Chapter 364 You Haven’t Changed at All
After Justin paid for the food, he walked out of the restaurant with Rachel and the two children. “Alright. I guess I will leave now,” he said.
“Wait a second,” Rachel called out to him as he was walking away. “Let’s go together.” Justin halted and turned his head to her, looking confused.
Rachel let out a brief sigh and explained, “Didn’t you get the hint earlier? Charlotte wants to spend a bit more time with you.”
Just then, Charlotte took a few steps forward and held her mother’s hand. “Daddy, you are such an idiot,” she mocked. Then, she rolled her eyes at Justin as she pouted her lips.
When the family walked out of the shopping mall, they saw a commercial plaza that was ablaze with colorful lights in front of them. At this time of day, the plaza was flooded with people, with many young couples in particular.
“Mommy, I want to ride that one!” Charlotte pointed to the distant carousel, and her face was full of excitement. “I want to ride the pumpkin wagon!” she added.
“Okay, but please run slowly. You just finished eating.” Rachel stumbled as she was pulled toward the carousel by Charlotte with force.
As they reached in front of the carousel, Samuel and Charlotte were having a dispute. Samuel crossed his arms around himself and said, “I don’t want to ride on this childish thing.”
Charlotte pouted and argued, “No, you have to ride it with me!”
“Nope. I am not doing it.” Samuel snorted.
The two of them had reached a deadlock. Neither of them was backing off. At this point, Rachel stepped in and tried to reconcile the conflict between the two. “Sweetie, Mommy will join you on the ride. Samuel might get dizzy from riding on the carousel. Let’s not force it on him,” Rachel coaxed Charlotte with a soft tone.
After hearing what her mother said, Charlotte finally eased down her angry face and reluctantly agreed. “Okay then. You and Daddy will wait for us here,” she said to Samuel.
Then, she tilted her head to Justin and asked with a cheerful look, “Daddy, can you take some pictures of the two of us riding the carousel?”
Justin nodded as he smiled at her. “Sure.”
When Rachel and Charlotte sat tight on the carousel, the joyful music started to play in the background. Following the music rhythm, their carousel and the pumpkin wagon swayed up and down at a low speed.
At the same time, Justin stood outside of the railing and started to take pictures of the two with his cell phone. In the frame, Charlotte was nestled in Rachel’s arms. She was bursting with joy, and her little bunny teeth showed up in her wide smile.
“Mommy, let’s change our pose. Shall we make a heart shape together with our fingers?” Charlotte chirped.
“Sure, sweetheart.” Looking at her happy face, Rachel felt a glimmer of happiness.
“How about this pose? Maybe we should raise our hands like this?” Charlotte continued changing their poses, and Rachel cooperated with all her requests. Likewise, Justin was enthusiastically taking pictures of them from different angles.
After they rode on the carousel for two rounds, a swarm of people walked past and suddenly crowded at the fore of the carousel. Justin’s view was blocked and he could not include Rachel and Charlotte in the frame.
“Ehh?” Charlotte was a little startled by the unexpected crowd. “Oh no, the view is blocked!” she complained.
“Don’t worry. It’ll be over soon,” Rachel soothed her.
They rode for another round on the carousel, and when they finally saw Justin again, he was facing away from them, turning his head around anxiously, as if he was searching for something. When Rachel saw that, she was a little stunned.
“What is Daddy doing?” Charlotte asked. She looked confused, and so did Rachel. As soon as the carousel stopped, she immediately got Charlotte down from it and searched for Justin. He was standing beside a flower bed that was not far away from them. Strangely, he wasn’t waiting for them. He was pulling a stranger next to him and asking something with a panicky look on his face.
He is alone. Just him. Rachel thought. Her heart skipped a beat.
What about Samuel? Where is he?
“Where’s Samuel?” she asked as she walked up to Justin briskly.
Justin spun around and looked at them. He was in a complete state of panic. “Just now, there was a group of people passing by. By the time they were gone, I turned around and Samuel was missing,” he explained with a quavering voice. “I’m searching for him. Don’t worry.” He tried to assure Rachel.
At that moment, Rachel’s face went blank. She forcibly suppressed the emotions that were surging within her. Then, she turned around and left without a word.
“Rachel!” Justin chased behind her and shouted.
“Don’t come with me! Just wait here with Charlotte,” she instructed and left in a rush.
Samuel is more mature than any child of his age. It is not like him to run away. When she thought about the crowd that had suddenly appeared previously, she felt a chill running down her spine.
Meanwhile, at the plaza’s broadcasting office, Rachel was asking the security guard to review the CCTV footage of the incident.
“Here, where the carousel is at. Can you play it back to about fifteen minutes ago?” she asked.
“Here?” The guard confirmed it with her while moving the cursor on the screen.
“Yes,” she replied curtly.
