Back at Roxy's house, the silence felt heavier than ever.
It wasn't the ordinary kind of silence—the kind that came with nightfall or exhaustion. This one pressed against the walls, settled into the corners, and wrapped itself around him like something alive. The house, once filled with familiar sounds and the quiet presence of his father, now felt cold and distant. Every room seemed to hold a secret. Every shadow seemed to watch him.
Roxy sat on the edge of his bed, his elbows resting on his knees, his hands hanging loosely between them. His eyes were fixed on the floor, staring so hard at the narrow cracks between the tiles that it almost felt as if answers might rise from them. But nothing came. No sudden realization. No missing piece falling into place. Just the same confusion, the same frustration, and the same ache that had been building inside him since the day his father died.
Only fragments circled in his mind.
The book.
The letter A.
The key.
The missing clues.
Each one felt important. Each one felt connected. And yet every time he tried to force them together, the truth slipped further away from him. It was like trying to solve a puzzle with half the pieces missing and the rest scattered in the dark.
But beneath all of that confusion, another thought had begun to take shape—one quieter, colder, and far more disturbing than the rest.
His father's room.
That day.
That impossible detail.
Roxy slowly lifted his head, and his heartbeat began to pound louder in his ears. He hadn't wanted to think about it before. Maybe because some part of him already knew that if he looked too closely, he would find something he couldn't ignore. But now, with everything else beginning to unravel, he could no longer push it aside.
His father always locked that room.
Always.
It hadn't just been a habit. It had been a rule.
No one entered without permission.
No one.
Not Roxy.
Not the staff.
Not even his own wife.
If his mother ever needed something from inside, she would knock and wait until he opened the door himself. That room had never simply been left open. It had always been treated like a vault—private, guarded, and untouchable.
So how…
How had the door been open the day they found him dead?
The question hit him all over again, this time with far more force than before.
Roxy's breathing slowed for a second, then became uneven. His fingers curled tightly into the bedsheet beneath him as the memory returned with cruel clarity. He remembered the hallway. The panic. The voices. The door already open when it should have been locked. At the time, grief had swallowed everything else. He hadn't questioned it—not properly. He had been too shocked, too broken, too consumed by the horror of what he had seen.
But now he was thinking.
And the more he thought, the worse it became.
Because the open door wasn't the only thing that made no sense.
There was something else.
Something even more impossible.
How had the syringe and those documents ended up in his room?
His chest tightened.
He shut his eyes as the memory flashed before him again—the police officers searching his space, the way they suddenly "found" the evidence, the accusing looks, the cold shift in the atmosphere the moment suspicion turned toward him. It had all happened too neatly. Too quickly. As if the story had already been written before anyone stepped into the house.
No.
This wasn't random.
This wasn't normal police procedure.
This wasn't an honest investigation trying to uncover the truth.
This was planted.
The realization settled into him with such cold force that it almost made him dizzy. It wasn't just a suspicion anymore. It was a pattern. Someone had wanted the evidence to lead directly to him. Someone had made sure it would. The syringe. The documents. The setup. It all pointed in one direction—and it wasn't by accident.
Someone had wanted him blamed.
Someone had needed him to look guilty.
Roxy slowly opened his eyes, but now they no longer held only grief. Something else had entered them. Something darker. Sharper.
And suddenly, one name rose above all the others.
Kim.
Just thinking it made his jaw tighten.
He could almost see the detective's face in front of him again—that calm, unreadable expression, the one that never seemed to crack no matter how strange the situation became. Kim had always looked too composed. Too certain. Too quick to guide the investigation in a particular direction before anyone had even asked the right questions.
At the time, Roxy had mistaken that confidence for professionalism.
Now, it felt like control.
Had Kim entered the house before anyone else noticed?
Had he gone into his father's room?
Had he searched through things no one else had seen?
Or worse—
Had he moved them?
Staged them?
Buried the truth somewhere so deep that no one would think to question what was placed in plain sight?
Roxy pressed both hands against his temples as if he could physically stop the thoughts from multiplying. But they only came faster.
If Kim had access to the evidence…
If Kim had manipulated the scene…
If Kim had deliberately shifted suspicion onto him…
Then this wasn't just corruption.
This wasn't just a careless officer making mistakes.
This was something far uglier.
Far more dangerous.
This was murder covered by authority.
His father hadn't simply died.
He had been silenced.
And Roxy had been framed.
The truth of it moved through him like ice, leaving a chill in its wake. For the first time, he began to understand just how deep this might go. If Kim was truly involved, then this wasn't one man acting alone. It meant power. Protection. Influence. It meant the people who were supposed to search for the killer might already know exactly who the killer was.
And if that was true…
Then the police were not hunting the murderer.
They were protecting one.
The thought should have terrified him.
And somewhere deep inside, it did.
But fear was no longer the strongest thing inside him.
Something else was growing in its place.
Roxy slowly lifted his head and stared into the darkness of his room, his expression hardening little by little. The confusion that had clouded him for days was beginning to clear. In its place came something colder, more focused, more dangerous than grief.
Resolve.
Truth was no longer something he merely wanted.
It was something he needed.
Needed like air.
Needed like survival.
Because if he didn't uncover what really happened, then his father's death would remain buried beneath lies. The people responsible would continue walking free. And sooner or later, they would destroy anyone who got too close.
Maybe they already were.
Roxy stood slowly from the bed, his hands falling to his sides. His heartbeat was still heavy, but now it felt different—not like panic, but like preparation. Like the first warning beat before a storm.
If the truth was hidden inside locked rooms, planted evidence, and false investigations…
Then he would tear through every lie until he found it.
Even if he had to do it alone.
Even if it meant turning against the very people sworn to protect the law.
Even if it destroyed everything he had left.
Because now, for the first time, Roxy understood one thing with absolute certainty.
The truth had never been lost.
It had been hidden.
And he was done waiting for permission to find it.