Despite this, however, she still could not help feeling worried about Anne’s disappearance.
Five minutes later, Brettley’s call came at the exact moment Jude returned to their seats. “I found something!”
“What is it?”
Bethan furrowed her brow, asking fervently as she placed Brettley’s call on speaker mode.
“Anne was indeed kidnapped.”
Jude let out a sigh and continued, “From the surveillance tapes, a woman in black kidnapped her and smuggled her out from the back door.”
Then, he took out a piece of paper from his pocket and handed it to Bethan. “The employees found this at the back door.”
Bethan froze, then took the slip of paper from him.
A row of neat handwriting read, [Don’t worry, Ms. Bethan, we won’t hurt your friend, but there’s no guarantee what we’ll do if you don’t attend the wedding tonight.]
Bethan gasped at this.
What was this person trying to do? Did they kidnap Anne just to threaten her to attend Adrian and Jacqueline’s wedding?
“I found something from the surveillance tapes too,”
Brettley said, frowning, when he heard Bethan’s silence. “I’ve sent the video to you. According to the tapes, that woman who kidnapped Anne from the back door circled to the restaurant entrance to pick up Jacqueline before leaving.
Brettley’s voice was solemn as he continued, “Therefore, we can be sure that Jacqueline was the one who kidnapped Anne. Perhaps her appearance at the restaurant at the same time as you was not a coincidence at all, but planned. Perhaps unbeknown to you, she had been following you since the start.
Brettley propped his chin in his hand as he stared at the surveillance tape. “This woman is far more sneaky than we initially thought.”
Neither Bethan nor Brettley would ever think Jacqueline would be following them.
Bethan had just left the house for a few hours, and Jacqueline could not possibly have stumbled upon them by accident. The most logical explanation for this was that Jacqueline had known about their return and had followed them since they landed at Banyan City Airport.
At the thought of this, Brettley narrowed his eyes. “Things are beginning to get interesting.”
Bethan frowned as she glanced at the video Brettley had sent her.
In the video, Anne was already unconscious as she was lugged onto a van by a woman dressed in black. Not only that, but before she got into the car, the woman even glanced in the direction of the surveillance camera, as though she already knew they would be watching her.
Bethan bit her lip.
She hated the feeling of being tricked.
“Let me see:”
Vanessa glanced at Bethan’s phone, frowning, and immediately recognized the woman in black. “Is that Willow Shore?”
Bethan froze, then turned to stare at Vanessa in disbelief. “You know her?”
“I do.”
Vanessa frowned. “She used to be my classmate, but she was expelled due to her tendency to get into physical fights. I heard that she eventually wound up working for her brother’s loan shark company.”
With that, she took out her phone. “If I remember correctly, I still have her phone number. Do you want me to try contacting her?”
Bethan bit her lip and glanced again at the woman in the video. “Did you say…her name is Willow Shore?”
Vanessa nodded. “Yes, that’s right.”
“And she has a brother who owns a loan shark company?”
Bethan paused. “Is her brother the man who met Jacqueline just now called James Shore?”
“I’m not too sure about this.”
Vanessa furrowed her brow. “All I know is that her brother owns a loan shark company, and she’s been working for him ever since she left school. I’m not too close with her, but she knows my family owns a business. Therefore, she once secretly asked me if I wanted to do business with her, for the sake of being old friends, and that she could help me get back all the money that other people owed me.”
Vanessa scratched her head rather sheepishly as she continued, “Even though I had loaned plenty of money to other people, I didn’t ask Willow for help because I thought it wasn’t necessary to ask everyone for my money back, considering some of them were struggling.”
Finally, she turned to stare at Bethan. “However, since your friend was kidnapped by Willow, I can use this as an excuse to meet with her, and perhaps I might be able to find something out.”
Bethan furrowed her brow at this. “But…will you get into trouble if she finds out that this is the reason you’re meeting with her?”
