Love's Cunning Ruse novel Chapter 177

At Lavender Club.

Adeline was fuming, glaring at the two trembling men before her and cursing them out. "You guys are completely useless! I asked you to kidnap a woman and you couldn't even manage that!"

Elliot gave Adeline a glance, furrowing his brows. "Just what the hell happened?"

This was certainly unexpected.

The two men had a pretty solid plan. One of them pretended to be a janitor, knocked Julie out, and stuffed her into a cleaning cart before wheeling her out of Simpo Co. The other guy was supposed to meet him at the door.

Next, they were supposed to deliver Julie to Adeline, but on their way, a sedan appeared out of nowhere and blocked their path. Two armed men got out of the car.

Their job was just to bring Julie to Adeline. They never signed up to kill anyone, let alone face armed guys. So, to save their own skins, they ditched Julie.

Elliot had suspected from the get-go that Adeline was behind this. That's why he came to her first, instead of explaining everything to Kieran Hernandez.

Now they were in a real pickle. They had no idea who the two men that appeared out of nowhere were. But one thing's for sure, it was quickly spiraling out of control.

Adeline knew how serious this was.

Frowning, she dialed Kieran's number.

Twenty minutes later, Adeline and Elliot arrived at Simpo Co. They weren't alone. Dylan was with them.

After listening to Elliot's side of the story, Dylan turned to Adeline, clearly unhappy. "I just finished dealing with a suicide case. Are you trying to keep me busy?"

Although this wasn't Adeline's intention, she knew she was the one who started all this. So, she kept quiet, letting Dylan chastise her for once.

Elliot informed Payne Hernandez about the location where the kidnappers grabbed Julie. Payne was reviewing the traffic department's surveillance footage. Just like the two men had said, Julie was taken by two masked men, one tall and one short.

Having seen the footage, Kieran was already on the phone with the police. "Yes, that's correct. Two men, one tall, one short. The tall one's about 174 cm, the short one's around 168 cm. I'll send you the footage right now..."

Payne sent the suspects' snapshots to the police station.

Dylan, still not entirely convinced, asked Kieran, "Could it be..."

Dylan suspected Lucian Hernandez, but didn't voice his suspicion. Kieran knew what he meant.

The room fell silent, save for the clicking of Payne's keyboard.

Finally, Payne broke the silence. He pointed at his computer screen and said to Kieran, "The suspects were driving a car without a license plate. I managed to track it down using the surveillance footage. The car ended up in the northern suburbs. But there's a stretch of road there without surveillance. I skipped that part, checked all the possible routes, and confirmed that the car ended up in an abandoned parking lot in the northern part of the city..."

Elliot immediately said, "I'll send someone to check it out!"

"No need."

"No need."

Two voices spoke simultaneously. One was Kieran's, the other came from the doorway.

Everyone turned to look at the door following Kieran's gaze.

Hayden Simson, dressed all in black, stood by the doorway. He looked at Kieran and said, "I've already checked the car. No one's inside."

Kieran continued, "The suspects must have switched cars on the stretch without surveillance."

Everyone anticipated this. Payne continued to work swiftly on his computer. "According to my records and analysis, 48 cars passed through the stretch without surveillance."

"So... she could be in any of these 48 cars?" Elliot asked, furrowing his brows deeply.

Adeline stood up and looked at Payne. "Give me all the plate numbers!"

Payne wrote a program to automatically capture and print the plate numbers. He then turned to Adeline and said, "The quickest way now is to take these plate numbers to the police. Let them check all the car owners..."

Adeline, clutching the printed plate numbers, quickly dragged Elliot out of the room.

Just as Payne was about to shut down his computer, Dylan stood up and told Payne, "First, track the final parking location of the 48 cars. Then find the missing car without surveillance. After that, list all the suspicious cars for me. I want to check the videos myself."

Payne followed Dylan's instructions, but he was confused. "There are 13 suspicious cars in total. They all ended up in places without surveillance. So what?"

"Pull up the surveillance video of each car for me." Dylan had already taken a seat next to Payne.

Just as Hayden and Julien were at a stalemate, Dylan suddenly spoke up and broke the silence between the two, "Except for the five cars where the driver's face can't be seen in the surveillance footage, the other forty-three cars are all clear."

Payne immediately understood what he meant, "I'll call Adeline and Elliot."

He was about to take out his phone, but suddenly realized, "If you can determine which cars are suspicious, then why would you let Adeline and Elliot run around for nothing? According to this search speed, Adeline and Elliot should have already searched two cars by now, right?”

Dylan calmly replied, "Shouldn't those who do wrong be punished?"

Payne was speechless.

He'd better just call Elliot honestly...

Payne sent the license plate numbers of the only five suspect cars to Elliot.

Dylan stood up and looked at Hayden and said, "I'm going to check on Elliot's situation. You occasionally need to interrupt Kerry's thoughts."

Dylan was about to leave, when he suddenly heard the always silent Kieran ask him, "Stop!"

This shout scared Dylan enough to stop him in his tracks.

"Do you have any idea who the suspect might be?" Hayden asked Kieran.

Kieran didn't explain why he asked Dylan to stop, but turned his head to ask Karl, "What's the name of the woman who had lunch with Julie yesterday and spoke to Julie first in the canteen today?”

"Mr. Hernandez, are you referring to Davina Field, the head of the legal department?" Karl looked confused, not understanding why Mr. Hernandez suddenly brought her up.

"Where is she now?" Kieran asked.

Karl frowned, and then replied, "After Mrs. Hernandez disappeared at noon, Ms. Davina has been looking for her. I guess she's still looking..."

Kieran suddenly walked over to Payne, took Payne's laptop, opened a surveillance video, then looked at Dylan and said, "Come and see!"

Even though Dylan didn't understand Kieran's intention, he still walked towards Kieran.

Kieran pointed to the surveillance video of Julie and Davina having lunch yesterday, then asked Dylan, "Take a close look at this woman. Can you notice anything?"