𝐓𝐎𝐔𝐆𝐇 𝐒𝐄𝐂𝐑𝐄𝐓𝐒 || 𝐉𝐄𝐎𝐍𝐆𝐇𝐀𝐍 ||🥀

31

Mina

Me: How's my favourite researcher in the world?

Lia: Leave me alone unless you have anything else on Burner Phone Guy.

Me: I take it you haven't found him yet?

Lia: Even my superpowers have limits. Without Kwon's burner phone records or a name or at least a description, I've got a whole lot of jack bubkes.

Me: Define jack bubkes.

Lia: I have a list of 1,217 people (856 of them are men) affiliated with this guy either through family, school, sports, or miscellaneous. That includes neighbours from every address I've found for him, neighbourhood liquor store clerks, his father's employees (both incarcerated and not), mail carriers, etc. Unless you have a way of narrowing it down, we're shit out of luck.

Lia: Any luck on getting your hands on the crime scene report? Maybe there's something in there that'll help.

Me: No. Jeonghan is MIA since yesterday's visit to Biker World. And now I have to go dress up like Cleo De Nile from Monster High.

Lia: I have so many questions.

ﮩ٨ـﮩﮩ٨ـ♡ﮩ٨ـﮩﮩ٨ـ

The library's annual Book or Treat event turned out to be an excuse for Riperia to gather for Halloween-themed snacks and drinks without the chaos of trick-or-treating, which would be here soon enough.

Every October, the street in front of the library closed to traffic for one night to make room for a band, dance floor, food trucks, and, of course, a mobile bar. Library patrons bought tickets to the party, business sponsors badgered by Seoyeon donated the food and drinks, and the library kept the profits.

Unfortunately for me, the scents of freshly popped pumpkin spice popcorn and hard cider weren't helping me forget how annoyed I was. Not only had Jeonghan bailed on dinner the night before, he'd failed to deliver anything from the crime scene report.

He also hadn't called, texted, or even knocked on my door to demand another sleepover. Which I absolutely would have said no to.

According to the Riperia grapevine, he, Seungcheol, Wonwoo, and Minghao had holed up in Seungcheol's secret lair office.

This was monumental because, to date, the only person Seungcheol had ever allowed to enter such hallowed grounds was Hani.

Of course, the grapevine also had theories about why the four unlikely amigos were on lockdown. These included the secret disposal of a body, a twenty-four-hour high-stakes poker game, or—my personal favorite—Seungcheol had finally pissed Hani off over floral arrangements and now he was waiting out her wrath.

But I was pretty sure I knew the truth. The menfolk were strategising, and they'd left me out of it.

Okay, yes. I preferred to do things on my own. And yes, I didn't love being part of a team. But I was already involved. I was the only one running an active investigation. And those four macho shitheads still didn't think to include me.

I realised I'd just crumpled the paper in my hand.

"Uh, here's your receipt. Sorry about the mangling. Thanks for your donation," I said, handing over the balled-up paper to Doyoung. The stylist at Diamond Clipper had just donated a jumbo-sized bag of hardbacks to the library's book drive.