Go Hae-ri wiped her palms on her jeans, feeling unaccountably nervous as she entered Bean's an hour later. Well, perhaps unaccountably was the wrong word. It was rather unnerving to walk into a place where you knew one of the occupants had been trying to kill you for the better part of several weeks, after all. She felt anxious, exposed. Cha Dal-geon had wanted to come with her, but she had refused, fearing he would make a scene once he figured out who the most likely suspect was and ruin the whole thing. Gi Tae-ung had offered to accompany her in his stead, but Hae-ri believed they would have a better chance of drawing out the would-be killer if she went in alone. Dal-geon, of course, hadn't liked that idea one bit, but the rest of Vagabond had agreed to abide by her wishes. As a result, Kim Se-hun had been charged with keeping Dal-geon from barging into Bean's halfway through the operation, and Hae-ri had entered the coffee shop alone.
She glanced around uneasily, trying to assess who in this charming café might want her dead.
Kim Na-young, the manager, had always been nice, but did her too-friendly smile conceal a sinister intent? That tall guy in the glasses had flirted with her the last time she was here, but maybe that had just been an excuse to get near enough to drop something in her drink.
"Oh annyeonghaseyo, Agent Noona," Jin Ri-byung greeted her cheerfully as she approached the counter. He beamed at her. "What can I do for you today?"
She smiled back at him, grateful to see at least one friendly face in this place. "Annyeonghaseyo, Ri-byungah. Just a coffee today."
"The usual?"
"Ye, gomawo," she said distractedly, still looking around for potential suspects. That woman with the baby was in here an awful lot, but surely if she was plotting to murder someone, she wouldn't bring the baby along, would she? The man with the beard who was always in here on his laptop—he was a much more likely candidate.
Ri-byung whistled while he prepared her coffee. "Noona, I finished that essay for the application to that internship you recommended me for. I was wondering if you'd mind reading it over for me before I submit it."
"Sure," she said absently. "I'd be happy to." Hae-ri felt it was impossible. There were over twenty people in here, over half of which she recognized as employees or regulars. Maybe she should have let Dal-geon come along after all. He probably would have taken one look at this lot and deduced the identity of the guilty party based on the color of their shoelaces or something.
"Daebak. I'll email it to you later today, Noona?"
Ri-byung snapped the lid on her coffee and presented it to her with a flourish. "Here you go."
Hae-ri stared at it. There it was. Her probably poisoned coffee. The would-be instrument of her death. Her eyes flicked up to look behind the counter, but Ri-byung was the only one there. No one else had been within five feet of the cup he'd just handed to her during the whole time he'd been preparing it. She looked back at Ri-byung, aghast.
"That'll be four thousand and two hundred won," he said cheerfully.
Hae-ri handed the money over wordlessly, wondering if there was any way she could get reimbursed for poisoned beverages sustained in the line of duty. How would one go about filing a worker's compensation claim for such a thing?
Ri-byung put the cash in the drawer and handed her a receipt and her change. "All right. You're all set."
Thanks didn't really seem appropriate under the circumstances. Her mind reeling, she took the coffee and left.
Shaken, she walked slowly back to the SUV where the rest of the team was waiting.
It couldn't be Ri-byung. He was so young and sweet. He was on the debate team, for God's sake. He couldn't be in league with Edward Park. He couldn't be.
She opened the car door and climbed into the front passenger seat. She handed the coffee to Tae-ung in the driver's seat without a word.
"Waeyo? What's wrong?" Dal-geon demanded from the seat behind her when he got a look at her face. "Did something happen?"
Hae-ri shook her head, not wanting to put voice to her fears until they knew for sure that the coffee was indeed poisoned. Maybe they were wrong, she thought hopefully. Maybe this was all a mistake. No one at Bean's was poisoning her. They'd just have to look elsewhere. Maybe they'd overlooked something at her apartment. They needed to look harder, that was all.
Hwa-sook did the honors this time. She dipped the cotton swab in the coffee, then dropped it into the waiting vial.
As they all watched, the liquid in the vial turned a brilliant indigo.
Hae-ri turned her head away. Numb, she gave the order that needed to be made. She stared out the window, unseeing, as Tae-ung and Se-hun got out of the car and went inside to make the arrest. She closed her eyes, conscious only of Dal-geon's warm hand heavy on her shoulder.
______________
There was a bit of an altercation once they got back to the office and Dal-geon realized Hae-ri wasn't going to let him interrogate Ri-byung until the boy's parents had been contacted.
"Hae-rissi! Precious time is ticking away," he protested after she caught him trying to sneak into the interrogation room and dragged him back to her office. "I'll be able to get way more out of him if he's alone."
"He's a minor. He has the right to have his parents present for the interrogation."
