“Let’s talk about how we are going resolve this,” Ashton said sharply. He then threw his documents on the table.
The table fell silent at once, and all eyes were on me.
I was unnerved but spoke slowly and confidently, “The project still has to continue no matter what. As for the theft, we will conduct an internal investigation. It is too big of a coincidence for both the surveillance and equipment to malfunction at the same time.”
Joseph frowned. “We’ve investigated everybody at the base. They’re all clean.”
“Isn’t that the biggest suspicion?” I protested. “How is it possible for everybody to claim an alibi at the same time?”
“I will communicate your concerns to the police,” Joseph said after a pause.
“So we’re back to where we started. There’s no way to proceed with our investigation.” Rachel laughed derisively. “We are always-”
A knock on the door of the conference room interrupted Rachel.
Joseph got up and opened the door. Leedon was on the other side.
“Ms. Stovall,” he said in a panic. “The lady with you earlier is a friend of yours, is she not? Something’s happened to her. Could you come and have a look?”
Nora?
I rose hurriedly. “Mr. Fuller, Mr. Murphy, please excuse me.”
Armond got to his feet as well. After a mumbled explanation to the rest of them, he came out of the room with me.
“What happened?” I asked Leedon, who looked like he was in despair.
“The land adjacent is undergoing some renovation, and the lady fell into one of the holes dug into the ground when she was on her way to pick some fruits,” Leedon explained as we hastily made our way out.
“The foundations that they’d dug aren’t that deep,” I asked with confusion. “Why couldn’t you just bring her up?”
Leedon shook his head. “It’s a little more serious than that. There is no parking lot over here; it would have been a waste to use a plot of land as parking spots. We’ve decided to have an underground parking compound instead.”
I shivered. In that case, the foundation dug must be quite deep to accommodate the dimensions of a parking compound.
“Have you brought her up?” I couldn’t help feeling anxious.
“I’m not sure. When I first came, Ms. Oberick appeared unconscious. She might have been rescued, but she could be injured.”
The route around the outside of the base was difficult to traverse on foot. I jogged along with Leedon leading the way to the site where Nora fell.
A crowd gathered around the spot. With some trepidation in my heart, I joined them.
The paramedics were already there and were preparing their equipment to treat Nora, who was being lifted out at that moment.
She was indeed unconscious. “What happened to her? Where is she hurt?” I demanded.
“It might be her brain, but we can’t be sure without tests from the hospital,” one of the paramedics replied.
A stretcher was brought over, and Nora was placed on it. They carried her swiftly to the ambulance.
Leedon dispersed the crowd as I glanced down to where Nora fell. It wasn’t very deep.
At the bottom were several pears that were squashed. Those would be the pears that Nora had plucked.
But the question is – what was she doing all the way over here by herself? An ordinary woman would cringe at the amount of mud around the site and would rather die than soil their footwear. Why did she come all the way over here for?
Armond followed the party carrying Nora away. Soon after that, Ashton and the rest came toward me.
“What’re you looking at?” Ashton asked me as I stood next to the base.
“Why do you think she ran all the way over here for?”
“You need to be asking her that,” Ashton answered, just as confused as I was.
I shrugged without any further questions. We got into the car and followed the ambulance to the hospital.
With the chain of accidents that had occurred, coupled with Nora’s identity, the project was called to a halt.
Back at A City, the doctors who had examined Nora had revealed that she had hit her head pretty hard during the fall and would be remaining comatose for the foreseeable future.
Armond visited her, while the project in Lavelian Village was halted. The only thing left for me to do was to return to the villa for some rest.
Back at the villa, I attempted to key in the same passcode as I always have but was denied access.
Nonplussed, I gave Armond a call. “Did you change the passcode to the villa?”
He paused for a moment before answering. “Yes, Ashton does not wish for you to continue living with me. Your things have been relocated to the other villa.”
I hung up and sighed deeply.
It was futile to hide from it. I trudged next door, entered the passcode, which was my birthday, and the door swung open.
There was a car already in the yard; it seemed as though Ashton had arrived before me. The door to the living room was wide open.
Joseph was occupied with watering the plants in the yard. “Mrs. Fuller, you’re back!” he greeted.
I nodded, feeling somewhat uncomfortable.
“Is Ashton not back yet?” I asked after a pause. I cast a gaze around the perimeter of the living room just to be sure.
“Mr. Fuller is in the study upstairs,” Joseph replied. “He is probably going over some documents. Why don’t you go upstairs and have a look?”
Upstairs in the study, Ashton was hard at work. His black-rimmed spectacles rested on the bridge of his aquiline nose as he peered at the documents intently.
