Filed To Story: Returning to Her Not-So-Poor Family
Another customer arrived at the breakfast stand, casually asking, “Has Professor Earwood returned yet?”
“Nope, it’s been a couple of months. I wonder if they’ve found Carol. What a terrible situation, to raise a child only for her to leave with her birth parents. It’s practically killing Mr. and Mrs. Earwood.”
“I’ve always thought Carol wasn’t heartless. Do you think she might have been scammed abroad?”
Another villager speculated.
“Impossible, she must have found her birth parents. Think about it, Carol’s been fluent in different foreign languages since she was little. She must be living well abroad, and I bet they’re just not letting her contact anyone here.”
“Carol has always been quiet, but I always thought she had potential.””Indeed, she had an air about her, unlike anyone from our small village.”
“Poor Professor Earwood spent most of his life in this town. Now he’s off abroad looking for his daughter.”
The crowd began to discuss amongst themselves.
Mirabella found a spot to sit, sipping her hot milk in silence.
“Do you think it could be related to those people who visited our village a while back?”
Mirabella lifted her gaze to the woman who spoke.
“Who knows, Professor Earwood says we shouldn’t blow this out of proportion. Best not to bring it up again.”
“True, if Carol really found her birth parents and has no plans of returning, bringing it up would just be rubbing salt in Professor Earwood’s wounds. Better to drop it.”
Mirabella continued sipping her hot milk. When she noticed the woman who’d spoken earlier leaving after buying her breakfast, she got up and followed her.
The woman was walking home with her breakfast when she heard someone Calling her.
“Excuse me, could you tell me more about those people you mentioned earlier?” Mirabella explained sincerely. “Carol is my senior at school, and she’s been very helpful to me in the past. I borrowed some books from her, but I can’t get in touch with her.
I’m worried something might have happened.”
Seeing the genuine concern in Mirabella’s eyes, the woman didn’t think she was a wrong person and decided to share. “That happened a few months ago. One night, a group of people burst into ProfessorEarwood’s house around two or three in the morning. My roof was leaking that night, and the rain was dripping onto my bed. My husband saw them when he went to fix the roof.”
“What kind of people were they?”
“It was in the dead of night so that I couldn’t see clearly, but there seemed to be about seven or eight people in the yard. After that night, Professor Earwood didn’t open his door for four or five days.
When I finally saw him, I asked him what was going on, and he said he was visited by relatives. Who has that many relatives visiting in the middle of the night? In the rain, they were all wandering around the yard. It was strange.”
Mirabella continued her inquiry, “Could it be that Professor Earwood made some enemies?”
“Unlikely. He and his wife are kind people, and they never leave this small town. They get along well with everyone. I think it might have something to do with Carol. Shortly after this incident, they both resigned and went to find Carol.”
A hint of sadness filled Mirabella’s eyes, “I wonder when I will see Carol again.”
“Well, it’s hard to say. If they had any news, Professor Earwood would have brought her back by now.
But there has been no word from them. I wonder how the search abroad is going.”
“Thank you, ma’am,’ Mirabella expressed her gratitude. “It seems I will have to wait until next time to return the book to Carol.”
“You’re a good kid, coming all this way to return a book.” The woman glanced at Mirabella’s backpack, no doubt filled with Carol’s books.
After exchanging a few polite words with the woman, Mirabella slipped around to the back of house number 111. Seeing no one around, she hopped over the wall and entered the yard.The yard was full of fallen leaves and wilted plants, indicating that no one had lived there for a while.
Mirabella pulled out a Luminol spray from her backpack and sprayed it on the ground. After a while, some areas began to glow.
Luminol could detect traces of blood diluted up to 12,000 times.
Even if it was cleaned up thoroughly, as long as there was Luminol, the blood traces could be detected.
The scattered traces of blood were few, indicating that either the injured person wasn’t seriously hurt or this wasn’t the primary crime scene.
The yard was surrounded by side rooms. All the doors were locked, but upon closer inspection, Mirabella noticed that the locks had been tampered with. She took a fingerprint flashlight from her bag and shone it on the lock. There were no fingerprints.
Logically, if Professor Earwood had locked the door before leaving, there would be fingerprints.
