Chapter 8: The Email Nobody Answered
I read Park’s message twice before handing Han back her phone.
“He thinks Daeho might delete it?”
“He hasn’t said that,” Han replied. “I’m not going to ask him to prove his fear by putting himself in danger.”
She called Park from the hallway. When she returned, she told me he had agreed to meet at her office in an hour. She had suggested he speak with an attorney of his own first. He said he had done so that afternoon and would bring her.
“You don’t need to be on the call,” Han said. “And I won’t tell him where you are.”
“I want to hear what he says.”
“Then I’ll ask whether he agrees. If he doesn’t, I’ll come back and tell you what I can.”
The nurse helped me sit high enough that speaking would not pull so sharply at my chest. I had spent the day answering questions in short breaths. By the time Han called from her office, I wondered how much of another person’s account I could bear to hear.
Park agreed to speak with me on the line. Han put her phone on the conference table, and a woman introduced herself as his attorney. She said Park had come voluntarily and that they had discussed which records he was authorized to access. Han made clear that she represented me, not him.
For a few seconds, nobody spoke.
Then Park said, “Mrs. Kwon?”
“Yuna is fine.”
“I told him who you were. When I saw the notice.”
“I know.”
His breath was audible through the phone. I remembered him at the far end of Daeho’s dinner table, standing until someone remembered to offer him a chair.
“I should have called you earlier,” he said.
“Why are you calling now?”
“Because Mr. Kwon put out that statement today. The part about the document concern.” He paused. “I was there when his office received a warning. I can’t keep pretending I don’t know that.”
Han asked him to start with the record rather than his interpretation of it.
Park said that on the evening I was assaulted, Sora had called him shortly after six. She wanted him to check whether I had opened several company files connected to the Haneul proposal. She gave him file names. He had access to a company log that showed activity on those files through company accounts, though it could not tell him what was in Daeho’s study.
“What did you find?” Han asked.
“No access listed under her household account. Nothing showing she had been given a company account, either. I told Ms. Kwon that. She said the log must be incomplete.”
“It might have been,” Han said.
“Yes. That’s why I didn’t write that she had taken nothing. I wrote that the records I could check didn’t support her claim.”
I looked toward the window. The city beyond it was a scatter of lights, each one too far away to distinguish from the next. At five forty-seven, Sora had told Ms. Choi she believed I had taken a file. Shortly after six, she had asked Park to look for access records. She would later say she first noticed missing documents around eight-thirty.
Han had not told Park about Ms. Choi’s message. I was glad she hadn’t. Park had enough to account for without being asked to speak for her, too.
“May we see the email?” Han asked.
Park’s attorney answered. Park had retained it in his sent mail and brought his work computer. He was prepared to show the message and the system-generated delivery notice. Before any copies changed hands, she wanted Han to understand that neither record established what Daeho had read.
“Agreed,” Han said.
I heard a chair move. Then Han asked Park to read the message aloud.
He gave the time first: 6:19 p.m., on the night of the assault. The recipient was Daeho’s company account.
“‘Ms. Kwon has raised a concern that Lee Yuna accessed files associated with the Haneul submission. I checked the available company access records for the files she identified. I found no entry showing access by Lee Yuna or an account assigned to her. These records do not establish whether anything is missing from your private study. Please verify the file inventory and speak to those involved before treating an unauthorized access claim as confirmed.’”
Park stopped. A faint tap came through the phone, as if he had set his hand against the table.
Han asked him to read the subject line.
“‘Verification needed—document concern.’”
Not Yuna stole it. Not Sora is lying. A request to check before deciding what was true.
I remembered Daeho demanding that I apologize. I remembered telling him I had done nothing. If he had read Park’s warning, he had another reason to pause. If he hadn’t, my answer should still have been enough to make him stop and ask a question.
“Was there an attachment?” Han asked.
“No. The file names were in Sora’s request to me, but I didn’t include them in this message.”
“Do you still have that request?”
“She called. I made a note afterward. I’d rather go over the note with my attorney before sharing it.”
