The rain had stopped overnight.
By morning, the city looked scrubbed clean.
Seo Hae-in knew better.
Some things looked cleaner only because someone had worked very hard to erase them.
She arrived at the Digital Forensics Division before sunrise.
The analyst who had examined the detention center recordings was already waiting.
"You came early."
"You called."
He nodded toward a workstation.
"I think we found something."
The interrogation footage filled the monitor.
The father sat alone in the interview room.
His hands rested on the table.
The clock in the corner read:
21:14:08
The recording played.
Nothing unusual.
He shifted in his chair.
Rubbed his eyes.
Looked toward the door.
Then—
the screen flickered.
Only once.
Barely noticeable.
The timestamp changed.
21:26:31
Seo Hae-in didn't blink.
"What happened?"
The analyst rewound the video.
Again.
The same flicker.
The same jump.
Exactly twelve minutes.
Gone.
"Corrupted file?" she asked.
"I thought so."
He opened another window.
"I checked the backup."
He clicked.
The second recording appeared.
Same flicker.
Same missing twelve minutes.
"The backup is identical."
"Yes."
"Which means?"
He looked at her.
"It isn't corruption."
"It was edited before the backup was created."
Silence settled between them.
Someone hadn't erased evidence.
Someone had replaced reality.
The detective arrived moments later.
"You've both been staring at that screen for twenty minutes."
Seo Hae-in stepped aside.
"Twelve minutes are missing."
He frowned.
"Can we recover them?"
The analyst shook his head.
"Not from this server."
"Then from where?"
A pause.
"There may be one more copy."
"Where?"
"The courthouse archive."
The detective frowned.
"Why would the courthouse have detention footage?"
"They don't."
The analyst zoomed in on the metadata.
"They have the synchronization logs."
Seo Hae-in stepped closer.
The tiny lines of code reflected in her eyes.
"The recording system synchronizes its internal clock every night with the courthouse master server."
The analyst nodded.
"If someone edited the file afterward..."
He pointed to the screen.
"...the synchronization records may still show that twelve minutes existed."
Not the footage.
Just...
proof that it had been removed.
Sometimes—
absence was evidence.
By noon—
Seo Hae-in stood inside the courthouse archive.
Unlike the modern forensic lab, this room smelled of old paper and dust.
Rows of boxed records stretched toward the ceiling.
A clerk in his sixties adjusted his glasses.
"I don't usually get lawyers asking for server logs."
"I'm not asking as a lawyer today."
He looked at her.
"I'm asking as someone trying to find twelve missing minutes."
The old clerk smiled faintly.
"Specific."
"I try to be."
He disappeared into the back room.
When he returned, he carried a sealed archive box.
"No one's requested these."
"Since?"
He checked the label.
"Ever."
The synchronization logs weren't easy to read.
Lines of numbers.
Time stamps.
System checks.
Nothing a jury would ever understand.
Seo Hae-in read every line anyway.
Halfway through—
her finger stopped.
One entry.
Manual synchronization requested.
Time:
21:15
Her eyes narrowed.
She checked the next page.
Automatic synchronization should have occurred at midnight.
Not 9:15 p.m.
Someone had manually accessed the recording system...
One minute after the father's interrogation began.
The detective leaned over her shoulder.
"Can we identify who requested it?"
She turned another page.
User ID.
Not a name.
Just a number.
A-0174
"Can we trace it?"
The clerk answered before the detective could.
"Normally."
"Normally?"
He looked uncomfortable.
"The employee database was updated last month."
"And?"
"The older user IDs were archived."
Seo Hae-in looked at him.
"Archived..."
He nodded slowly.
"...or deleted."
Back at her office—
the investigation board had grown again.
The child's drawing.
The unidentified compound.
The acoustic foam.
Han Do-jin.
The missing personnel file page.
Now—
another card.
12 MISSING MINUTES
She connected it with red thread to three other clues.
Then she stepped back.
The board was becoming crowded.
Not messy.
Connected.
Patterns were beginning to emerge.
Not answers.
Direction.
A quiet knock came at her office door.
"Come in."
The father entered under escort.
The detective had arranged a brief legal consultation before he was returned to the detention center.
He looked tired.
But different.
"What is it?" she asked.
"I remembered something."
She didn't interrupt.
"I don't know if it matters."
"Tell me anyway."
He looked down at his hands.
"I remembered..."
A long pause.
"...that someone apologized."
Silence.
"Before what?"
"I don't know."
His forehead tightened as he tried to force the memory further.
"I heard..."
Another pause.
"'I'm sorry.'"
His breathing became uneven.
"And then?"
"...nothing."
The memory ended.
Just like that.
Seo Hae-in wrote only two words in her notebook.
APOLOGY FIRST
Not because she understood them.
Because she didn't.
As the father was escorted out—
he stopped at the doorway.
"Ms. Seo."
She looked up.
"If I really..."
His voice caught.
"...if I really did kill my daughter..."
She waited.
"...would you still defend me?"
The room became very still.
She answered without hesitation.
"Yes."
He looked surprised.
"Why?"
She closed her notebook.
"Because my job isn't to defend innocence."
She met his eyes.
"It's to defend the truth."
He nodded slowly.
Then left.
Late that night—
inside an abandoned warehouse on the edge of the city—
a computer monitor flickered to life.
Someone reviewed the security footage from outside Han Do-jin's office.
Seo Hae-in entering.
Seo Hae-in leaving.
Han reading the anonymous photograph.
The video stopped.
A gloved hand reached into frame.
Pressed one key.
A calm voice spoke from somewhere beyond the darkness.
"She's beginning to follow the edits."
Another voice answered.
"Should we remove the technician?"
A pause.
Long enough to make the question unsettling.
"No."
The first voice replied.
"Not yet."
The screen went black.
End of Chapter 19