CHAPTER 7: THE SUSPICION AND HER

The sun was almost down when the two arrived at their office, Irene went in to notice that her friend, Jennie wasn't there sitting on her usual spot. "Where did she go?" She asked to Wendy who was standing on her side knowing that she would abruptly noticed the younger's absence. 

"Jennie had been staying in out of the office for days, she's been so focused to Jackson's death, we also got to talk about this Thai woman he mentioned when you two met him at their company." The Thai, the prosecutor almost forgot about her existence. "She also got some death threats that even her family in Thailand was once blackmailed by someone, she was afraid to mention that person's name but she clarified some things about Soul's death."

Irene realized that life was truly short enough for her to know everything that is happening to her ex's life, she did not even knew that she got a foreign friend. "Why? What's with her connection?"

"She did not said that she was connected to the death of Soul and Sunmi, she just confessed that Soul was actually planning something that includes someone from her past, she was eager to do a lot of things related to it but it ended up failing when the person's partner had found out about it, she said that Soul used to got death threats almost everyday, to the point that she had decided to cut all of her contacts with her just to save herself but it surprised her to find Sunmi's death before Soul." Things were starting to get interesting when the officer motioned the prosecutor to follow her to her office, Son showed various of evidences she got from a memory card that the Thai national had left to her.

"It turned out, that Soul had been warned since then to stop the things she was planning, back to December last year, just right before New Year's eve, Sunmi accidentally snuck into one of the meeting place of the suspects, where she also found Soul getting jabbed and tortured as what she had described to the Thai." Wendy showed a picture of Soul who was kneeling wet with a group of men surrounding her, the prosecutor gasped and stopped herself from having an emotional breakdown to what she had just saw, the officer continued. "These series of pictures she had taken was also the reason why she was killed, after she safely left their hideout, there's someone who followed her until she got back to the Wang's Company, she admitted it to the Thai that she purposely went there after going to that place in hopes to lose them but instead, just days before she got killed, she sneakily put it in one of Lisa's cafeteria uniform and since then, they had been coming back and forth for her."

"Lisa? Lalisa?" Irene asked as she looked up the officer who also gazed back towards her, the prosecutor put both of her hands to her waist as she tried to remember on where did she heard that name. 

"Lalisa Manoban. Why?" Wendy asked her with her eyes looking at her in suspicion. "Are you sure you really don't know something about your ex's death? How come did you know Lisa's name even though I hadn't been introduced her to you." Her suspicions were already getting to her bones but Irene also needed to be professional enough to handle this type of job she had knowing that everyone who knew something about the certain victim would also be considered as a suspect which she was trying to avoid now that even her friend found her questionable. "Unnie, I'm not trying to press you, I'm sorry." She said silently when she noticed the older became silent.

The older woman shook her head and answered. "You don't have to, it's just I've met her in a small resto I've went a few days back, it was the time I've decided to go to Soul's columbarium when I saw their shop and had decided to eat something in there. She was the one who served the food for me and even had decided to introduce herself."

"She did not talk about you at all." Wendy said as she offered the woman a seat on her visitor's lounge. "Anyways, Sunmi's brother went here yesterday for a follow up, as much as we wanted to give him some overviews to the things that had been happening to her sister's case, we can't, it could only be you, the one who can clarify things to him." 

A cloud of silence passed ahead of them, Irene just missed a lot of things in a span of two days and had just found a lot of supports that they can use in these cases, even though at least she knew that her friends were doing their best to help her, she still can't accept the idea of her death, it was so sudden that she did not expect to see her again in ashes.

"I did not expect heaven to have such an end but Joohyun-ah, can you at least save the last dance for me?"

Like how? Those words were kept on repeating inside her head, as much as she wanted to shake it off and focused to her job, she can't, her conscience was there to get all the remaining s she had for herself, it's not that she mind but going insane wasn't just on her priority right now, it's her the one she needed to focus.

"Unnie." The officer called as she noticed how the woman spaced out of nowhere. For years of being workmates and friends, it was her first to see the prosecutor to be that lost and devastated to such a case, Wendy knew that she did not expect to see this type of Irene in their workplace, even just the slightest inch of her married life wasn't shared by the older woman itself but now? It's like as if she mysteriously fell to an enchanted kingdom that she had never expected to pop out of nowhere just to accidentally discover the old rollercoaster ride of the prosecutor had used to have, it was the person behind the mask of Bae Irene, it's Joohyun a naïve and 'just in love' type of a  woman. The older hummed in response before she turned her head towards the officer. 

"Yes? Is their something you would like to know about me?"

As much as she did not want to go straight to the woman's personal life, she had to, Son sensed that if there's anyone who can answer and solve these problems it was just the older woman and no other officers of this station. "If Kang did want to get someone back from her past, would there be perhaps a .50% of a chance that it was you and that Junmyeon-oppa was the one who threatened her and Sunmi?" Wendy knew she needed to be careful to her own words especially that the woman sitting in front of her was the man's wife but she could stop herself to just jump to that type of conclusion knowing that there were lot of an oblivious evidence already, the parcel, the people and the one that Jennie was working right now.

