Free Web NovelChapter 228: Chapter 231: Charlotte Shaw Is Missing
"The sky is so dark, it looks like it’s going to snow again. You guys better hurry up. It’ll be a pain to fix the car if it starts snowing."
"Okay, I’ll send the license plate number over now."
Uncle Young finished his call and texted the license plate number to the repair crew. Then he glanced over and noticed Charlotte Shaw hadn’t come out of the alley yet.
"Charlotte!" He called out as he replied to a message, turning and walking toward the alley entrance. "Charlotte, did you get the cat? Do you need Uncle Young to help you?"
...
The only answer was the whistling of the wind.
"...Charlotte?" He froze for a second. Suddenly, he felt something was wrong.
"Charlotte?" He turned on his phone’s flashlight and aimed it down the alley. "Charlotte, are you still trying to catch the cat?"
...
The alley was dead silent. Forget a cat, there wasn’t even a ghost of a shadow to be seen.
"Charlotte!" Uncle Young panicked instantly. He ran a few steps into the alley, and after confirming Charlotte Shaw wasn’t there, he rushed back out to check the car. But the car was also empty.
"Charlotte!" He shouted Charlotte Shaw’s name at the top of his lungs, but there was no sign of her in the pitch-black night.
"Charlotte!"
"Charlotte Shaw!!"
He circled the car, shouting and searching, while pulling out his phone to call Charlotte Shaw.
"RING... RING... RING..."
After three rings, a cold, robotic female voice suddenly came through the phone’s earpiece.
"Hello, the user you have dialed is currently unavailable. Please try again later..."
"Wh-What’s going on?" Uncle Young stomped his foot in agitation and dialed Charlotte Shaw’s number again.
"Hello, the number you have dialed has been switched off. The phone..."
This time, Charlotte Shaw’s phone was off.
"’It’s over...’" Uncle Young’s face went pale, and his legs suddenly felt weak.
"’Sh-she was gone in the blink of an eye, where could she have gone...’" He was so anxious he was on the verge of tears. He quickly called Jackson Shaw to report what had happened.
As soon as Jackson Shaw heard, he and Brianna Bell immediately started calling people to find her.
Mason Shaw, Hannah Sutton, Renee Sinclair, Lynn Preston, Mina Jennings, Julia Dawson, Jasper Linden...
The old couple called everyone they could think of, but no one knew where Charlotte Shaw was.
Charlotte Shaw’s phone remained off. They tried calling continuously for over half an hour, but it never went through.
"WAH... WAH..."
"WAH..."
Wilder Preston, who had been sound asleep, suddenly started crying without any warning. Jackson Shaw’s heart sank with each sob. Finally, he worked up the courage to say those two words.
"File a report..."
Brianna Bell picked up Wilder Preston, patting and soothing him as she said, "Let’s wait for Felix’s message first. What if Charlotte went to find him?"
"BZZZ—"
The moment she finished speaking, Jackson Shaw received a message from Felix Preston.
—Charlotte didn’t come looking for me. She left Julia Dawson’s place a while ago, she should be home by now.
—Dad, why are you suddenly asking me this? Did you message Charlotte? Is she not replying to you either?
"BOOM—"
Before he could even process Felix Preston’s message, Jackson Shaw’s world collapsed.
The man, nearly sixty, stared blankly as he lifted his head, his aged eyes filled with deep panic. "Felix... Felix can’t reach Charlotte either..."
"What?!" Brianna Bell’s voice shot up an octave. "Even Felix can’t reach Charlotte?!"
"File the report..." Jackson Shaw’s hand, clutching the phone, was visibly trembling. "File it now. Don’t delay!"
"F-File it! File it now!" Brianna Bell could barely stand. After handing Wilder Preston to the nanny, she braced her hands on her knees and collapsed weakly onto the sofa.
"’F-First, file the report. Then we’ll figure out how to tell Felix. He gets frantic when it comes to anything about Charlotte. I’m worried he’ll do something rash and foolish if he panics.’"
Jackson Shaw nodded. "I know. I’ll call Director Collins first..."
「Meanwhile, at Volition Tech Studio.」
"Mr. Preston, I’ve sent the revised main storyline to your email." A slightly chubby girl with her hair in a bun stood at the entrance to Felix Preston’s office, sporting a pair of huge, dark circles under her eyes.
Felix Preston glanced up at her, a faint smile playing on his lips. "Got it. I’ll look at it in a bit. You can all head home for the day."
"Yay!" The girl cheered and walked away, immediately going to share the good news of getting off work with her colleagues.
"Preston." Evan Yates walked in, holding a laptop. He grinned and said, "What’s for dinner at your place tonight? Give me the menu so I can decide whether to come mooch a meal."
Felix Preston reached out and woke his phone screen. Still seeing no message from Charlotte Shaw, he sighed with a touch of disappointment. "Your sister-in-law hasn’t texted back, so I don’t know what we’re having for dinner either."
Evan Yates smirked, giving Felix Preston a teasing look. "If your sister-in-law isn’t texting back, just call her. Don’t you two always spend ages on the phone together while you’re in the office?"
Felix Preston raised an eyebrow. Unfazed by Evan’s teasing, he instead looked rather proud. "I usually only call her when she says it’s okay. She’s not replying right now, so if I call her out of the blue, I might interrupt her work."
"She has a huge pile of design drafts. Her clients were chasing her for them as soon as her postpartum confinement ended. If she doesn’t submit them soon, I bet they’ll start showing up at our house."
"...True." Evan Yates pursed his lips.
Felix Preston said, "If you can’t find anything to eat later, just come home with me. My dad specifically bought you your own set of bowls and chopsticks. You can come over and try them out."
"That’s what I was waiting to hear!" Evan Yates snapped his fingers and placed his laptop in front of Felix Preston. "Preston, take a look at this."
Felix Preston adjusted his glasses and was about to lean in for a closer look when he suddenly got a call from Jackson Shaw.
"Let me get this." He grabbed his phone and answered the call.
"Hello, Dad."
"Felix." Jackson Shaw’s voice sounded strange, as if he were desperately trying to suppress something. "I need to tell you something. Don’t panic when you hear it."
Felix Preston frowned. The gravity in Jackson Shaw’s tone made him instinctively sit up straighter. In a low voice, he said, "Go on."
Jackson Shaw took a breath. "Felix, Charlotte’s missing."
"...Huh?" At first, Felix Preston couldn’t quite process the words.
"What do you mean? How could Charlotte be missing?"
"Hm?" Evan Yates sensed something was wrong and immediately leaned in closer to the phone.
Jackson Shaw explained, "After Charlotte left Julia’s house, she took the car straight home. The driver, Young, said that halfway there, the car suddenly ran over two nails. The tires were punctured and he couldn’t drive any further, so he had Charlotte wait in the car for Lawrence to come pick her up."
"But just then, Charlotte heard a cat meowing in a nearby alley. She was worried it would freeze to death, so she got out of the car and went into the alley to find it."
"The alley is very narrow and not very long, but Charlotte... she just vanished from it without a trace."
