章節 16: CHAPTER 16
"Forget it. You're not fit to have it anyway." Damien pushed my arm aside and turned to leave.
I ignored him. He was just acting up as usual. I walked into my bedroom and started packing what I needed for going abroad.
There were only two months left. Time would pass by in a blink of an eye. I'd be free before I even knew it.
Back then, I'd been so gullible to believe everything would be over once I left the country in two months. Never had it occurred to me that Damien would be the reason I died.
As fate would have it, Damien was the one who saved my life, and he also turned out to be the reason it ended.
In the end, we were even.
The rumbling of thunder brought me back to the present. I gave myself a hard slap, but I felt no pain.
It was only then that I came to terms with the fact that I was already dead. I no longer had to live in pain and suffering anymore.
A police car came and took Dexter away, who was out cold. The ambulance had also taken Jack away.
"Mr. Coleman, do you have any news of your sister?" Zion had exited the police car to ask Damien.
Damien frowned. "She can't hide for much longer."
Zion kept quiet and bent down to pick a photo off the ground, which was the photo Zion had shown to Damien. It was an ID photo I had taken in preparation for my documents to study abroad.
Zion was stunned when he saw my photo. His brows were furrowed as though contemplating something. Perhaps he remembers me. He'd seen me before, after all.
"Was your sister sexually harassed at the Nocturnal two months ago?" As he was a police officer, Zion had an excellent memory for such matters.
Damien paused for a moment like he was recalling the incident. "Yes. Something of the sort happened."
Zion raised his head and looked at him. "The Coleman family is considered pretty prestigious in Huma. Your sister had no need to sell her body, did she?"
Damien seemed displeased by the question. "Officer Landon, Sophia isn't that kind of person."
A derisive laugh escaped me. Damien didn't say that to defend my reputation. He was simply doing it for the Coleman family's reputation.
"My apologies. I must have gotten the wrong idea."
Zion waved the photo before Damien, saying, "This photo is clearer than the other photos you provided before. I'll take this for now, and you'll be informed once we have any news about your sister."
Damien then got into his car and left.
Zion ordered his men, "Go look into the sexual assault case at the Nocturnal two months ago. See if it is somehow related to this case in any way."
"Officer Landon, are you suspecting that Sophia's been targeted way earlier?"
"Every victim of the assailant frequented the Nocturnal. They were all women who led extravagant yet messy private lives." Zion nodded.
I followed silently beside him. He couldn't hear what I said anyway. I could only pray that he would uncover the truth and make the murderer pay for his crimes.
"Officer Landon!" Outside the abandoned orphanage, one of his colleagues hopped out of a car and hurried to him.
"You got me to look into Sophia Milford and Damien Coleman's relationship, and I really found something! They aren't siblings related by blood."
"The Colemans adopted Sophia, so she isn't biologically related to Damien. In fact, they had a marriage arrangement between them!"
Zion frowned. He clearly never expected things to be so complicated between me and Damien.
"Damien's official girlfriend is Juliet Turner. He insisted on breaking off the marriage arrangement with Sophia to marry Juliet."
I had to admit that the police were really efficient in their investigation. They managed to find out so much in such a short time.
I had been standing beside Zion as I listened to the conversation. Yet, I wasn't very much affected by their discovery.
"Damien's buddies claimed that before Sophia disappeared, Juliet had been targeted by the murderer on her way home from the Nocturnal before. As Juliet was afraid that the murderer might take revenge on her, she did not dare make a police report.
"Instead, they got Sophia to pretend to be her and appear in the alley." The police officer's expression darkened in anger.
Even someone who didn't know me knew how ridiculous that sounded, but that was exactly what Damien had forced me into. He even promised to protect me.
I let out a mirthless laugh. Now that I was listening to others analyze my death as an onlooker, everything sounded that much more laughable.
Zion's face fell as he took a quick glance at the time. "Sophia Milford's disappearance has long exceeded 48 hours! Set up a special task force immediately and apply for a warrant!"
"I want Damien Coleman and his group of imbecile friends taken away immediately! Not a single one of them is to get out of this!"
My head whipped up at once as I stared at Zion in astonishment. Why did he want Damien to be taken away? Did he suspect him of being my murderer?
"It's not Damien! It's Dexter!" I shouted desperately at the police officers.
I wasn't trying to defend Damien, but I simply didn't want the murderer to walk away scot-free and continue his evil deeds.
章節 17: CHAPTER 17
Zion couldn't hear me. But I knew he wanted to solve the case to prevent more women from being harmed.
Perhaps it was due to his instinct as a police officer that led him to believe that I had run into danger. That would make him the only person who thought so.
"You police officers have so many cases to deal with and so many people to investigate each day. It must be exhausting for you, isn't it?" I muttered to myself in despair.
