Page 42 of Perfect Happiness

Eun-ho could feel himself becoming more and more frustrated. How long was she planning on only asking questions and not giving answers?

“Yuna isn’t a stay-at-home mom. She’s not home on weekdays.”

“That’s not what I’m asking. She didn’t come home that evening, right? She was with my brother.”

Eun-ho closed his mouth to prevent the gasp from leaving his mouth. It felt like a hook had suddenly been stuck in his side. What made her so certain?

“According to the police, the last place my brother used his credit card was at a McDonald’s in Kyochon. They say he bought a Happy Meal. I doubt many grown men enjoy Happy Meals.”

Eun-ho leaned against the back of his chair and sunk deep into the seat.

“He bought it for Jiyoo. He must have met Jiyoo. And there’s no way Jiyoo came alone. Yuna brought her. The last time I talked to my brother on the phone was at 2 p.m. Although we didn’t really talk for long. He hung up on me, and his phone has been off ever since.”

She let out a dry cough twice and reached for a cup of water. She lapped at the water the way a cat would. A few moments later, she continued.

“This is what I think happened. My brother was already riding in Yuna’s car when he received my phone call.

She picked him up where there weren’t any security cameras.

The reason he hung up on me was because of her.

I’m not sure if you know this, but my brother had fought a long time in court just to see Jiyoo.

He probably didn’t want to upset Yuna. It had been three years since he last saw his daughter.

He probably wanted to make sure he could keep seeing her.

They say my brother’s cellphone signal cut off in that area.

It wasn’t just that he hung up on me. He turned off his phone. He’s been missing ever since.”

Eun-ho thought about that picture of Jiyoo and her father. Where had it been taken? It didn’t look like a hotel. Was it a vacation home? Or perhaps . . .

“I heard the police are checking every street camera near Kyochon. They want to see if Yuna’s car was in the area.”

Eun-ho straightened his back. Min-young pulled her thin lips to the side and smiled.

“Odd, isn’t it? That Yuna and her sister Jane are both connected to my brother.”

But Eun-ho didn’t know what she was talking about. What did Jane have to do with Yuna’s ex-husband?

“The police probably wouldn’t have started their investigation if they hadn’t found my brother’s car. Do you know where they found it?”

Eun-ho waited silently for Min-young to answer her own question.

“At a public parking lot near Ju-an station in Incheon. The police asked me if I knew how Jane and my brother knew each other. Apparently, my brother got into Jane’s car after parking his car there.

But I knew exactly what happened. Jane and my brother had dated a long time ago.

And not just for a little while. For eleven years. ”

Eun-ho swallowed a wad of dry spit. Did this mean Joon-young had left Jane and for Yuna?

“Jane and Yuna are working together.”

Min-young said this without further explanation. She just stared silently at Eun-ho, as if to ask, You understand, don’t you? Eun-ho had to ask what she meant.

“It means the two of them kidnapped my brother, together. Jane picked up my brother and drove him to where Yuna was waiting. Yuna used Jiyoo as bait to lure my brother into her car. My brother would go to hell and back just to see Jiyoo again.”

Something wasn’t right. If Joon-young really wanted to see Jiyoo so badly, why use Jane? All Yuna needed to do was dangle a piece of Jiyoo’s clothing in front of Joon-young’s eyes and he’d come running.

“They probably did it to confuse the police. That’s why the police are running in circles right now. They can’t figure out which Shin to focus on. The way I see it, they’re accomplices.”

Eun-ho couldn’t understand this either. Why would Jane collude with her estranged sister to kidnap her ex-boyfriend?

Especially after so many years? Min-young was so convinced of her theory that she was ignoring the most obvious facts.

She seemed incapable of differentiating between what was true and what was convenient.

“How do you think you would feel if your boyfriend of eleven years suddenly left you to marry your sister? If it were me, I’d kill him. Perhaps she was just waiting for the right opportunity.”

Eun-ho was tired of this. Min-young was still withholding information. What was the connection between the disappearance of her brother and Noah’s death?

“I’ll ask you again about that day, the sixteenth of November. Yuna didn’t come home that night, did she?”

Eun-ho felt he needed to answer the question this time. Only then could they move on.

“I heard she was at her mother’s.”

Min-young shook her head.

