My Calling Is Profiler [EN]: Chapter 290

With Jo Tae-woo’s sudden disappearance, his second son, Jo Kang-so, reported him missing. He hadn’t shown up for work, and his family said he’d taken the car, presumably to go there.

“I suspected something was wrong, so I checked his travel records. Turns out, he fled the country.”

“Could he have killed his father and run?”

“Who knows? He certainly harbored a lot of resentment toward his father, so it’s possible.”

Lee Ji-soo stared at the records, dumbfounded by the team leader’s words.

“Ugh, his whole gang went with him, too.”

“Looks like it.”

“This is driving me crazy.”

Clearly, he sensed the police investigation and bolted. And of course, he’d take his crew with him to ensure no one talked.

He’d only return when the heat died down.

“He left the country in a hurry, right?”

“Seems that way.”

“What about the victims?”

“That’s the problem. We don’t even know if there *are* any victims in the first place.”

Because this is an unofficial investigation, the existence of victims hasn’t even been officially confirmed. And in that situation, he just up and left?

“Then the victims… !”

Lee Ji-soo realized the implication. In the worst-case scenario, he killed them all and fled. Even if he didn’t, they’re trapped wherever they were being held, abandoned.

“In the worst case, they’ll starve to death.”

If a crime actually occurred and there are victims, they’ll inevitably starve.

“This… I don’t think we can handle this alone.”

“Ugh.”

The team leader groaned at those words.

“What nonsense are you spouting? Do you even know who the CEO of N-Gang Holdings is?”

“I do. And there are suspicious circumstances, too.”

“Do you have evidence?”

“Well, I have strong suspicions, but…”

“Hey, you bastard, what good are suspicions going to do?”

The team leader braced himself for a scolding and requested assistance, believing saving lives was the priority.

But as expected, his superiors immediately started yelling at him for talking nonsense.

‘I expected as much…’

He’s already on thin ice with the station chief. He didn’t expect any help. The chief had already rejected their request and was conducting a separate investigation. And predictably, the Women and Youth Affairs department hadn’t found a single lead and was just spinning their wheels.

So, they wouldn’t look favorably on the information he had now.

On top of that, the information involved a major company, N-Gang Holdings. While not a household name like some of the bigger *chaebols* [large, family-owned conglomerates] in Korea, it was still a powerful and respected entity.

Would a mere police station chief want to tangle with such a place?

“Bring evidence! Evidence!”

“But it’s a suspicious situation, and evidence is hard to come by. Like the sudden departure.”

“So why should we investigate that? Hey! Do you think a warrant will be issued without evidence? Bring evidence!”

The team leader couldn’t help but frown at the station chief’s firm stance.

‘Damn it, not again.’

Of course, he understood to some extent. If they investigated and it turned out to be a false alarm, they’d be accused of wasting police resources. And it’s easy for those with money to get rid of a station chief.

But if they can’t investigate properly out of fear every time, how many cases will they ever solve?

“Understood.”

But on the other hand, he couldn’t argue because the station chief had a point. They can’t just barge in anywhere based on mere suspicion.

In the end, without any support, the team leader had no choice but to tell Park Do-joon the situation.

Park Do-joon’s face turned grim.

“So, we can’t expect any help after all.”

“Yeah, wasn’t that what we expected from the start?”

“Ugh.”

“Do we have to do this ourselves? But surely they didn’t kill all the victims while escaping, did they?”

“The possibility isn’t high. These guys are kidnappers, not murderers.”

Kidnapping and murder are completely different in terms of the psychological impact and mindset. Of course, since they see people as objects rather than humans, there’s a real possibility they’d resort to murder.

“But if they fled suddenly and simultaneously, that changes things.”

“Yes?”

“They bought plane tickets directly at the airport. That means they ran away in a panic.”

Otherwise, they would have made reservations in advance and used a more calculated departure strategy.

“Is there a difference?”

“There is. When you’re being psychologically hunted, it’s human instinct to avoid people if possible.”

Buying tickets on the spot means they had to interact with people.

“These guys know we’re investigating. So, they’ll be wary of being wanted or anything else. They’ll avoid contact with people as much as possible.”

If someone recognizes them while buying tickets, it becomes dangerous.

