Chapter 499 The Sudden Recall of a Memory
In the teacher’s office, Tina’s homeroom teacher had already made sense of the general situation, so she called the two students over. They nodded to the grim-looking Alexander, who was sitting on the sofa.
“These two were the students who were with Tina when they got off school yesterday, so they should be the last ones who saw her.” Pointing to the taller individual, the teacher said, “Tell us about what happened, Ristelle.”
Alexander’s gaze then landed on the girl named Ristelle.
“It was the announcement of the mock exam grades yesterday. Tina scored well, so we planned to celebrate after school. But after eating just a piece of cake at a dessert shop, Tina suddenly said something came up and left without explanation.”
“Something came up?”
As Alexander lowered his gaze, the other girl nodded, adding, “That’s right. I saw that Tina had an unnatural expression on her as we entered the dessert shop. Usually, we would play around, but she did not speak much yesterday. It was as if she had something on her mind. When she left, she did it in a hurry. She did not even bid us farewell properly.”
After they finished, the two girls nodded confidently.
Gazing at them somewhat coldly, Alexander asked, “Which dessert shop was it?”
After twenty minutes, Alexander’s car had arrived outside the shop, after which he subtly shifted his body to the car door. Observing the pedestrian outside silently, he had done a good job of hiding all his emotions behind his cold gaze.
“I got it. I told the boss that my sister had gotten lost. Add a five hundred on top, and she gave it all to me.”
About fifteen minutes later, the driver’s door was opened, with Eric hastily entering the car and giving the black thumb drive to the man behind him.
Plugging the thumb drive into the computer, Alexander did not want to waste any more time, his expression sinking as quickly as the video was fast-forwarded.
The footage showed that at 6:35 P.M. yesterday, Tina and her two friends had entered the shop, sitting by the left side. During that period, the waiter had served three desserts, to which Tina only had two bites of her cakes before leaving the shop with her bag at 7:08 P.M.
Frowning, he easily noticed that Tina had obviously stopped her footsteps the moment they entered the shop. For the remaining duration, she kept staring at something on her right-hand side, but the surveillance camera’s angle did not include what she was looking at.
Feeling in a bit of a pickle, Alexander slightly relaxed by leaning against the seat. While massaging the middle of his eyebrows, he was suddenly struck by a thought, and he immediately rewound the footage.
Just before Tina left, there were two people who passed through the footage in a flash, seeming like they had come from the right side of the shop to the entrance. Leaving first, they were soon followed by Tina.
Although Alexander’s instinct was telling him something, their silhouette was too blurry, so he couldn’t make their faces out. After thinking for a while, he sent a screenshot of them to Oliver.
‘Help me take a look at this. I want to know who they are.’
Oliver, who had received his message, was assigned to troubleshoot data just then, so he took advantage of the empty space while the computer was looping through the database to refine the given image before sending it back.
‘It’ll take some time to ascertain their identities, but you should be able to see their faces somewhat clearly now.’
Staring at the image Oliver sent back, Alexander had his handsome face slowly contorted. Some troublesome and complicated matters resurfaced until his fingers relaxed and some complexion returned to his face.
After getting himself to be calm again, the slight moisture in his hand reminded him of what he was recalling.
‘No need. I know who they are.’
Being almost suffocated by the atmosphere in the car, Eric, who turned back to look at Alexander’s expression, gulped upon finding out that Alexander’s face could not be any more solemn.
“One hour. Find all the footage after Tina had stepped out of the shop to the exact moment she went missing and deliver it to my office.”
“Yes, President.”
Hearing this, Eric had a bead of sweat forming on his forehead. After sending Alexander back to Sunhill, he started busying himself and ran himself ragged to Alexander’s desk after one hour.
“President, I’ve sent all the footage to your email. Do you have any further instructions?”
“Get the car.”
After checking the footage, Alexander still had a solemn face. Slamming his laptop shut, he had already walked out before Eric could even have the chance to catch his breath.
Following Alexander’s instructions, Eric had parked at a newly built villa area in the New East Block District. After ten minutes, the two of them were standing at the entrance of a duplex-style villa. In tow were tens of strong-looking men in black suits, who were all hired by Alexander to be his bodyguards.
Ringing the doorbell, Eric felt that the group of bodyguards was quite unnecessary.
“Who is it?”
After a short while, the entrance of the villa opened with a middle-aged woman in maid’s clothing peeking out. Seeing this amount of people alerted her, so she only opened the door enough for her to see who was outside.
“Hello, we’re here to look for…”
Speaking courteously, Eric suddenly stopped up to this point and turned to look at Alexander.
“President Duncan, who are we looking for?”
With a matching expression to those behind him, Alexander did not reply to him as he reached out and grabbed the edge of the door. Seeing Alexander pulling on it forcefully, the weak servant could only let the entrance to the villa be opened.
“I’m looking for Susan,” said Alexander coldly, with some hints of anger in his voice. Before he even finished, he had already entered the villa.
“M-Madam…”
As the servant hastily went upstairs, a woman soon came down, downing a light gray robe. Looking about fifty years old, she had around shoulder-length brown hair. Paired with her exquisite makeup and the obvious care she took on her body, she still looked quite youthful for her age.
“How dare you people trespass on private property? Do you think I would be afraid to call the police?”
Standing on the second floor, Susan was livid upon seeing the group of people in black downstairs. Just as she was about to call the police, she saw Alexander standing in front of the pack.
“A-Alexander.”
Keeping her phone away, Susan was somewhat shocked at his appearance.
Ever since the takeover of Sunrise Enterprise by Sunhill Enterprise five years ago, the two never really came into contact with each other anymore. Composing herself quickly, Susan then sauntered down the stairs while smiling.
“I still remember the promise with you. But, President Duncan, it would seem that you have forgotten about it, no?”
Looking coldly at the person approaching him, he did not think further as he tried his hardest to suppress his anger, saying in a low and hoarse voice, “Where’s Tina?”
