Hana was curious about something. It was certain that Kris was working the drug business again, but how was he getting paid? As far as she knew, this work brought in a lot of money. If Kris had been doing this, there had to be a way in which he was bringing in the money. But his bank accounts were clean, and no cash had been found at his apartment or workplace. So where exactly was he putting his money?

She was poring over Kris’ financial records when Youngjae dashed out of his office, shouting something to Woohyun and then he and Sungyeol left in a hurry. Hana had gone to ask Woohyun what was wrong and he explained what had happened.

If Youngjae had indeed been right about the fashion designer, then he wouldn’t stop gloating for another month. She braced herself, a tiny bit of her hoping Youngjae’s hunch wouldn’t be right.

“What’s Minji doing?” Woohyun had asked after telling her about the fashion designer. She was a bit surprised; Woohyun didn’t usually ask after people. He was affectionate towards Minji, there was no doubt about that, but still…

“She’s trying to dig up on Sunggyu-ssi’s case.”

What was taking her so long was beyond Hana’s understanding, but since this was Minji’s first case, she didn’t want to pressurize her.

Hana had gone back to her examination of the financial records. She also had brought out copies of all the papers Kris had in his apartment, just to make sure she wasn’t overlooking anything. They were mostly diet charts and bills for beauty salons and such – nothing that seemed especially important.

She went back to his bank statement – the only input of money being made by Star Destiny, monthly. Sighing, she turned the pages of the statement, going back three months ago – it was almost the same as the current month, except for one small difference. Lifting the paper closer to her face, she scanned the rows of numbers carefully, then went back to the more recent months. She went back and forth between the statements from the recent months and those from six months ago, comparing them.

There was no mistake – Star Destiny had always been Kris’ only source of income; the only difference was that until 4 months ago, his monthly salary had been 500,000 won, and modeling job he worked was paid for separately but since July, his monthly salary had been increased to, and Hana’s eyebrows spiraled onto her forehead at this, 5,000,000 won.

And I thought he wasn’t that popular.

Everyone at Kris’ workplace had insisted that he wasn’t doing very well in his career, then why the sudden rise in salary? What did Kris suddenly accomplish that made the company think he was up for a raise?

How Kris had been able to afford two chillingly expensive diamond rings now became clearer. But even more than that, it was an indication of who could be Scream. Now that she knew that Kris was being paid for his illegal work through seemingly legal company salary, she could take a shrewd guess that Scream had to be someone from the company, preferably someone higher up who could manipulate the company funds and divert a larger share than what he deserved to Kris’ account.

Instantly, one name popped into her mind, the man who held power, who apparently had no contact with Kris but was in the position to monitor him all the time…

Kim Kibum, the CEO.

He had the best chance. No one would question why he would want to increase Kris’ salary, most people wouldn’t even know. It would be their little secret.

That makes perfect sense.

The thought of Star Destiny’s CEO belonging to a drug cult was oddly befitting. There had been incidences of models from the agency getting caught up in the drug business, more frequently than any other companies and now it all made sense. Kim Kibum had been using the models at his day job to earn ten times more than what he got from the agency. He probably targeted the models who didn’t have a bright career in front of them, who knew they could never make it big; definitely not as rich as Kibum promised to make them. That was how his drug empire grew.

At that thought, Hana shivered. If Kim Kibum was indeed a drug lord at the head of a big drug cartel, then this case could bring him down. They could dismantle the intricate web Kibum had built over the years over Seoul and maybe in other parts of the country. Strictly speaking, it was a Narcotics case, their job was only to catch the killer. However, if they could indeed bring down a drug cartel, they would be hailed as heroes within the police department.

Now Hana wasn’t overly ambitious, but she wanted her share of glory. Maybe it had something to do with being a law enforcement officer, but she wanted to do something big, something momentous for the state. She had been raised on the principle that the country came first. In fact, those nationalistic thoughts had encouraged her to take up the badge. She had always been a good student in school, and her friends had expected her to try for a Science degree, but instead she had chosen this path. There were no murder histories in their family, no unsolved cases that pricked her, no injustice that kept her sleep from her every night – she chose Homicide purely because she had been brought up on the belief that murder was the highest crime, and she was adamant on giving the unjustly dead their voices beyond their deathbed.

“Hana!” It was Woohyun. She realized she’d become a bit distracted while working and had maybe even dozed off.

“Sorry,” she replied automatically.

“Making any progress?” Woohyun asked, without sounding angry. It wasn’t usually very difficult to say if the senior detective was mad or not. He tried to control his temper, but if he couldn’t he would be shouting or being generally noisy, unlike Myungsoo who was likely to be sulky if something had bothered him.

“I think I know how Kris was getting paid, and maybe even Scream,” she said, trying to suppress the excitement in her voice. She might well have cracked this case wide open, but there was still the possibility that she was grasping at straws and her assumptions were all wrong. After all, she didn’t have any proof beyond the bank statements.

Trying her best to be coherent, she explained to Woohyun everything she had deduced. Woohyun took a seat in front of her, listening to her intently. He would nod at times, but his eyes got brighter the more he listened to her. Hana was pleased – her explanation had obviously rubbed Woohyun the right way.

