"What's up, Bro?" Candrasa asked, noticing Derian's puzzled expression and looking at him curiously.
Derian immediately shook his head. "No, it's nothing," he replied. But the confusion still lingered in his eyes as they shifted toward the cold tiles beneath his feet. His mind was clearly spinning with a jumble of thoughts. "This lie detector... why does everything feel so much more real now?" he wondered to himself, a faint sense of dread creeping in as he slowly turned his gaze back to the fading blue holographic screen in front of him.
"Lieutenant!"
Derian's reverie was abruptly interrupted by Ali's voice. He turned to see the lead detective entering the observation room. "Did you gather all the information I asked for?" Derian inquired.
Ali nodded and handed a file to him. "I've gathered everything about the company—financial turnovers, the flow of funds, the sectors they control, and the illegal businesses they're involved in," he explained, his tone growing more serious.
"I also looked into the backgrounds of the company's top officials. The founder, owner, CEO, and COO. But aside from the usual shady dealings you'd expect, like most corporate officials, I haven't found anything that directly points to them being behind the murder case we're working on," Ali added, his expression darkening.
Derian continued reading the investigation file thoughtfully, and after a while, he asked Ali, "Have you also looked into the background of the CEO's adopted son?"
The mustachioed detective furrowed his brow. "You mean Andi Mahendra?" he asked for clarification, to which Derian gave a nod. "Yes, I'm digging into that as well. What I do know so far is that he has the cleanest track record compared to the other executives at Binar Bangsa. Even though he's the COO, he's refused multiple times to take part in the dirty secret dealings his superiors tried to involve him in. That's actually caused a lot of tension between him and the higher-ups."
"This is getting interesting..." murmured Candrasa, who had been listening closely while glancing at the file in Derian's hand.
"So, what exactly was his relationship with the victim and Rian?" asked a bald-headed detective in the room.
Ali nodded. "As you may already know from the witness, the three of them were close friends—back in both the old and new orphanages."
Derian's brow furrowed immediately. "The old orphanage?" he asked, confused.
Ali looked back at Derian, equally puzzled. "Wait, he didn't tell you about that?" he asked, turning his gaze toward Rian, who was still in the interrogation room. "Before they lived at the Mother's Love orphanage, both the victim, Rian, and Andi were at the Happy Smile orphanage. They had to move after a fire destroyed the place."
Upon hearing this, Derian's gaze instantly sharpened, his eyes narrowing with suspicion as he focused on Rian. Without wasting a second, he rushed to the interrogation room door, throwing it open with urgency that startled everyone inside.
"Lieutenant, what's going on?" Rona asked, quickly standing up from her chair, surprised by her superior's sudden entrance.
But Derian wasn't paying attention to her. His focus was fixed solely on Rian, who looked back at him with growing unease, sensing the weight of suspicion in the lieutenant's intense stare. "The Happy Smile orphanage. Why didn't you mention that you lived there before?" Derian asked pointedly.
Rona blinked, taken aback by the unexpected turn. "Wait, what?" she asked, clearly confused by the line of questioning.
Rian, on the other hand, was visibly shaken. His body language betrayed his nervousness. "Th—The orphanage burned down ..." he mumbled softly, avoiding eye contact.
Derian didn't respond immediately. Instead, he leaned back against the wall, arms crossed, his cold, calculating eyes never leaving Rian. "Is there something I shouldn't know about the orphanage?" he asked, his voice steady but filled with suspicion.
Hearing that, Rian looked even more nervous. His breathing grew erratic, and his voice trembled as he spoke, "No—I really have nothing to hide. I'm just... traumatized by the fire... That's why I feel uncomfortable talking about it."
Derian's jet-black eyes narrowed with suspicion, watching as Rian became increasingly evasive, avoiding his gaze. "You know... you're a terrible liar," he muttered coldly.
Ping!
[System]: You currently do not have enough points to use the Lie Detector feature. Please complete this mission to earn 2 Skill Points, which will allow you to use the feature again in future missions.
Derian let out a long sigh, rubbing his temples in frustration as he received the notification. "I don't need that feature anyway," he mumbled under his breath.
"Lieutenant, we can't hold him any longer; interrogation time is up," Rona suddenly reminded him.
Derian glanced at the timer on the wall, noticing the reminder had indeed gone off. He sighed heavily, shifting his gaze back to Rian. "We'll call you back in tomorrow," he said sharply. Rian's expression unconsciously relaxed, clearly relieved that the interrogation was over and he could leave.
Derian turned and strode toward the door, giving Rona a quick order. "Take him home."
"Yes, lieutenant!"
As Derian exited the interrogation room, Candrasa approached him with a curious look. "Did you get anything new?" the brown-eyed man asked.
"Send some officers to watch his house. I'm worried the perpetrator might target him next. After all, he's a witness who knows details about the murder," Derian replied, not slowing his pace or making eye contact with Candrasa.
Candrasa furrowed his brow in confusion, watching his superior leave the observation room in a hurry. "Where are you going?"
"I'll be out for a bit!" Derian called back, already making plans to visit his psychiatrist to question his own sanity.
***
(Rian's POV (victim's POV))
It had been over half an hour since I'd been back home, but the storm outside still raged on, the relentless rain and crashing thunder filling the air with noise, each boom echoing in my skull. The police car parked across the street had been there the whole time, with two officers inside, stationed to watch over me. As I peered through my rain-splattered window, the question from earlier replayed in my mind, like a haunting whisper from that female detective.
"The culprit crossed out the victim's face with lipstick and left a soccer ball at the crime scene... Do you have any idea about these two things?"
I exhaled heavily, too many times to count. I'd lost track of how much alcohol I'd poured down my throat, trying to drown out that damned interrogation. Every sip felt like a drop in an endless ocean of questions that wouldn't leave me alone.
Frustration gnawed at me, and I couldn't stand being in the living room any longer. I staggered into my small bedroom and collapsed onto the bed. The alcohol was starting to take hold, making my thoughts slow and fuzzy, but it wasn't doing its job. Instead of forgetting, the memories were creeping back in—the orphanage, the fire, and all the things I'd spent years trying to bury.
My blurry and unfocused eyes fixed on the cracked, fading paint on the ceiling. The more I tried to block it out, the more the memories pushed their way to the surface, feeding into that same dark pit I'd hoped to leave behind.
The question from the female detective kept gnawing at me, and little by little, it pulled up a memory I thought I'd long buried—especially about that damn ball ...
"Throw the ball!"
That phrase, like a haunting echo from my past, pierced through the haze of my thoughts. My eyes, half closed from exhaustion, snapped open. I bolted upright, heart racing, drenched in cold sweat. How had I missed it before? A sudden realization hit me, something I hadn't considered, and it was like an alarm blaring in my mind. "The ball... It can't be..."
I scrambled to get out of bed, adrenaline now coursing through my veins. I needed to tell the officers outside; I needed to report what I'd just remembered!
But as soon as my feet touched the floor, something stopped me cold. My unfocused gaze caught movement—down by the bed. A soccer ball rolled out from beneath the mattress, its surface eerily familiar. And then, as if mocking me, the words that had once felt like a distant memory now sounded like a death sentence.
"Throw the ball..."