A well-built young man was seen descending the stairs, followed by an orange cat. The atmosphere inside the mansion was quiet, although he met several times with maids who happened to pass by there. When he was on the first floor, that guy met his mother.
"Where are you from, Ben?" asked a woman whose face was precisely like Arletta's, but she was forty-two years old.
"I was from the top, Mom," Ben replied, pointing his chin towards the stairs behind him.
"Did you meet Lizzy earlier?" The brown-haired woman asked again, still remembering the eldest daughter's strange behaviour.
"Yes, I met her, Mom. What happened?" Ben answered honestly, but inwardly, there was a suspicion about the other person. The young man just watched his mother's face with questioning eyes.
"Lizzy looks strange. She was not her usual self." Rayner McDowell's wife expressed her concerns and shared them with her youngest child.
"What do you mean, Mom?" That tall guy frowned, not understanding what his biological mother meant.
"Lizzy seems to be hiding something. When you met her, did you ask her anything?" A woman with shoulder-length hair wanted to know what her children had been talking about, hoping to get some information from there.
"I also noticed something strange with Lizzy. I was asking her, but she did not want to talk to me about that." Ben still clearly remembered his sister's behaviour and agreed with his mother's opinion. However, it was a pity that the intelligent guy did not yet know what caused this.
Fiona gave her son a severe look, then moved to the puppy Ben had been holding. "Why is Dex with you? Shouldn't he be with Lizzy?"
"Lizzy left Dex with me. She told me that she wanted to take a nap alone." The handsome guy also looked at the puppy that Arletta owned.
Fiona was silent, as if she were thinking about something. Meanwhile, the one-hundred-and-eighty-eight-centimetre-tall man turned his attention to the orange cat that was still standing near his feet.
I was sure something strange had happened to Lizzy, but I had not found out what caused her to be like that. I will call one of my men after my conversation with Ben is over, Fiona thought, as she occasionally glanced toward the stairs. However, there was nothing strange there.
In the midst of the silence, Fiona came up with an idea, and she thought it was a good one. "Ben, can you help me?"
At this question, the name's owner turned to his biological mother. "What do you want, Mom?"
Ben did not answer Fiona's question as soon as possible but asked his mother again. A woman who passed down beauty to her eldest daughter seemed determined and willing to convey the ideas that had arisen in her mind.
"I want you to help me to investigate-"
***
Forty-five minutes later,
A slender woman walked by with a sense of unease. Rayner's wife did not even pay attention to the servants who occasionally saluted her when she met them. Before long, Fiona came to a room that was tightly closed, then she placed the palm of her left hand on a black-shaped device, and then the door opened by itself. Without further ado, she entered there.
Has something terrible happened to Lizzy? I was sure it must have been like that because whatever it was, she would not have talked to Ben or me. My daughter always keeps anything to herself. I will have to check with my men, thought Fiona, who was still uneasy.
That beautiful woman kept walking and stood near a large flat-screen TV. She said, "Turn on the TV!"
The TV turned on, and Fiona's gaze was drawn to the screen. From there came a voice, "Welcome, Queen of the Hidden Dragon. May I assist you?"
"Put me through to Agraz." The shoulder-length-haired woman replied and seemed impatient to talk to her men.
"Yes, Queen. Please wait for a moment." The sound from the TV screen went silent while Fiona continued to wait.
There was silence in the room again. In less than twenty seconds, a picture of a short-haired man appeared on the TV screen. "Good afternoon, Queen. Can I help you?" the man asked.
"Agraz, did anything strange happen this afternoon when Lizzy went to my husband's office?" Fiona did not answer the question from her opponent, and the green-eyed woman asked her back.
"A strange occurrence to the princess? Nothing happened, my Queen." A skinny man honestly answered Fiona's question.
"Are you sure?" Fiona did not believe her subordinate's answer, so she deliberately asked again to make sure.
"I am absolutely sure, Queen," Agraz replied without hesitation. However, the forty-year-old man felt reluctant as he saw the piercing gaze of the opposite sex.
"Lizzy has been acting strange since she came home from Rayner's office. I knew something must be wrong. Was there someone following my daughter around like usual?" Fiona's bad feelings had not gone away, so a woman with two children chose to follow her gut feeling.
"Yes, Queen. There was a Sergosa who followed the princess. He reported to me that everything was fine when the princess went there." The grey-eyed man answered without any hesitation. Fiona was silent, but she still looked at the other person with an expression of disbelief.
There was silence in the room as Mrs McDowell had yet to say anything else. Meanwhile, the person whose visuals appeared on the TV screen could not do anything as he waited for a comment from his boss.
I still remember Lizzy's attitude. She rarely acted strange if there was no cause. Was it possible that Agraz was lying? He could not be, but why do I have the opposite feeling? Fiona thought, her heart filled with both doubt and suspicion.
An idea popped into the woman's mind, who already had two children. She seemed ready to say it to the other person, while Agraz seemed to have understood what his boss was trying to say. However, that man did not dare to start the conversation that had stalled between them.
"Did you send me the report from Sergosa?" Fiona asked with a probing tone and a look in her eyes as if judging the honesty of her confidant.
"Yes, I already sent it, Queen. As usual, I have sent Sergosa's report to you via email and message in the chat app. Is there anything missing?" The crooked-nosed man replied without any hesitation.
Fiona frowned, which puzzled Agraz. "I have seen that, but something was still missing from your report, which made me suspicious of you."
"What was that, Queen?"
"In that report, you had not included-"
***