Chapter 116: William, Missing Amelia, Right?
I wonder how today will turn out. I hope everything goes smoothly.
Amelia thought to herself as she looked down at her phone. There were no messages from anyone else.
Without thinking too much about it, Amelia went to sleep.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the city, Isabella was getting ready to rest.
Just then, a phone call came in.
Isabella glanced at it and answered.
"What is it?" It was the number of one of those guys who had been threatening her. "Didn't I already give you money before? Why are you calling again?"
"Isabella, don't try to put us off. We want ten million dollars. You only gave us two million before," the person on the other end said.
"You guys agreed that I could pay in installments," Isabella replied coldly.
The men who were eating looked at each other, then one of them said with a laugh, "But we found out a secret today, and we want five million dollars by 3 PM this afternoon."
Isabella was furious and said directly, "I don't have the money!"
"If you don't have money, you can ask William for it," the man said with a laugh. "We just found out that today is the last day of Amelia and William's divorce cooling-off period."
"So we want five million dollars, or those things will be sent directly to Amelia and William."
"Isabella, you want today to go smoothly too, right? If Amelia gets angry and changes her mind, this divorce won't happen anytime soon!"
The person on the other end spoke while laughing, sounding very pleased with himself.
Isabella slammed her fist on the table.
"But I really don't have the money right now." This was true. She had quite a bit of assets over the years, but they couldn't be converted into cash quickly.
"It's been so long since the fourth livestream ended. Looks like you haven't taken our matter seriously at all," the other person said. "How you get the money is your problem. You can ask William for it."
With that, the other person hung up directly.
Isabella was so angry she threw her phone.
She should have just gotten rid of these people earlier!
The caregiver beside her picked up the phone and handed it back to her.
"Ms. Taylor, what should we do now?" the caregiver asked.
Isabella snatched the phone from the caregiver's hand. She glared at the caregiver, then walked into a room by herself.
After making sure no one could hear, Isabella switched to another phone and called someone else.
...
At the same time, late at night, at the police station.
Azalea twisted her stiff neck and let out a long sigh.
Her colleague across from her was going to get water and asked if she wanted to come along.
"Sure," Azalea said, picking up her water cup and walking over together.
The two chatted as they walked.
"That case you're working on is almost done, right?" her colleague asked.
Azalea nodded and said, "The data collection and interviews take a lot of time. Amelia's identity and circumstances are special. Several of us separately interviewed Amelia's mother, questioned her stepfather in prison, interviewed a series of people related to the Martinez family, talked to Amelia's friends Mia and Dash, gathered information from various departments at the Brown Group, questioned Isabella... and so on. We also went to the scene multiple times to see if there were any new clues near where the disguised suspect disappeared, and reviewed the surveillance footage many times to see if there were any gaps."
Azalea felt her head spinning just talking about it.
"That is quite a lot," her colleague nodded too.
Azalea drank some water. "That's just what I thought of right now. There are other things too, mainly a lot of small details, and sometimes we have to travel for work."
"But it's mostly done now. If everything's right, we can summon William tomorrow or the day after."
Her colleague nodded, and they both finished getting water and walked back together.
"Who's the most likely suspect now?" the colleague asked casually.
Azalea looked at him seriously.
The colleague just smiled and stopped asking.
Azalea sat back down and packed up her things to go home.
There were many cases every day, and staff was limited. Over these past days, she had worked overtime many days already.
...
Time slowly passed, and the night quickly went by.
The city slowly woke up.
Amelia still went to pick up Briar for school as usual.
Then she went to the Adams Group to prepare for the final competition.
But today was different from usual - she kept her phone in her hand the whole time.
If she could get through today safely, they could go get their divorce certificate.
Fortunately, the morning passed and there were no messages from William on Amelia's phone.
[Just let it stay quiet like this. Once midnight passes, everything will be over,] Amelia thought.
On the other side, William, who had been busy all morning, had just stopped to have lunch.
But as soon as he sat down at the table, he saw that a steak had been served.
William raised an eyebrow and looked at Rhys in front of him.
Rhys scratched his head awkwardly and said, "Mr. Brown, I didn't take you to a good restaurant the other night. Today I remembered that my mom makes really good steak, so I took the liberty of bringing some for you."
William didn't say much, just acknowledged it.
After a while, there was a knock at the door.
William looked up slightly and saw Isabella standing in the doorway.
Isabella walked in, and when she saw William's lunch on the table, she looked a bit surprised.
"Is something wrong, Ms. Taylor?" Rhys asked.
Isabella smiled at Rhys and said, "I brought a duplicate for William. I brought this too."
With that, Isabella took out a steak from her food container and said, "Didn't you say yesterday that William had tried all the restaurants in Shadow City and hadn't found anything he liked? So I made one myself. William, try it and see if you like it?"
Rhys didn't say anything, just glanced at William.
William didn't look at him, just calmly took the box from Isabella's hand, placed it on the table, and took a bite.
"How is it, William? Is it good?" Isabella looked at him with a smile, waiting for his answer.
William chewed carefully.
In terms of cooking skills, it was pretty standard.
But it wasn't as good as Amelia's.
However, facing Isabella's question, he still replied, "It's good."
Isabella was very happy and told him to eat more.
But William felt a bit irritated, so he sent Isabella outside to get something.
During this moment, a third lunch was delivered.
It was sent from the Brown Villa.
William immediately opened the box. It was the same thing - tomato beef rice.
But there was an extra letter on top.
William opened the envelope and saw it was written by Finn—
[William, you miss Amelia, don't you? Bring her home. What can't be talked through properly? You're all family.]
William looked at the letter in his hand, his heart aching slightly.
But Finn, the divorce cooling-off period between her and me ends today.