“You can’t get the antenna repaired? What are we going to do for the rest of the week? It’s raining so hard outside, we can’t even go to the beach!”

Siwon and Yuri left the lounge with the book still tightly grasped in Yuri’s hand. They saw Sooyoung, Ryeowook, Yoona and Donghae gathered around Heechul who had his hands on his head.

“What’s going on?” Yuri asked. The crowd dispersed and turned to face the approaching detective. Heechul took in a deep breath and exhaled to calm himself down.

Sooyoung shook her head. “The antenna is down. We can’t even watch the television in our room anymore. What are we going to do for the rest of the week?”

Ryeowook burst out into tears and drowned the room with his loud cries. “Noona, I want to watch Pororo.”

“Hush, Ryeowook. There’s nothing we can do about this.” Sooyoung patted Ryeowook on the back in an attempt to calm him down. Unfortunately, it didn’t seem quite so successful.

Sooyoung excused herself and Ryeowook before heading back to their room.

Donghae looked at Siwon and shook his head. “I was almost bored to tears when the signal was cut off last night for about an hour. It was in the midst of a soccer match and I missed two goals. What bad luck and now it’s down for good.”

“What time was that?” Siwon asked in curiosity. This was new information and might be important. Yuri was all ears as well.

Donghae hesitated for a while before replying. “That would probably be around 1130pm to 1230am. I’m quite sure the blackout did not start any later than midnight.”

“If that’s the case, then somebody was lying.” Yuri said before exchanging a glance with Siwon who knew who she was talking about.

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Sungmin shot Siwon and Yuri a surreptitious glance as they approached him while he was resting on a cane chair somewhere near the recreation room. Siwon had his suspicions about Sungmin from his wide behavior at the lounge the night before which didn’t go unnoticed by Kyuhyun as well. Now that they had found out about his lie, Sungmin had brought the target directly on his back.

“Sungmin, you told us you were in your room the whole night watching the news which doesn’t start till 1130pm. But we found out there was television blackout around that time. How could you possibly have seen the news?”

His eyes shifted uncomfortably around the area and avoided their glances. Yuri knew this was sign of apprehension and guilt. Something was up with this guy, he was obviously hiding something.

“I must have made a mistake then. It could have been after midnight.”

There was nothing else they could refute. Siwon and Yuri excused themselves, retreating to Yuri’s room where they figured was the only place safe enough to have a conversation without anyone listening on them.

“Something is up with Sungmin. He’s hiding something but we can’t get it out of him. It might or might not even be connected to Jessica’s death.”

Siwon shook his head as he took a seat by the balcony.

“We’ve hit a dead end. I’m not sure how we can proceed from here. I just hope no one else gets hurt.”

Yuri twirled a pen between her fingers as the gears in her brain turned.

“I’m not so sure about that. I have a feeling there’s a lot more going on here than we’re being let on.”

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It was dinner time. Guests streamed in to the dining hall with grave expressions on their faces. Everyone hasn’t been able to eat well the whole day since they heard the news of Jessica’s passing. Everything was calm on the surface but it was unsettling to know that a murderer lurked among the figures present in this room.

But there was one person who had not appeared even after the food was served. Kim Hyoyeon had been absent from the dinner party. Table set for 15 people but only 14 people were there. A table set for 3 had only Sooyoung and Ryeowook present, with Ryeowook making a din over the fact that there was no fried food.

“It’s peculiar. She should be hungry by now. She didn’t take a bite since noon.” Yoona commented to Donghae, Siwon and Yuri who were at the same table.

Siwon looked at Yuri, who returned him a worrisome glance. She stretched up towards his ear and cupped it before she whispered something. Siwon nodded and picked up his napkin to wipe his mouth. The two investigators excused themselves politely.

They were silent on their way to Hyoyeon’s room. Yuri had a bad feeling about what was about to happened. She knew something was wrong with Hyoyeon when they exchanged words earlier in the day.

Although I suppose I would have seen something if I came out of my room.

It was peculiar the way she had phrased this sentence. It was as though she had indeed seen something and was hiding it from Yuri. This may have been a mistake that cost her life.

Siwon and Yuri stood outside Hyoyeon’s door which was left ajar. Not a good sign. Someone as timid as Hyoyeon wouldn’t leave her room down open like that especially with a killer around.

“Yuri, no matter what has happened; you’re not to be blamed for it.” Siwon reassured Yuri with a gentle squeeze on her shoulder as his manly hand rested on it.

Yuri looked up to him with tears in her eyes that she fought to control. She nodded and kept her head high; she had to be strong no matter what.

Siwon cautiously opened the door. The room was ignited by a bedside lamp but it was still too dark to see anything else. Siwon reached for the light switch.

Click

Yuri let out a blood-curdling scream as her eyes lifted up to see a figure dangling in the middle of the room from a ceiling fan. That was Hyoyeon’s final resting place with her eyes still open and blood dripping down onto the ground from the open wound across her neck. Yuri had seen more of such gruesome crime scenes across the span of her career. But to see the woman whom she had hit off pretty well with two days ago die in this circumstances was horrifying.

Yuri took in deep breaths and closed her eyes to calm herself down. She need to return to her rational state of mind and analyzed the case impartially if she wanted to do the victims justice.

Siwon was taken aback as well but he stayed silent.

“I’ll get Shindong here to help me get the body down. I don’t think I can do it on my own. Would you be okay to stay here alone?”

What a foolish question, Yuri thought. She wasn’t afraid. But her rapid heartbeats gave her away. She was scared this time round. Because she was so close to danger and knew the killer was amongst them. So close, all ready to strike.

Siwon held on to her hand and pulled her out of the room. He turned off the light switch in case someone accidentally stumbled upon this sight and gets a fright.

“Let’s go together to get Shindong and inform the rest.”

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More tears were shed and screams were heard as Siwon and Yuri let out the bad news to the dinner party who had just finished their dessert.

Everyone else was told to retreat back to their rooms and locked the doors for safety. Nobody was allowed to open the door to anyone unless it was Siwon or Yuri. No, not even the hotel staff could be trusted at this stage. Anyone could be the murderer.

Shindong avoided eye contact with the corpse as he assisted Siwon in lifting it off the string on the ceiling fan and placed it on the bed. The white bed sheets were instantly stained red with blood. Shindong immediately excused himself when he was no longer needed. It chilled him to the bone to be with a dead body.

“Who could have done this? It was vicious.” Siwon commented as he shook his head. He put on some rubber gloves and inspected the body.

“She probably died just an hour or two before dinner commenced. COD was the slash wound across the neck. It was an instant death, at least she suffered little.”

Yuri placed her hand over her forehead and sighed.

“It was my oversight. I knew something was up with Hyoyeon but I did nothing about it. The killer got to her faster than I thought.”

Siwon reached into Hyoyeon’s pocket and pulled out a bloody piece of white paper being torn into half. There wasn’t anything written on it so it didn’t help much. Yuri looked around the room and tried to find something useful to their investigation but there was absolutely nothing.

Siwon held up Hyoyeon’s fingers and took a whiff. It startled Yuri who thought that was mildly disgusting but she said nothing. Mentally, she applauded Siwon for being so bold and dedicated to his job as a coroner.

“There's a strong scent on her fingers. Want to take a guess what it smells like?” He asked with a grin on his face.

Yuri was impatient. She wanted the answer right away.

“What?”

“She came into contact with a large amount of money before her death.” 

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A/N:

Sorry for the lack of updates for this story. I'm surprised to see new subscribers recently so I guess people still are interested in this story. I will try my best to update as soon as I can. It's a tad bit creepy for me to write it in the night so I try not to :P