"Dr. Amanda, did Dr. Kim use his car to go to the hospital?" Officer Jin asked me as he was typing out something on his computer.

"Yeah, he did." I nodded.

"Okay." He rolled his chair to the other end of his desk and grabbed his intercom receiver, pressing it to his ear. Quickly dialing some extension numbers, he spoke on the phone.
"Check the security camera footages of Asan Medical Center, including those in the parking lots, starting at midnight till this moment. And also, get me the footages from the traffic security cameras from 1km radius around the hospital. Look specifically for a black Hyundai SUV. I've pinged you the license plate number." He spat out his orders very clearly and ended the call.

"We will track his call history and card usage history too. It's part of the protocol." He smiled at me before placing another call instructing the cyber crime team to locate Taehyung's phone and track his call history as well as his card usage logs.

"2 minutes" he mouthed and showed two of his fingers to me while waiting on the line, and I was amazed that something like this could be done by the cops in a matter of just 2 minutes. My heart raced in excitement and anticipation, hoping to receive some positive news.

"Yeah, right." His eyebrows knitted in confusion.

"Is it? Alright. Keep tracking for any activity and if anything is detected, call my number at once." He slammed the receiver down.

"Credit card last used a week ago. The last activity on his phone was around 1 am at the location of your house, and its current location is not detectable." He sighed. "It has probably been turned off. And the last call he received was from a calling booth nearby the hospital, the one where he was apparently informed about an emergency at the hospital." Officer Jin added, and my shoulders dropped, and my throat went dry.

"What do we do now?" I asked desperately, worry and pain wrenching my heart and mind.

"We have to wait for the security camera footages. I will personally review the footages of the cameras covering the calling booth. Do you have anything that belongs to Dr. Kim? With his DNA samples, I mean. Like his hair strands or semen from a used condom or anything like that?" He asked quite openly, and I shook my head.

"I don't. But I can look for hair strands on our bed or in his hair brush or something." I nodded hopefully.

He leaned forward resting his elbows on the table.
"Yeah, that will be helpful. Just in case..." his voice trailed off, and I felt a wave of nausea swirling in the pit of my stomach.

I swallowed thickly, trying to convince myself that my husband would come back to me very soon despite the negative thoughts that were clouding my mind and not letting me think straight.

"This is my personal number." Officer Jin handed me his number written on a piece of paper. "You can call me anytime you get any leads or any mysterious calls or anything at all."

I took the paper from him and saved the contact number on my phone with quivering hands.
"I will." I looked up at Officer Jin. "Please find him..." my vision blurred with the rising hot tears that spilled down my cheeks, one retracing the path of the other.

He nodded apologetically.
"We will do our best, and the case is considered high priority now since he is a nationally acclaimed presidential medal awardee. But let's keep this away from the media for a while until we get some strong leads. Please try to stay positive and alert at all times."

"He had an interview on the national news channel scheduled for Tuesday morning. What to do now?" I asked him, worried.

"Please call them and inform that Dr. Kim will be away on some personal business for a while. We'll see what can be done later." Officer Jin suggested helpfully.

I nodded and thanked him and left the station feeling a little hopeful, clinging on to the police as my last straw to find my missing husband.

I missed him so bad that my heart hurt.

Wiping away my tears, I answered the incoming call on my phone.

"Jungkook?" I sniffed.

"Amanda, what happened? Where are you now? Why didn't you call me back?" He shot out his questions like arrows.

"I'm at the Police Station now. I've filed a missing person's complaint." I sniffed again and wiped my falling tears with my fingertips.

"Good that you did because I haven't been able to reach his phone as well. Are you okay? I'll come back tonight." His tone softened, and he spoke comfortingly.

"I'm not okay. Definitely, not. And you take your time. I'm going to stay with my mom tonight. I just don't feel good. Sorry, Kook." I had to turn down his request because I just wanted my mom at the moment. I wanted to cry on her shoulders and let it all out and not stay alone at home, unable to share my troubles with anyone.

"That's okay, Mandy. Call me any time you need my help." He let out sadly.

"I'll be back tomorrow morning, Kook. Your things are all at our house. I'm really sorry for the trouble. I'll be back in the morning." I apologized feeling extremely sorry for him, as he had to survive without any of his personal belongings.

"Hey, that's not a problem at all. I can always buy stuff for an emergency. I'll see you tomorrow. You take care, okay?"

