Chapter 188
Seoul, Korea
Gwangjin District
Lucien took the stairs to the fourth floor where Pan Jin shared an apartment with her mother. The hallway wasn’t lit, the bulbs for the light fixtures evenly spaced down the length of the hallway but were missing bulbs in the vicinity of the apartment in question.
The bulbs in the stairwell were missing as well.
That wasn’t normal.
The building appeared taken care of from the outside. The inside didn’t smell bad and there was no trash strung about, and no one lingering that appeared to be of a criminal element either.
Where the building was located bordered on the business District, and in the vicinity housing was geared towards professionals instead of families. The entire block was made up of apartments that were clean looking, but Lucien had yet to see any tenants.
Lucien knocked on the door across from unit C4 and waited.
There was no light coming from under the door or along the poorly repaired doorframe. It was sunny out, and nearly every other door he passed down the darken hallway had sunlight coming from under the doors and guided him.
When Lucien’s second knock when unanswered, he reached for the doorknob but stopped when the door opened…
The door to the neighboring unit opened.
Lucien looked over then down at the small little girl standing there. “Hello,” he greeted, lowering his hand. “Do you know if they are home?”
The little girl shrugged. “I’m not supposed to talk to strangers.”
He smiled and showed her his identification. “I am Luci,” he said. “What’s your name?”
“Yang Sun,” she said.
“Beautiful name, Yang Sun. Now that we are no longer strangers,” Lucien said, bowing. “It is a pleasure to meet you. Do you know if your neighbor is home?”
The little girl, no older than seven, shook her head. “I haven’t seen anyone there, ever. But someone lives there. My brother says it’s a ghost that haunts the place, always making noises at night and scratching sounds against the walls and windows. They scare me.”
Lucien looked back to the door in question; that was concerning.
“Is your mother home?” Lucien asked.
Yang Sun shook her head. “Mommy’s at work.”
“Why aren’t you at school?” he pressed.
“We can’t afford uniforms and shoes for both of us, so my brother gets to go since he’s older.”
Lucien offered a smile. “Do you have a television?” he asked.
The little girl shook her head. “No. Mommy had to sell it because the electricity was too much. It was normal for a while then it went up to the point of Manager Bak threatening to throw us out if we didn’t cut back electricity usage.”
That answered one of the questions Lucien had.
“Will, is Pan Jin’s mother still in lock up?” Lucien asked in French.
Will chuckled. “Oh yeah. According to the system, the bail is ninety-billion won… I was naughty.”
Yang Sun gave him a look. “Who are you talking to? What language is that?” the little girl asked, suspicious.
Lucien smiled and went across the hallway to Pan Jin’s mother’s apartment and quickly picked the lock then opened the door. “My own personal ghost, but he is a very friendly one,” he promised, waving Yang Sun over. “Come watch television over here while my friend Pan Jin is at work. She said it was okay.”
The little girl smiled wide then hurried into the apartment and went to the kitchen and opened a cupboard. “Pan Jin is the best! When she worked at the convenience store she would bring me and my brother snacks from work. Did you know she works with Myo Mi-Sun now? I was named after her. My mother is a big fan of Myo Mi-Sun’s work.”
“What are you doing?” Lucien asked.
“If you are friends with Pan Jin then you know she keeps a stash from her mother,” she said, pulling free a bottom panel then squealed with delight when she pulled out a shoebox filled with convenience store treats.
Lucien chuckled. “Pan Jin is my friend, and she’s like a little sister to me,” he said, getting the little girl situated in the living room with the television. “Stay here and I am going to check on the ghost making noise in your apartment, okay?”
Yang Sun gave him two thumbs up, her mouth already full of the baked eggs and peel sausages she tore into.
“Stay here and I’ll lock the door behind me,” Lucien said.
The little girl nodded before shoving another baked egg in her mouth.
Obviously she was hungry.
Lucien closed and locked the door behind him. “You are not adopting her, Will,” he scolded, heading into Yang Sun’s apartment.
Will chuckled. “I hate how well you know me.”
The small apartment was a studio without a bedroom. There were three small mats on the floor with folded bedding and pillows stacked neatly on each. A stack of books and coloring books with crayons were on one mat; Yang Sun’s form of schooling, he surmised. The table in the kitchenette had a basket with folded laundry in it and a wound clothes line was on the table next to it.
The walls were cinderblock with plaster and bamboo over them, painted a muted shade of green. How someone was able to hear scratching through them was beyond him.
“I tracked down the last tenant of the apartment you are trying to infiltrate.”
“And?” Lucien asked, looking around more.
“Dead,” Will said. “They died of carbon monoxide poisoning, all three residents: man, woman, and elderly mother. Police report states they were grilling over open flame and didn’t have a window open.”
Lucien went to the window and opened it because he leaned out the window and looked around the outside of the building, looking for a decent handhold. “That seems rather suspect.”
“Lula agrees,” Will said. “The pictures from the scene that the police took, it shows nothing but vegetables and stuff for a vegetarian diet, nothing that would suggest meat. There was also two electric grills. The propane one was rather old, the safety shut off was inoperable, and it had a full can of propane attached.”
“Of course,” he grumbled.
“I heard that tone,” Will teased. “Hurry up with whatever it is you’re going to do because there’s only so many times Lula can scold your mother before she acts. Apparently Manager Bak rather enjoys your father’s companionship and wants to move it to the bedroom.”
Lucien shivered, pulling a pair of tactical gloves on. “Ew. Do a check on Manager Bak while you’re nosing around please.”
“I’m already on it,” Will promised.
Lucien grabbed the clothes line then headed to the window at the back of the apartment and ducked out it.
The balconies on the back of the apartment building were open with metal railings unlike the front of the building that had covered balconies. It was only a 2.5 meter distance between the balcony he was standing on and the one he wanted to access.
He’s had much more difficult jumps.
Lucien checked the railing, making sure it was sound before he tied the clothesline around the side railing, pulling it tight. “That should hold,” he said, letting the rest of the clotheslines loosely hang down so he could jump with it. He climbed up on top of the railing and steadied himself, making sure he was balanced.
“Silence for ten seconds,” Lucien requested.
“Confirmed,” Will said. “Radio silence in three. Two. One.”
This was what Lucien did best, and he rather enjoyed when he was out by himself taking stupid risks and pushing himself to his limits.
A 2.5 meter balcony to balcony jump over 12 meters of open air with unforgiving concrete below without a rope or harness wasn’t the most difficult he’s done.
But if he missed or misjudged his landing or the distance, it might be his last.
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