hand down in slow, jerking movements like she fought an invisible force.
A memory tickled at the back of his mind: Miyoung saying that a man could control a gumiho if he possessed her bead.
“That’s why you came back.” He almost laughed at his own naiveté. “Not to help my halmeoni, but because you need your bead. That’s what it’s always been about with us. You lost your bead, and you’ve been trying to get it back ever since we met.”
“No.” Miyoung shook her head. “I came back for you.”
“Stop lying!”
The heat in his heart receded into a dull glow. He closed his eyes, concentrating on his breathing. In, hold, slowly out.
When he spoke again, his voice was low but steady. “You’re no better than your mother. Manipulating everyone around you to get what you want.” Jihoon didn’t know what to feel. He was worried he’d lost the ability altogether.
“Please,” she begged, grabbing his arm. “I was wrong. I was—”
“Stop!” It seemed he could still feel. And he was angry.
She fell silent so suddenly, it was as if he’d pressed the mute button.
They sat for a moment, Jihoon still as stone, Miyoung racked with silent tears she couldn’t shed.
There was a knock and Detective Hae opened the door.
“Ajeossi.” Jihoon said it like a plea for help. He needed someone to make sense of all this for him.
“Jihoon-ah, what happened?” Detective Hae stepped into the room, then stopped when he saw Miyoung. “Oh, I didn’t know you had a visitor.”
Miyoung hastily swiped her hands over her cheeks to push away her tears and stood.
“You look just like her,” Detective Hae whispered, stopping Miyoung in mid-bow.
“Like who?” Miyoung asked, staring at Detective Hae with appraising eyes. A tiger deciding if the man in front of her was prey or foe.
“Ajeossi?” Jihoon asked, unable to understand the recognition he saw in Detective Hae’s eyes.
“You look just like your mother.” Detective Hae took a jerking step, a person caught in a gravity pull.
“How would you know my mother?” Miyoung’s tone implied she’d decided this man was foe.
Detective Hae took a breath and in that beat Jihoon held his. He didn’t know what was happening but he somehow knew it was important.
“Because she was my wife,” Detective Hae said. “Which means you’re my daughter.”
57
IT WASN’T TRUE. It couldn’t be true. Miyoung sprinted out of the hospital, ignoring the shouts of annoyed nurses and patients following her.
Her father was a useless waste of space. Her mother always said he wasn’t someone to seek out because she was ashamed of ever loving a man like him.
But Detective Hae was an honorable man. At least that was how Jihoon described him. And he was a detective who sought to save lives.
Was it possible that instead of being ashamed of Detective Hae, Yena was ashamed of them? That they were monsters who killed while the man she once loved was a good man?
There was only one way to find out. Miyoung called Yena.
“Hello?”
At the sound of her mother’s voice Miyoung froze. She didn’t know how to explain that she felt hurt by Yena keeping so many secrets. But she also needed her mother more than anything right now.
“Hello? Miyoung? Is that you?”
“Mother.” The word was a croaked whisper. Miyoung coughed to clear her throat and tried again. “Mother, I need to ask you something and I need you to be honest with me.”
There was a long, pregnant pause before Yena replied. “What is it?”
“My father.”
“Miyoung, I don’t want to—”
“I met him!” Miyoung blurted out. “And he’s not a horrible person like you claimed. He’s a detective and he seems like a good man. And you kept him from me and—”
“Do not talk to that man!” Yena’s voice was a high screech that forced Miyoung to hold the phone away from her ear. “Do not talk to him, do you hear me?”
“So you admit it! You knew he was in Seoul.”
Yena sighed. “I only recently found out where he was. This is one of the reasons I told you not to return. That man is not what he seems, Miyoung. Do not go near him or that boy again. Not until I get there.”
“But he’s my father.”
“Promise me!” Yena demanded.
Miyoung hesitated a bit too long.
“Promise—” With a beep the line went dead.
Miyoung stared at her screen, wondering if her phone had died. But it blinked the time of the call at her before returning to the home screen. She tried dialing Yena again but it went directly to voice mail.