She made to press play on the video, but her vision started becoming blurry and her thinking seemed to have slowed down. The nurse came around at that moment to change the IV pump. The doctor followed.
"You're running a temperature of 40 degrees Celsius. It's important you leave the work for later and rest," he said to Han Bo-young.
Han Bo-young nodded silently and closed her laptop. Even though she had a high pain threshold, her body was currently at its limit. From the wound's dehiscence to the chloramine inhalation at the research facility and the additional head wound in the crash, she hadn't received proper care.
"Your infection has proceeded to cellulitis with signs of early abscess formation. We need to drain it surgically and start you on IV Cefazolin immediately. Without intervention in the next few hours, it will progress to sepsis. We'll need your consent going forward," the doctor said and passed her the consent form.
Han Bo-young shakily signed, put her laptop in the drawer and locked it, then closed her eyes to sleep. She was exhausted.
...
"Yoon-a's last victim. It's Ryu Hye-ji," Song Min-ho said, his face stern.
Han Bo-young paused from the miyeok-guk she was eating and looked up at Song Min-ho. "What are the details?"
"I think we should be careful, Sunbae. Lim Ji-won hasn't done anything since we've been on this case. It's almost as if he's certain we won't find anything incriminating on him."
Han Bo-young nodded, running her tongue over her teeth and into the corners of her mouth, trying to neutralize the taste of the awful soup.
"All our evidence was obtained illegally, so yes, we don't have anything on him," Han Bo-young said. "And what Hong Mone has given us doesn't hold a candle either."
"Should we talk to Ryu Hye-ji again?" Song Min-ho asked.
"I need to recover from this first, then I'll arrange a meeting outside of the precinct," Han Bo-young said quietly. "For now, we need a mapping board. And we need to arrange all of the evidence we currently have. Play it legally going forward."
...
A few days later.
Han Bo-young drank from the cup, the hot liquid sending jolts of electricity through her body that calmed her down. The door to the restaurant opened. Ryu Hye-ji walked in, dressed in a white fashionable suit and looking every bit the K-drama CEO. She sat across from Han Bo-young, her eyes calm as she stared. They both didn't speak for a moment.
Han Bo-young placed the stolen envelope on the table, sliding it towards Ryu Hye-ji. She picked up the envelope, opened it, and after seeing its contents, put it in her purse without a word.
"Would you like a drink? Anything?" Han Bo-young asked, her voice polite.
"We shouldn't waste time, Detective," Ryu Hye-ji replied, her voice cold.
"Do you know who Yoon-a's killer is?" Han Bo-young asked, jumping right in.
"I don't have to answer that question."
"You know I went back to the scene of the crime. And looked through all the miscellaneous items. I found something rather interesting," Han Bo-young said with a smile. She reached into her leather jacket and pulled out a plastic ziplock bag. She placed it on the table.
Ryu Hye-ji looked at what was inside. It was a black chess piece; a pawn, to be precise. She didn't understand what it meant. "What's that?" she asked, not hiding her confusion.
Han Bo-young raised the bag up, staring at it like a piece of gold.
"I'm not sure I know either. It was there without a chessboard or any other pieces. What could a single pawn be doing in a hotel room? Did Yoon-a accidentally pack it in her stuff when checking in? These are the questions I asked myself," Han Bo-young said and smiled again.
Ryu Hye-ji's heart rate sped up. There was something wrong with this detective. What was in that damn pawn, anyway? "And?" she asked, trying to sound calm.
Han Bo-young did not miss the shakiness in her voice. She smirked and put the ziplock back in her jacket. "Hye-ji, do you know if you admit to your own crime, you get a lesser sentence?"
"Detective, I don't have time for this."
"Your fingerprints, Hye-ji. Your fingerprints were all over the pawn," Han Bo-young said and raised her cup, taking a large gulp from it, while maintaining eye contact with Ryu Hye-ji.
"Lies," Ryu Hye-ji responded. It wasn't possible. It wasn't within the realm of possibility at all. She had not been to Yoon-a's hotel room, and she definitely hadn't touched a pawn before that.
"I guess so," Han Bo-young said and shrugged. "When I solved my first murder case, my partner then, whom I trusted, betrayed me. Be careful of the kind of people you work with. This piece is already enough to get a search warrant, Hye-ji. This would probably be our last meeting as well. I'm just a phone call away." She said and slid her ID to Ryu Hye-ji.
Then she downed the rest of the cup's contents and stood up, leaving quickly. Ryu Hye-ji sat in her own silence for a long time before she picked up the ID. She stared at the name "Han Bo-young" written boldly on it. She tapped the card with her fingernail, her eyes staring into the distance.
...
"Alright. First piece of information. Yoon-a is a K-pop icon," Han Bo-young said and pinned a photo of Yoon-a at a concert at the top of the board.
"She's depressed—DE-PRESSED." She dragged the word as she wrote it on the board with a marker. "She seems to be a victim of parental abuse." Han Bo-young pinned Kang Seo-yoon's photo on the board and connected the picture of Yoon-a to it with a thread. "PA-REN-TAL A-BUSE," she read out as she wrote.
"Sixteen-year-old Yoon-a abused sixteen-year-old Hong Mone and fifteen-year-old Choi Geon-woo." She pinned Hong Mone and Choi Geon-woo's photos and tied them to each other and to Yoon-a's with a thread.
"Ryu Hye-ji was also a victim. Although we're currently unsure of the kind of abuse she suffered." Han Bo-young pinned her picture on the board and turned.
"Coffee?" Song Min-ho said and passed her the mug. She took it and sipped from it, her eyes sharp as she stared at the board.
"But Hong Mone suffers the most out of all three victims. Ryu Hye-ji was within reach; it doesn't make sense that she didn't suffer as much as Hong Mone," she thought out loud.
"Hye-ji probably has a stronger mental capacity than Mone," Song Min-ho chipped in.
"It seems there's a very thin line between complete psyche collapse and survival," Han Bo-young said and sucked on her teeth. "There's not enough sugar in this," Han Bo-young complained.
"I'll go fetch sugar," Song Min-ho said, walking towards her kitchen.
Han Bo-young took out her laptop. So far, she hadn't read the information on the ripper. She tapped a few keys on her keyboard as Song Min-ho returned. He added the sugar as Han Bo-young scrolled through the information. Song Min-ho stood behind her, also interested.
The facility had been developing something called the S1 Bridge. In theory, it was a synthetic neurotransmitter designed to bypass the traditional "pain gate" in the human spinal cord.
Usually, when the body is traumatized, the nerves send a signal to the brain that says stop. The S1 Bridge acted as a filter. It allowed the brain to receive the sensory data (the heat of a burn, the pressure of a blade) without triggering the neurogenic shock that usually followed. It was designed to turn a human being into a resilient subject—someone who could endure an unlimited amount of damage while remaining conscious and functional.
Han Bo-young scrolled deeper into the "Subject 4" folder—Yoon-a's folder. The logs showed that Yoon-a hadn't been the best subject until she suffered abuse from Kang Seo-yoon. It was their best option statistically. If a child could suffer her mother's abuse and in turn become a weapon, they would be the perfect candidate for the experiment.
Song Min-ho couldn't hide his shock as Han Bo-young scrolled through the files. As Han Bo-young read more and more, she found that Yoon-a wasn't the only test subject.
There seemed to be other people scattered around the country, but the files weren't pointing in any direction.
Her phone rang at that moment, the noise disrupting the silence of the room. She raised it up and saw it was an unknown number. She took the call.
"Detective, have you heard of Jeffrey Epstein?" Ryu Hye-ji's voice chimed through.