The moment Matthias noticed Heather’s increasingly ugly expression, he quickly reacted by asking her immediately, “Who was that?” He had a tense look on his face and his expression was as somber as hers.
She calmly glanced at him and didn’t respond to his question. However, her meaningful look spoke volumes.
“Aren’t you heading back?” Heather shifted her eyes nonchalantly toward the other direction. She urged him to leave as she needed to have some alone time and calm down.
At that instant, Matthias took the hint and he chose not to bargain with her any further. She was now on the defense and resembled a porcupine with all its thorns on display, causing him to lack the courage to say even a single word.
“I’ll head back right now,” he responded calmly and followed her wish. Frankly, he had never criticized her actions but acceded to her all the time.
“I won’t keep you any longer then. Keep safe,” she said courteously. Then, she heartlessly cast him aside without giving any regard to his confusions.
She watched him leave the place before she resolutely turned her back on him. She was in a rush to return to her room. The video had already been sent over to her, but she wanted to view it in private and she didn’t dare to click into it outside of her bedroom. She hated to have her every single move spied on, but then she seemed to be entrapped in an invisible web. It was the first time ever that she felt so insecure.
Heather found herself being suspicious of everyone around her and she found herself less assertive of the things around her; overall, she realized that she had turned into a cynical person. She disliked this feeling and even more so, she started to hate herself; she hated her emotions and judgment.
As soon as the door slammed shut after her, she immediately clicked into the video. As usual, the beginning part was totally dark. The content of the video resulted in her furrowing her brows into a thin line. She looked quite dejected after watching the short video clip.
Then, the screen on her phone darkened and she placed it down. Her expression slightly changed, but she repeatedly told herself in her mind to calm down. The kidnappers were just trying to use the video clip to cause her emotional distress. Besides, the grainy quality of the video clip was not indicative of anything. Despite that, she could vaguely make out Myra’s outline from the blurred visual. In the video clip, Myra was wearing a thin, white dress and she stood shivering amidst the cold air, atop a darkened building.
Myra’s dark-colored hair fluttered loosely in the air and her slightly protruding stomach was prominently displayed in the video clip. Frankly, she was unable to withstand such a harsh environment in her current condition. Although it seemed that the kidnappers hadn’t taken any drastic actions, in actual fact, they did.
In the video, Myra seemed to be perched precariously on the edge of a cliff and if someone else lightly pushed her from the side, she would be doomed. Heather tightly clenched her fists. These b*stards! I knew that they wouldn’t come up with anything good! Soon after that, she received another phone call from the kidnappers and she snickered, This is quite timely.
Heather answered the call and her voice sounded unusually cold. On the other end, the kidnapper said slowly, “Miss Langston, my videography skills are quite exceptional, right?” The person had said those words quite shamelessly.
“Release Myra! I will agree to anything,” Heather spoke in an exceptionally calm voice. She didn’t have anything much to say with the kidnapper and she only had one single objective right now. Although the kidnapper used the same phone and phone number to contact her multiple times, she was still unable to detect their precise location because there was something that disrupted her investigation.
“Miss Langston, be patient. You can’t gain anything if you are too anxious,” the kidnapper continued to tease. Meanwhile, Heather tried hard to suppress her urge as she knew that there was no point in telling the kidnapper off.
“What is the actual motive of the person hiding behind your back?” Heather sneered. There was definitely a mastermind behind the kidnappers’ back. Otherwise, how else could they have possibly and completely hidden Myra out of the public eye in such a small city like Bradfort City?
The kidnapper didn’t expect Heather to say those words and he paused for a moment. Soon, he came to his senses before he responded calmly and nonchalantly, “Miss Langston, why don’t you treat this as a riddle and try to solve it?”
She hated the way he teased her. So, the reason why they kidnapped Myra is to invite me to join this guessing game? How ridiculous! “Are you going to release Myra if I manage to solve this riddle?” she questioned with a somber tone of voice.
At that moment, the kidnapper laughed out loud and Heather found his laugh quite repugnant as she hated this feeling of being led on by her nose. Her anger had been simmering for the past two days.
“There’s no harm in you thinking this way, Miss Heather,” the kidnapper replied vaguely
His obscure reply meant that there was no way to determine the outcome, but Heather decided to try her luck anyway. If the person who was manipulating everything found enjoyment in playing such games, then she wouldn’t mind joining him for a good game. After all, she was quite confident in her own abilities.
The only problem was that the stakes were extremely high for this game; she had to win in this, so she couldn’t help but feel anxious. She wondered what Tony was currently doing. Is he making any effort to rescue Myra? She fervently hoped that there was someone else who would stand up and fight alongside her.
Heather knew that there was hardly any foolproof plan, so she didn’t dare to take the risk with Myra’s life. Furthermore, Myra was also expecting a child. As soon as Heather thought about that, she strongly abhorred the heartless actions of the mastermind behind the kidnapping. They are already wicked enough to kidnap a pregnant woman, but to threaten their friends and family with her life is definitely despicable.
“What is it that you want me to solve?” It was then that Heather realized that she still hadn’t discovered the topic of the riddle. As such, how could she solve it?
