Of course, Kim Hyeok had known the two officers as well. Other than Go Ara and her boyfriend, he must have been the last person to speak with them. In a sense he had sent them to their deaths. The thought cut him like glass. Despite himself, he felt stirrings of the same wild anger that simmered around him, the animalistic fury that, unchecked, would drive a lynch mob. With effort he suppressed those feelings, slamming the lid on any thoughts of the two patrolmen. He had to stay in focus. There was a job to do.
"Something happened in the darkroom," Han Sesang was saying. "We think she locked herself in, and he broke down the door."
Kim Hyeok peered into the half-bath, past the door leaning on shattered hinges, and saw that the black paper sealing the window had been stripped off, the window raised.
"She tried to escape, but the security bars stopped her," he said.
"Goddamn firetrap," Maeng Sasung muttered.
