Chapter 495 Walter’s Death
The building was a vintage-looking, single-story detached house. The living area was at the center of the house, with two bedrooms facing each other, and the kitchen was located in a separate structure at the end of the house. After Angie had surveyed both rooms, she came out with a dark expression.
“What’s wrong?” Zeke, who took notice of her unusual expression, pulled her to one side when he had the chance.
“I saw a family photo in the room on the left. The girl in the photo was the one we met last night,” she replied, leaning her tired body against the kitchen door frame with both arms folded across her chest.
Zeke’s expression fell. “That’s too much of a coincidence. Are you saying that—”
Upon seeing a terrified Zeke reaching his hand and drawing circles above his head, Angie immediately understood what he meant and calmly responded, “Yes, I remembered the man calling her Piper.”
He fell silent, after which he wiped his mouth before heading toward the main door.
“Mrs. Church, let me help you.”
Zeke helped her to move the baskets of salted fish out from the small warehouse beside, and the woman took out the salted fish to dry them in the sun. While they were busy with their tasks, Zeke struck up a conversation.
“Mr. Church told me that you guys have a daughter named Piper, but why don’t I see her around today?”
“Piper occasionally stays at her friend’s place in town. She didn’t come back yesterday, so she should be back later in the afternoon. When she comes back, I’ll have her make something for you both. My baby girl is really good at cooking.”
The woman didn’t notice the hidden meaning in his question, but Angie felt a lump in her throat upon seeing the joy and pride on Mrs. Church’s face at the mention of her daughter
After moving all the fish out from the warehouse, Zeke, who felt a little dizzy when he was straightening up his body after bending over for a long time, suddenly heard a flustered voice from behind. “Mrs. Church, bad news! Something happened to Mr. Church!”
——
When Angie and the others arrived at the hospital in Silvercreek District, the hospital had announced Walter’s death.
The moment the woman, who could barely hold herself together, saw the white cloth covering the hospital bed, she completely broke down. Before she managed to extend her trembling hands, she fell back and passed out.
The villager, who had sent Walter to the hospital, felt heartbroken upon seeing that. “It’d be better for her not to see him. Life still carries on for the living.”
Angie dared not look at the dead body as well. Zeke, who had lifted the white cloth in order to confirm whether the dead body was Walter, retched in the washroom for a solid ten minutes.
“It’s him,” Zeke confirmed when Angie handed him a tissue; his face blanched.
“It’s too much of a coincidence.”
“Yes, I agree.”
The villager had found Walter when he was on the way to the town to purchase stocks. Judging from the scene, he could tell that Walter had been involved in a car accident. The accident had sent Walter flying over the guardrail and onto a branch of a tree at a steep slope. Walter had stopped breathing when the villager rescued him from the tree.
Unfortunately, there were no security cameras along the road from the village to the town. Plus, Walter had left home before dawn, so nobody knew what had happened on his way to town.
Mrs. Church repeatedly fainted. It only then did Angie know that tears just would not fall out when one was in extreme sorrow; all Mrs. Church could do was to bellow in a hoarse voice. The way she sank into deep grief was truly unbearable for the others to watch.
The doctor came up to them once when she was in despair, carrying a sealed plastic bag that contained Walter’s keys, wallet, and phone that he had had on him. Mrs. Church was so weak that she couldn’t even take the bag from him, so Angie helped her to do so. At that moment, a thought flashed across her mind.
“Mrs. Church, do you know the password of Mr. Church’s cellphone?”
She managed to unlock the phone, and the cracked screen emitted a soft light. Angie’s hand was pale when she held the phone in her hands while an indescribable emotion welled up inside her—an emotion that felt like either rage or guilt, and it nearly devoured her.
After that, she put the phone aside and dashed out of the hospital.
The last message that Walter had received on his phone had been sent to him at 3.00 AM. In that message, Piper, his daughter, had confessed to him that she had fallen in love with a married man, and she had decided to elope with that man.
Walter had replied to her text at 3.05 AM. ‘I’ll come right away.’
Tears gathered in her eyes. She was able to imagine the anxiety Walter must have felt when he walked on the dark road in the middle of the night. Worries and despair were still within him when the accident happened… If I did something yesterday, all of this might not even happen.
When she was in the cab on her way to the hotel, her whole body trembled non-stop. Zeke, who had run as fast as he could and had managed to catch up with her, took her delicate hand in his, his feelings as conflicted as hers.
Piper was nowhere to be found in the hotel. When Angie was asking the receptionist at the reception counter, a maid, who happened to finish cleaning a room, overheard their conversation and interrupted, “I heard that lady talking about a high-speed rail that will depart at 3.00 PM when I was cleaning her room.”
It was 2.20 PM at the moment.
When Angie and Zeke arrived at the high-speed rail station, it was already 2.40 PM. Fortunately, the high-speed rail station in the town was not large, so they were able to spot the girl with colorful dreadlocks in no time.
However, the current scene was a little different from what she had imagined.
A girl with tears all over her face was holding a man’s luggage with both hands, refusing to let go no matter what that man said.
“You promised to take me with you last night. Why are you going back on your words?”
“Last night, I went to see you make things clear with you, but you were drunk, and you started babbling nonsense. I only promised you that you could come to see me off.”
The man tugged his luggage a few times but failed. He was so mad that his eyes were burning with rage, but the girl seemed to have no intention of giving up. All she could think about at that moment was to follow him like a duckling.
Slap! The man threw a tight slap on the girl’s face, causing her to fall onto the floor. Seeing that he finally had an opportunity to escape, he immediately took his luggage and attempted to flee the scene.
Angie’s eyes reddened when she saw that. “Hey, you b*stard!” Angie picked up a wet floor sign beside her and strode toward them. Before the man was able to make sense of the situation, she slammed the sign on his head, which caused him to stagger and nearly fall.
“Who are you? Why did you hit him?”
At that instant, sorrow turned into rage, and a shocked Piper grabbed Angie by her hair in an attempt to wallop Angie. However, with a wave of her hand, Angie blocked Piper’s attack and gave her a slap in the face.
“You are a b*stard too!” Angie cursed.
At that moment, both Piper and the man were stunned. When Piper yelled at her and attempted to fight back, Angie slapped her hard on her face again.
In the clamor of the crowd that gradually gathered around, Angie’s voice coldly rang through the air. “Your father is dead.”
Piper blinked twice with her large eyes, unable to make sense of the situation. Angie, however, continued to stare at her coldly, observing her every tiny expression, and cruelly reiterated, “Walter, your father, is dead. Your father died because of you; your mother cried so much that she fainted multiple times in the hospital. She tried to call you, but your phone was switched off. Meanwhile, you are here, wearing dreadlocks that you think are cool while pestering a married man, playing victim.”
Piper’s pupils dilated at her words; she refused to believe anything Angie had said. “That’s nonsense. That’s impossible!”
“If it wasn’t because of you who sent him a message at 3.00 AM, telling him that you are going to elope with a man, he wouldn’t get out of bed before dawn to rush to town. You should be aware that there were no cabs available at that time, so he could only walk to town, which resulted in him being hit by a car and getting his face disfigured!” she shouted at Piper, raising her voice at the end of her sentence, completely shattering a sixteen-year-old girl’s mental defense.
Piper slumped to the floor while tears coursed down her cheeks uncontrollably as she mumbled, “I didn’t. I didn’t send any messages to my father. I didn’t tell him.” She buried her face in her palms and cried so hard that she nearly suffocated. The brutal reality was far more painful than her lost love.
However, Angie, who heard her mumbles, was shaken to her core. When she finally returned to her senses, she asked, “It wasn’t you?”
