Min Ho wasn’t sure if it was Sister Mi-Kyung’s earlier comments about Shin Hye or the way the young woman looked at him now that piqued his pulse, but he found he couldn’t remove his eyes from hers.

Paradise.

She broke off her stare, walked around to Yoo Bi’s side, and faced Min Ho again, eyes still undecided.

Min Ho couldn’t help but feel as if he is going through darkness with no end. The director’s assurance that these were all highly intelligent individuals had twisted his thinking. Hearing this bizarre exchange, anyone on the street might think that these four had misplaced their minds.

And maybe they had, he thought amused. The classic symptoms of schizophrenia were all here: the paranoia, the hearing and seeing things that did not exist, the voices and threats.

“I don’t think Sister Mi-Kyung would mind one more joining us,” Krystal said. “Thanks for coming, Shin Hye-ssi. I’m Krystal.”

She didn’t respond.

Min Ho looked her in the eye though he felt slightly uncomfortable under her stare and nodded. “Hello, Shin Hye-ssi.” Then he turned to them all: “Let’s start over? Tell us who you are. What your… gifts are.”

“Oh that, oh that!” Jae Suk blurted. “You want to know what makes us all bonkers, is that it?”

“Ani,” Krystal corrected, stepping forward. She looked completely at ease in their environment. “We know that you’re each highly intelligent. And that each of you has rare gifts. Or was the director wrong about that?”

They all stared, as if judging if she was serious. Evidently deciding that she was, all but Shin Hye who continued to stare at Min Ho, spoke at once.

Krystal smiled and crossed her arms. “Let’s start with you, Yoo Jae Suk-ssi.”

“Of course.” He glanced at the new girl. “The director put me in charge, Shin Hye-ah.” She said nothing, so he continued.

“I stand five foot eleven inches, am forty years old, and have been stationed here for seven years. It’s true that I am a natural leader, but my primary skills are those of perception and deduction. I’m involved in several longer-term operations, which the detectives usually ask help from me but I’m not at liberty to discuss it.”

He paused, adjusting his bow tie. His trousers hung an inch too high, revealing black leather shoes with one shoelace missing.

“Thank you.” Krystal glanced at the young man, who spoke with no further encouragement.

“My name is Park Hyung Sik, twenty-six – ”

“twenty-one,” Hyung Sik  interrupted.

Without a break, he continued: “Or twenty-one, I forget. They say I’m schizophrenic, but I tell the ladies that all fighters and lovers are schizophrenic. Mi-Kyung-ssi tells me that not all women can appreciate” – he used large hands to draw out his full meaning – “an experienced, fearless lover. But I think she’s wrong. Don’t you, Krystal?” A coy smile.

Min Ho briefly wondered how many women had slapped him over the years.

“I don’t know, Hyung Sik. But the man I’m interested in is both strong and gentle.”

“He tried to date the president’s wife when she was visiting,” Yoo Bi said with a sly grin. “They put him in jail.”

 “Yah!!,” he outburst. “She wasn’t bright at all. Hardly a woman at all. I can’t recall what I saw in her.” He turned back to Krystal, “Are you busy this evening?”

“I am. But thank you for asking. What about you, Yoo Bi-ssi?”

“Nineteen. I’ve been here a year. Manic depressive. Bipolar. OCD. Prodigious savant, but that part’s wrong.”

“Nonsense,” Jae Suk said. “She’s the brightest of the batch. Just because you pay attention to your body doesn’t make you their idiot.”

Yoo Bi grinned apologetically. She wiggled her manicured nails, polished in green. “I like to… take care of myself.”

“You like taking showers.”

“Sometimes.”

“How many times?”

“Today?”

“Sure,” Krystal said.

“Two.”

It was ten o’clock in the morning.

“You do your nails and hair each time?”

“De.”

“She’s clean and she’s smart as a whip,” Jae Suk said. “Smartest informant I’ve ever come across.”

Min Ho looked at last at Shin Hye, who seemed content to let them speak without offering an opinion. “How about you, Shin Hye-ssi?”

She glanced at the others, and then eyed him. He couldn’t tell if she felt awkward or put off. “Um… What’s happening?”

“I’m sorry, I’m Lee Min Ho with the Special Agent Unit. This is Jung Krystal, a forensic psychologist. We’re here to see if you can help us uncover information about a killer called the Bride Killer.”

“I’ve never heard of a killer named the Bride Killer,” she said. “I don’t know anyone by that name.”

“That’s the name we’ve given him.”

“More details,” Jae Suk said, pacing again. “I need to know all that you know if I’m to help you. Shoe size?”

Min Ho decided to run with him. “Eleven.”

“Uh-huh. Estimated weight based on impressions?”

“One ninety, two hundred.”

“Secretor?”

“No. No bodily fluids found on any of the scenes. No hair, no skin cells, no prints, nothing.”

