Chapter 14

"Why do I have to do this again?"

Haeun sighs as she walks into the department. Mark had called up earlier about an interrogation with one of the victim's friends – and for some reason, Chief Kim had her to the questioning. "I really don't want to," she takes another sip from the can of coffee Mark gave her. Her hangover was still there even after taking some aspirins to decrease its effects. They stopped in front of the two-way mirror and Haeun watched as the school girl picked on her fingers, clear that she was nervous.

"Because seeing how nervous she is," Mark points to the girl, "Chief thinks you'll have a better chance of talking to her than anyone else." Haeun drinks down the rest of the coffee and hands the empty can to Mark. The woman wipes her mouth with her sleeve before she tied up her hair, "Hopefully we'll get a description of him or something useful." She checks her wallet and heads to the vending machine.

"What's that for?"

"Just a way to help her calm down," she buys two cans of some kind of juice, "Don't want us to scare off our only lead. What made her decide to come down?" She squats down and holds out the two drinks and walks towards the room. Mark just gives her a shrug, "She won't say anything." There's a mischievous look in his eyes as he blocks her from entering.

"Are you and Taeyong… a thing?" he raises his eyebrow at the end of the question.

"What do you mean by 'a thing'?" she tilts her head, "We just got drunk – that's it."

"And just happen to fall asleep in each other's arm in the sofa?" he chuckles seeing her surprised reaction. "WinWin told me – he said he nearly got a heart attack. Are you sure you guys aren't –"

"Mark, shut it," she placed a hand over his mouth, "I rather interrogate her than deal with your questions right now." She lifted his arm and quickly made her way inside. Her presence was quickly caught on by the girl as she turned to face the detective. Haeun gave the student a smile before she sat down on the opposite side.

The school girl's name was Kim Minji and she happened to be a friend of Ji Yooji, the second victim.

"You're Minji, right?" Haeun asked, sliding the can towards her. "I'm Detective Yoo," she introduces herself as she opened the can for Minji. "My partner said you had a few things to tell me, is that true?"

Minji nods her head but her eyes are still stuck down to her lap.

"Minji, you don't have to be afraid," Haeun tries to calm the girl down, she knows how scared she must be in this cold room. "There's no one here to harm you and I reassure you, I'll do everything in my power to keep you safe." Her hand reaches out to hold Minji's hand, giving it a squeeze. "Any information you can give will be helpful so please, Minji, help us take down the person who did all that to Yooji."

At the mention of Yooji does Minji begin to sob. "It's all my fault. I shouldn't have let her meet up with him in the first place," she cries, "But she was so happy – so happy to meet someone who just swayed her like that. It's all my fault, I didn't protect her like I should have." Haeun doesn't say anything and lets Minji take her time to calm herself down. Minji continues to cry, letting the tears flow – feeling regret take over her.

"Yooji… Yooji was my best friend – we've been together since preschool," she explains just as Haeun takes out her handkerchief. Minji takes it with her shaking hands and dabs it on her wet cheeks. "Minji and Yooji, the Jiji twins," she chuckles at the memory, "We were like sisters. Sleepovers nearly every month, same fashion sense, same taste in every single food – everyone said we could read each other's mind.

"But then… Yooji changed when she bumped into that guy. She met him when she was at the convenience store – she always visits there when her dance classes end. She… She said the guy just paid for her drink and didn't say anything else," Minji lightly shakes her head and wipes her nose. "Then, she met him again and this time she said thank you. She didn't go into detail but… Yooji was so ecstatic when she was talking about him. She said they would sit down at the convenience store and talk. Yooji doesn't really get along with a lot of guys so she was really happy when this guy expressed his interest in her."

"Did Yooji ever say who his name was? Or how he looked like?"

Minji shook her head, "No, she never mentioned a name and I just saw a glimpse of his once."

"Can you recall details?" Haeun asked, leaning forward – her anticipation rising.

"A few? I'm… I'm not sure," Minji goes quiet for a while before her eyes snapped back to Haeun, "He had a tattoo somewhere around his left wrist! I remember seeing it when he waved at Yooji – it was some kind of flower? I can't tell what kind it was though…"

"Anything else you remember? Like the way he spoke? A scar?"

