(In CWI)

Agent Lee Min Ho paced with his hands on his hips, allowing Jae Suk and Yoo Bi to run through their antics while he tossed in comments as he saw fit. Three hours had passed since his encounter with Shin Hye. From what he could see, little progress had been made in their efforts to find the jack in the whole, this key they insisted was hidden in the evidence. It could be counted as a complete waste of time.

On the other hand, these last six or seven hours had been strangely rewarding. The nature of investigative work often demanded a kind of role-playing, a cat-and-mouse game of wits, endless rounds of twenty questions without any obvious answer emerging, connected dots that formed senseless pictures.

But he was used to searching for the hidden clues with “ordinary” people who worked according to unspoken rules.

Working with these three involved no such rules. They were more like three children playing house or, in this case, detective. Instead of guiding them, he’d quickly become the fourth playmate in their world of make-believe.

“Everyone knows this kind of snake lives in the trees,” Jae Suk said. “You think the snake that came up to Eve in the garden slid along the ground? Too obvious! Much too obvious. The snake in the hole came to her from the trees if he was a worthy devil. From the sky, like the apple, which he offered her, not from a hole in the ground.”

Yoo Bi was in her own little world as she replied back, “Holes are like zeros. One zero, but anything divided by zero is zero. So he had to add the woman. Now it’s one plus one which is two. Twice. Perfect, see? ‘Perfect twice’ and then ‘Paradise lost.’” She underlined the corresponding words on the note to underscore her point.

“What’s your point, Jae Suk oppa?” Shin Hye asked Jae Suk with his earlier comment. Shin Hye was the most lucid of the three, the ace in the hole here. The glue that held them together. And although her constant apologetic glances at Min Ho indicated that she knew this, she rarely tried to set them straight except through a gentle nudge.

Jae Suk rolled his eyes at her as if his point should be painfully obvious. “He gives them apples, not worms. He tempts them. They like what he says. Apples, apples, Shin Hye-ah!” He snapped his fingers twice. “Focus!”

“I am, oppa. I’m seeing the snake plucking the apple with his skilful tail and hurling it at the girl with so much force that it knocks her out. Then he wraps himself around and drags her into his hole.” It was undoubtedly only a fraction of the fully fleshed story that had mushroomed in her mind. Her mind was a fertile, exotic jungle teeming with life.

“Men are like snakes,” Yoo Bi contributed without turning from the whiteboard. “Only one thing on the mind.”

“Men are like snakes,” Shin Hye agreed. Then added with another glance at Min Ho, “Most men.”

“Most men,” Yoo Bi also agreed. “Twice perfect. Twice perfect.” She whimpered.

Jae Suk looked at her. “Seven is perfect.”

Min Ho had trouble containing his amusement. Unrestrained as they were, their thoughts jumped from track to track like a train with a mind of its own. Still, there was method to the madness in their world without rules.

He couldn’t help feeling like they were on the cusp of discovering the solution to the perfect mud pie. It was every child’s playtime fantasy. There was a perfect mud pie here, they just had to keep kneading the dirt until they formed it. And in the process they would throw a few globs of mud at each other and laugh and stomp off angry, because that’s what children did when they played with mud.

“Are you okay?” Shin Hye asked, walking up to him at the back of the room.

“Couldn’t be better.”

“I doubt that’s entirely true.”

“Well… we are running out of time.”

“I told you it might all be pointless. But you’re okay, right? I mean… you’re not bored?”

“Impossible.” And it was the bone-dry truth.

She grinned. “Nothing like a trip to the zoo, right?”

“If this is the zoo, then I’m the monkey,” he said.

She stared into his eyes for a moment, then blushed. Which concerned him a little because he wasn’t sure his earlier exchange with her had quite dismissed the awkward connection between them.

They had re-entered the room and thrown themselves into the puzzle-solving like best friends. Relieved of any pretense, she had opened up and bounced around with a bright smile. But the old, unspoken awkwardness had started to creep back in as the hours ticked by.

He was no stranger to relationships with women as long as they didn’t demand commitment. If he could take any lesson away from his thirtyyears, it might be that any bond with Shin Hye would be a disaster in the making, for her and for him. Not that I could afford to be even remotely interested in that way.