“You are an extremely bright person, so don’t tell me you haven’t figured out the riddle yet?” The kidnapper’s voice was full of scorn. In actual fact, they hadn’t actually provided the exact topic of the riddle.
“I don’t like to beat around the bush. Why don’t you just be frank about your intentions?” Heather tried to probe for more information from the kidnapper as she currently had insufficient information on hand.
“Haha…” He guffawed and subsequently ignored her by disregarding her words. “Miss Heather, this is all for today.” As soon as he said that, he hung up immediately.
The situation was the same each time and the kidnappers held the upper hand. Heather had no choice but to passively go along with it. After hanging up the phone, she remained silent but could not seem to figure out how to start tackling the problem. Does he want me to reveal his identity in person?
She stared at her phone in frustration. At that moment, she anxiously wished that she could make her way to the other end via the phone call and exterminate the arrogant kidnapper. However, there was nothing else that she could do for now. Despite her utmost efforts, she was unable to discover any information at all. It seemed that the other party had already seen through her moves and she was constantly at her wit’s end while facing them. She was fighting a struggling battle, which seemed quite pointless.
Heather was preoccupied with her thoughts regarding the riddle after she hung up the phone. She was completely clueless about the topic. How can I even solve the riddle if I don’t know the topic? For the first time ever, she doubted her quick wits. I’m such a blockhead right now. I can’t even figure out anything! At the moment, she was quite upset by her own incompetence.
As the sky darkened, Heather’s phone rang once again. She stared at the screen and hesitated to answer the call.
Her phone rang continuously for quite some time and she had no choice but to answer the call. At the same time, Matthias’ voice rang out from the phone and his voice was clearly audible to Heather.
“Heather, I’m home.” It was quite odd for him to arrive home after such a long time and it was also out of the ordinary for him to call her about this.
“Why did you take so long to arrive home?” Heather questioned instinctively. It had been at least two hours since Matthias left the Langstons. Although they lived quite far from each other, it didn’t make sense to take two whole hours for him to arrive home.
He replied, “Why don’t you take a guess of what I did?” Although he had asked at a whim, he never expected to touch on a raw nerve.
“I don’t want to guess. I hate guessing games!” His words had reminded her of the situation with the kidnapper. They want me to solve a riddle and now, he’s also trying to make me guess! This is so annoying!
A perplexed Matthias didn’t know what was going on. Why did she lose her temper when I didn’t even do anything wrong?!
Heather hung up the phone on him in anger. It was quite unusual for her to express her anger so explicitly.
“Heather,” Matthias mumbled her name over the phone quite feebly when she had in fact already hung up the phone on him. He figured that it was unwise to persist in calling her. As for Heather, after she had calmed down, her earlier actions then dawned upon her. She didn’t expect herself to lose her temper at Matthias without any qualms.
At that instance, she had even regarded him as the kidnapper. Right now, she loathed her current behavior. In fact, there was nothing suspicious about him, but she had jumped to the conclusion that he was indeed the kidnapper and had even intended to condemn him for that. Initially, she pondered over whether to apologize to him, but she ended up brushing it off. She had to remain focused on the situation on hand and had no extra time for him. His presence in her life seemed to be quite disruptive to her emotions and she disliked being in such a state. I need to keep a cool head so that I can rescue Myra from the hands of the kidnappers as soon as possible.
Heather had no idea that Tony had already executed his plans to rescue Myra and she assumed that she was working tirelessly alone. I can’t fail in this! I must win this battle!
For the entire night, Heather found herself in a restless state. She self-torturously recounted every single detail after Myra being kidnapped, but she couldn’t find a single flaw. Although she was keen to investigate the incident in detail, the kidnappers kept a close eye on her, which gave her no chance to show her capabilities.
It was barely seven o’clock in the morning when Heather woke up earlier in the morning and she looked at herself in the mirror. Her skin was usually as smooth as snow, but today she noticed that she had dark eye circles and there were pimples on her chin too. It was the first time that she had ever felt such pressure.
Her electric toothbrush vibrated with a buzz, but she was currently lost in her thoughts. Another day had gone by with the time passing so slowly that it was torturous for her. However, it also felt like she was being rushed at the same time.
Heather didn’t know whether Myra could persevere but to be honest, she found it quite hard to go on. She could not stand her own incompetence of being unable to save her best friend and she despised her current self.
She stared at herself in the mirror in a daze before she reached out for her lipstick by the side and wrote “riddle” in red on the mirror. Next, she narrowed her eyes and looked at the mirror. She felt that she nearly had her answer.
There were some things that were about to be revealed and she wanted to grab this inspiration. She had linked everything together and suddenly thought of Everly. The kidnappers were in fact ones who meant what they said, but why didn’t they kidnap Every then? It was Everly who had lost, but why?
Heather felt that she was quite close to the truth. She held her breath as she realized that perhaps Everly was the critical point. On that eventful day, she had in fact made multiple phone calls to Everly, but how was it possible that Everly had missed every single phone call? On top of that, her reaction that day was evidently making Heather feel suspicious.
