case 143 | lee felix

11. impostor

HYUNJIN

"Here you go. Nothing unusual, they're still there. Why did you ask to track their phones?" Changbin shows me the screen displaying Felix and Hwayoung's live location through GPS. I was on my way out and asked him to check it in a hurry with no explanation.

"If their phones are in Bali, then they should be too, right?" I say.

"Obviously."

"So then how the hell was I talking to Hwayoung at the café today morning?" I found it eerily suspicious that she ignored her best friend to voluntarily come and talk to me. And not just talking. She was flirting. Did she have some identical twin that I didn't know of?

"What do you mean? I didn't book their return tickets. Plus, I just got a response from the authorities to help with the case. They should just be getting started by now," he says, knitting his eyebrows together in puzzlement. I ask him to rewind the footage from today to prove my point. He looks at the screen in concern.

"This doesn't make sense. Who is this impostor?"

Suddenly, his email pings with a notification from an anonymous sender. It read the words "URGENT : VIEW IMMEDIATELY". Curiosity swiftly getting to us, we sit together to open it and check the contents. There was a video and a text file attached to it. We play the video first.

It was camera footage from last night, according to what was written on top. It was a hit-and-run in front of SNU. There was almost no one around till it crashed and people came to check out what happened.

"This is the case Jisung got assigned to last night," I remark. There was a commotion at the university and extra officers had to go on duty for damage control. Upon further inspection, I notice the face of the driver. This was the interesting, or rather disturbing part.

It was Hwayoung. Any normal person could tell that. Even though I hate her guts, I knew for sure that this was a set-up. Besides, even if she was here, where on earth was Felix?

Changbin opens the file attached to it. It contained just one sentence.

"Watch out Hwayoung, you're next," I read out loud, feeling chills down my spine.

"So this person somehow knows Hwayoung and they're convinced that she did it. I mean, I would be too if I was looking solely at the recording but I'm 101% sure that that's not her. It can't be. She's not even in the country," Changbin says, shaking his head.

"I have a really bad feeling that they're in danger," I say, getting up from the chair. "Get back in touch with the authorities and book me flight tickets please. I'm going to Bali."

HWAYOUNG

I was tired. Really tired. I don't think much time has passed but to me it felt like eternity. I'm all alone in this room and I have no idea how Felix and Jake are doing. All I can do is hope that they're still alive.

"Knock knock," I hear. I look up to see Heeseung at the door with one of his men behind him, holding a tray of food and water.

"I'm feeling generous today so you can eat up while it's still hot," he proudly says as if he was offering me a million dollar mansion with unlimited money and clothes.

"How do I know it's not poisoned?" I ask. It looked tempting as heck on an empty stomach but I wasn't letting my reason of death be eating food that my kidnapper offered me. That was too dumb and it hurt my pride as a detective.

"Well, it's not. I can have it all by myself if you don't want it," he shrugs, taking the plate from the man. Suddenly, I hear loud clamoring from outside.