CHAPTER 34: THE SECOND DOOR
Hae-in didn't open the notebook again until they were back in the car.
Jang Tae-sik had watched them leave from his window.
Neither of them spoke until they were two streets away.
Kang drove.
Hae-in sat in the passenger seat with the notebook on her lap.
The cover was worn at the edges. The binding had been repaired at least once.
She turned to the page with her name.
SEO HAE-IN
Below it, her father had written:
IF HAE-IN FINDS ROOM 08, DO NOT LET HER OPEN THE SECOND DOOR.
She read it again.
Then again.
Kang glanced at her.
"You okay?"
"Yes."
He waited.
She closed the notebook.
"I don't know."
That answer seemed to surprise him more than anything else she had said.
He didn't push.
Instead, he turned the radio off.
The car became quieter.
Hae-in looked through the window.
Buildings passed.
People crossed streets.
A delivery driver carried boxes into a restaurant.
Everything outside continued normally.
That was what bothered her.
Her father had left a warning specifically for her.
Not for the police.
Not for another detective.
For her.
And he had written it years before she ever knew Room 08 existed.
At the office, Hae-in placed the notebook inside an evidence bag.
Kang watched her.
"You're treating your father's handwriting as evidence."
"It is evidence."
"Even if it concerns you?"
"Especially because it concerns me."
He nodded.
She opened the case board.
The photographs had changed again.
She removed the photograph of her father standing beside Cell Seventeen.
Then placed it beside the photograph of Room 08.
Kang studied them.
"What's missing?"
Hae-in pointed at the photograph of her father.
"He's looking at something."
"Room 08?"
"No."
She zoomed in on the image.
Her father stood outside Cell Seventeen.
His body faced the camera.
His head didn't.
He was looking slightly to the left.
Toward the wall.
Toward the section where the second door had once been hidden.
Kang leaned closer.
"You think he knew it was there?"
"He definitely knew."
"Then why take the photograph?"
"Maybe he wasn't the one who took it."
Kang looked at her.
Hae-in enlarged the reflection in a nearby window.
There was someone behind the camera.
Only a distorted outline.
A shoulder.
Part of a hand.
Nothing identifiable.
But the person was holding something.
A folder.
Hae-in paused.
"That's not a camera."
"What?"
She zoomed further.
The object in the person's hand was rectangular.
Large.
Like a file box.
Kang looked at it.
"Can you make out the label?"
"No."
She stared at the pixels.
Then she saw a small marking.
A circle.
Three lines through it.
The same symbol from Park Min-jae's file.
Kang sat back.
"So your father was being documented."
Hae-in nodded.
"Someone was keeping a record of him."
She moved to the next photograph.
The one of Park Min-jae.
Then Lee Ji-hoon.
Then Kim Seong-hwan.
The same symbol appeared in all three places.
Different years.
Same mark.
Hae-in wrote it on the board.
ARCHIVE SYMBOL
Underneath:
WHO CREATED IT?
They spent the next three hours looking through old municipal records.
Nothing.
No organization.
No company.
No registered institution using the symbol.
It wasn't a government seal.
It wasn't a detention-center mark.
It wasn't associated with the construction company.
Kang eventually found something.
"Wait."
Hae-in looked over.
He had opened an old procurement document.
The symbol appeared in the corner.
But it wasn't attached to a name.
It was beside a code.
C-17 / 08
Hae-in took the mouse.
"Where did this come from?"
"Municipal supply records."
"For what?"
Kang opened the attached order.
Paper.
Toner.
Storage boxes.
Archive labels.
Nothing unusual.
Except the delivery address.
CENTRAL DETENTION FACILITY — SERVICE ACCESS
Date:
March 1992.
Hae-in stared at it.
"Before Lee Ji-hoon's incident."
"Yes."
"How many boxes?"
Kang checked.
"Thirty-six."
"What happened to them?"
He opened the inventory.
"Thirty-five were received."
"One missing."
Hae-in looked at him.
"Where did it go?"
"No record."
"Of course."
Kang gave her a tired look.
She almost smiled.
Almost.
At six in the evening, the evidence technician returned with the audio analysis.
The cassette had been cleaned and digitally restored.
There were no obvious cuts.
But there was another sound beneath the voice.
A faint mechanical hum.
Hae-in listened through headphones.
A low vibration.
Regular.
Almost rhythmic.
Kang played it through speakers.
"What is that?"
"I don't know."
Hae-in checked the waveform.
The hum repeated every eleven seconds.
"It's mechanical."
"Generator?"
"Maybe."
They compared it with the detention center's electrical systems.
Nothing.