“And if you make a reservation, you can predict the police’s movements.”

If you go to the departure hall with a reservation, you have to take a specific plane at a specific time, making it easy to anticipate someone watching for you.

“So, buying a ticket suddenly means it was truly urgent.”

In that situation, could they really have killed the victims?

It’s unlikely.

First of all, it’s not just about killing. Once you kill someone, you have to dispose of the body, which takes longer than you think and is a dangerous process.

“But if you just leave them, time will take care of it. Then you can kill people without directly getting your hands dirty.”

Of course, ordinary people would feel guilty about such actions. If they were ordinary people, that is.

But they aren’t ordinary people, and they don’t see people as people in the first place. What they hate isn’t that they couldn’t save people, but simply that they are reluctant to kill people themselves.

“How long will it be? A month? Two months?”

“Who knows? But it won’t be long. At most a week?”

“Yes? But people don’t starve to death that quickly, do they?”

It depends on the situation, but starving for about two weeks usually isn’t fatal.

“But they’ll die without water.”

They wouldn’t have installed a water supply in the basement. So, the biggest problem is water.

“Those guys probably locked each victim in separate rooms.”

That would prevent them from resisting or escaping together.

“That means there’s no way there’s a water supply in each room. Furthermore, if it’s a remodeled basement, there’s no toilet, or there’s only one outside.”

So, they probably only let them use it when needed or made them use buckets.

Criminals who kidnap women often act this way.

“Why do they do that?”

“You can put up a door somehow. It’s not difficult to install the lock backward.”

With some carpentry skills, it’s easy to reverse the lock.

“But plumbing is a completely different matter.”

Plumbing has to be installed in advance because it has to go inside the building. Even if you want to install it later, it’s not easy to create that line.

Plumbing work is for experts and requires specialized equipment.

“Honestly, it’s hard to believe that Jo Kang-hwa’s gang did it themselves.”

Jo Kang-hwa has never done a day’s work in his life. However, it’s hard to say that other guys did it because the people who hang out with these types tend to have similar tendencies.

“They can hang out together, but the moment they start committing crimes together, people with normal sensibilities have to leave.”

“But there might be someone who knows how to do that kind of work, right?”

“Alone? Construction isn’t that easy, and even if they somehow managed it, how many people would participate knowing it’s for confinement?”

“I guess that’s true.”

Such people would be a very small minority.

“Moreover, this is a space created for confinement, for their convenience. It’s not a space for someone to move into.”

They wouldn’t bother with the troublesome work of installing plumbing.

“At most a week…”

The longest a person can live without water is a week. And we have to pinpoint the location within that time.

“Is it possible?”

“That’s the problem. It’s close to impossible with our resources.”

The team leader frowned.

“They left the country all at once, knowing we were tracking them.”

“Then can’t we search the places under their names?”

“The problem is, it’s likely not under their names.”

If they had found a house under their own names, it would be easy to find. But they fled all at once.

“If it was under their own names, they would have chosen to hide rather than flee.”

They would have taken the women out, killed them, and buried them.

That way, they wouldn’t be identified. But they chose to flee, meaning there’s a high possibility the house isn’t under their names.

“Is that possible?”

“It’s not impossible.”

There are thousands of abandoned villas across the country, making it easy to get the rights to use such places cheaply.

Because they’re locations where people can’t live and no one manages them.

In fact, plenty of people would be happy to rent out abandoned houses if someone offered.

“If you don’t register the lease or monthly rent, it’s impossible to track.”

That doesn’t mean the building owner can go there and check. Once they give the lease, they’ve given up the right to use the place, so entering without permission is trespassing.

“At most a week, huh?”

Park Do-joon frowned. If they’re lucky and there’s drinking water in their rooms, the time might increase, but if not, in the worst case, they’ll all die within a week.

“Damn it, if only we could get cooperation from above…!”

If they could get cooperation, they could at least investigate the vehicle’s navigation and track the route.

But since they’ve been told no help is coming, that’s impossible.

“No, maybe there’s a way.”

“There’s a way?”

“Yes.”

Park Do-joon’s eyes flashed.

“Humans are all connected like a net.”

Whether they like it or not.

A Profiler by Trade