A man named Sasamoto is nearly killed by a falling cinder block. He believes that it's his old college friend, Hikage, who disappeared 3 years ago, but since has written a murder prophesy novel where he kills his 3 friends from college. One of the friends, Nesu, was already discovered murdered in a park, and so the two remaining friends seek Kogoro's help. A package arrives for the other friend, Kamio, which explodes though it only causes minor injury. Hikage then attempts to run over Sasamoto, but from the brake marks Conan questions the criminal's actual intent. Conan does some investigation and find out that Hikage brought his masterpiece to Kamio who told him it was worthless. Hikage went to the mountains where he committed suicide. After tranquilizing Kogoro, Conan reveals that Kamio was being blackmailed by Nesu over Hikage's death. Kamio then devised a plot to kill Nesu disguised as Hikage, and then pretend to target both himself and Sasamoto.