Then the technician found a match.
"The old utility building."
Hae-in looked up.
"What about it?"
"That frequency is consistent with one of the ventilation systems."
Kang frowned.
"The building wasn't occupied until 2010."
"Correct."
Hae-in removed the headphones.
"Then why was the ventilation system running in 2008?"
Nobody answered.
They returned to the detention center after dark.
The utility building stood behind the main facility.
It was smaller than Hae-in expected.
Concrete walls.
One entrance.
A row of narrow windows.
The current staff barely used it.
The warden unlocked the door.
"Power's mostly disconnected."
"Mostly?"
"The ventilation still runs."
"Why?"
"Never been shut off."
Hae-in looked at Kang.
They entered.
The building smelled of dust and old wiring.
A narrow staircase led underground.
The ventilation noise grew louder.
At the bottom was a corridor.
Hae-in checked the blueprint.
"Room 08 should be here."
They walked past two empty storage rooms.
Then reached a wall.
No door.
Kang checked the blueprint again.
"It's supposed to be behind this."
Hae-in touched the wall.
Solid.
She knocked.
Once.
Twice.
Nothing.
Then she noticed something.
A line in the concrete.
Vertical.
Almost invisible.
She ran her fingers over it.
"There's a door."
Kang looked at her.
"Where?"
"Here."
He brought over a flashlight.
The line continued down to the floor.
A hidden seam.
They searched for a handle.
Nothing.
Then Hae-in noticed a small metal plate near the bottom.
It had the same symbol.
Circle.
Three lines.
And beneath it:
08
She took the brass key from her evidence case.
Kang stopped her.
"Your father's note."
She looked at the key.
Then at the door.
DO NOT LET HER OPEN THE SECOND DOOR.
She lowered her hand.
"Then we don't open it."
Kang nodded.
For once, the answer was easy.
They stepped back.
Hae-in photographed the door.
The symbol.
The lock.
The surrounding wall.
Then something came from behind it.
A sound.
Three knocks.
Hae-in froze.
Kang turned toward the door.
Three more knocks.
Slow.
Deliberate.
Hae-in stepped closer.
"Who's there?"
Nothing.
Then—
one knock.
She looked at Kang.
He shook his head.
Don't.
She didn't.
Instead, she crouched and looked beneath the door.
Light.
A thin strip of it.
Someone was inside.
Kang drew his weapon.
"Hae-in, move back."
She stood.
The light disappeared.
Footsteps moved away from the door.
Then came a voice.
Muffled through the wall.
A woman's voice.
"Hae-in."
Her face changed.
Kang heard it too.
"Who are you?"
No answer.
Hae-in stared at the door.
The voice came again.
"You shouldn't have brought him."
Kang looked at her.
"Hae-in."
She didn't move.
The voice continued.
"He remembers too much."
Kang stepped toward the door.
"Who are you?"
This time, the answer came immediately.
"I was there in 2008."
Hae-in's eyes narrowed.
"Kim Seong-hwan?"
Silence.
Then:
"No."
A pause.
"I was the one who opened the second door."
The ventilation system hummed overhead.
Hae-in looked at the lock.
Then at Kang.
Neither of them moved.
The woman spoke one final time.
"Your father told me never to let you come here."
Hae-in's hand slowly tightened.
"You knew my father?"
The voice answered softly.
"Yes."
"What's your name?"
A long silence.
Then:
"Ask him."
The light beneath the door vanished.
The footsteps stopped.
Hae-in reached for the handle.
Kang caught her wrist.
"No."
She looked at him.
"She knows my father."
"And that's exactly why we don't open it."
Hae-in pulled her hand free.
Not angrily.
Just firmly.
He was right.
She stepped away from the door.
Then she noticed something on the floor.
A small piece of paper had been pushed beneath the door.
Kang picked it up.
Three words were written on it.
HE LIED TO YOU.
Hae-in looked at the closed door.
Her father's warning.
The woman's voice.
The second door.
And now the first direct accusation against the man she had spent the entire investigation trying to understand.
For several seconds, she said nothing.
Then she folded the paper.
"We're leaving."
Kang looked surprised.
"You're not going to ask what she meant?"
"Not yet."
"Why?"
Hae-in looked toward the door.
"Because if she wanted me to know the truth, she would have told me."
She walked toward the stairs.
"She wants me to open the door."
Kang followed.
"And you're not going to?"
Hae-in stopped halfway up the stairs.
"No."
She looked back once.
"But now I want to know what my father was trying to keep behind it."
Then she continued upward.
Behind them, the ventilation system kept running.
And somewhere behind the sealed second door, someone waited.