Chapter 18
Sard was in a ruch, but getting the visa and flight ticket ready took time Three days passed before he finally landed in Verusa. With the help of the einbay and the local police, he managed to locate where Emily was supposed to be living
Knocking on the door, he screamed Emily’s name before attempting to barge in. Lisa Ford, the landlady who was doing some housekeeping, eyed him warily and asked, “Who are you?”
“In looking for Emmy,” he said before explaining himself more properly. “She’s my wife. There’s been some kind of misunderstanding between us, so I’m here to clarify things with her.”
Lisa waved him off, saying, “The person you’re looking for isn’t here.”
“Her full name is Emily Anderson ”
“Well, my renter’s name is Aria Skye. She’s not the person you’re looking for. You’ve got the wrong place,” Lisa said.
Aria Skye?
Samuel was at a loss.
“Are you sure you got the name right?” Samuel queried.
“It you don’t believe me, so be it,” Lisa said in displeasure before moving to close the door.
Not wanting to give up on this lead, Samuel took out some cash and asked, “Look. Take this. Consider it a cleaning fee that I’m paying on her behalf. Can you tell me when your renter started renting with you? Has she been in touch with anyone recently?”
Lisa accepted the money, but she had no answers for Samuel. He walked away with nothing. He’d gone through several similar emotional rollercoasters lately, and his voice was now dripping with despair.
Feeling despondent, he stayed on Verusa for a while. Once he was certain that Emily seemed to have vanished into thin air without leaving any trace of her behind, he finally flew back dispiritedly.
From that day onward, he no longer went to the office. Instead, he locked himself up inside the house.
When Luke called to give Samuel an update on work, he ignored all that and interrupted to ask, “Is there any news about Emily?”
“N–No, Mr. Porter. We’ve published the missing person notice, but there hasn’t been any news yet.”
This had been carried out per Samuel’s instructions. It was the only thing keeping him going. After learning that there were still no leads, he didn’t get angry or give any further instructions. He simply replied in a strangely calm manner, “Alright. I got it.”
He dropped the call.
Luke was so terrified that he broke out in a cold sweat. He quickly sensed that there was something strange about Samuel’s reaction. Over the next few days, he called at the same time to give Samuel a daily update on company matters. As time went on, Samuel’s responses grew more curt.
Initially, he would still respond with short yet complete sentences, but later on, he simply hummed in acknowledgment.
Alarm bells were ringing in Luke’s head. Worried that Samuel might have a breakdown over the situation and shut himself in the house until he died, Luke quickly got in touch with Samuel’s parents, Fred Porter and Nora Brown. He beseeched them to check on Samuel.
After hearing what was happening with Samuel, Fred and Nore rushed right over.
The household staff was still carrying out their duties as arranged before Emily’s departure. The house looked fine, and everything was still running smoothly, but Samuel was nowhere to be seen.
Beside herself with worry, Nora asked one of the maids, “Where’s Samuel? Why isn’t he coming out?”
In the past, whenever Samuel knew they were coming over, he would always come out to greet them personally. However, it didn’t seem like he bothered showing himself today. He didn’t even answer the calls they made before coming over.
The maid pointed upstairs before saying with a grim expression, “Mr. Porter spends all of his time inside the bedroom and forbids us from disturbing
him.”
Nora became even more worried. “Has he not come out of the room at all?”
“No, he hasn’t.”
“What about his meals? Do you not bring his meals to him?”
“He refuses to eat or drink anything. There’s nothing we can do. Anyone who knocks on his door ends up getting berated…”
Fred and Nora exchanged looks. They finally realized just how severe the situation was.
While Samuel had been shutting himself off from the outside world, he didn’t lock the bedroom door. His parents knocked on it for what felt like ages. Since they didn’t get a response, they decided to head right in.
After opening the door, they were shocked to see what things were like inside.
The bedroom floor was covered in scattered paper. There was barely any room to move about. Samuel was seated on the floor and scribbling away on a piece of paper.
Although the sunlight had filled the room, it felt like Samuel was surrounded by a gloomy, melancholic air.
Fred bent down and picked up a few pieces of paper, only to find that they were filled with repeated scribblings of the exact same sentence I was wrong, Emily
Nora’s hair stood on end. She walked over to Samuel and checked on him. Although his eyes were bloodshot and his hand was shaking as he clutched the pen, he continued to copy the sentence over and over again.
Tearing up, Nora asked, “What are you doing?”
Fred grabbed the pen and paper away from Samuel, questioning, “What’s the use of writing these? We heard about what happened. How could you do such a thing?”
All along, be assumed Samuel and Emily had a blissful marriage. Never would it have occurred to him and Nora that the couple’s relationship had deteriorated that much.
Samuel looked up at Fred, who was eyeing him in frustration. Cupping his face, he said, “It’s all my fault. I made a mistake. I gave in to temptation and betrayed her. I’ll fill all these sheets of paper with my apology to her. Then, I’ll show her how much I regret everything I’ve done,”
