Chapter 56: Hubris

"Kim Hyeok?" The voice was Myung's. "You okay?"

"Just….thinking."

"It gets to you," Bong said sympathetically. "You start seeing them in your sleep."

"And hearing them," Kim Hyeok said. "Their voices."

Bong blinked. "I forgot about that. You kept that out of the papers, didn't you?"

"So far."

"Good."

The tapes, like many other details of the case, had been withheld from the press, partly to protect the victims' privacy and partly to provide a means of debunking the endless phony confessions that came in over the task-force hotline. If necessary, such information also could be used to distinguish a copycat killer from the original. As yet, thank God, there had been no imitators. In time there would be. In time….

"So how do you think it went?" Bong asked abruptly. "You think maybe he woke her up, hustled her out of bed, killed her in the other room?"