The sound of nails being clipped was beginning to get annoying.
Han Bo-young stared across at the girl and squinted. She had a pretty face: a tall nose, foxy eyes, small lips, and pale skin. She looked calm, eerily calm. It was a direct contrast to the way she was silently tearing away at her nails. She looked neither happy nor sad, nor as if she were grieving. She looked like an emotionless spectator watching a stranger die.
But Yoon-a was no stranger to this girl.
Ryu Hye-ji was born two days after Yoon-a. Her mother had been a maid to Yoon-a's grandmother, a powerful chaebol. They had grown up together, attended the same schools, and were practically sisters. Where Yoon-a was deficient, Ryu Hye-ji was sufficient. Where Yoon-a was melancholic, Ryu Hye-ji was bright and bubbly.
But she didn't look bright now. Bo-young noted that the behavior fell within expectations; they weren't biological sisters, after all, and Ryu Hye-ji had been away for two years, only returning to Korea three months ago.
Bo-young watched the girl's hands. There were no clippers. Hye-ji was using her own thumbnail to pry at the edges of her cuticles until the skin was raw. It was a rhythmic, controlled movement.
Bo-young stood up abruptly, the sound of her chair scraping against the floor cutting through the silence. She gathered the files with a sharp snap.
"Thanks for your time, Ms. Ryu," she said.
She didn't wait for a response. She turned and left the room immediately. It was a tactical exit, a way to assert psychological dominance by denying the suspect a formal conclusion to the conversation. It left them sitting in the silence of their own actions.
Outside the interrogation room, the air in the precinct was thick with the scent of stale coffee and paper.
"Did you get anything?"
Bo-young didn't turn around. She knew the voice. Park Daegu was pushing sixty, and in all those years, he'd seen enough to remain largely unfazed. But today was different. He looked like he hadn't slept in forty-eight hours.
Yoon-a, the victim of the brutal murder, wasn't just another celebrity. She was the cherished daughter of Barrister Lim, a national senator with enough power to dismantle a police department.
"She's too calm," Bo-young said, her tone level. "Her heart rate didn't spike when I showed her the cupboard photos. Either she's in a state of profound dissociation, or she's already seen the body."
Park Daegu rubbed his face. "The Senator is calling every thirty minutes, Han Bo-young. He doesn't want the little details. He wants a damn criminal and a fucking prosecution."
Bo-young adjusted her stance, the movement causing the plastic-wrapped pad on her stomach to crinkle slightly under her shirt. The pain was sharp, a reminder of a night she still couldn't piece together.
"If you want a quick arrest, find someone else," she said coolly. "If you want the lunatic who did this, let me work."
Bo-young didn't wait for Park Daegu's permission. She walked past him, her pace brisk enough to discourage him from following. She walked back to the squad room, where the air was thick with the sound of ringing phones and frantic typing.
Her fingers hovered over the keys before she typed: RYU HYE-JI.
"Where were you for two years, Hye-ji?" she whispered.
The screen flickered. Travel records showed Ryu Hye-ji had spent those two years in Europe. In Switzerland, specifically. Ostensibly, she was there on a "study abroad" program funded by Senator Lim's family foundation, a reward for being the loyal shadow to the Senator's daughter.
Bo-young's eyes narrowed as she scrolled through the medical insurance claims linked to her visa.
"Private clinic in Zurich," Bo-young noted. The clinical name made her pause: The Edelweiss Institute.
It wasn't a university. It was a high-end psychiatric and rehabilitative surgical facility. She pulled up the victim's file on her other screen. Yoon-a had been "melancholic," according to the reports. Depressed. Isolated. While the "maid's daughter" was being sent to a world-class clinic in Switzerland, the Senator's biological daughter was falling apart in a gilded apartment in Seoul.
The power dynamic was inverted.
The scholarship to Switzerland, the two-year gap, the return to Korea. To many, it was a success story. To Bo-young, it was a series of variables that didn't add up. She leaned back, spinning slowly in her chair with her hands behind her head. Her gunshot wound provided some pleasurable discomfort. She savored the country's name in her mouth.
"Switzerland," she muttered. It was one of the happiest countries in the world. What was the motive behind studying medical rehabilitation there, only to come back to Korea?
The answer felt like a dead end, seemingly unrelated to the brutality of Yoon-a's murder. But Han Bo-young never let go of a lead. Never.
"Min-ho, I need as much information as I can get about this Edelweiss Institute," she said over the transmitter.
"Detective Han."
She didn't look up. She knew that voice anywhere. The man who called her was Senior Inspector Kim Yi-heon. He was the kind of police officer teenage girls doing drugs would love to be pulled over by. He was tall, handsome, and masculine in a way that felt curated.
Han Bo-young hated seeing him. He was arrogant, and his incompetence was only matched by the thick layer of nepotism that protected him. She couldn't chase Kim Yi-heon away, no matter how hard she tried.
"Chief Park needs you," he said in his practiced baritone, lifting the corner of his lips in a smirk.
She sighed in annoyance and stood up lazily.
Senator Lim didn't look like a grieving father. He looked like a man whose most expensive asset had been vandalized. He sat on a sofa in Park Daegu's office, flanked by two men in dark suits who failed to look like they belonged in a police station. Park Daegu was standing by the sofa, shoulders slightly bowed.
"I'm told you're the one who specializes in the... more grotesque details," the Senator said. His voice was a practiced baritone, used to commanding the floors of parliament.
Bo-young finally looked at him. She didn't bow. She just stared at him with that "constant hangover" expression.
"Grotesque is one word for it," she said in Korean, her accent carrying that sharp edge of someone who spent too much time thinking in English. "I prefer 'precise.'"
The Senator tapped his knee, his watch catching the light. "The maid's girl. You've spoken to her?"
"I have."
"And?"
"She has very clean cuticles," Bo-young said flatly.
The Senator's brow furrowed. "What is that supposed to mean?"
"It means I'm still working, Senator. Unless you have medical or forensic training to contribute, your presence is just slowing down the processing speed of this department."
A sharp silence followed. Behind the Senator, Park Daegu looked like he was about to have a heart attack.
"Or do you perhaps want to be questioned?" Bo-young added with mock amusement, unmoved by Park's panicked expression.
The Senator smiled. He was clearly used to dealing with difficult people. He shut his eyes in fatigued boredom, his voice dropping to a whisper. "Find whoever did this. The only 'process' I care about is due process. If I have to go to the Commissioner to replace you with someone more... cooperative, I will."
He raised his hand and waved her away, dismissing her like a nuisance.
Aristocracy was a bitch.
Bo-young scoffed under her breath and left. The last thing she saw before the door closed was a sinister smirk on the Senator's face.
She didn't trust his grief. It felt performed. And she didn't trust the "scholarship" story; it felt like a payoff. She walked back to her cubicle, her stomach wound giving a sharp, hot jab of protest. She needed to see where Yoon-a and Hye-ji lived. Not the crime scene, the home.
"Min-ho," she called out, grabbing her coat.
"Yeah?"
"We're going to the Senator's residence. I want to see the victim's room before the 'cleaning crews' make it disappear."
"With a search warrant, of course?"
Song Min-ho saw the knowing look on her face and smirked as well.