“That’s your decision,” Han said. “Please preserve it.”
Park’s attorney described the delivery notice while Han looked at his screen. The company mail system had reported the message accepted into Daeho’s mailbox seconds after Park sent it. Han asked to receive copies of the email and the notice through Park’s attorney, retaining the visible headers. She would seek confirmation from the company’s records rather than rely on screenshots alone.
I pressed my palm lightly against the blanket over my ribs.
“Accepted into his mailbox,” I said. “But we don’t know if he opened it.”
“That’s right,” Han said.
“Did you speak to him afterward?” I asked Park.
“Not about that message.”
“Did he answer you?”
There was a silence long enough for me to hear the ventilation above my bed.
“I’m not ready to go beyond what I brought tonight,” Park said at last.
I wanted to demand an answer. Instead I looked down at the tape where my IV line met my hand. He had come despite being frightened; pushing him past what he was willing to say would not make his next words more reliable.
“Then don’t guess for me,” I said.
“I won’t.”
Han moved on to how the message had been preserved. Park said he had not forwarded it to a personal account or altered it. His attorney had advised him to keep the computer and its contents intact and to document what they reviewed. Han asked whether anyone at Daeho’s company knew about their meeting.
“Not from me,” Park said.
“That isn’t a promise no one will find out,” his attorney added.
“I know.” His voice grew steadier. “I’ve worked there long enough to know.”
I thought of Ms. Choi, asking whether Daeho would learn she had spoken. Park had a lawyer beside him tonight; Ms. Choi had come to Han’s office alone. Both had something to lose, and neither owed me bravery as the price of being believed.
“Why did you look for the email now?” I asked.
“I didn’t have to look for it. I remembered sending it.” He hesitated. “When Ms. Kwon spoke publicly, I kept waiting for Mr. Kwon to say they had checked the records. Today he endorsed her concern again. I couldn’t tell whether he’d forgotten the warning or decided it didn’t matter.”
Han asked about the Haneul submission. Park had been copied on scheduling and payment requests for a contractor who prepared presentation materials for Daeho’s company. The contractor had worked with Sora on the proposal, though Park could not say who approved each change or what had ultimately been delivered to Haneul.
“The independent panel is already reviewing a replaced disclosure page,” Han said. “Do you know whether this contractor worked on it?”
“I don’t know. But their invoices break down the tasks.”
He named a document-preparation firm I had never heard of. According to Park, its staff had assembled files from material supplied by Daeho’s company. He knew who handled the account because he had arranged one of the meetings.
Han did not ask him to search his employer’s entire system while we waited. She asked whether an invoice had been sent to him in the ordinary course of his work. Park said one had arrived that morning, copied to him because he tracked expenses. He and his attorney could review it.
I listened to their chairs shift away from the table. Without their voices, the distance between Han’s office and my hospital room felt immense. I could not see the screen they were studying. I could only wait and try not to turn each ordinary sound into an answer.
Park came back first.
“There’s a line I missed,” he said.
His attorney cautioned him to read exactly what appeared, including the stated time, and not to explain the work he had not witnessed. Han asked whether the invoice was the original message in his mailbox. Park said it was. His attorney would provide a copy with its covering email, subject to confirming which parts related to the work Park handled.
Han spoke more softly when she returned to the phone.
“Yuna, you can leave this for tomorrow.”
“No. Please read it.”
A page rustled. Han gave the invoice number and the name of the contractor. Then she read the task description as written.
“‘For Kwon Sora: prepare replacement Haneul disclosure page and missing-study-file notice from client-supplied materials. Work completed 4:41 p.m.’”
I stared at the dark window. Four forty-one was more than three hours before Sora said she had first discovered a problem in Daeho’s study.
May you like
Han had already told me an invoice could record a job inaccurately. We would need to ask the contractor what materials they received, what they produced, and who directed the work. But the words on the page were plain, and Park had not supplied them from memory.
Before Sora claimed to have discovered a missing file, someone had paid a contractor to prepare a notice about one.