At first his thinking was that he had to protect her. He couldn’t give her hope while earning her trust, just to drop her later. Then again, Sister Mi-Kyung had made a good point: Even a short relationship that ended in disappointment might be beneficial to Shin Hye.

Either way, it didn’t matter. His fear wasn’t for Shin Hye, was it? He was more disturbed by his own reaction to her, however shameful that was to admit. And that thought gave birth to another, even more disturbing: Could I truly love someone like Shin Hye? The notion struck him as absurd! He had to end it completely. But now she was blushing, as she had several times over the last half hour.

Her white cheeks were flushed with just a hint of red to match her ruby lips. She smiled, perfect white teeth. It made him wonder if she’d ever been kissed. She was frail and fair, as innocent as a broken dove.

 “H and O,” Yoo Bi’s voice cut through his wondering thoughts. “Ho.”

“Who’s the ho?” Jae Suk came back. “He isn’t killing .”

“No, ‘h’ and ‘o’ then ‘perfect twice.’ Fourteen.” She spoke quickly, drawing a shaky finger along the line. “… ‘join him in the hole. Perfect twice. Me. Paradise lost.’ That’s fourteen letters, perfect twice.”

Yoo Bi’s mind was lost in numbers, but her voice carried an urgency that made Shin Hye turn and face the board. “What’s fourteen letters?”

Min Ho’s cell phone buzzed in his pocket right at that moment and he slipped it out. The screen read JUNG KRYSTAL She was checking in as agreed. He thumbed the green talk button.

Yoo Bi was clearly excited now, he could hear her continuing with her theory. “‘Ho,’ then fourteen letters. Then ‘me.’ It happens twice, here and here.”

He lifted his phone to his ear. “Hello Krystal. How goes it?”

The small speaker on his cell phone hissed. Then another sound popped softly. The sound of someone trying to speak and unable to get words past raw emotion.

There are times in life when that dreaded phone call comes, making real the stuff of nightmares… a car accident, a broken back, a death… and he knew immediately that this was one of those dreaded calls. His heart thumped hard once, then seemed to seize up. But his mind was racing, desperate to know that he was wrong.

“Krystal?”

She was trying to speak. He shivered.

“What’s wrong?” He couldn’t move. “Krystal?”

She found her voice, but it came out tight and stretched to the breaking point. “H-He…”

“What is it? What’s going on?”

She was crying. “He…”

That was all she got. He. There was only one “he” that came to mind.

And then “he” spoke.

“Hello, Romeo. Did you find my jack in the whole? It wasn’t supposed to be her, you know? Come and get me, Agent. Time’s running out.”

The connection ended.

“Krystal! KRYSTAL!”

His world compressed around him. Yoo Bi was talking about perfection and Shin Hye was asking something, but all he could hear was the dead silence on the phone.

He had Krystal. The Bride Killer had Krystal.

That couldn’t be right. There was a mistake, Krystal was at her mother’s! She wasn’t even on the case today. But…

He couldn’t breathe. The phone was still pressed against his cheek, silent. Everything seemed to have stalled and he couldn’t remember what he was supposed to do.

Then training and instinct dropped into his mind and resumed a semblance of control.

He jerked the phone from his ear. “It’s Krystal,” he said.

They stared at him, unsure what was expected of them.

“The Bride Killer has Krystal.”

“We’re too late?” Jae Suk asked. “What did I say, what was I saying? Palli, Palli, and now look at this!”

“Krystal?,” Shin Hye said, unbelieving. “He’s taken Krystal?”

“Yes.” he was punching in Sunbae Dong-il’s number, hand shaking like a leaf in the wind. Get control, calm down. Take a deep breath, just calm down.

The special agent in charge answered on the third ring. “Yes?”

“He’s got Krystal. I just got a call from her cell phone. The killer’s got her—”

“Slow down. She had a protective—”

“Call the unit. Get a car from the station out to her mother’s house immediately. I’m going to call her back.”

“You’re sure—”

“Get out to her mother’s house!” he snapped. “Now!”