“You have the file on you?” He held out his hand.

“Ani.”

“Shin Hye didn’t tell you about herself,” Yoo Bi inserted.

“No file? How do you expect me to be of any use?” Jae Suk demanded.

“What does he do to the women?” Hyung Sik asked.

Min Ho glanced between them. “He kills them. He makes them up to look beautiful, and then he kills them and leaves their bodies glued to the wall.”

Silence engulfed them.

Yoo Bi’s face twisted up and she started to cry into her hand. “Sorry. Sorry, sorry.”

“It’s disturbing, I know. Have any of you known any resident, present or past, who might fit this profile? Jae Suk-ssi, the director told us you remember everyone who’s come through here.”

“I think I should take a shower,” Yoo Bi said. “My skin is itching, you know. Size eleven, he’s six foot one. Big hands, could break their necks pretty easy. We don’t allow anyone like that here. He uses makeup on them?”

Min Ho hesitated. “De.”

Yoo Bi started to cry again, this time accompanied by a gentle pawing at the makeup on her face.

“It’s okay, Bi-ah ,” Shin Hye said. Her voice was light and sweet, but sure and authoritative. “We’re safe here. This is home. We have guards and Director. No one can hurt you.”

Yoo Bi stepped over to her and offered her hand. Shin Hye took it and rubbed her shoulder. “Don’t let them scare you. Pretend it’s just a story.”

 “You’re sure you’re busy tonight?” Hyung Sik asked. He was looking at Krystal.

“I am. But thanks again.” She smiled.

Min Ho took a deep breath, suddenly afflicted with an overpowering sensation of time’s passage. A serial killer was inexorably cycling through to his next murder, yet here he sat, whiling away the hours in the company of several mental health patients. It became very clear that, however fascinating and gifted they might be, Jae Suk and friends weren’t going to help stop the killer.

“Shin Hye didn’t say what she did,” Yoo Bi said.

Min Ho nodded, thinking they should leave soon. But Yoo Bi seemed determined. “She’s right. Why don’t you tell us about yourself, Shin Hye-ssi.”

She blushed. “I don’t think I can help you.”

“She sees dead people,” Jae Suk said.

Psychotic hallucinations, Min Ho thought. She didn’t attempt any denial.

“And spirits,” Yoo Bi added.

“You mean ghosts?”

She shrugged. “Something like that.”

“If she touched the woman’s body, she would see who killed her,” Yoo Bi said. “Isn’t that right, Shin Hye-ah?”

“I doubt it. Please stop, Bi-ah.”

“It’s true.”

“How long have you been here, Shin Hye-ssi?”

“Seven years. I arrived when I was seventeen.”

There was something different about the girl. The woman. Unlike the others, she held her secrets close.

“And nothing comes to mind when I describe what we know of this killer? Any men you might have gotten to know?”

She thought a second. “Ani.”

Yoo Bi clearly wasn’t satisfied. “She doesn’t trust men. She was hurt.” She began to cry again and Shin Hye comforted her.

Min Ho wondered what happened to Shin Hye for her to not trust any men. What circumstances had brought her here, to this facility for the forgotten? Who loved this lost woman? What hopes steered her journey through life?

Empathy washed over him, joined by a stab of shame. Compared with this one woman, his own life was like a king’s. Yet he spent his life alone in regret. Sorry for himself, after Min Young suicide.

His emotion was so strong that for a moment he thought the others might be picking up on it, despite his best attempts to remain detached. He glanced away.

Krystal took up the slack. “Some say it’s possible to sense things about people, pick up on their… energy, even after they’re dead. Maybe that’s what you are getting Shin Hye-ssi.”

“I don’t know how I see it, I just do. My doctors say they’re visual hallucinations. That I’m psychotic, suffering from schizophrenia. I see an image and I can’t tell whether it’s a memory or an imagination.”

“That’s right, that’s what they would say. But you disagree?”

“Like I said, I don’t know. I only know what I see.”

“Are you on medication?”

“Ani.”

“I am,” Yoo Bi said. Her pretty face twisted up again, once more threatening to burst in tears.

“She’s just come off a short manic cycle,” Shin Hye said without a trace of weariness or disdain. Turning to Yoo Bi, she asked with a note of real concern, “Do you want to take a shower now?”

“I have to. I should go now. Sorry. Sorry, sorry.”

She hurried from the room, finally allowing herself to sob.

“Bring me the file and lay out all the evidence, I can help.” Jae Suk asked eagerly.

“You, my lady,” Hyung Sik said taking Krystal’s hand, “are welcome back at any time. I will wait for you and show you heaven.”

This time, Krystal hooked her hand in Min Ho’s elbow. “But I have a lover, Hyung Sik-ssi. Still, it’s a nice gesture.”

His grin did not falter. Min Ho wanted to slip the young man a hidden high-five for