The victim was the one who already admitted it to her friend that she's going to get someone related to her past but the time and destiny did not want to be with her side and she got killed, fortunately, a parcel sent by a woman named Ms. Foxy had arrived unexpectedly with some things that were supposed to be given to the older back to the year 2015, six years ago. "Wendy, I have known him since then, he knew about the relationship I had with Seulgi but he never dared to talk about what are the things that had happened to us before and after I started dating him and even know that we're married for five years, he never did mention about her."

"But did he know that Soul died? Did he bother to tell you? I mean you were supposed to be the one to know about the things that were going on but didn't he dare bother to tell you are asked you if you were going to her funeral if ever she had?" Wendy asked question next to a question making the prosecutor to shut her thoughts about the possible things she might conclude with her ex's death. "Come to think of it prosecutor, there's this person who had threatened three different lives, would you want to add another one on the list? Ms. Manoban's on danger, we don't know who the hell is Ms. Foxy and worst, you got a parcel from years ago that is supposedly be given by your ex right exactly on your birthday. Now, tell me, will there be any reasons for me not to suspect Mr. Kim?"

It made the woman to shut as she realized the series of events that been happening lately. For years of knowing her man, Irene knew that their were two faces in those angelic sight she thought to fall in love. She fell for him not because his a pretty boy but because of his gentleman characteristics when they had met for the first time in years of ignoring him back when they were still in high school but the life of them being a marriage couple had later on changed when they were already in their second anniversary, at the very first thought it was just a normal nature for a man to accidentally hurt his partner after being drunk but now, the days turned to years of suffering with his sudden changes added by this suspicion that her co-worker had put up to him. Irene couldn't just erase these ideas one at a time.

And if he would really be the person behind these deaths, the prosecutor would be the one to kill him in bare hands.

"How about Foxy? We don't even know who the hell she is, besides, after me, there's this new woman she met in the Netherlands, it could also be her, Wendy." Irene dodges the skepticism on her husband, she just can't think straight about it for now especially that it seems too weird to put someone in doubt even though she had known it to herself that he might be as bad as those criminal she put behind the bars but the prosecutor would bet that he would never do something like that.

"I-"

"Look who's here." Kim appeared out of nowhere with an unfamiliar figure behind her back, her feline eyes landed to Irene, the prosecutor abruptly remembered the fight they had days ago, she still somehow felt a bit sensitive to her words but this was her job, her forte and she had a case to do right now, Bae needed to set aside her emotions to her work and that's what she was trained for. "Prosecutor, you might as well would want to talk to her. She had something for you."

The woman stood up and went to peek on the officer's side. In a single blink of an eye the series of flashbacks from that night came rushing to her, the familiar back of a woman and its slender figure had thrown the prosecutor back to the past. The kiss.

"Jennie." Wendy whispered as they both stood next to each other's side while they looked at the heavy shoulders of the older woman who was silently studying the woman's physique. "Who's that woman?" Instead of receiving an answer, Kim shrugged her shoulders and tapped her friend's back.

"You really are so brainy, Seungwan."

--

"Sit down." Irene motioned politely as the woman just followed as what she ordered, inside the small dim lighted room, it was just the two of them, the prosecutor knew to herself that she was about to know something again from the past, it was like a ride she missed and finally got to see things she forgot after for those years. "You are?"

"Jung. Krystal Jung." The prosecutor remained silent and waited for the woman to continue talking. "The same age as Seulgi."

She did not even called her 'Soul'. Bae calmed herself down. The temperature inside the room were starting to get higher making the older woman to adjust herself from the possible things that we're about to happen. "Let's get to the point Ms. Jung. Kang's death were connected to two different people, both of them were her acquaintance. What's your relationship with her?" It's like as if she was trying to detonate a bomb in the last five seconds but she did not have any choice but to face every single pieces of debris of information that would surely leave her wounded.

"Are you sure you wanted to know about us?" Krystal answered as she stood up. "We're about to get married but I had to part ways with her." 

"Why?"

Irene heard her chuckled from her back. "Silly, because she wanted to chase you. Of course." The older started to get lost on her trance as she played with her wedding ring. A tons of 'if only' words were lined up inside her conscience and one of them was if only she can saved her. It was too tragic to lose her but it was more painful to learn that after her, she tried to love someone new. "I came here to take care of her father, her brother died in a worksite accident in Canada back in the year 2014 and their father was left living alone on their home in Gyeonggi-do, he's suffering from a severe lung cancer and had gotten into a heart attack after he found the news of her death." Krystal took the bottle of water prepared for both her and the prosecutor. "Just days before she died, she asked me if I could meet you, I thought she would asked me to help you for an upcoming event related about you two, unexpectedly she died."

Her eyes were scanning her from head to foot, Irene can confirmed to herself that Jung was at least a type of a descent woman who seemed to be working for a high-end or a luxurious type of a fashion company, her plaid white shirt and her black leather jacket with various of paint splatters were rocking her not just because she wore something gothic outfit but the way how she wore it with confidence plus her beauty. "Do you know something about her death?" Without any second thoughts, the woman replied. 

"Yes."

The prosecutor became serious. "Who killed her?"

Krystal smirked, she did not just lost her fiancée but she also lost her best friend, Seulgi was the only one she had but she also did not want to put such a tight rope around her neck, she did not want to imprison her in a relationship were the only one who tried her best to make it stronger was her. Jung indeed saw how the woman changed from being broken to a new person and now, she wouldn't let things be easy for the prosecutor.

"Strive harder and don't be blind. That's all I can say."