Rachel fixed her gaze on the screen, searching for Samuel. All of a sudden, she pointed at a spot on the screen, and said, “Did you see this child right here? He’s my son. Can you please replay it at a slower speed?”
“Okay.” The security guard slowed down the playback speed, and then pressed the play button. On the screen, it showed that when the crowd was passing by, Samuel was first pulled over to the side by a man. Then, this man used the large balloon bunch as a cover, carried Samuel in his arms, and quickly ran away.
“He was taken away by this strange man,” the guard stated.
“Can you see his face?” Rachel asked.
“I’ll rewind the video to an earlier time frame and see if we can find him,” he replied.
The surveillance screen shifted, and this time, they had a closer shot. They were able to tell that it was the same man earlier from his clothes and his body figure. However, the face mask and the hat that he wore made it impossible for them to identify his face. It seemed like he had come prepared.
“How’s it going?”
A familiar voice came from outside the monitoring room. It was Justin. He rushed into the room with Charlotte. “Did you find him?” he asked nervously.
Rachel’s pale face turned red as the anger grew within her body. “I told you to wait there, didn’t I?” she snapped. “If you aren’t there waiting for him, how can Samuel find us? He is still a child, and he will be terrified!” She raised her voice and her anger exploded. Her voice was ear-piercing as it echoed in the monitoring room.
At once, Justin’s feet were cemented to the floor, and his face stiffened.
“Rachel, I’m just trying to…” After he caught his breath, he tried to explain to her, but she wouldn’t let him finish.
“That’s enough!” she shouted back at him.
“If you were able to hold Samuel’s hand earlier like how you’re holding Charlotte now, he wouldn’t have gone missing!”
At this point, Rachel had completely lost her mind and rage flowed through her like lava. “You do not care about his safety because he is not your son! I thought you had changed, but I was wrong. You haven’t changed at all, and you are still the same selfish person that you’ve always been!” she chastised.
Justin couldn’t defend a word. His hands hanging at his sides tightened slightly as he frowned.
Charlotte was frightened by her mother’s reckless behavior. “Mommy…” she murmured cautiously, with a touch of fear in her voice.
Charlotte’s voice wasn’t loud, but it had caught Rachel’s attention. She let out a long sigh and forced herself to calm down. “Sweetheart, can you stay with your daddy tonight? Mommy has to look for Samuel,” she said.
After saying that, she left the monitoring room without turning back. While she was rushing to her car, she took her phone out and dialed 911. The call operator picked up the call swiftly and she started to explain the incident to them.
“Hello? I want to make a report. My son is missing.”
“Yes, about twenty minutes ago.”
“In Joy Plaza where the carousel is at, and the surveillance caught a man taking him away.”
It was late at night when Rachel finished making a statement at the police station and received a call from Jolly.
“Stop searching. Just go home, Rachel. I know who took Samuel away,” she said.
“Who is it?” Rachel asked.
“The Suttons.”
“Ryan Sutton?” Rachel’s face darkened when she heard what Jolly just said. “Where are you now?” she asked with concern.
“On the way to the Sutton Residence,” Jolly replied. Her voice was icy cold.
Rachel was worried about Jolly going there by herself. “Send me the address. I’ll come along.”
“Don’t come over. This matter has nothing to do with you. I’ll handle it myself.” Jolly had made up her mind.
After hanging up the phone, Rachel immediately drove away from the police station.
On the way, she made a phone call to Ryan, and before he could say anything, she hollered, “Ryan Sutton, there is a limit to being despicable and shameless!”
“W-What?” He sounded completely dumbfounded.
She went on and accused, “I once thought you were a man, but what kind of a man would take an innocent child away from their parents?”
“What the hell are you talking about?” He was starting to get agitated by her accusation.
“Stop pretending. Didn’t you have Samuel taken away?” she questioned him furiously.
In disbelief and shock, he said, “Take him away? Wait, are you saying that Samuel is missing?”
“Jolly is now on her way to your house. What else do you need to hide?” Rachel tried to get the truth out of him.
At first, Ryan paused for a moment on the other end of the phone. Then, as if he had understood the whole situation, he explained calmly, “Look, Samuel really wasn’t taken away by me, but I think I know what happened.”
“I don’t care who did it. Ryan Sutton, I’m warning you now. Samuel is not only Jolly’s lifeblood, but also mine. If you touch one hair on his head, I will come at you at full force with the entire Hudson Pharmaceuticals. You mark my words!” Without waiting for his response, she hung up the phone on him. Then, she stepped on the accelerator and drove away from the city.
Jolly wouldn’t have reacted that strangely on the phone if Samuel was taken away by Ryan. If the person who did it is not Ryan but related to the Sutton Family, then there is only one possibility: Samuel was taken away by Ryan’s mother, Old Madam Sutton.
And Estelle Dolton, her daughter-in-law, is very much adored by this old lady!
