A second closer - Seventeen Fanfic

Chapter 8

March 10th, 1989

1.00 AM

"You doing good down there, man?" Joshua asked while writing it on his notepad. The study room was in fact quite large. It could be taken as a personal library. The officers could easily tell that there are at least 2000 to 3000 books organized neatly into all those floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, counting the books on the top floor of the room. The shelves themselves weren't as high as the manor but were high enough for the need of a ladder to reach the top shelf. They knew they couldn't possibly search every book there was just by themselves so they checked the first few to find anything.

"Yeah, I am." Seungkwan sighed. " It's just that I'm getting sick and tired of this. I went through these files in the drawers and I can't seem to get anything interesting." He threw the file on the table and stretched back on the chair. " Could you just brief me about what Mr.Zhao told us? You know, regarding why he thought of this place? My brain is a bit exhausted to think by itself"

"Let's see. It seems he reached out to Mrs.Han after the last meeting we had with him. She had told him that the last few days before Professor Han disappeared, he acted really strange. He didn't go to work and stayed in his room almost the whole day, the same behavior the CEO displayed. This is valid because Jeonghan's team had already gathered this Infos. But what I don't understand is why he had gone to Mrs.Han? What was the connection? Isn't this a confidential investigation?"

"Right? Even I was thinking the same thing. At first, the CEO was assumed to have disappeared in his bedroom. We checked everything. Almost the whole North wing of this mansion and then out of nowhere this study room comes into the scene. I'm just wondering why he didn't mention this the first day we met"

"He probably didn't trust us like how we don't trust him either. But this time he did look like he was opening up a bit but it's maybe my eyes playing tricks on me." Joshua laughed.

"I hope he can be trustable like the people who work here. They seem to care more than Mr.Zhao himself. Makes me wanna confirm he has something up his sleeve he is still not telling us," while grumbling he put his head on the desk, pulled out a random pen that was on the table, and started playing with that. His mind was running out of ways to find the loopholes and he wondered if the people behind this were just trying to mess with all of them for the fun of it. While buried in thoughts the officer looked up to the books that were arranged horizontally on the right side of the desk, when he noticed something between them. An envelope to be specific was hidden so well but not well enough. It looked like it was pushed in for a temporary location for some unknown reason. Seungkwan slowly got himself to a sitting position and pulled that envelope. He could tell the letter inside it was read as the seal was opened. '

This is probably it! This could be a clue!'. He pulled out the folded letter and his jaw automatically opened when he read the first line on the paper.

"Um...Shua Hyung? I need you to come down and look at this" he called, eyes still fixed on the letter. Joshua, who was already on the third out of the five rows on the first shelf, came down to see what Seungkwan held in his hands.

"What's this?"

"I don't think Mr.Zhao was lying," Seugkwan murmured. "All this time I thought he was hiding something but it wasn't him.......It was the CEO". The letter didn't have much to say but it was big enough to reveal something that blew the officer's mind. The letter read -

They have found us. Take the ring and hide. You don't have to tell us where but make sure you don't get caught. I'll buy us time. And this will be the last letter I'll be writing to you.

Take care son

-Professor Han

Nothing was said by them except for looking at each other and back to the letter. Joshua, who had his assumption so high about the advocate, felt the guilt all of the sudden. As an officer and investigator, it was his job to be skeptical about everything. But this time he thought he was right. At least more than 50%. He knew there was everything to do with Mr.Zhao and the case would be closed if he had just made it through him. But he was wrong. In fact, both the cases had nothing to do with Mr.Zhao or, as the officers thought, his greed for the CEO's position and were much more than just a few citizens missing.

" I think there are more. Not just the professor or the CEO" Joshua broke the silence. "And I'm really starting to think that MR. Zhao has no clue about all this."

"This explains a lot of things! Remember the last time we came here? Mr.Zhao said that the CEO usually wouldn't call it a day before 11 PM but that night he said he wanted to go by 6.30 right? Maybe the letter reached him before. And regarding what he said before..." Seungkwan couldn't get himself to say it as he felt guilty too.

"Before we drugged him?"

"Hey! Don't put it that way!"

"It was your idea after all"

"That's because I had my doubts too you know! If we hadn't done that, he wouldn't have let us go through the study room and if that was the case we wouldn't have found this"

"You do have a point there. It's like they say, 'Desperate Times Call for Desperate Measures '," Joshua laughed and shrugged. Seungkwan gave him a look.

" Okay, wise sir but who's they though?"

"Just figurative 'they' okay? I don't know! stop getting distracted in the middle of a case and tell me what you were trying to say!"

"Oh right. Regarding what Mr.Zhao said about the place the CEO disappeared. Everyone except for him thinks that he disappeared from his room. Oh and remember the officers who came here that night also went missing in that room leaving us only one witness behind? That is the third officer. He did tell us that the second when he arrived at that room they were already gone. Which makes the conclusion more clear too. But that wasn't the actual case, was it? ," Seungkwan explained. He took the envelope to check how it looked so he could find the other letters the professor sent.

"You do have a point there. What if our senior actually didn't tell us the whole story? What if he found something but is trying to hide it from us?"

"The more we look into it, the more messed up it is. And the reason he gave for thinking the CEO disappearing here?"

"It's because he was the CEO that night heading to the room just like everyone else but saw him again entering the study room. No one was near him so he was the only one who saw the CEO going in but when he went in to check on him he wasn't there. He said it looked real for him to brush it off as a hallucination"

"Right, right ....As much as I want to trust Mr.Zhao a little bit, he isn't making it easy either. what in all these makes sense anyway????" Seungkwan asked. He was a bit frustrated but happy enough as they found a clue.

" I can't believe I'm saying this but I think we do need to trust him"

"Hyung, are you kidding me?"

"No, I'm really serious," Joshua answered. He took a second and gave an assuring look at Seungkwan. "If we really need to get to the bottom of it we need to start with someone and that someone is the advocate. For all we know, he could be on our side and besides, we have nothing to lose too" The room went silent. After thinking about what the older said, Seugkwan finally agreed. They decided to use their time to find this 'so-called' ring and the other letter of the processor.