"He…He had dimples – Oh, and he had a mole below his right eye," Minji pointed to her own face to indicate where it was.

Haeun nods her head and jots it down into her notepad, "I'll get a sketch artist for you later, any detail you can remember will prove to be a huge help. Do you remember anything else about the guy in how Yooji spoke about him? Was he wealthy? Or someone of status?"

Minji slowly nods her head, her memory coming back to her one at a time. "Yooji got some gifts from him, not a lot but they were pricey. Bracelets, earrings, necklaces – I think she still keeps them in her room." Haeun made a note for them to visit Yooji's house again to gather all the jewellery, maybe they could track down the buyer. Haeun taps her pen on her notepad, taking a second to think of another question.

"Minji, I know this might be hard for you to answer but do you remember any details Yooji told you before she went missing?"

"She… Yooji told me she was going to out to see a movie with him. She had me over the night before to help pick out an outfit for her," her eyes look up to gather the image of Yooji's last outfit, "Mulberry coloured shirt and a pair of jeans… and this necklace." Minji takes reveals the necklace under her shirt, "It's a friendship necklace we had made a few years back. We never leave home without it."

"Is it alright if I take it? I'll give it back to you once I'm done," Haeun asks and Minji takes it off, dropping the metal accessory into her hands. Haeun didn't remember seeing any necklace reported when Yooji was found – if they could find the necklace, it could be a clue as to where Yooji was kept captive with the rest.

As Minji sits down with the sketch artist, Haeun was back at her desk. She looked through the notes she managed to jot down during her time with Minji. As she looked at the friendship necklace, Haeun suddenly broke into a smile. She had one of these with Seonghan and Lucas – both of them refused to have matching ones so, in the end, Haeun had a bracelet with two different charms. It used to be something she wore every single day but now it was kept inside her drawer.

"I should find it when the case is done," she mumbles to herself, "It was pretty expensive."

Just then, a call came through, snapping Haeun out from her thoughts. It was a payphone number so she knew it was Lucas.

"Hey, I was just thinking about you," Haeun speaks, leaning back on her seat as she rubbed her nape. It was sore from the awkward sleeping position she was in earlier this morning. Oh, right – she had to remember to apologize to Taeyong for pushing him out of shock. She hoped he wasn't bruised from her aggressive gesture. When WinWin had come into the room to look for either one of them, he didn't expect to find both of them together and screamed out of shock. His scream woke up Haeun and she was the first to react – with a shove. "How's everything going for you?"

"Good. Your mom has been teaching me a lot of things about baking."

"Really?" she clicks the pen in her hand and scribbles lines on the piece of paper.

Lucas leaned against the payphone, "Yeah, she even taught me how to make your favourite muffins."

"Get out – she did? She never taught me those!"

Haeun could hear him snicker from the other end. "You mom explained and I quote 'to prevent Haeun from binge eating muffins until she dies from all the sugar'. I still have to get it right, it's a work in progress."

"We are so baking them when this case blows." There's clear frustration in her tone and it doesn't go unnoticed by Lucas. "And I hope that's soon. Have the twins been treating you alright?"

He nods his head, "Twins have been great; they talk about you a lot, you know. Your family seems to miss you a lot. When was the last time you dropped by?"

Haeun stops her doodling and takes some time to answer him. She didn't realize it had been months since she last saw them and she wondered how in the world did time go by so fast. "Few months, I guess," her voice trails off and Lucas can tell she's in deep thought. Haeun was close to her family so he assumed some sort of guilt was rising up in her from not visiting her family often enough. He stays quiet and lets her gather her thoughts. The detective clears her throat, "Are you comfortable back there? Do you need anything? I can send money-"

"Haeun," he stops her midway, "I'm fine. There's no need to worry about me, alright? Just focus on solving this case so we can meet up again."

His words made Haeun break into a smile and there's a warm feeling in her chest. "Okay," she puts down her pen, "Okay, I'll tone down the worrying. Stay safe, Lucas. Call me if anything happens."

"Will do. Good luck, Haeun," Lucas hesitates to put down the phone but he ends the call first.

