0930. 12/17/2012. Seoul NIS Headquarters. Seoul.

“Ice?” Onew asked as Minho swabbed the edges of the wound and placed the sample in the test tube, putting the test tube into the machine.

“The wound looks as if the victim was impaled with a somewhat blunt object and enlarged as with the shape of the weapon.” Minho stated matter of factly.

“As if the shape of an icicle.” Onew mused.

“There are traces of calcium carbonate, dust particles, sodium chloride and dirt that are synonymous with precipitation. The acidity also indicates rain.” Minho said, reading the results from the print out. “Unfortunately, if the unsub is using ice as his MO, catching him will be much harder.”

“Which means no fibre traces, no fingerprints, no bodily residue to find the unsub.” Onew said, pacing around the floor. “It’s essentially-”

“The perfect murder weapon.” Minho finished grimly. Onew met Minho’s troubled eyes with furrowed eyebrows. If there was no physical evidence of the murder weapon, this case would be much more complicated than they had originally thought.

Onew remembered, “the perfect murder” was always a popular game in his division. Choose a weapon, a victim, a motive and then construct the perfect murder where the suspect would never get caught. Onew always chose ice, the weapon that melted away. Needless to say, he always won.

“What about this?” Jongin piped up from the corner holding up a small bag with small traces of fibre. He’d been listening in on their conversation quietly as he tried to come up with some kind of solution to the problem. “This trace of fibre was found near the body, the lab ran it and found it was a synthetic polymer found in costumes that didn’t match the material from the victim’s body.” Jongin said.

“The problem is, it’s a mall.” Onew said unhappily, “There were several other groups with costumes like the reindeer band students from the local high school and the elves for charity.”

“The same goes for the shoe print. It was a Timberlake size 10 snow boot.” Minho said, “It’s winter time, snow boots aren’t uncommon. They won’t be much use until we find a suspect.”

“So where does that leave us?” Jongin asked.

“At square one.” Minho replied, stripping off his gloves and throwing them into the trash.

1100. 12/17/2012. NIS Maximum Security Prison. Location Unknown.

Taemin typed furiously at his computer trying to find something, anything that would prove his innocence. The director had offered him a deal secretly, she’d given him a month to prove his own innocence before she handed off the case to Internal Affairs and he knew that if it went to Internal Affairs, he was done for. Too many times had he seen perfectly good agents incarcerated due to botched investigations by Internal Affairs. As long as he had rich and powerful enemies, he was doomed if his innocence fell in the wrong hands. He’d watched the video again and again, the clothes were his, the build of the figure in the video was the same as his. He knew that wasn’t him but he had no way to prove it.

“Prisoner 23192-D you have a visitor.” The intercom buzzed and Taemin looked up surprised. He didn’t expect any of his team members to visit him after what they thought he’d done. A guard came, unlocked his cell and lead him to the visiting room.

“Booth 4.” The guard said to him and Taemin walked to find the correct booth. As Taemin approached the booth, he was surprised to find not the bulky build of Jonghyun or the welcoming smile of Onew but a female sitting in the chair opposite to his. Separated by a pane of glass, he picked up the telephone to find eerily the soft features of the girl he’d seen in his dream.

“Hi?” Taemin asked, wondering if he was in the right booth.

“Hello Taemin.” The girl said her soft features lighting up in a smile. While Taemin was slightly disappointed not to find one of his teammates there, he was not surprised they weren’t. Forgiveness is a commodity hard to come by. He couldn’t say he was entirely disappointed though as the only exchanges of conversation he’d had within the last few days were with the guards who watched his cell and delivered his meals. His mind was full of wonder at how the girl he’d conjured in his subconscious was suddenly sitting before him now.

“Please don’t take this the wrong way but why are you here?” Taemin asked curiously. He’d once been told that in dreams you could not experience a thing you had not experienced before and that was why you couldn’t die. In this same way, he must have come across this girl once before, perhaps a fleeting face in a crowd or a stranger in a coffee shop. Nonetheless to see his mind’s projections in reality was slightly disturbing to him.

“I heard you were in jail so I came to visit.” She said, touching her fingers to the glass where Taemin’s face was. Had Taemin been thinking logically he would’ve questioned how she heard the news but his mind omitted those details in favour of the pleasure he felt within the presence of another human, a female at that. He resisted the urge to press his face to the glass to feel the conduction of heat from the palm of her small hand.

“Well, apparently I’m not a popular inmate because you’re my first visitor.” Taemin joked weakly and the girl smiled softly.

