“Alright, I know. Stop whining. You’re giving me a headache. Did you get through to Joan yet?”
Vivian was so anxious that she was on the brink of tears. “Not yet. Just before this, no one answered. But now, her phone has been switched off!”
Finnick’s eyebrows knitted intensely before he suddenly had an idea. “Caspian! Quick, call him!”
Nancy patted Caspian on his shoulder. “Don’t worry. As long as they love each other, I’m sure their relationship will survive whatever obstacles they may face.”
Suddenly, their quiet moment together was shattered by a ringing tone. Caspian took out his phone, and both of them exchanged glances before he answered, “Hello, Mr. Norton?”
“Caspian, are you together with Larry now? Do you know where both of them have taken the child?”
The moment he heard Finnick, Caspian’s heart sank. “I’m not with him. What happened?”
Vivian snatched the phone over. “For some reason, Joan has taken Leslie somewhere. Did she have a fight with Larry? Why would she take the child and not bring him back? Can it be that something has happened to them?”
When Caspian suddenly thought of the perpetrators from before that had threatened Joan, he was reminded of the innumerable rivals Larry had. Many of them would stop at nothing to break them up. However, he didn’t dare voice out his fears while Nancy gulped anxiously by his side.
“Don’t fret. I will do everything in my power to bring the child back safely.”
Caspian was a man of his word. He contacted the local police station and enlisted every available man they had to check the residential area’s security feeds. In the end, they did see Joan carrying the child out of the area.
Tracking the direction Joan had traveled, he checked all the surveillance cameras along the way and pinpointed the location of where she was staying at.
Just when he prepared to head out together with Nancy to persuade Joan to return home, he suddenly received a call from Larry.
Larry told him that Joan was back and wanted him to stop tracking her. Consequently, Caspian and Nancy were both puzzled by the instructions.
If he is asking us to stop our investigations, does it mean that both of them have made up? If they have both cleared the air, why didn’t Joan return with Leslie?
During the time when she was alone, Joan thought a lot about her situation.
She wondered if her relationship with Larry had hit the point of no return. But then, she recalled that they had survived many trials and tribulations together.
She had assumed that their life would only get better. But, Larry’s actions had repeatedly hurt her. And now, a single word from Caspian was enough to overturn the relationship that they shared.
She was cognizant that Caspian and he were friends who were willing to die defending each other. Putting that aside, she wondered how the trust between herself and Larry became so fragile.
Sitting by the window in her room, she gazed out the window listlessly and didn’t even realize that Larry had returned. The night view of Marsingfill was filled with lights as usual, but it wasn’t enough to illuminate their large house.
The quiet atmosphere caused Larry to assume Joan wasn’t at home, causing him to be outraged. When he was about to give her a call, he noticed her spacing out in the room.
When he saw her pale face and slender figure, his heart began to waver.
Over the last few days, he kept thinking about her late at night and wondered if he had really misunderstood her. It was obvious to him how depressed and exhausted she looked. Her gloomy expression had overwhelmed the zest she used to have.
Recently bogged down by work, he figured that he should have kept his temper in check. He realized he shouldn’t have been swayed by rumors and make judgments based on them. Thinking back, he recalled a time when he quietly swore to treat her like a queen. But ever since she had Leslie, he hardly spent any quality time with both of them.
