Chapter 2

"Brielle, lock the doors!" I rushed out of the elevator.

Startled, Brielle immediately hit the central locking button. "What's wrong?"

"Someone was just standing next to your car taking a picture!"

The officer who had come down with me instantly searched the nearby cars and called security to block the garage exits. But even after searching for half an hour, they still couldn't find Caden.

Brielle went pale after seeing the photo. "This was just taken. Even the charm hanging in my car is exactly the same."

David pointed to the angle of the photo. "Whoever took this would've been standing right outside the passenger-side window. You didn't notice anything?"

"No." Brielle's voice rose with panic. "I was watching the elevators the entire time. If someone had been standing right beside me, how could I not have seen them?"

Jack pulled up the parking garage footage again. From the moment Brielle drove into the garage until the moment I stepped out of the elevator, no one had gone anywhere near her car.

I handed my phone to David. "Now you believe me, right?"

But the photo had disappeared again. The chat was empty.

I'd had the foresight to take a screenshot, but when I opened my photo gallery, the screenshot was nothing but a black screen.

Brielle gasped. "Could he have hacked your phone?"

"He must have."

I immediately turned off the phone, removed the SIM card, and snapped it in half, then handed the phone over to the police. "I can't take this with me. As long as I have this phone, he'll know where I am."

Brielle looked at me. "Then, where are we going?"

"The hospital."

"The hospital?"

"The ER lobby is staffed 24 hours a day, and there are security guards and cameras everywhere. Even if he wants to hurt me, he won't dare try anything in front of that many people."

To make sure we weren't followed, I didn't take Brielle's car. Instead, the two of us rode in the police car. We didn't use GPS or contact anyone along the way.

When we arrived at the hospital, I deliberately chose a seat in the middle of the ER waiting room.

Patients and their families filled the seats around us, and two security guards were stationed by the entrance.

Brielle gripped my hand tightly. "With this many people around, there's no way he'd come in here and kill you, right?"

"I don't know."

I'd seen Caden twice. But even now, I still had no idea how he'd gotten into my apartment the first time or how he'd found the alley behind the coffee shop the second time.

By 1:00 am, half the people in the waiting room had left.

Suddenly, a little girl with her hair in pigtails ran up to me and held out a paper cup. "Here, miss. This is for you."

My entire body went rigid. In my second life, Caden had thrown scalding coffee in my face.

"Who told you to give me this?"

The girl pointed toward the entrance. "A man wearing a cap."

I shot to my feet and ran outside. There were only a few ambulances parked out front. The man she'd described was nowhere to be seen.

Brielle lifted the lid off the cup and suddenly cried out, "Maisie, look!"

There was no coffee inside, only a coin heated red-hot, pinning down a note.

It read, "Running off with strangers this late at night? You're still as easy as ever."

Brielle's hands began to shake. "How the hell did he find us here? Did he follow the police car?"

David arrived soon after receiving the call. He had officers pull the security footage from our entire route, but there hadn't been a single suspicious vehicle following the police car.

"The hospital's cameras hadn't captured any man wearing a cap either. Even stranger, the footage showed the little girl sitting beside her mother the entire time. She had never come anywhere near us."

After hearing what happened, the girl's mother immediately pulled her daughter behind her. "Don't scare my daughter. When did she ever bring you coffee?"

"It was her! Just now!"

The little girl burst into tears. "Mommy, I didn't! I don't know this lady."

"The cup is still on the table." I spun around. The table was completely empty. The paper cup, the coin, and the note were all gone.

I grabbed Brielle's hand. "You saw them, didn't you? You even read what was written on the note!"

Everyone turned to look at her.

Brielle's face was pale. Her lips moved a few times before she finally spoke, "I think I saw a cup, but what was inside it… I didn't get a good look."

"You saw it perfectly clearly!"

"Maisie, I was terrified. Maybe I just thought I saw it because you did."

The way David looked at me gradually changed. "How have you been sleeping lately?"

"You think I'm hallucinating?"

"I'm only suggesting that you get checked out."

"Brielle saw it too!"

"She isn't certain about what she saw."

I was about to argue when the phone at the ER reception desk suddenly rang. A nurse answered it. After listening for a few seconds, she looked over at us in confusion.

"Is there a Maisie here?"

My heart sank.

The nurse held out the receiver. "A man is asking for you."

I pressed the phone to my ear. Caden's gentle voice came through the line, "Baby, did you really think I couldn't hear you just because you stopped using your own phone?"