Chapter 223 The Mastermind Behind the Scenes
Amelia passed the police dog inspection smoothly, which was absolutely impossible.
Janet's face looked extremely grim.
However much she had hoped before, that's how devastated she felt now.
She didn't understand.
She had clearly arranged for someone to sprinkle the same poison that was on Mark onto Amelia's dress hem.
Amelia was the Miracle Physician of the Shadow Operations Division, getting this kind of drug would be a piece of cake for her.
So Amelia absolutely couldn't escape suspicion.
She would become the murderer who poisoned Mark.
No matter how powerful Samuel was, he couldn't protect a murderer caught red-handed in front of everyone.
Not only would Amelia be in trouble, the Richardson family, and even the Shadow Operations Division would be thoroughly investigated by the government.
But Amelia passed smoothly.
This shouldn't be!
Janet had seen with her own eyes that her people successfully sprinkled the poison on Amelia.
But the fact was right in front of her - Amelia had indeed passed the police dog inspection.
The police dog's nose couldn't be wrong.
Janet looked urgently at Francis. Francis also frowned slightly, though his expression was much calmer than hers.
He gave Janet a look, warning her not to act rashly.
Since the plan had already failed, they could only let it go. There would be other chances.
Questioning it now would only implicate them.
It was just frustrating - he thought every one of his plans was perfect, yet Amelia kept escaping disaster after disaster.
Next time, he would be more careful.
Next time, he would definitely succeed.
Before, dealing with Amelia was just something he did casually.
Just to completely destroy the Richardson family.
And to break apart Samuel and Amelia's relationship.
Now seeing Amelia's capabilities, he was completely determined to kill her.
Such a capable woman - he appreciated that.
But since she came from the Richardson family and was close to Samuel, she absolutely couldn't be allowed to live.
He had to make Samuel wholeheartedly stand with The Hays family.
He couldn't let him have any more connections with the Richardson family.
Everyone knew that behind the Richardson family was The Porter family.
Francis's expression was very gloomy.
Just then, Amelia turned to look at him.
Francis was caught off guard meeting her gaze, and hurriedly hid the coldness in his eyes, smiling and nodding at Amelia.
But this time Amelia didn't smile back.
The fragments of light in her eyes radiated an icy darkness.
Francis's heartbeat quickened.
Why was she looking at him like that?
Had he revealed something?
That shouldn't be possible.
From start to finish, he had only manipulated things from behind the scenes and hadn't personally done anything.
Even the most capable and experienced police officers couldn't trace anything back to him after a thorough investigation.
Unless Janet gave him up.
But Janet didn't have that kind of courage.
If she gave him up, not just Janet, but everyone in the Rojas family would have to die.
But why was Amelia looking at him like that?
Francis instinctively looked away, only to discover that Amelia was looking at Janet through his shoulder.
So Amelia suspected Janet.
He let out a breath of relief.
But the next second he became even more annoyed.
He had never been afraid of anyone, not even Leonard and Alton.
But just now in that instant, he had felt fear from Amelia's gaze.
Amelia absolutely could not be allowed to live!
For him, her mere existence in this world was already a kind of humiliation.
Francis didn't dare look in Amelia's direction again, just staring at the police dogs.
Since the plan had already failed, it should end soon, and everyone should leave.
He needed to go back and plan something new.
Over at the police dogs, the detective captain had already had all the guests present come forward for the dogs to sniff.
Everyone passed smoothly.
But then an officer said, "A few people are missing."
The detective captain frowned.
The officer added, "When we first counted, excluding Liam and Mr. Crawford, there were fifty-two guests total. Now there are only forty-nine."
The detective captain said, "Find them and bring them here immediately."
"Yes." The team member quickly went to find them.
"Everyone, although you are Mark's family members, according to procedure, you must also be inspected," the detective captain said to the Young family and Rodriguez family members.
Idris was the first to come forward for inspection.
He passed smoothly - the police dogs showed no interest in him.
Next were Billy and Felicity, both also passed the inspection smoothly.
Then it was Tessa.
Her expression looked somewhat listless, as if her whole body had no energy.
Amelia could guess the reason.
She had been so humiliated today, and with Mark's death, she would be labeled as bringing misfortune.
This reputation would be fatal for her, meaning it would be very difficult for her to marry into a prestigious family in the future.
But in Amelia's view, that wasn't what Tessa should be worried about.
She should be worried about something else.
"Tessa, please," the detective captain gestured for Tessa to come over.
Tessa nodded listlessly and came before the police dogs.
The three police dogs immediately perked up their ears, walking around her in circles.
One suddenly jumped up, placing its front paws on Tessa's shoulders and barking.
Tessa was startled.
"Why is it jumping on people?"
