Chapter 140

Chapter 140

Isabella pulled the car over to the curb. "How long was he there?"

"He showed up on camera twice. First time at 2:17 PM—he checked his watch and went inside. Second time at 4:09 PM—he came out of the teahouse looking grim. The two hours in between, surveillance didn't cover the interior."

"It's possible no one came. He went to meet someone, and they stood him up."

Oscar fell silent for two seconds. "Then he sat there for nearly two hours waiting for someone who never showed."

Isabella's brow creased slightly. About ten days before Oliver died.

Who... was he waiting for?

If it was Selene, why hadn't she come?

Was something holding her up, or had she never planned to show in the first place?

If it wasn't Selene, then who?

"Pull his phone records for the twenty-four hours before he got to the teahouse," Isabella said. "See if there were any missed calls."

"There were. Two hours before he arrived at the teahouse, his phone shows an outgoing call. Duration—ten-plus seconds. No answer. The number was registered at the same carrier location as Selene's, same month, but it's not the same number."

Isabella leaned back against the seat, staring through the windshield for a moment. "Add that number to the tracking list."

When they got back to the safe house, Finnian was standing in front of the whiteboard, sketching diagrams.

Oscar turned. "That business card of Selene's in Oliver's wallet—three months ago, three overseas calls. Each one short. Traced the overseas number back. Signal pinged near Maple Hill Township, but we can't nail down the exact location. It's routing through base station relays."

Isabella stood before the whiteboard. "So he kept trying to reach someone at Maple Hill Township, but they only sent him signals one-way. Wouldn't take his calls."

Zachary tossed his empty lollipop stick into the trash. "So Oliver was spooked before he died. He knew someone was watching him, but he didn't know when they'd make their move."

Isabella lowered her eyes. She was certain Oliver had known something.

But... the leads she had were missing critical pieces of the timeline.

What exactly had Oliver learned? What made him think someone had lied to him?

The person who lied to him—was it... his wife?

Isabella pulled up the photo fragments of Oliver's letter on her phone, staring at the word "liar" for a long moment.

That night, heavy rain fell.

The sound of it drowned out everything outside the safe house.

Isabella spread the satellite map of Maple Hill Township across her bed, a notebook and pen beside it.

Octavia knocked and came in, hanging her jacket on the hook behind the door before walking over to the bed. She glanced at the map. "The perimeter surveillance at the nursing home rotates on a schedule. Every seven minutes. Thirty-five-second gap in between."

"The west side of the perimeter wall—streetlights are too far apart. There's a complete blind spot in the middle. Climb the wall there and you can loop straight around to the equipment-level entrance behind the main building."

Isabella looked up at her. "Your hand isn't healed yet."

"It doesn't hurt as much today. Besides, I'm not climbing any walls. I'm just telling you the route's viable."

Isabella was quiet for a moment, then capped her pen. "Wait till I get back out."

"Isabella," Octavia said. "After all these years, you're still running point, and I'm still covering you from behind."

Isabella spoke to her retreating back. "Force of habit."

The next morning, the rain had stopped.

When Isabella came downstairs, she saw Victoria standing in the center of the living room, wearing an oversized gray hoodie, her eyes vacant.

Octavia stood a few steps away, holding a glass of warm water. She'd clearly called Victoria's name several times with no response.

Isabella walked over. "What's wrong?"

Victoria's gaze slowly focused on her face. Her lips moved. "Who are you?"

The living room went quiet for a beat.

"I'm Isabella," Isabella said evenly. "Do you still recognize me?"

Victoria stared at her for a long time, her brow furrowing slowly, as if searching through scattered fragments.

Then she suddenly reached out and grabbed Isabella's wrist. Her grip wasn't strong, but it trembled violently. "Water... glass... mirror..."

Octavia took a step forward. Victoria let go and backed up two steps, her back hitting the arm of the sofa.

She blinked a few times, her gaze refocusing. She looked down at her bare feet, then back up. "What just happened to me?"

"You don't remember?"

Victoria shook her head. Her face went a shade paler. "I remember coming downstairs for water, and then... I don't remember anything after that."

A sharp, drilling pain suddenly shot through her temple. Her face went white. She pressed a hand to her forehead. "It hurts..."

"Try to stay calm." Isabella helped her sit on the sofa and handed her the glass of warm water.

Watching her current state, Isabella felt her heart sink slightly.

The force Victoria had just used to grab her wrist—only about thirty percent of a normal adult's grip strength.

Which meant the concentration of neuronal binding protein in her system might be higher than the test results showed.

Or her central nervous system had already developed tolerance-induced damage.

If that was the case, this wasn't just "memory blackouts."

It was a sign her nervous system was being continuously eroded.

Victoria looked down at the rippling water in the glass, her brow furrowed in confusion. "I think I said 'water' just now, but I don't know where that is."

Isabella crouched down to meet her eyes. "When you were being held, did you ever see a room with a glass ceiling?"

Victoria closed her eyes. After a long moment, she opened them and shook her head. "I don't remember. There are so many things I don't remember anymore."

Isabella's eyes narrowed slightly. When Victoria said that, her tone was strangely calm—less confused than before.

As if she'd already accepted the fact that she "didn't remember."

For a person to go from resisting to accepting that their memories had been stolen... the experiences in between wouldn't be few.

This probably wasn't Victoria's first time.

During her time at the Kitayama Biotech Institute, the pressure she'd endured—and the experiments they'd run on her—were likely far worse than Isabella had imagined.

"Octavia, bring out the portable EEG monitor."

Octavia's eyes widened. She immediately realized what Isabella intended to do. "Got it. I'll get it now. Finnian, come help."

They quickly set everything up.

Finnian handled calibrating the baseline parameters while Isabella personally placed the sensor pads on Victoria's scalp.

Victoria sat with her hands on her knees, her whole body like a drawn bowstring—ready to snap at any moment.

Finnian quietly called out a set of initial readings from behind. The waveforms on the screen began to jump.

Isabella stared at the line. The baseline frequency was about one cycle slower than normal. The amplitude of temporal lobe discharges was too small. Occasional abnormal spikes appeared in the parietal lobe...

She pulled out Lavinia's early EEG report for comparison.

The two waveforms nearly overlapped in the parietal lobe spike frequency—except Victoria's amplitude was lower.