I sighed.
"Okay. I'll see you." And we ended the call.

I called for a taxi and headed straight to mom's house while taking a call with Jimin and Yoongi and filling them in on the details. Once I arrived outside mom's house, I found myself almost running down the stone path leading up to the front door; my tears falling non stop.

I rang the doorbell frantically, and the moment my mom opened the door, I threw myself into her arms and burst out crying. Although I wanted to stay strong and positive, it was just not possible at all times. I felt so weak and vulnerable without Taehyung by my side. Fear of losing him, the same fear I faced many years ago, resurfaced and gripped around my throat like a noose, suffocating me, making me pessimistic.

"Mandy... calm down. Calm down," mom kept stroking my back as my whole body trembled and shook.

"I'm scared, mom. I'm so scared that something bad might have happened. It's been almost a day" I gripped on to her gown tightly and cried harder.

"Shhhh... it'll be okay. He'll not leave you. I know it's hard to stay strong, but at least don't think negative." She pulled away and dried my tears. "Taehyung will be okay. He will come back." She replied, trying to make me calm down, which I eventually did after a long while.

I was in no mood to eat, yet mom being mom, she forced me to eat some salad, and I headed to bed feeling totally distraught and sucked out of all my energy. I wanted to hold him and cuddle with him to sleep. I hoped he was safe somewhere. I missed him terribly, and my tears returned, not wanting to stay inside my eyes, and I cried myself to sleep, not knowing how many hours had passed in the process.

May 17, 2021

"Don't worry about me. I'll be okay, mom" I forced a smile and got into the taxi. It was still early in the morning, but I couldn't sleep well, and I decided that going to work might help a bit. The taxi drive back was miserable since the driver turned on the radio, and it kept playing all the songs that Taehyung loved to listen to. He never had a top favorite, it was always a bunch of unfamiliar songs that I grew to become totally familiar with.

The taxi dropped me at the gates, and I hated going inside without him, yet I had no choice. I pushed open the iron gates and unlocked the door, dragging myself into the house and shutting the door behind me.

I managed to shower and get dressed, looking no better than a zombie. As I was making the bed, I suddenly remembered what Officer Jin asked of me — Taehyung's hair strands. I carefully inspected the sheets and found none of his hair strands, only a few of mine were there. Brushing them out of the bed, I fixed the sheets and pillows in place and headed to the dresser and examined Taehyung's hair brush. Fortunately, there were a few strands of his hair tangled in it that he hadn't yet removed. I took them out carefully and placed them inside a ziploc, placing it securely inside my handbag.

After feeding a few pellets of food to Mac and Cheese, I locked the house and left to work as soon as the taxi arrived to pick me up. I decided to drop the hair sample at the Police Station first since I still had over thirty minutes before my first appointment for the day.

The Police Station was silent, and I looked around everywhere to locate Officer Jin, but he wasn't there. I decided to call him since I didn't want to trust anyone else with the sample.

"Officer Jin? This is Dr. Amanda Kim."

"Ah, Dr. Amanda. I was about to call you. Anyway, you can go first." He spoke brightly, and my worn out heart felt a small light of hope, making me feel warm and positive from within.

"I wanted to hand over my husband's hair strands to you. You weren't at the station, and so I called you." I spoke hurriedly so that it could be his turn to tell me whatever he had to tell me.

"Oh, that's great. And what I wanted to tell you is that we have the video footage from the calling booth. It is not from the booth exactly, but from somewhere behind the booth. Where can I meet you and collect the sample?" He asked, sounding a little too excited.

"I'm headed to work now. You can meet me there." I informed him, and he agreed to meet me within an hour, and soon we ended the call.

My head throbbed, and I felt weak, and the sore breasts and dull back ache were not helping me one bit. I looked and felt like a mess. Getting out of the taxi, I weakly dragged my feet towards the elevator, which was thankfully unoccupied, and eventually I headed into the confines of my consulting room.

As soon as I got settled in my seat, the intercom blared, and I was informed that the first patient for the day was already here. Letting out a tired sigh, I told the floor manager to send the patient inside.

My mind was drifting away, yet I managed to write down the prescriptions for the patient and send them back. Clutching my head in my hands, I closed my eyes and kept repeating positive words to myself. There was still a small thread of hope that I was clinging to — one that kept telling me that my husband was safe somewhere.

