As observant as Justin was, he noticed Rachel had something on her mind. “Rachel, I have something to show you.”
“Hm?” She stared at him in confusion. “What is it?”
He extended his hand to her and showed her the severed finger that had already been taken care of with gauze. On that slightly yellowed gauze, somebody had drawn a pair of eyes with noticeable eyelashes with a black pen. Below the eyes were the nose and the lips where the tongue was sticking out from.
She was surprised to see it and she burst into laughter. “You drew it?”
“Not me.” Justin wiggled his finger at her. “Charlotte did.”
“Geez.” Rachel sighed in resignation. “You‘re spoiling her too much! You shouldn’t allow her to play with your injured finger. It hasn’t recovered yet.”
“It’s almost time. They’ll remove the bandage soon.” He held her hands as he said casually, “You don’t have to be sad for me. It’s not a big deal and it won’t affect my daily life too much, right? Besides, it isn’t that unsightly, is it?”
How can it not be unsightly? She was trying to retort. However, when she saw the pair of big eyes on his finger staring back at her, she changed her mind. “Well, I’m not sad anymore.”
After a while, the shop owner served them their food.
Justin stared at the clear soup before him. It had a crystal clear soup base with snow-white rice vermicelli and nothing more. The lack of ingredients had made the dish look unattractive.
“Try it! You asked me to order for you earlier. Don’t waste the food.”
He hesitated for a moment. Everyone had their own preferences for flavors and smells, they could not really control themselves in this regard.
Just like there were some people who hated parsley. For them, it was a torture to just smell it. They would never understand what parsley lovers like about it.
As for Justin, he never took a liking to mutton. Even though he said yes without any hesitation a moment ago, he couldn’t find the courage to begin as the scent of the mutton soup overwhelmed his sense of smell. “Rachel, can I not eat them?”
“Nope.”
“Okay then…” As Rachel rejected his request, he could only force himself to try the soup.
However, the soup tasted different compared to what he had expected from a mutton soup.
Justin was surprised. So, he took another spoonful of the soup before he raised his head to her for answers.
Sitting opposite him, Rachel rested her chin in her hands as she winked. “How does the bone broth taste?”
“This is a bone broth?”
“Of course! You’ll never try it twice if it’s mutton soup.”
Rachel had requested the shop owner to change his order to bone broth without Justin’s knowing when he left to order the drinks.
Even though she loved to see the funny look on his face when he was tasting the soup, she would never force him to eat mutton as she knew his preference.
“You’re having fun kidding me, aren’t you?”
“You need to pay the price because you and Jolly ganged up on laughing at me!”
“I didn’t!”
“As if!”
The other party was hesitant to respond.
As night fell, the crescent moon was shining silver in the sky. The moon was a soothing sight while the persons under it were an even more admirable scene.
The next day.
Rachel initiated an investigation on Jefferey’s yearly schedule after the audit of Hudson Pharmaceuticals two years ago and indeed found something that didn’t add up.
“Jefferey’s schedule isn’t private to others. Most of the time he stayed in Riverdale due to his poor health, but he went to the Westhill Turf Club every month in the first half of last year,” Jolly said as she passed the copy of Jefferey’s schedule to Rachel. “The dates that were circled indicate the time he went there. Have you noticed anything?”
Rachel scowled after she perused them. “It has a pattern. He went to the turf club at the beginning of each month.”
“Our company always deals with the financial closing by the end of the month and he would go to Westhill the second day after the closing. On the same day of the month, a sum of money would be deducted from the account of our company.”
“It was deducted monthly?”
“Yes. It started not since last year but ten years ago. There’s always a sum of advance funds deducted from the company’s account at the beginning of the month, but it’ll be balanced at the end of the month. Nobody knows what it is used for.” Jolly analyzed. “If it wasn’t for the sum that was deducted recently, people would hardly notice this.”
A solemn expression plastered on Rachel’s face. “So the money has flowed to the turf club?”
“Most likely so.”
“But the cops are watching them. There’s no way they can transfer the money under their watch.”
“There wasn’t any news about the money being confiscated. Maybe they had transferred it somewhere?”
“It’s impossible.” Rachel shook her head. “Janice told me that the cops were monitoring the turf club. If they had transferred the money, they should have left. There’s no way they are still staying in Riverdale.”
Jefferey was in a rush to realize his assets into cash and transfer them because he was aware that the false accounting of Hudson Pharmaceuticals would be discovered one day. If the money was transferred successfully to a safe place, he would have brought Amber to flee the city instead of being arrested in the first place.
As human greed was unlimited, people like him would take any measure to realize their assets in the country before they fled the country. As for Jefferey, he must have targeted Hudson Pharmaceuticals for greater fortune.
In fact, he had succeeded. Hudson Pharmaceuticals needed the money he took to operate.
“What do we do now?”
Rachel replied with a serious face, “I’ll talk about it with Janice.”
The cops would never allow the money to flow out from the turf club, or else they could only let the suspects flee the city without solid evidence to arrest them.
“Enough of this topic. Do you want to have dinner together later?” Jolly suggested. “Leroy is coming back once he finishes the shooting. Let’s have dinner.”
“Sure.”
“Then, I want to take a half day off later.”
“What is it for?”
“To pick up my hubby.”
Rachel regretted asking as she heard the way that Jolly addressed Leroy. “That is the point, isn’t it?”
Since Jolly was married to Leroy, she wouldn’t stop mentioning her “hubby” in their conversation, which gave Rachel goosebumps.
Meanwhile, Leroy was shooting the advertisement in Riverdale.
“Leroy, are you ready? It’s time for the shoot.”
“One minute!” The make-up artist replied as they finished the last touch on Leroy’s face.
The makeup set off Leroy’s chisel face more than ever as if everything were in its perfect place. Waiting for the artist to adjust his makeup, he stole some time to check the messages from Jolly and chuckled immediately.
“Leroy, is it from Miss Carter?”
“That’s right, so I hope the shooting can go smoothly.”
“No worries. You won’t be late for your date later tonight.”
The progress was indeed smooth due to Leroy’s professionalism. He basically just needed one take to finish each scene.
However, he couldn’t leave work as planned when an unexpected guest visited the set. He took countless times to shoot the last scene, but was never approved as if they had flaws.
Leroy found the answer when he recognized the man sitting behind the cameras.
“One more time! This take isn’t good enough.”
“There’s no need for it.” Leroy left the set as he walked toward the man. “Mr. Sutton should have told us that you’re visiting today. Anything you’re feeling unsatisfied, you can tell me directly. There’s no need to take the others down with me.”
Remaining in his seat, the so-called Mr. Sutton’s expression sank when he glared at Leroy with a cold look. “It’s new to see a spokesperson who acts against the brand owner.”
