Gone. All his business documents were gone. Luhan examined his office with a mixture of disbelief and dread. His entire life work had vanished overnight.

“Where is your briefcase?” his uncle asked him.

He looked at Cheng as if he didn‘t understand what he was asking him.

“The proposal for tonight,” the older man clarified. “I need that proposal if I‘m going to present it.”

“It was in my briefcase,” Luhan dumbly stated.

“Where is the briefcase? Did you leave it in your parlor at home?”

He cringed. “No. I left it here.”

“Why?”

“Because I was done with it. I figured that you would pick it up today and review it before tonight.”

His uncle was quiet for a long moment while Luhan mentally kicked himself for being stupid enough to leave his briefcase at work. He never imagined that the Kims would be able to break into the Xi Investing Firm since they had a security guard watching the place.

“It‘s alright,” his uncle finally said, breaking him of his thoughts. “Maybe I can wing it tonight. Thankfully, we have backup documents at home.”

“Backup what?”

“You do have copies of everything at home, don‘t you?”

A new wave of nausea washed over the young man.

“Alright,” Cheng slowly replied as he understood that Luhan hadn‘t thought to make a copy of his work. “If we act fast, we may be able to find everything. If I‘m right, those documents and the proposal are at the elder Kim‘s residence. Come on. Let‘s get them back.” He walked over to a police officer and asked for permission to check the man‘s place for their stolen materials.

“We‘ll need to get a search warrant in order to do that,” the cop told him.

“How long will that take?”

“It depends on which judge we go to and how busy that judge is.”

“Which judge do you recommend?”

“Judge Horvejkul would be my first choice if I were you.”

“Great. We‘ll go with him.”

Two hours later, Luhan and his uncle sat in a courtroom, waiting for their case to be heard before Judge Horvejkul. Mr. Song, Mr. Zhang Yixing, and Mr. Lee joined them. Police officer Young Gul was sure that they had an airtight case with the witnesses and the suspicious activities that Mr. Jing had collected over the past week. Now it was a matter of waiting. And the waiting was driving Luhan insane. Every second that ticked on the clock was one more second of time that Mr. Kim had to destroy the evidence.

He couldn‘t shake off the feeling that something wasn‘t right. Wasn‘t it odd that Chinhae hadn‘t returned in the time that it took for him and Seohyun to fill out the adoption paperwork? He hadn‘t known Chinhae to take long in any store since he hated to shop. I should have waited until Chinhae returned. He was so startled that someone broke into his office that he hadn‘t even bothered to think of anything but going to check out the crime scene. He was beginning to regret that decision.

After another half hour of waiting, he turned to his uncle. “Do you mind if I give Seohyun a call to see how things are going with Yoogeun?” he whispered.

“Go ahead,” his uncle replied. “If we get called up, we can manage without you.”

He nodded and went outside the courtroom so he could call his home on the telephone. When Sulli answered, she told him that Seohyun hadn‘t been there since she left with him for the orphanage. He hung up the phone and tapped his fingers on the wall in front of him. Then he dialed the orphanage. Mrs. Bae reported that she hadn‘t returned for anything she might have forgotten. A call to the nursing home and Yuri‘s house reported the same thing. No one knew where Seohyun or Yoogeun were.

“It‘s not like Seohyun to run off somewhere without telling someone where she went,” Yuri told him.

At this point, he didn‘t hide his apprehension. “I‘ve been at the courthouse for the past two and a half hours. If she‘s been trying to find me, she wouldn‘t be able to.” Lord, if there’s an emergency and I’m not there to help her...He didn‘t even want to consider the consequences involved with that scenario.

“Why are you at the courthouse?” Yuri asked.

He quickly explained the fact that someone broke into his uncle‘s firm and stole important documents. “So we‘re waiting to get a search warrant from the judge in order to see if the person we think did it is guilty,” he concluded.

“If you need someone to help with presenting the proposal you and your uncle worked on, I can help with that. I remember everything I read and I worked on it with your uncle this past weekend. I was adding and subtracting numbers but I recall the words in the document too.”

“You have a photographic memory?”

“Yes.”

She had no idea how much this was going to help his uncle. “My uncle could definitely use your help tonight. You can help him remember the key points he planned to discuss. I will tell him to call you once we get things taken care of.”

“I understand. I‘ll stay by the phone and leave a message at the courthouse for you if I hear from Seohyun.”

“Could you leave a message with Sulli instead? I think I‘m going to go home but need to stop somewhere else first.”

She agreed and hung up.

He returned to the courtroom where the men were still waiting for the judge to hear them. He explained the situation to his uncle who assured him that he could take care of everything.

Luhan didn‘t waste any time. His first stop was the shoe store where he asked the owner if Chinhae had been there. The owner confirmed Luhan‘s fear. He hadn‘t seen Chinhae. He went by Chinhae‘s house and his wife hadn‘t seen him since he left for work that morning. With nowhere else to go, he went to his house to see if Seohyun had shown up or if Yuri had left a message.

As soon as he entered the house, he saw Chinhae sitting on one of the benches in the hallway, looking disoriented. Sulli and Baekhyun had given him a glass of water and were asking him what happened. When they saw Luhan, they stopped talking and stood up straight.

“Are Seohyun and Yoogeun here?” he asked them.

“No, sir. They‘re still gone,” Sulli replied. “Chinhae‘s car is missing too

“I was on my way to the shoe store when someone grabbed me and pulled me into an alley,” Chinhae explained. “The person put a cloth up to my nose. I suspect chloroform was on it, for I passed out. When I regained consciousness, nearly three hours had passed and car was gone. I came right over here to see if you or Mrs. Xi could tell me what happened.”

“No, I can‘t, and she‘s nowhere to be found. I checked with everyone who‘s close to her and she hasn‘t been seen since I left her in front of the orphanage.” Luhan was regretting that decision more and more by the minute.

He didn‘t know what to do next. Finally, he realized the only thing he could do, besides run through the town and knock on every door he came across to see if Seohyun was there, was to call the police. When they seemed hesitant to begin an immediate search on her since she was an adult, he requested a search to begin for Yoogeun. This, at least, got their attention. Maybe now he would begin to get some answers.

Three hours later, the phone finally rang and Luhan didn‘t wait for the second ring before he picked it up. It was the police.

“We don‘t know where Seohyun or Yoogeun are, but Kim Jongin. said his father took them about five miles out of town in a SUV. He said that Seohyun appeared to be fine but she apparently had to fight his father. We saw his father when he brought him in and she got him pretty good in the eye. Anyway, Jongin said that the last he saw of Seohyun, she was running into the trees looking for someone. He thinks he heard her calling for Yoogeun.”

“Yoogeun.” The pounding in his head was getting worse. He had developed a headache over the past hour. Pain medicine hadn‘t helped.

“So chances are, the boy ran off and she went to look for him. They are both probably fine though it‘s possible that they got lost in the woods. We‘re sending out some officers to look for them.”

“What road did he take them out on?”

“They went north on Jamsil Avenue.”

He took a deep breath before he was able to thank the police officer and hung up. Turning to Baekhyun, he said, “I need a motorcycle and I need it now.” He couldn‘t sit by the phone and wait for word to reach him. He needed to be active or he‘d go insane. The past three hours had been the longest of his life. The only thing that gave him peace of mind was knowing neither Seohyun nor Yoogeun had been hurt. Though it sounded like Mr. Kim tried to harm them. He knew if he saw the man at that moment, he would try to kill him. Such rage shocked him since he hadn‘t experienced it before.

Just as Baekhyun brought a saddled motorcycle and a compass to him, his uncle showed up on a police motorcycle with Office Y