At the same time, across town, Mark moved carefully through the dim corridors of the police station.
The building felt different at night.
During the day, it was full of noise—phones ringing, officers talking, chairs scraping across tiled floors, the constant hum of authority pretending to be order. But now, under the weak glow of the hallway lights, the station felt hollow. Quiet. Watchful.
Mark kept his footsteps light.
He had waited for this exact moment—until most of the officers had left their desks and the remaining few were distracted or buried in paperwork. He knew he wouldn't get another chance like this. If Kim was hiding something, it wouldn't stay hidden forever. But if Mark hesitated, he might lose the only lead they had left.
Kim's office sat at the far end of the hallway, closed and dark like a sealed secret.
Mark paused at the corner and glanced both ways.
Empty.
His pulse thudded once in his ears as he reached for the handle.
Unlocked.
That alone made his skin crawl.
He slipped inside and shut the door quietly behind him.
The room smelled faintly of old paper, aftershave, and something colder—something clinical. The desk was perfectly arranged. Too perfectly. Not a single file out of place. Not a pen lying crooked. It didn't look like an office that belonged to a man investigating murders, drug trails, and missing evidence.
It looked staged.
Mark moved quickly.
First the desk drawers.
Pens, stamps, case folders with unrelated labels, blank forms, receipts.
Nothing.
Then the cabinets.
He opened each one carefully, scanning every shelf, every box, every tucked-away envelope.
Still nothing.
His jaw tightened.
He checked the side drawers again, then the locked-looking lower compartment that, to his irritation, turned out to hold nothing but old station reports and archived copies of parking violations.
"Come on…" he muttered under his breath.
He moved to the desk compartments next—lifting files, opening hidden slots, checking beneath folders, behind framed certificates, even under the desk itself.
Anything.
Anything that might contain files related to the key.
Or the drugs.
Or Roxy's father's death.
Anything that might mention Smily.
Or Speedball.
Or the syringe found in Roxy's room.
But the deeper he searched, the more frustrated he became.
Nothing.
No files.
No reports.
No sealed evidence.
No photographs.
No handwritten notes.
No mention of Smily.
No mention of Speedball.
No mention of the syringe.
No trace of the case at all.
It was too clean.
Far too clean.
Mark slowly straightened and stared at the desk, breathing hard.
This wasn't normal police negligence.
This was deliberate.
Someone had wiped the room clean.
Either the evidence had been removed before he got there…
or Kim had hidden it somewhere else entirely.
Mark stepped back and frowned, unease crawling up his spine.
"Kim…" he muttered, voice low and sharp. "What are you hiding?"
For a moment, he just stood there, surrounded by silence.
Then his phone buzzed in his hand, reminding him of the only people left he could trust.
Without wasting another second, he called Lovely.
She answered almost immediately, but her voice came low and careful.
"Hello?"
"Did you find anything?" Mark asked quietly.
"No," she whispered. "Not exactly. But I found something else."
Mark's posture straightened instantly.
"What?"
There was a pause on the other end, as if she was checking whether anyone could hear her.
"I'm at Janhae's place," she said. "In her room."
Mark's eyes narrowed.
"And?"
"There's a box here," Lovely said, her voice tightening. "A small one. And it has the same symbol as the key."
Mark went completely still.
For one second, neither of them spoke.
Then he asked, "You're sure?"
"Yes."
"And that's not all," she continued quickly. "There's a locked compartment beside it. I haven't opened it yet."
Mark exhaled slowly, trying to think faster than his fear.
"That means she's connected."
"I know," Lovely said. "But I can't stay here long."
Mark turned toward the office door instinctively, lowering his voice even more.
"Don't touch anything else if you don't have to. Just get out safely."
But Lovely wasn't done.
"Mark…" she said, quieter now. "I think Kim's house may also have something."
His face hardened.
He remembered the old conversation. A careless detail Kim had once let slip—something about not trusting the station with sensitive materials. Something about keeping certain things "off record."
A private storage setup.
A backup hiding place.
"Yes," Mark said slowly. "He mentioned something once. Some kind of undercover storage arrangement."
Lovely inhaled sharply. "Then that's where the real evidence could be."
"Maybe," Mark replied. "But don't go there alone."
"I need to leave before I'm caught," she whispered. "We'll talk later."
Before Mark could say anything else, the call ended.
He lowered the phone slowly, staring at the dark screen.
The web was growing larger.
And more dangerous.