"We went back and checked the house for the pieces of jewellery," Johnny notified Haeun through the phone. The woman was still at school and took the phone call somewhere more private. "We found some similar pieces and the team is still trying to see if we can get any sort of DNA on them."

"Search for their prices. See if they're the real thing – if we can figure out the prices, we could have a rough idea on what the kidnapper works as."

"Taeyong's working on that now," Johnny stares down at Taeyong as he typed on his keyboard, "We found some information on Lucas's model agency. The girls were street scouted by the same person but we couldn't find a name, no one wants to talk."

"Get a warrant as fast as you can, someone has to go interrogate the agency and find whatever we can to find a suspect."

"Sure thing, boss. We'll keep you updated."

Haeun ends the call and sighs. She still needs to look up on those victims from the school's past cases but searching up at home or at the department was risky. Her hand slides to her pocket and she feels the pendrive inside. She needs to look into this further, by herself. There's only one place she can go for now.

After school, Eunbin and Yeri brought Haeun to a cyber café. The girls were going to play some game while Haeun would snoop around the files. She booked herself a computer in the far corner, away from prying eyes and plugged in her pendrive, peering over to see the other two getting hyped for their game. Haeun needed to get through the school's old records and it needed some time to crack their firewall. She dabbled in hacking before but she was a bit rusty, she didn't have much time or patience. The woman was a good 20 minutes into her hacking when a sudden voice interrupts her.

"Need help?"

Someone places a hand on her shoulder and her first instinct is to grab it and twist it. She turns around to see a boy – a high school boy smiling at her despite his arm being twisted. "Feisty," he comments, "Chill, I'm just here to offer help." Yeri and Eunbin were too engrossed in their game to notice the boy's presence. Haeun slowly pulls her hand away but her eyes are still suspicious of his actions. He gives her a smile before grabbing a seat and pulling it near hers.

"The name's Renjun," he introduces himself, "You're not great at being discreet…" His eyes look down to her nametag before he looks back up into her eyes. "…Yuyan."

Haeun looks around her and decides it was safe – no one seemed to be paying attention to them.

"I don't do things for free."

"I'm not paying you unless you crack what I need," Haeun speaks in a low tone, not wanting anyone to hear their conversation. "How do I even know I can trust you?"

"Leap of faith," he gently pushes her aside and takes over the keyboard, "I could do this in half an hour, your school's firewall is weak. We can discuss payments after I'm done."

"Why are you helping me?"

"I'm bored," his eyes scan through the screen and his fingers fly across the keyboard, "Interesting, isn't it? The case about the students and all."

Ah, so the boy was some sort of fan of the old case. He wouldn't be much of threat, Haeun assumed and trusted her gut. He was just a bored high school student wanting to dig into an old cold case and she needed his help so she wasn't going to complain much.

True to his words, in half an hour they had access to all the school's system. Renjun let Haeun take over as she scanned through the names of the victims. He peered over her shoulder, wanting to know what she was looking for to the point she had to hack into the school's system. Haeun took out her notebook and started to look through her notes.

"How did you get the names of the victims? No one knows about that," he raises an eyebrow at her but his question is ignored as she looks through the names. The students had their family written down as well and Haeun found something odd as she checked all three names in the system. Each of them had a sibling that went to the school previously as well. She writes down the names of the siblings, her gut feeling growing intense as if she was finally was on the right path to solving the case.

"Erase the tracks," Haeun orders him, "Don't let anyone know we did this."

Renjun just smirks and gets typing but it doesn't take long. Haeun pulls out her pendrive and slips her notebook back into her pocket – she had some other names to look through now. She could have done it now but her time was running out, Eunbin and Yeri were going to leave soon – she could see them logging out of their accounts. She turns to Renjun, "You said you don't do things for free. What's your payment?"

Renjun pats her head, "Your phone number and partnership."

"Partnership for what?"

"Solving this case. Any new information you obtain has to be passed on to me. We're solving this case together," Renjun bops her nose and holds out his phone to her.

Haeun bites back a groan and just nods her head. Seems like she had another secret to keep and that secret was none other than the high school boy she had just met - Huang Renjun.