“That’s very interesting, but we don’t have any proof against Kim Kibum, do we?”

“Not yet,” she answered, a little frustrated. It would be very difficult to incriminate Kibum. If he was indeed a member of the upper echelons of the drug gang, he would be careful enough to make sure the trails do not reach him.

Suddenly, she recalled something. She had watched the CCTV footage of the confrontation between Kris and Jinwoon very carefully. She had followed Kris out of the room, using the footage from other nearby CCTV cameras. Kris had bumped into someone in the hallway, who she had identified with difficulty as the CEO himself. No words seemed to have passed between Kris and Kibum, and Kibum had then made his way to the room where Jinwoon was. She had found out that Jinwoon had a meeting with the CEO.

Now it all seems to add up.

She organized the thoughts in her head before offering the theory to Woohyun: Kris had gone to the room where Jinwoon was, hoping to find Scream. Now, what if Kris didn’t actually know who Scream was, and when he had found Jinwoon in the room, he had supposed that he was the one?

It probably became evident though that Jinwoon knew nothing about the threats, so Kris had stormed out, only to run into the real Scream – the CEO. Whether he had realized it right at that moment or figured it out later was a question that couldn’t be answered.

If Kris had been expecting Scream to be in that room at that time, it meant he had probably received a text from the burner number. It wouldn’t be that difficult to find on Kris’ phone, especially since she had to look for it within the texts sent before the day and time of the incident. But the problematic part was linking it back to Kibum, proving that he was indeed the owner of the burner phone. Even then, it would be hard to prove he had actually murdered Kris; unless the murder weapon was actually found on him.

It will very difficult to catch him, almost impossible if he doesn’t make a mistake.

When Hana was done, Woohyun let out a deep breath. He was probably thinking exactly what Hana was thinking – putting Kim Kibum behind the bars wouldn’t be easy at all.

“Well, we have a meeting at the end of the day. Present to them what you have told me. Let’s see what the others think.”

He was about to add something else when Minji appeared.

“The fashion designer, Onew, he was trying to escape but they’ve got him,” she said excitedly, addressing Woohyun rather than Hana. It irked her a bit; even though Woohyun was the seniormost detective here, Hana was responsible for Minji. The way she ignored her in front of Woohyun wasn’t exactly pleasing. “They’re bringing him to the precinct now. Youngjae oppa is convinced that he is our man.”

Hana raised an eyebrow – since when had Youngjae become ‘oppa’ to Minji? The last time she had heard her called him, she used ‘sunbaenim’. It was probably difficult for her to accept that Minji, who was new recruit, had been able to become close to two of the detectives of this precinct, excluding Myungsoo, with whom she apparently had a past as well.

Am I jealous of her?

It was fact that she had been the only female detective in this precinct and she had carried herself with pride because of that. It wasn’t easy to work in a male-dominated workplace but she had fared well through the years and she’d always reserved a little pat on the back for herself on that account. But now Minji came along, pretending that it wasn’t even difficult to start with; that hurt her ego. She was confused because this wasn’t something she could explain to Minji – so what could she do about it?

Lost in thoughts about Minji, she made her way towards the viewing room. The fashion designer had probably been brought into interrogation already and if he actually divulges important information, as Youngjae believed he possessed, it would be an important step in their case. She wanted to be present when that happened. Wondering who would be conducting the interview, she ran into Myungsoo as she opened the the door to the viewing room.

“Oh hello,” Myungsoo said, chuckling.

“You’re back already?” she asked, smiling. She’d been hoping Myungsoo would be there because at this moment, both Woohyun and Youngjae seemed to be on Minji’s side (although there were no sides to begin with but in her mind, she had chalked it up that way), so she needed Myungsoo to balance the boat.

“Yeah, talking to Chanyeol was quite helpful.” He was about to expand but Woohyun entered the room, Sungyeol and Youngjae trailing behind him. He jerked his head to show that he’d talk about it later.

“So who’s going in?” Hana asked, looking around the room.

Woohyun stared at Sungyeol for a second.

“Why don’t you and Sungyeol do it?” he said, looking straight at Hana. She wasn’t expecting that. Naturally, she thought Youngjae would be going in there since he had first suspected the fashion designer. But Woohyun looked serious, so she didn’t argue. Youngjae however looked less than pleased at the decision and he was about to protest when Sungyeol quelled him with a look.

“Shall we?” she asked Sungyeol, holding the door open.

Sungyeol drew himself up importantly and walked towards the door, brushing past Hana in the process.

Myungsoo smiled at Hana before she shut the door, blocking out everyone in the viewing room and made her way toward the interrogation room, falling in step behind Sungyeol. Her partner commanded an impressive figure, so it was always an advantage to have the interviewee catch a glimpse of him first and then with Hana’s presence, the interviewee would be thrown into temporary relief because for some reason, the sight of a woman always did that for men.

But of course Onew, whose real name was Lee Jinki, had no idea who Jung Hana was. He was about to find out.