Chapter 174
Cleo waved her hand dismissively. “Don’t even get me started…”
Cleo grimaced, but when she looked up and saw the manager hovering anxiously at the doorway, the rest of her words died in her throat.
Following her gaze, Maxine glanced at Bryant, who was drenched in cold sweat. The captain, finally remembering the man they’d left behind, said with a sardonic smile, “Alright, go get your boss. He needs to come with us to the station to give a statement.”
At the police station, Maxine had ordered takeout for Cleo in advance. After eating her fill in the interview room, Cleo wiped her mouth in satisfaction and began recounting her experiences from the past few days to the officer taking her statement.
While following up on leads for a social news story at the bar, Cleo accidentally spotted several young men huddled together in a corner booth, engaged in suspicious activities.
Years of chasing stories had sharpened Cleo’s instincts. She reflexively snapped a few photos with her phone. But just as she was about to leave the bar, someone suddenly grabbed her from behind, clamped a hand over her mouth, and dragged her into the nearby alley.
Thankfully, they didn’t harm her. After searching her phone, they locked her in a room with two henchmen guarding her, then vanished without a trace.
Hearing her account, the officer’s expression darkened. “Are you sure you saw it right?” he asked.
Cleo nodded firmly. “Yeah, even though the lighting was dim, I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t have risked kidnapping me if they weren’t hiding something.”
“To this day, my phone still hasn’t been recovered,” Cleo added.
After completing the police statement, Maxine led the shaken Cleo out of the station. Too concerned for her safety to take her home, they checked into a nearby hotel instead.
Cleo stepped out of the bathroom, towel–drying her hair and dressed in the new clothes Maxine had bought for her. She looked at Maxine and asked, “How come we’re not going back to my place?”
Maxine said, “Your place is being watched. Someone even broke in the other day.”
Cleo gasped in alarm. “Did you run into them?”
Maxine nodded. “I got away. Urban’s bodyguards showed up, but they didn’t catch those two.
“Although we filed a police report, no leads were found. If they could evade the bodyguards and sneak in, the cameras woul not have captured anything
useful.”
Cleo rushed to the pile of clothes she’d changed out of, frantically searching through them before exploding, “Those bastards took my keys! And they even tracked down where I live. What the hell? Is privacy just a joke now? How could they find me so easily?”
Maxine shrugged. “If someone has even a little bit of skill, isn’t it pretty normal for them to find out where you live?”
Going home was impossible now, not until they tracked down the people behind this.
Cleo sat on the couch, fixing Maxine with a serious look. “But Maxine, there’s something else I found out.”
She reached into her jacket pocket and pulled out a pen. With a flick of her thumb, a hidden interface popped out. She looked at Maxine and said, “I think I might have found something… about your dad.”
Maxine’s face darkened sharply. “What did you say?”
Cleo set the pen down on the table and looked at Maxine. “Those kids doing drugs? That was just a smokescreen. Honestly, I think the real reason I got kidnapped was because I was digging into your father’s case.”
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09:05 Mon 23 Jun ~GI
Chapter 174
Cleo scoured news reports from the year of Maxine’s family tragedy, tracked down key witnesses, and eventually her search led her to lacy of