She was not close with Vanessa at all, and Jude had already explicitly stated that he would never date Vanessa. Therefore, Bethan did not want to trouble someone whom she had just met. “What can she do to me?”
Vanessa smiled. “Even if she does, I can always assign a few more bodyguards to keep me safe, and she’ll eventually give up.”
With that, she let out an exhale and said, “Let me give her a call.”
“Wait,”
Brettley’s voice rang out before Vanessa could even finish. “Don’t contact her first. Bethan, I’ll call John right now and ask him to lodge a police report. Once we get the police involved, they’ll be able to use signal-tracking devices to track down Willow and Anne.
“According to Miss Chance, I’m guessing Willow is just one of the lackeys involved in Anne’s kidnapping and not the mastermind at all. Thus, she won’t reveal too much information about this. All we have to do is find out her exact location.”
Bethan was silent for a moment, then finally replied, “Are… Are you going to contact John? Do you need me to do it?”
“No need.”
Brettley smiled. “Don’t worry, I know what to do. Besides, John isn’t a child anymore, and he’ll be able to take this.”
With that, he hung up the phone.
Bethan pointed at the seat Jude had previously sat in and said, “Come on, sit and we’ll wait together.”
Jude glanced first at Bethan, frowning, then at Vanessa. He remained standing as he replied, “I need to go out for a quick smoke.”
With that, he strode out of the cafe and lit a cigarette.
Jude had not gone too far, and Bethan could still see him clearly from the window.
She stared at Jude’s sharp, angular features and could not help lamenting how handsome Jude was.
Even though Brettley was still the most attractive man in her eyes, there was no denying that Jude was just as charming and could easily win any girl’s heart.
At the thought of this, Bethan turned around.
Behind her, Vanessa was also engrossed in watching Jude, and Bethan could even make out a glimmer of awe in her eyes.
When she sensed Bethan’s stare, Vanessa quickly tore her gaze away and let out an awkward cough. Then, she picked up her cup and took a sip from it.
However, she was so frantic in doing this that she accidentally choked on her coffee and proceeded to cough uncontrollably.
Bethan handed her a napkin. “You…seem to really like Jude, don’t you?”
Bethan only realized something was wrong after the words came out of her mouth.
She had just met Vanessa that day and had only exchanged a few words of introduction.
Therefore, asking Vanessa about her relationship status was no doubt rather abrupt and even downright rude.
Just as she was about to apologize, however, Vanessa smiled. “Of course I do.”
She glanced in Jude’s direction, holding her cup, and curled her lips into a smile. “If I didn’t, why would I be so desperate to marry him?”
Bethan paused and suddenly recalled what Jude had previously said to her.
He had told her that Vanessa had used plenty of deceiving tricks to get him to marry her, including chasing the woman he loved out of town, poisoning him, and even sleeping with him during his intoxicated state.
Bethan furrowed her brow at this thought. “You…”
“Are you going to ask me if I tried to trick him into marrying me?”
Vanessa smiled when she saw the uneasy look on Bethan’s face and volunteered the information herself. “Do you even believe me if I say I didn’t?”
Bethan paused, then glanced at the earnest look in Vanessa’s eyes and nodded. “I believe you.”
Even though she had not come across many people in her time and had even previously trusted the wrong people, her gut feeling was telling her that Vanessa was not as deceitful as Jude claimed. On the contrary, she thought that this woman was fairly straightforward and seemed to have her heart on her sleeve.
If she was truly as evil and wicked as Jude claimed, Vanessa would not have volunteered to help so eagerly and even willingly got in touch with Willow, someone whom she had not talked to in a long time.
Not only that, but she would never have stared at Jude with such a look in her eyes.
New Book: Back Home to Marry Off Myself
Loredana’s father left the family for his mistress, leaving them to fend for themselves abroad. When life was at its toughest, her father showed up with “good news” after 8 years of absence: To marry off Loredana to a paralyzed son of the wealthy Mendelsohn family.