Close To Midnight

Chapter 7

With her eyes squeezed shut, face relaxed, breathing soft and steady, her partner looked as though she was sleeping. But the constant tapping of the fingers on the desk told Jeongyeon she was deep in thought.

The killers were meticulous, thorough, always two steps ahead of them. Tzuyu had spent a sleepless 48 hours cleaning up the image only to get a vague outline of a person in a wolf mask, the kind of masks they sold for Halloween.

Looking for people who bought this mask, it was like looking for a needle in a haystack, nearly impossible. They'd still sent a message out to all the stores and manufactures that made the mask to inform them if they recalled any suspicious client.

The phone rang drawing her attention. "Is this detective Jeongyeon?"

"Yes."

"I'm Yi-Jun's mother." The old woman coughed into the receiver, "You asked me to call you if I remembered anything."

"I'm listening."

"I've seen my son with Dong-Hyun."

Jeongyeon almost dropped the receiver from her hand.

"Are you sure?"

"Positive."

"Where had you seen them together?"

"Near the Central hospital."

"What were they talking about?"

"I have no idea because I was going home by bus when I saw them but from their body language I could tell they were having an argument."

When Jeongyeon ended the call after asking some more questions and turned to look at Chaeyoung with her stupefied face, the younger girl lifted a brow questioningly.

"Turns out our victims, at least two of them knew each other."

___

"Shit!! There are cops." One of the henchmen pointed with his eyes covering his mouth behind a hand like he was yawning.

Jihyo quickly scanned the crowd at the carnival. Chiho was right, there were cops in civilians clothes all over the place. Someone must have tipped them off.

"We should go." She bit into her corn, made a face and smiled at Nayeon as she spoke, trying to mimick and blend in with the crowd around them.

Their man was just near the giant wheel, barely thirty feet away from them, but there were at least ten cops swarming the distance between them. Aborting mission was their safest bet now.

"Nayeonnie." Min-jun pointed at the shooting stall like he was asking if they could go there. "Boss asked us to leave if there was any signs of trouble."

When he saw a tightening of fists, he gulped audibly and took a step back. Nayeon pulled her dark hoodie over her head and snatched the parcel from Jihyo's hand.

She bumped into a man before her on purpose. "Sorry." She helped him up, her slender fingers expertly sliding into his backpocket to grab his wallet.

"Well, to be literally hit on by beautiful girls like you, it's a honor." He leered.

"And I hope to see handsome men like you on the giant wheel." Nayeon's smoky voice husked, as she slid the diamonds into the wallet behind her back and flicked it to Jihyo who caught it slickly. "That's where I'm heading."

She brushed past him, and proceeded to walk towards the giant wheel. She came to a halt when two cops appeared before her blocking her path.

Jihyo didn't miss a beat. "Is this your wallet? I found it on the floor." She asked the man Nayeon had bumped into. He smiled widely at her thinking it was his lucky day to have two beautiful girls talk to him in the span of two minutes.

"Yes. Thank you so much."

A smirk appeared on Nayeon's lips as she heard the conversation behind her. It angered the officer before her. "I hope you rot in prison." He spat, grabbed her roughly and began to search.

"You'll fucking get caught one day." The other officer grunted as he pushed her away after a whole ten minutes of searching and finding nothing on her.

Nayeon knew that a plan involving men never went wrong. They were such simple creatures, easily predictable. Because the man she had bumped into was in the line for giant wheel, often checking behind his shoulder for her.

It was an easy game from there onwards. She nicked his wallet, passed the diamonds to her man with ease and strutted towards the exit.

"Are wallets and cars the only thing you steal? Would you make an exception for hearts?"