A brief scene. The substation’s front counter in the lobby.
The receptionist, feeling the drag of her graveyard shift, held a small sliver of contempt for the girl standing in front of her. Nora looked back, the staring contest not threatening her in the slightest. Her confidence was through the roof.
The hoodie lost in the holding cell riot fell to the countertop. Nora slipped it over her long sleeve. Then the missing shoe. Nora hadn’t realized it was missing.
A camera and its parts. Nora swept her equipment into an empty camera bag, expertly passing them into their respective spots.
Her box of paper was hauled across the counter, and finally her phone.
Nora grinned, “Thank you for your hard work.”
As Nora turned to leave, the receptionist flipped her desk calendar to its back page and scratched a small mark among a plethora of tallies. Ninety. Another case convicted, another charge dropped. Nora wouldn’t have it any other way.
----------------------------------------
Daniel sparked another cigarette to life and cursed.
He deserved a smoke break after that complete waste of time. After spending close to four hours chasing the tail of a psychotic dog, all he had left to show for it was a chase with all charges dropped. It didn’t matter that Daniel had no power to let things go- that responsibility belonged to the prosecution, and Daniel had all but submitted the paperwork needed to push Nora through the system. The congressman had connections to the presiding prosecutor and was just about ready to call his own attorney before announcing that if the detective didn’t want to waste any more of his precious night away, it would be best to just shred the paperwork.
Why didn’t he expect the outcome? Nora’s record was a long list of convictions that didn’t have solutions. She was never charged. She never spoke. She walked around that substation like it was her own living room. Daniel should have realized that it wasn’t because she was comfortable, but because she was confident. He was the only one who didn’t know that she wasn’t staying for long, and he felt stupid for not recognizing the signs.
How many charges did she have? Eighty-nine? Now ninety? And nobody had caught her yet?
She was definitely not an innocent. He had evidence of that. She had the nerve to blackmail (not one man, but two) in front of him, and coerced an extremely politician to help her wiggle out of jail through the bars. She accused an even more powerful official of… corruption? Unethical tactics? The detective promised himself to look over her file again in the morning. If she was able to get out of this with just a small collection of vague sentences, then how the hell did she manage her other visits? Who else had been played with her all-knowing glares? How many people’s necks did she have a tight grip on?
Nora Lee was dangerous. The fact that she was able to walk back outside like she wasn’t pissed Daniel off.
But what angered him most was how little she had said to get there.
There was so much left unsaid! What had possessed Nora to break into Kim’s house with a fire extinguisher? What did she see that forced her to run, and why was she so obstinate in keeping her silence in front of the law?
What kind of scandal was supposed to be on the front page of the morning’s Newsers Tabloid? What kind of pictures were taken?
Where the hell was that damn memory card?
The detective’s brooding was interrupted by his cell phone vibrating in his jean pocket. He fished it out and answered without checking the number. He knew it was important if they were calling this late at night.
“Hello?”
“Hey, this is Joel. You called earlier.”
“Ah.”
Hours before, during the peaceful time when Nora was curled up in her corner of the holding cell and the detective was confident in his conduct, Daniel had called the fire department for a more detailed report about the alarm incident. They knew that the alarm was triggered on the top floor, but the specific time and place was supposed to help Daniel with his case.
Supposed to.
“Right. Can you tell me the exact time the alarm rang? And which one went off?”
It didn’t feel right for him to announce that all the firefighter’s efforts were worthless at this point, so he prepared to listen to what he could and let the poor man believe that his deeds had helped a criminal stay behind bars. It was what Daniel wished for in his heart. He sucked a lungful of nicotine out of his cigarette to calm himself.
The detective heard some clicks- fingers tapping keys- and the firefighter cleared his throat.
“It says here that it rang at 11:22PM, triggered from the front hallway.”
Daniel knew all this.
“Top floor?” he asked, more out of politeness than necessity.
“Top floor, main residence,” he confirmed.
That didn’t sound right.
“When you say main residence, are you talking about inside the penthouse or out in the hallway?”
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“It was just inside the door.”
That wasn’t right at all.
Inside the house?
The detective thanked the firefighter and hung up.
The alarm was triggered from inside the house. That meant that Nora had to have broken in with the extinguisher before the alarm had gone off. The men inside the penthouse would have hear her banging against the door, right? And she wasn’t caught until after she had left the premises? That made no sense.
The detective’s previous theory flew out the window. The congressman and his secretary must have lied. It was impossible for things to work out the way they were supposed to if the alarm wasn’t triggered first.
Nora Lee had broken into the house knowing that someone was inside. She risked discovery, punishment, and who knows what else. And for what? A picture? A picture no one could find?
What happened last night?
Suddenly, another interruption. Not far off his spot along a side wall were the main doors to the substation, and they swung open with a ferocity that couldn’t be handled. Nora exited with an accompaniment of squeaky hinges, and following closely behind was Mr. Shin, whose previous authority was now non-existent. The detective slouched closer to the shadows of his corner and watched.
Mr. Shin shuffled ahead of her, eager to pile into the taxi waiting at the bottom of the steps and leave this hellish night behind, but before he could make it to the car he turned to face Nora. She expected the confrontation. She placed her box of papers down in front of her and shoved her hands into her hoodie pockets.
“Speak,” she said.
Mr. Shin didn’t hesitate, “How did you—”
“It doesn’t matter ow I know all your dirt. The important thing is that I know.’