The detective captain looked deeply at Tessa and suddenly ordered, "Take her away!"
Tessa was stunned, thinking the detective captain meant to take the dog away, but didn't expect two officers to come up and restrain her.
"Tessa, we'll need you to come with us."
"What are you saying?" Tessa frowned. "Why are you taking me away!"
Billy and Felicity quickly came over too.
"Officer, what is the meaning of this?"
"Why are you taking Tessa away!"
The detective captain, named Dominic Ashford, was an impartial man.
He was polite to people not because of their status, but because they were innocent.
But Tessa wasn't innocent.
The reaction of the three dogs told him that Tessa had the same poison on her that Mark was poisoned with.
He explained the reason to Billy, who didn't believe it.
"The killer absolutely cannot be Tessa! There must be some misunderstanding."
Dominic said, "My dogs won't get it wrong."
He added, "But rest assured, just because she has poison on her doesn't necessarily mean she's the killer. We'll get to the bottom of it and won't wrongly accuse any innocent person."
With that, he called to his subordinates, "Please ask Tessa to come back to the police station with us."
"It wasn't me! I don't know anything! It really wasn't me!" Tessa shouted. She had no idea what was happening.
She hadn't harmed Mark.
If she had to say she harmed him, it was only that when Mark said he felt unwell, she didn't agree to let him go rest.
But since Mark had already been poisoned, what difference would it have made if she let him go rest?
Mark's death had nothing to do with her!
Felicity held onto Tessa tightly.
"You can't take my daughter!"
Idris stepped forward at this moment.
"I suspected it was her all along! She fought with Mark several times today. She's a bitch who years ago despised Liam for being disabled and refused to marry him, so she went after Mark instead. Now seeing that Liam's legs are healed, she doesn't want to be with Mark anymore, so she poisoned him!"
The guests buzzed with discussion, looking at Tessa with extreme disgust.
"What a vicious woman!"
"If she didn't want to be with Mark anymore, couldn't she just break off the engagement? Why did she have to kill him!"
Tessa heard them.
She screamed like a madwoman.
"Shut up! All of you shut up!"
"I didn't kill anyone! I can swear, I didn't want to harm him!"
"He died today, and I'm suffering huge losses too. I'll be implicated too."
"Even if I really was that vicious and wanted to kill him, I wouldn't be stupid enough to do it today!"
"I didn't kill Mark!"
Dominic said, "Tessa, please calm down. We'll investigate exactly what happened. Taking you in doesn't mean we've determined you're the killer."
He spoke to Billy for quite a while.
Although Dominic was impartial, he still had to consider Billy's influence.
In the end, Billy nodded.
"Take her, just don't treat her like you're arresting a criminal."
Dominic nodded.
Just as they were about to take her away, there was suddenly a commotion at the pool entrance.
It was the officers Dominic had sent out earlier to find people, and they had returned.
Each of them was escorting a young man inside.
"Dominic, these guys were acting suspicious, trying to escape through the back mountain of the hotel. Fortunately our people arrived in time and didn't let them get away."
Amelia looked up at Francis and Janet.
Francis's expression didn't change much, but Janet's face instantly turned pale.
She calmly looked away.
She saw Dominic nod and ask in a deep voice why those young men had tried to run.
One of them with a buzz cut, who looked the youngest, immediately knelt down before Dominic.
Even Dominic was stunned.
"Get up quickly, just tell me what happened!" Dominic gave his subordinate a look, and the subordinate quickly pulled the person up.
Once the young man was helped up, he immediately said, "It was Ms. Rojas!"
Janet's face was already deathly pale, and now she was even more nervous.
Her hands began to shake. She didn't notice Francis take a small step back, distancing himself from her slightly.
Dominic asked, "What Ms. Rojas? Which Ms. Rojas? You're not making any sense. Explain clearly!"
The young man seemed very scared, but the other young men explained things clearly.
"He's talking about Janet, Marlon's only daughter. She gave us a sum of money to come to the party with her."
"Then she wanted us to sprinkle some powder on Tessa."
"We didn't know what that powder was, we just knew that if we did what she said, we'd get paid."
"Officer, we really don't know anything, and we know even less about what happened to Mark."
"Please don't arrest us, we're innocent!"
The scene erupted in uproar, with everyone's eyes falling on Janet.
"I can't believe it was her."
"She poisoned Mark and framed Tessa - what is she trying to do?"
"Her family is a competitor of the Young family, right? Did Marlon tell her to do this, aiming to bring Billy down so Marlon could take sole control?"
"How terrifying!"
Janet's face twisted.
"They're slandering me! I don't know them!"
The youngest among the young men suddenly found his courage and said, "It was you! When you approached us, I recorded it! The recording is on my phone!"