“Wrong. Yuna was not at her mother’s. She took my brother somewhere. And that night, my brother was given something to drink.”

Eun-ho thought again about that picture of Jiyoo and her father.

There was a champagne glass in Joon-young’s hand, and a glass of juice in Jiyoo’s.

Eun-ho took another sip of his coffee. His throat itched.

He was feeling impatient. So impatient he wanted to pry open Min-young’s mouth and pull out everything she wasn’t telling him.

“Yuna,” Min-young continued, “lived with a man in college. He died in a car accident. They said he fell asleep at the wheel. It was the same day he broke up with Yuna and moved out. But the person in the car with him that day managed to survive.”

Min-young lifted her chin and looked Eun-ho in the eye.

“That man was none other than your friend, Jinu Kim.”

Eun-ho could feel his diaphragm suddenly tighten.

Hot coffee became stuck in the back of his throat.

That picture of Jinu and another man sitting at a kitchen table with coffee flashed before Eun-ho’s rapidly blurring vision.

He could hear Jinu’s voice in his head. You can call me anytime if you have something you want to ask me.

“And there was another who died in a similar car accident. Yuna’s father. The accident happened after she was fired from her company. He, too, fell asleep at the wheel. They say Yuna inherited the company after his death.”

Despite Eun-ho’s disbelief, he was nodding his head.

They had learned about Yuna’s father’s death when they were in Irkutsk together, a week after the incident.

Eun-ho tried to remember where Yuna was a week before that, but his brain was scattered.

All he could see in his head was a picture and the face of his father-in-law holding a cup of coffee with a broad smile on his face.

“I’m curious, have you asked your wife for a divorce recently?”

This question he could answer the most confidently. He hadn’t.

“Or perhaps you’ve given her a reason to?”

Eun-ho wondered, was not getting on his knees and begging for her to come back reason for her to divorce him?

“As pay back, you drank something, the day before your son died.”

Eun-ho had already suspected this. The problem was he didn’t have any evidence to back it up.

“Your son died, while you were fast asleep.”

Eun-ho thought of the picture of him and Noah. The muscles in his cheeks started twitching furiously. But why Noah and not him?

“It was a warning. A warning that you could be next.”

Min-young stared at Eun-ho quietly. She looked like she wanted to see his reaction to her theory. Eun-ho stared straight back at her. She seemed crazed to him. People didn’t just murder children to send warnings.

“I know you want to prove your innocence. And I want to find my brother. I believe he’s still alive. To get what we both want, you need to tell me the truth before it’s too late. Where was Yuna on November 16? At least tell me where she might have gone—”

“Min-young.”

He couldn’t accept what she was saying. She was forcing incompatible jigsaw pieces together to arrive at the conclusion she wanted. Her story seemed unlikely to him, if not impossible.

“You mean my wife and sister-in-law kidnapped your brother? And they also killed my son?”

“If you don’t show Yuna the change in behavior she wants—” Min-young stopped and looked Eun-ho in the eyes. “Then you’ll be next, I’m positive of it.”

Eun-ho got up from his seat. He’d heard enough. The only thing left for him to do was leave this café. He didn’t have the desire nor the ability to give Min-young what she wanted.

“Don’t come back. And stop spreading dangerous lies. If you don’t, I’ll call the cops.” Eun-ho removed his cellphone from his inner pocket. “I have it all recorded.”

Min-young pursed her lips and glared at him. Before she could say anything, he turned around and left the café. He got in his car and took off before she could come chasing after him. But perhaps what he was really running away from was a truth he didn’t want to believe.

Eun-ho was outside his home when he finally pulled himself out of his thoughts.

He was shocked when he realized he had driven home on autopilot.

But even more shocking was that it was his sister-in-law Jane, not Wife, who was waiting for him outside when he returned.

But this was good. Now he had the opportunity to get answers.

She likes McDonald’s Happy Meals. Bulgogi burger, French fries, and a coke.

Jane’s last answer flashed through Eun-ho’s mind.

Min-young said Joon-young had bought Jiyoo a Happy Meal that day, too.

Doing some math, Eun-ho could guess that Joon-young and Yuna had gotten divorced when Jiyoo was three.

That was too young an age for hamburgers.

How did Joon-young know what Jiyoo liked to eat? Had he asked Jane? Or perhaps Wife?