It was then that he turned around to find the bed empty.
Where’s Nicole?
He immediately got out of bed to look for her.
Just then, his phone rang again, this time from Davin.
“Evan, something had happened to Mom.”
“What is it?”
“She got hit and the perpetrator ran away.”
Evan couldn’t respond.
The news came to him like a bolt from the blue. After sitting in stunned silence for a moment, Evan quickly queried for the hospital that his mother had been admitted to.
He rushed to the hospital and found Sophia lying on the bed covered with scars and wounds, her legs supported by braces. That sight caused him distress.
“Mom, how are you feeling?”
“Evan, you’re here. The doctor said my injuries are serious. I’m afraid it might take several months for my legs to recover,” Sophia said weakly.
“Mom, who hit you? Can you remember the license plate number?”
“Yes…” Sophia stuttered.
“Mom, tell me!”
“Evan, I don’t remember the exact numbers on the license plate, but I think my eyes must have been playing tricks on me. After I got hit, the passengers in the car got down to check on me. The woman I saw looked like Nicole, and there was a man next to her, but I must have been mistaken.”
Nicole?
Evan furrowed his eyebrows. He had not seen Nicole since getting up in the morning, and he could not find a single trace of her even after searching through the whole Imperial Garden. It can’t possibly be a coincidence, can it?
It was then that Davin walked into the room and showed Evan a short video.
“Evan, the footage in the surveillance camera at the scene where Mom was hit had been modified. There was a hidden camera a short distance away, and the perpetrators had not found it, so it hadn’t been tampered with. The footage isn’t very clear, but it’d do. You should have a look.”
Evan examined the video closely. The car that had hit Sophia was too far away from the camera, so the license plate number was unclear. The car itself, however, was eye-catching. It was a limited-edition Bugatti Veyron.
Next, he saw someone with whom he was extremely familiar.
“Evan, isn’t that Nicole?” Davin questioned, eying the figure in the footage.
Evan did not answer. He had spent several years with Nicole, day in and day out. He was the person who was the most familiar with her, so he was sure that the woman in the video was Nicole.
Right then, one of the camera lenses suddenly faced Nicole. He immediately zoomed in and found himself looking at the panicked expression on her face.
“Evan! It really was Nicole! It really was her!”
Boom! A bolt of blue came crashing down on him for the second time in a day.
Nicole hit Sophia?
He immediately pulled out his phone and called Nicole, but her phone was off. He could not reach her no matter how hard he tried.
It was really Nicole in the car, but whose car was it? There was a man in there too. Who was he?
A cluster of doubts flooded his mind. Evan’s face turned pale as his deep-set eyes filled with shock.
For a long time, the silence was the only thing that filled the ward. It was so quiet that one could hear a pin drop.
After a moment of dead silence, Evan spoke, “Keep up the investigation! Find out who the owner of that car is!”
“Got it, Evan.”
“Evan, was it really Nicole who hit me? W-What’s going on here?” Sophia asked with her glance fixated on her son.
“Mom, it can’t be her. I’m sure it’s not her.”
“I don’t think it’s her too. Perhaps we should conduct a thorough investigation before jumping to conclusions.”
Evan didn’t respond.
He arranged for Sophia to be taken care of in the hospital before driving back to the Imperial Garden. He heard from the maid that Nicole had yet to return.
He found Nicole’s mobile phone on the dressing table.
Did she forget to take it with her, or did she leave it here on purpose?
Evan turned on the phone. He read through all of Nicole’s WhatsApp and contact records but did not find anything suspicious.
Nicole, where are you?
Three days passed with no news from Nicole.
A week passed, and still, nothing.
Two months passed. Evan had mobilized every last ounce of manpower he had to search for Nicole, to no avail. She seemed to have vanished into thin air.
Evan would look at Nicole’s picture, overwhelmed by dread and suspense. Nicole, where are you?
He thought about Sophia’s car accident, the money hacked and stolen from the company account, the luxury car that suddenly appeared as well as the man on board. Although Evan had not figured out what was going on, he wholeheartedly refused to believe that Nicole was the one behind this chain of events.