That was true. Mr. Shin felt that he wasn’t going to get anything out of her and decided to end the brief conversation, but Nora stopped him.
“Hold on. You have something I want.”
“Excuse me?” Mr. Shin laughed, “I’m the one that should be saying that. Do you realize what could happen to me if I don’t have those pictures?”
She felt slightly bad, “If you’re worried about not having a story, I’ll let you write about me breaking into the penthouse. Just don’t mention my name.”
“You know that’s not what I’m worried about.”
The manager was shaking. He jerked his head this way and that, looking for any unwelcome eavesdroppers, which prompted Daniel to step back silently until he was completely hidden from view.
Seeing no one, Mr. Shin leaned closer to Nora and whispered, “How did you know that Senator Song called me? Did you bug my office?”
“I don’t have to bug your office. The only person who wants those pictures would be someone who wants Mr. Kim ruined. It wasn’t hard to eliminate the possibilities.”
Mr. Shin smacked her arm, “And you were stupid enough to mention her??”
When she didn’t respond, he continued, a desperation staining his voice, “What you said about me disappearing, you know that’s not as farfetched as you made it sound? I had a reporter go missing last year after I sent him to investigate one of her welfare projects. Last I heard of him he’s in Norway with some new family, but that’s because they won’t let him come back!”
She knew.
“Look.”
Sddenly, the man performed with the air of a gentle soul. He wrung his fingers in his hands and simpered, “Look, what I said in there about you being nothing? Forget it. I didn’t mean a single word I said.”
“Liar,” Nora said.
He dropped the act, “Okay, I meant it. My bad. But if I don’t get those pictures, I’m on a one-way trip to some ice block in the middle of nowhere and I won’t be allowed to come back. You don’t mess with the Songs. Everyone knows that. Can’t you just hand that memory card over for old times’ sake?”
Nora pretended to think about it, “No.”
“Then what the hell am I supposed to do?” he cried.
Despite the urgency in his posture and the quivering of his words, Nora remained nonchalant. She yawned, a dangling sleeve covering her mouth, “Don’t do anything. You really think that she’s gonna waste her time on a manager for a grungy tabloid? You’re not the one she’s disappointed in right now.”
Mr. Shin wasn’t convinced. He dug his phone out of his jacket pocket and pressed the screen a few times before shaking it in front of her face. It was the text message he received from the unknown number.
“See this? ‘Deliver or perish!’ You think I’m gonna be fine??”
Nora squinted and had to grab a hold of Mr. Shin’s hands to stop the phone from shaking. She scanned the number and frowned.
“Is that a foreign number?”
“Who cares if it’s a foreign number, they’re threatening me!” he howled.
She wasn’t listening.
“Send that to me. And anything else you have. I know you don’t answer a call without pressing a record button.”
Mr. Shin scowled, “Why should I send you anything?”
Of course, she wasn’t trustworthy. Not with how she handled her business. But she bit back, “Why shouldn’t you? Wouldn’t you want a few copies of those tucked away for safekeeping? I’m the best safekeeper you can find. You should have that figured out by now.”
The man thought hard about it and discovered that there really wasn’t a reason not to aside from his own personal grudges. He fiddled with his phone a bit more, sending his documents over.
After a moment, he said, “You still haven’t told me what I should do.”
“I did,” she corrected, “Don’t do anything.”
“And if they call me? Grab me out of my bedroom? Tie me to a rock and toss me overboard?”
“You are such a drama queen.”
A chime. Message received. Nora looked it over on he own before showing Mr. Shin her screen.
“Look. The first message you got. You see this? You’re not supposed to be the delivery boy. If they grab you, tell them you did your job and someone else messed it up.”
“You messed it up,” he muttered, “I’ll send them after you.”
“And I’ll send the police the USB I have with your name on it. Your joke isn’t funny.”
Nora forwarded the new content to a dozen separate accounts both real and fake before pushing her phone back into her pocket. At the foot of the steps, another car pulled up behind the patient taxi. A Benz, black with all the trinkets. The window rolled down. Congressman Kim.
“I’ve got an appointment,” Nora said.
She pocked her box up off the floor and made her way to the car without a goodbye, but before she could take a step her ex-boss grabbed her arm. She raised an eyebrow at his expression.
“You worried?” she asked.
He nodded.
“Don’t be. If I’m wrong and that taxi takes you somewhere you aren’t supposed to go, make yourself indispensable. Do whatever they ask. Keep track of everything they say and do. Send it to me so that someone knows if you disappear. I’ll keep it safe.”
His grip tightened, “What did she want pictures of? Just so I know.”
Nora thought. Bit her tongue. Gave him a stupid who-knows shrug. He squeezed her arm and she gave a small laugh.
“Tell them…” she hesitated, then said, “an affair isn’t something special. Tell them to try a bit harder. If you say that with confidence, they might like you. And they’ll keep you alive if they like you. That way, you’ll be worth more than the soggy rat you are.”
“This bitch.”
With that final insult, Mr. Shin tossed her arm out of his hand and trudged to his waiting car. Nora nodded him off. She missed the look in his eyes when he departed, but she didn’t have to see them to know what it meant.
“She’s definitely too smart for her own good.”
She watched as the taxi pulled away from the curb, not too worried about the man inside. This was a police station, despite its small and decrepit state. If someone had the guts to kidnap Mr. Shin from here, they were either too stupid or too powerful to stop.
He’d be just fine, and if anything happened to him, he probably deserved it.