There was a knock on the door that dragged me out of my thoughts. My eyes lifted to the doorway, and I saw Officer Jin entering and shutting the door behind him.

"Morning, Dr. Amanda. You don't look so good today." He declared as he took a seat across the desk from me.

"I definitely don't look good." I scrambled inside my handbag and pulled out the ziploc with Taehyung's hair strands.

"I hope these will be sufficient." I handed the bag to Officer Jin, and he examined the cover by lifting it to his eye level.

He nodded with a small smile.
"Yeah, perfect. I will hold this until the need arises." He cleared his throat. "So, the footages from around the calling booth..."

I sat upright in my seat, anticipation building up rapidly within my chest.
"Is anything visible?" I asked him anxiously.

"I hope there are no security cameras here." He looked around from his seat and then his eyebrows furrowed. "There's one" he pointed to a small, almost invisible flickering red light in a corner, and the moment my eyes fell on it, my mouth gaped, and my throat went dry.

I clearly remembered not having any security camera inside my consulting room, at least none was there until when the furniture was rearranged last month.

"I don't even know when it was installed here." I shrugged, suddenly trying to recollect if Taehyung and I ever did anything inside my consulting room in the past month.

Of course, we did a lot more than what others would like to see. I had to mentally facepalm myself.

"Most of the times these cameras don't work. Like the ones inside the elevator that say 'you're being watched' yet they never work. So we don't have to worry." He laughed, but I couldn't laugh along since I knew that the camera in my room couldn't just be a dummy one, given its sudden appearance.

"So about that footage... Yeah, we could see something, but nothing is clear. There's a tall figure with a hoodie and the person entered the calling booth around the exact time that Dr. Kim received the call. The face of the caller was completely obscured; however, going by the height and overall appearance, I am guessing that it could most probably be a male. But with the hoodie and a mask, the face was completely unidentifiable." Officer Jin let out a long breath.

"What about the footages from the parking lot?" I asked desperately.

He took a deep breath through his nose, chest puffed out, holding in the breath for a few seconds before exhaling slowly through his mouth.
"The security cameras at the parking lot were turned off at that exact time."

My jaw dropped and my eyeballs almost popped out of their sockets.
"What do you mean? Is that even possible?"

"Yeah." He nodded a few times and leaned back in his seat. "Possible when you are someone who has control over everything in this building."

"So it is definitely him." I fumed, my chest heaved in anger and my eyes welled thinking of all the possible horrible things he could have done to my husband.

"Or it could be her. Dr. Hana, his fiancée." Officer Jin declared casually, and I couldn't agree more.

"Highly possible. She is no better than him. So what do we do now? I only hope that they haven't done anything too bad to him or hurt him physically." My words stumbled out without my control and my own nervous voice surprised me.

"Well, we can't say anything for sure right now. And without proper solid proof, we cannot take in Namjoon or Hana for enquiry. Before coming to meet you, I checked with the hospital's camera control room, and they said that there was a power outage in one of the lines past midnight, and that happened to be the line which powered the security cameras at the parking lot. However, they said that it was rectified within fifteen minutes." He leaned forward on the table and looked into my eyes as he spoke.

"So is it possible that someone took him away within those fifteen minutes?" I was narrowing down, even though I was still clueless about many things.

"That's what seems to have happened. But it's too accurate to be a coincidence, and going by certain things, I'm convinced that the abductor is not a professional criminal." He rose from his seat and walked around the table and stood by the window.

I got up from my seat too.
"Please explain clearly, Officer Jin. I'm getting really worried now."

He turned his head to look at me.
"The security camera at the traffic signal just outside the hospital has recorded Dr. Kim's car entering the hospital building at 1:45 am. The power outage here was from 1:40 am to 1:55 am. And there is a footage of his car driving past the second traffic signal down the east at 1:52 am." He opened the blinds and the breathtaking view of the Seoul Olympic stadium greeted us.

He continued,
"So he entered and left the building within 7 minutes. The power outage was also most probably a planned one, and we are still unsure if there was a struggle or if he left willingly with someone." Officer Jin's eyes met mine, and I was already looking at him trying to process all the information within my messed-up head.

"How could he leave willingly? He would definitely not do that without letting me know." I stated confidently.

Officer Jin let out a dire sigh and nodded at my reply.
"What if the person who took him was someone he already knew?" His question startled me, and my legs began trembling.

First chapter without a past episode.
Also 👀 👀

Published on : 10/19/2021