"Officer Landon, here is all the information I have on Sophia. As her phone was badly damaged, it's been sent to the Inspection Department for restoration and further examination. It'll take some time."
Zion had ordered his men to dig up everything they could find about me. Honestly speaking, I was pretty curious about what sort of a person I appeared to be in their investigation.
"All the information in her phone will also be exported after they've been restored."
Now, that was awkward. Wouldn't that mean the police would have access to all my search histories and the diary I kept on my phone?
Zion took the material handed to him and skimmed through it.
"Both parents died when she was 15, and she watched them die before her very eyes." The very attachment on the document was a photo of the scene of the car crash back then.
I reflexively closed my eyes, unwilling to relive the memory.
"The Colemans adopted Sophia. Logically speaking, they should have quite a great relationship. But from what we can see, Damien seems to treat her like an enemy," one of the police officers murmured.
Zion said nothing and focused on the information he had of me. They found out that I liked peaceful environments, enjoyed painting, and even found some of my paintings.
They also had information about how well I did in school, my photos in the school forum, all the awards I'd received, and my application to pursue my education abroad.
"Had nothing happened to her, she'd be on the plane to Montavia right about now," Damien said thoughtfully as he checked the time.
That caught me off guard for a while as my heart clenched in pain. He was right. Had I not died, I'd have escaped Huma by now.
"We got something. Dave Lawson went and had a little chat with one of the waiters working in the Nocturnal Club. He said that he remembered Sophia."
"Apparently, she's got quite a good figure, so she left an impression on him. He says that Damien and Sophia did the deed at the Nocturnal about two months back."
One of the officers ran over and told Zion what he found. I covered my ears numbly. But I still could not block out their discussion about my private matters.
"There were a lot of people in their private room that night. But Damien's friends all left at one point, leaving only the two of them in the room. We can't know for sure if Sophia consented to it."
"Bastard!" Zion cursed under his breath. "What a bunch of scumbags!"
I appreciated that he was inclined to trust me. Who would have thought that a stranger who only met me once would be willing to trust me?
I could sense Zion's rage. He seemed to empathize with me.
I followed him to the police station, where the police quickly retrieved the warrant. After all, the serial killing in Huma had brought a bad reputation to the city.
It didn't take too long for Damien and his friends to be summoned to the police station. Even Jack was brought over, his face all bruised up.
"Are you guys out of your mind? Can't you see that I'm the victim? Why are you interrogating me, not that madman?" Jack yelled.
"If he's a madman, he'd be able to walk away with killing you," Zion warned coldly. "You're suspected of sexual assault, so shut the hell up."
Jack was startled. "What? And who the hell did I sexually assault?"
"Sophia Milford!" Zion pulled Jack by the collar and dragged him into the interrogation room.
Zion had my diary in his hands. I have a habit of jotting things down in my diary. I was afraid that I'd forget all the pain these people inflicted on me, so I noted them all down.
"That bitch should take a good look at herself in the mirror. I was doing her a favor by laying my hands on her."
Jack wasn't the brightest crayon in the box. He was used to being arrogant, under the delusion that his family was so rich that they could cover up all his tracks.
But Zion wasn't accepting any of that. Without any hesitation, he noted on the interrogation record that the suspect had confessed to sexually assaulting the victim.
Standing behind Zion, I felt secretly overjoyed seeing what he recorded. Jack would be getting the punishment he deserved.
"On the night of the 13th, the few of you forced Sophia to lure the murderer out of hiding. Is that true?" Zion questioned frostily.
"We were just trying our luck," Jack replied nonchalantly as if everything was just a game.
What they didn't know was that this game of theirs had cost me my life. My eyes reddened in fury upon seeing his flippant attitude.
I rushed up to Jack and screamed at him at the top of my lungs. Like a lunatic, I was about to pick up a chair in the corner of the room to bash him up with.
But I wasn't able to carry anything at all. I could only watch helplessly at how haughty he was behaving.
"Do you know that your ignorance and foolishness could have gotten Sophia killed?" Zion's grip on the pen was tight, showing just how vexed he was.
"That's impossible. The murderer wasn't even interested in her!" Jack retorted offhandedly.
"On the 13th, 14th, and 15th, you sent Sophia to bait the murderer three days in a row. On the 15th, the night that she disappeared, why did you not file a police report right away? You delayed the police investigation!"
Zion slammed his hands on the table. He was so enraged that he had an urge to go over and beat Jack up.
But he was a police officer, so he suppressed the urge.
"No…" Jack seemed to notice something amiss.
"We sent her there on the 13th and 14th, but the murderer didn't take an interest in her, so we gave up. I didn't make her go there on the 15th, so don't blame that on me."
I smiled wryly. So they didn't know that Juliet had tricked me into going to Sunset Alley on the 15th.
Did Damien not know too?
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