"Mwo? He's talked to Edward Park, Hae-rissi. He could be the key to identifying him after all this time, and he's less than fifteen yards away from this office. Do you seriously want to wait to talk to him until after he's gone crying to mommy and lawyered up?"
She sighed. "He's just a kid, Dal-geonssi."
"He's no innocent, Hae-rissi. He poisoned you. He's working for Edward Park. How can you protect him, under the circumstances?"
"I'm not protecting him. The law is protecting him."
"The law? Who cares about that at a time like this?" he said incredulously. "Your life is in danger!"
She scowled. "I care. The people of Korea care. And the DA is sure as hell going to care if we decide to charge a teenage boy with attempted murder."
"Well, I don't give a damn about the law. If he even looks sideways at you, I'm going to wring his scrawny neck."
"Are you listening to yourself? You're going to kill a seventeen year old boy for looking at me?"
"He is not an innocent boy!"
"Legally, that won't help your defense much."
"Okay, fine," he conceded. "I won't kill him. But you really ought to let me talk to him."
She glared at him. "Listen to me, Dal-geonssi, because I'm only going to say this once: If you put one toe across the threshold of that interrogation room before I give you the go signal, I will break your leg."
Dal-geon strongly suspected she knew at least five ways to carry out this threat, thanks to her training sessions with Tae-ung, so he decided it would probably be best not to test her willingness to do so. He sat down on the couch in a huff.
For once, she didn't attempt to distract herself with paperwork. Instead, she sat down on the couch next to him and closed her eyes. Her fingers found their way to the sleeve of his jacket, curling around the edge of the hem. Dal-geon was surprised and a little moved that Hae-ri was reaching out to him for reassurance like this.
Then he realized she was afraid he was going to try to sneak out while she wasn't looking and this was her way of making sure he couldn't slip away unnoticed.
He sulked on the couch for the next half hour, but he made no effort to escape her grasp.
Their silent tension was interrupted by Se-hun knocking lightly on the doorframe. "Uh, Timjangnim?"
Hae-ri opened her eyes and looked at him. "Ne?"
"The kid's mother is here."
Hae-ri sighed. "Ye. Gomawoyo."
She got up and went towards the interrogation room. Dal-geon and Se-hun followed. "You and Hook checked him for weapons?" she asked Se-hun brusquely. She had learned her lesson after the disastrous encounter with Yoon Han Ki.
Se-hun nodded. "He's clean."
Tae-ung and Hwa-sook were waiting for them outside the interrogation room. "What's the plan, Timjangnim?" Tae-ung asked.
"I'll take point," Hae-ri told him. "Dal-geon and Tae-ung, you're with me. Se-hun and Hwa-sook, you guys can watch from the observation room, but keep an eye on the hall. No one but our team goes in or out of the interrogation room until the interview is over, okay?"
"Got it," Se-hun affirmed, and Hwa-sook nodded.
"Okay. Let's do it," Hae-ri said, and entered the interrogation room.
Dal-geon followed close behind her, his hand at the small of her back. Tae-ung brought up the rear.
Ri-byung and his mother were seated at the table. Dal-geon and Hae-ri took the two chairs opposite them. Tae-ung took his position in the corner behind Hae-ri and folded his arms across his chest.
Ri-byung brightened when Hae-ri walked in, but his mother, next to him, looked tense.
"Annyeonghaseyo, Eommoni," Hae-ri greeted her. "Go Hae-ri imnida. I'm the senior agent in charge of the Special Serious Crimes Unit here at the NIS. These are my colleagues, Cha Dal-geon and Gi Tae-ung."
"Annyeonghaseyo," the other woman said distractedly, her eyes darting back and forth between Dal-geon and Tae-ung before settling on Hae-ri again. "Can you tell me what this is all about?"
"I'm afraid Ri-byungah is in quite a bit of trouble," Hae-ri said soberly.
"What kind of trouble?"
"Has Ri-byungah told you anything about why he's here?"
"Eopseoyo." She looked at her son, but Ri-byung said nothing, just stared at Hae-ri rather fixedly.
"He's been charged with a very serious crime," Hae-ri told her.
Dal-geon was getting a strange feeling in the pit of his stomach, watching Ri-byung follow Hae-ri's every movement with his eyes. "Do you understand why you're here, Jin Ri-byung?" he asked.
Ri-byung nodded. "Ne."
"And why's that?"
"To see Agent Noona," he answered easily, smiling at Hae-ri.
"Excuse me?" Hae-ri said, startled.
"I came here to see you," the boy repeated. "When your men asked me to come here with them, I asked them if you would be here, and they said you would be."
"You know you've been arrested, right?" Tae-ung asked.
