with him. Whether Officer Shim had collected the information he’d needed or not, he must have known that it would’ve been too dangerous to let Ahn live. So Shim had let Ahn drown. His nose, too, had been sliced off.
I pressed my hand to the earth to steady myself. At least I knew now who the true killer was, when for all these weeks I had believed Inspector Han guilty of the killings. How dreadful he must have felt when I had accused him of such an evil deed—
“I see you’ve dug up a grave,” said someone behind me.
At the sound of his voice, my blood ran cold. I spun round and found myself face-to-face with Shim Jaedeok.
TWENTY-ONE
SHIM JAEDEOK DID not look like a killer. His eyes were full of luster and changing lights, and when I looked closer, there was a shade of melancholy lurking deep within.
“Good afternoon, Seol.” He took a single step toward me. “I never expected you to come this far.”
“Afternoon,” I croaked.
“I visited the inspector’s residence to speak with him … to apologize, and that was when I overheard a manservant telling him that you were coming here, so I thought to visit myself.” His eyes dropped to my hand. “What did you find?”
My fingers tightened over the letter, and one thought succeeded in breaking through the haze of panic: He mustn’t know that I read it.
“A piece of paper,” I said.
He stretched out his hand, his long fingers uncurling.
I placed the letter into his hands. “I do not know how to read,” I assured him. My fingers trembled and my expression likely did a poor job of hiding my fear. “I wish I did. I—I wonder what’s on it?”
“Do you know who wrote this letter?”
“It is Madam Byeol’s grave, so p-perhaps her son, sir?”
“I think so too,” he replied. “I pity the boy. Sometimes monsters are born, but sometimes they are made by an accumulation of hurt.”
“I hear he lived a very harsh life here in Myeonmok village…” My lips formed words while my mind searched frantically for a way to escape. “A very h-harsh life…” The words dwindled away as Shim took a few more steps forward and picked up the hoe. It looked deadly in his grip.
I wiped my forehead, drenched in cold sweat. “I just…” I cleared my throat upon hearing my voice shake. “I just found that lying here too. That hoe.”
He used the hoe to pile the soil back over the exposed casket, and his voice was menacingly calm as he asked, “You disrespected the dead. For what reason?”
“He was Councillor Ch’oi’s illegitimate son, so I thought I might find … something to prove Young Master Ch’oi’s guilt.” My mind went blank with fear; I could not think of a more clever response. “It was clear to me that someone had dug up the mound recently. So I thought something important was hidden inside, but I couldn’t understand what was written…”
Now. I needed a way to escape now. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the dirt path that wound its way toward the shaman’s hut. I could run to her, but Shim would likely grab me before I reached safety. There was the entrance into the wooded mountain nearby, and there was a chance that I might be able to seek refuge in the thicket, but the isolation of the mountains warned me that I would most likely be butchered alive.
“The evidence you found,” he said quietly, “the bloody robe. You ought to have hidden it better.” Again, he struck the dirt, the blade slicing deep. “Better yet, you ought to have burned it.”
He thought I had lost the robe to Ky?n; he did not know that I had handed it over to him myself.
“You left me with no choice but to betray Inspector Han. Do you think I found delight in that?” There was real emotion in his voice now, the deepest shade of pain. He raised the hoe and slammed the blade into the soil. “It was like feeding my own brother to the tigers. Now things cannot be undone.”
Now. The word pulsed through me. Run away. Now.
So engrossed as he was in reburying his mother’s casket, I wondered whether taking him by surprise would be the best tactic. I could creep forward and—what? Push him? He would instantly grab and tackle me to the ground. Throw dirt at his face, then run? That still would not give me enough time to outrun him.