“I’ll be back often. In fact, I have a message for you.” She said and Taemin was perturbed by this as he could not think of a single person who would want to deliver messages to him at this time. He unconsciously clenched his fists turning his knuckles a ghost white and the girl looked at his hands warningly.

“Who is the message from?” Taemin asked cautiously. “Who sent you?” He had the fleeting suspicion that his dream was his subconscious warning him about this girl and in the back of his mind red flags were popping up left and right but Taemin knew he needed to keep his cool, at least for now.

“I can’t tell you that.” The girl said, “All I can tell you is, the person who sent me has taken a special interest in you for quite some time.” Although the girl’s voice was warm and sweet, Taemin couldn’t help the shivers that went up his spine.

“Alright. What’s the message?” Taemin asked, albeit wearily. Never could he have imagined that a simple meeting would drain so much out of him.

The girl tucked her shiny brown hair behind an ear and leaned in, whispering into the telephone, “They call you guys SHINee right, because you solve the toughest cases the fastest? Because you shine with brilliance? Well, let’s just see how much you shine.” Taemin felt his blood run cold.

“Keep them out of it.” Taemin warned, realizing that perhaps the person targeting his old friends began targeting his new ones, his team.

“Time’s up.” The guard called from the corner and Taemin looked up in shock.

“Oh Taemin, there’s still so much you have to learn and I’m going to teach you.” The girl said smiling in a sickly sweet way. She stood up and left the booth leaving Taemin with nothing more but the sound of a dial tone. The guard roughly yanked Taemin from his chair bringing Taemin back to his senses. The silence of the return trip was different than the silence from the trip to the visiting room because while the silence sounded the same, Taemin’s mind on the return trip was buzzing with frenzy as he came to the simple realization.

“Oh god.” He whispered to himself as his guard looked at him strangely. I’m being played. Taemin thought to himself as he sat on his bed while the guard locked his cell.

1200. 12/17/2012. Seoul NIS Headquarters. Seoul.

“Let’s look at the details from the first victim.” Jonghyun said as he typed a few buttons and pulled up a few photos from the crime scene. Key, with his sharp eyes, quickly scanned through the photos looking for discrepancies.

“There, that wound right there.” Key pointed at the small pool of blood gathered around the man’s leg. “First of all, that wound had nicked bit of the femoral artery, he would have bled out if it weren’t for the makeshift tourniquet around his leg.”

“So you’re implying that the victim wanted to keep him alive until the second puncture wound?” Jonghyun asked and Key nodded.

“The victim would have gone into shock, not only from the physical injury but from the emotional one of having just been attacked. There is no way the victim would have recovered enough to self-treat at that time.” Key said.

“Unless he had prior training to resist or overcome shock or had been exposed to many threatening incidents in the past which his record shows none.” Jonghyun added and nodded.

“Secondly, that wound wasn’t inflicted by ice. That wound was most likely inflicted by a dagger.” Key deduced.

“So, if our unsub had a weapon in which he could have killed his victim with but chose to instead use the ice suggests that the ice bears some kind of symbolic value to him.” Jonghyun continued, building off of Key’s observations.

“Chung Hee was younger and frequently worked out. It is likely that the unsub simply used the dagger to incapacitate his victim before killing him.” Key added. “That would not only suggest that the unsub is a male in his mid-thirties to early forties to have the sophistication to plan out and act on these murders but the unsub would also need to be in good physical condition to take out his victims.”

“It also suggests that ice bears some kind of symbolic value to him.” Jonghyun said. “It also means that this perfect crime scene isn’t so perfect after all.” The two of them fell silent as their thoughts took the spot where their words normally did. Both were jostled with thoughts not only of the profile but how strange it was to be in that room solving a case without one of their teammates by their side.

“Jonghyun.” Key said as Jonghyun opened his mouth to say Key’s name.

“You first.” Jonghyun said, nodding encouragingly.

“I-” Key began but was interrupted by the opening of the door.

“Guys?” Minho called walking into the meeting room, stopping Key midsentence. “There’s been another murder. Wheels up in five.” He declared and walked away.

“We better go then.” Key said hurriedly but Jonghyun stopped him with hand on his shoulder.

“I know Key, I think he’s innocent too.” Jonghyun said as he shrugged on his jacket and followed Minho. Key shook his head with amazement at how the profiler’s ability to simply know what was on another’s mind. Except, Key didn’t want to tell Jonghyun that Taemin was innocent, Key wanted to tell Jonghyun he had proof.