But the lock was clean, which meant two possibilities.
Either someone had been here after Mr. and Mrs. Earwood locked the door and left.
Or, the person who locked the door wasn’t Mr. and Mrs. Earwood, but someone else who was cautious enough not to leave their identity behind.
Mirabella donned a mask, a baseball cap, and gloves and pushed the door open. The living room was neat and tidy, with a layer of dust indicating a lack of recent habitation.
Mirabella then took out a pair of glasses she had developed a while ago. After putting them on, she quickly spotted a small red dot on a wall socket.The red dot was the light emitted by a camera, indicating that someone had installed a surveillance camera there.
She quickly moved, observing other areas, and eventually found a total of six cameras in the living room. Clearly, this was not the work of Mr. and Mrs. Earwood.
The cameras were all hidden in discreet locations, like multiple pairs of eyes spying on everything in the house.
Mirabella quickly dismounted the cameras. Her phone vibrated at that moment. It was a call from Romeo.
“What’s up?” Mirabella hung up the call and texted him.
Romeo’s voice conveyed a longing hint, “I’m at Reflections Villa.
Edith said you left early. Where did you go?”
“Handling some stuff’ Mirabella replied, “I’ll tell you later.”
“Okay, let me know when you’re free. I’ll come find you.”
“Sure.”
Mirabella put away her phone and took out a detector, discovering several bugging devices installed in the room.
These spying devices, all of the latest models released just a few months ago, hinted that Carol’s disappearance was far from simple.
Mirabella searched the living room for a while before pulling out a bottle of Luminol spray. Now, the living room floor was spotted with numerous blood residues.
This must have been the initial crime scene.
The question remained. Whose blood was it?
Mirabella then ascended the staircase, making her way to Carol’s room.
Just like the living room, it was neat and tidy, with a warm, inviting aura. Mirabella sprayed the Luminol, but no blood residues were found. The room was too clean, and it was as if all the valuable clues had been wiped away.
After a thorough search in the room, Mirabella found an old bottle labeled ‘Vitamin C’, which was now empty.
She brought the bottle to her nose for a sniff and realized it didn’t smell like Vitamin C at all. There was a powdery residue at the bottom, and upon closer inspection, it seemed to contain traces of Aetherbloom.
Aetherbloom was a potent poison with a distinct smell, but she couldn’t identify the other ingredients.
So, she carefully collected the powder in a small transparent bag from her purse, intending to take it back for testing.The night before, Clark had mentioned that he and Carol had been dating for a year. Yet, in Carol’s room, there was no sign of Clark’s existence.
It was as if Clark had never been a part of her world.
After another round of fruitless searching, Mirabella decided to leave the house for a while. She climbed over the wall, grabbed some food, and sent her subordinates to Lidaria to track down leads. By nightfall, she was back, climbing over the wall once more.
She had dismantled all the cameras and spy devices in the house during the day and was sure that someone would come to check on them. The only question was, who would it be?
Just then, her phone buzzed. It was a call from Clark.
After dismissing the call, she texted him, [What’s up, Clark?]
[Edith said you left early this morning, and I called Romeo, and he hasn’t seen you all day either.
Where are you?]
[I’m working on something, and I’ll be back soon.]
[Are you investigating Carol’s disappearance? Any new findings?]
Clark quickly caught on.
Instead of answering, Mirabella asked, [Clark, have you ever been to Stardust Lane?]
[Of course. More than once.] Clark responded earnestly.
He had attempted to find Carol there before, but perhaps because he was a stranger, people weren’t very forthcoming with information.[I even went to Carol’s house a few times. Her parents always claimed they didn’t know where she was.]
Clark didn’t buy it, [Maybe Carol found someone else, and her parents didn’t want me pestering her, so they lied to me.]
He had tried a few times, but they insisted they had no contact with Carol.
[Didn’t they mention anything else?]
[No. What have you found?] At Mirabella’s question, Clark wondered.
New Book: Returned To Make Them Pay
On her wedding anniversary, Alicia is drugged and stumbles into the wrong room—straight into the arms of the powerful Caden Ward, a man rumored never to touch women. Their night of passion shocks even him, especially when he discovers she’s still a virgin after two years of marriage to Joshua Yates.