind of connecting line hidden under the layers of disguise, and Conan intended to find it. Both Vermouth and Gin in the same place raised a massive red flag that bad things were on the way. To sort this out, he was going to need help.

He turned back to the kids. He hated to do this, but plans were most effective with backup. "I think it's time that you all met my boss."

And so...the mystery continues...