Ri-byung looked at him. "Ne."
"Agents Gi Tae-ung and Kim Se-hun read you your Miranda rights, didn't they?" Hae-ri double-checked. "They explained the charges against you?"
"Ne."
"And do you understand your rights as they explained them to you?"
"Ne. I have the right to an attorney, blah, blah, blah," Ri-byung said, rolling his eyes a little. "I have seen TV before. I know how it works." Then he did something very strange: he winked at Hae-ri.
Hae-ri drew back. "Ri-byungah, I'm concerned that you don't seem to appreciate how serious your situation is right now."
He smiled at her. "Gwaenchana, Noona. I understand what's going on here."
Dal-geon was disturbed by the way the boy was looking at his partner. "What do you think is going on here, Jin Ri-byung?"
Ri-byung looked at Dal-geon, his lip curling slightly. "I'm hardly likely to tell you that, am I?"
"What's that supposed to mean?" Dal-geon asked, intrigued.
Ri-byung shook his head and looked back at Hae-ri. "Noona, I know you had your men come get me so it wouldn't look suspicious, but you had to know I would have come willingly if you'd just asked. Surely there's no need for such pretenses now that I'm actually here. Why did you have to bring him in here?"
"What pretenses?" Hae-ri asked, confused.
Ri-byung gestured to his surroundings. "This. The whole arrest. I know it was a trick so you'd have an excuse to bring me here."
"No trick," Tae-ung said. "You've really been arrested."
"Why would I want an excuse to bring you to the NIS?" Hae-ri asked, looking bewildered.
"So we could finally have some time to talk alone," Ri-byung replied. He frowned. "I'm not sure why you called Eomma, though."
"Why would you and Hae-rissi need to talk alone?" Dal-geon asked him.
"None of your business," Ri-byung replied coldly.
"Can someone please explain to me what the hell is happening right now?" Ri-byung's mother demanded.
Hae-ri turned her attention to the woman on the other side of the table. "Eommoni—"
"Ne," the other woman said shortly.
"Eommoni. Your son has been charged with attempted murder."
Ri-byung's mother stared at her. "You're joking."
"I'm afraid not," Hae-ri told her.
"Jeoldae andwae," Ri-byung's mother said flatly. "There must be some mistake."
"There's no mistake," Dal-geon told her. "Your son has been poisoning Agent Hae-rissi."
"Mworagoyo?" Ri-byung said, sounding alarmed for the first time. "Poisoning?"
"Ye. That's what people call it when you put something in someone's food or drink that could kill them," Dal-geon informed him.
"Noona's been poisoned?" Ri-byung said in disbelief.
"Ne."
Ri-byung looked at Hae-ri for confirmation. "Someone's been hurting you?" he demanded.
Off her startled nod, he slammed his hand against the table. "I'll kill him," he said savagely.
"Nice try," Tae-ung said, unimpressed. "We know it was you."
"This is ridiculous," Ri-byung's mother huffed. "My son hasn't poisoned anyone."
"Joesonghabnida, but we have compelling evidence that he has," Hae-ri told her.
"This isn't just a witness interview? He's actually being charged?" Ri-byung's mother asked.
"He has been charged with attempted murder," Hae-ri repeated. "This is an official interrogation. Under the circumstances, I feel obliged to advise you to consider consulting with an attorney."
"I don't need a lawyer," Ri-byung said. "I haven't done anything wrong. This is a mistake."
"No mistake," Tae-ung said. "Someone's definitely been poisoning her."
"I'm sorry to hear that, of course, but what on earth makes you think uri adeul is the one who has been poisoning Agent Go Hae-ri?" Ri-byung's mother asked.
Dal-geon produced the coffee cup that Hae-ri had bought from Bean's earlier that morning. "Agent Hae-ri Go has been ill for several weeks. Yesterday, she finally went to the doctor and the doctor informed her she has been suffering from organophosphate poisoning. This morning, Jin Ri-byung prepared this cup of coffee for her. It tested positive for organophosphates." He demonstrated, filling the vial once again, dipping the cotton swab into the coffee and then into the vial in turn. He set the vial on the table as it turned a dark blue. "I probably don't need to tell you this, Jin Ri-byung, chemistry whiz that you are, but organophosphates are poisonous to humans when ingested."
Ri-byung and his mother stared at the vial, shocked.
"You think that's poison?" Ri-byung asked in disbelief.
"Ye. You've been putting it in her coffee for weeks."
Ri-byung's mother turned to her son. "Is this true, Ri-byungah?" she said uncertainly.
"Andwaeyo. That isn't poison! I would never poison Agent Noona," Ri-byung said angrily. "What kind of man would do that to the woman he loves?"
There was a shocked silence.