Chapter 3The 24th Victim

Mason rushed inside. The moment he saw what was happening, he almost fainted from shock.

The man realized something was wrong. He quickly pulled on his pants and climbed out the window.

Claire came in right behind Mason.

She covered her eyes and screamed. "Carol, is this why you moved out? So you could sleep with men?"

Wendy quickly supported Mason and blamed me. "Carol, this is too much."

I immediately realized that this was another trap planned by Wendy and Claire.

I fought through the terrible pain between my legs and reached for my phone. "I'm calling the police! I don't even know that man! You two set me up..."

But Mason's eyes turned bloodshot.

He snatched my phone away and gritted his teeth. "Carol, haven't you embarrassed yourself enough?"

He wanted to say more. But suddenly, he froze. Then he collapsed right in front of me.

"Dad!"

Claire and Wendy exchanged a quick glance.

They soon called an ambulance, but they refused to let me ride with them.

I was about to call a cab to the hospital myself when someone suddenly pressed a handkerchief over my mouth and nose.

That was how my three-year nightmare began.

A short notification sound pulled me back to the present.

Alexander had sent Mason a picture.

It showed a bloodstained shoe lying on its side inside a pigpen.

Mason recognized it immediately.

It was my shoe.

He suddenly stood up and almost knocked over Claire's strawberry cake. "This has to be one of Carol's tricks."

Mason was extremely agitated. His hands were shaking so badly that he almost dropped his phone while typing.

"Captain Lockwood, I request permission to go to the scene myself. Carol has pretended to be a victim many times since she was a child. I know her."

The car sent to pick up Mason arrived downstairs soon after.

My spirit followed him into the car.

After leaving the city, the car entered the highway and continued straight.

About an hour and a half later, we passed through a toll booth. Then we turned left and exited onto a county road.

Once we entered the mountains, the car turned right. The slope grew steeper and steeper.

Soon, we reached a series of sharp left turns winding up the mountain.

I silently watched the road outside the window. It was exactly the same route I had sensed when I was blindfolded.

Mason had handled many kidnapping cases during his career.

Because of that, I had known since I was a child that a kidnapping victim must not panic. You had to stay calm and remember the route as much as possible.

At that moment, Mason pulled his wallet from his pocket.

I floated closer to look. Inside was a picture of Wendy and Claire together.

He pulled the picture out. Underneath it was another photo.

In the picture, I was still a little girl sitting in the judge's chair, holding a toy gavel and smiling at Mason.

He unconsciously rubbed his finger across my face in the picture.

Then he opened my message thread. "Carol, stop resisting. If you turn yourself in, I can ask the judge for a lighter sentence."

I scrolled up through our old messages. Only then did I realize that he had sent me so many messages over the past three years.

At first, he had written. "If you don't come home soon, don't ever call me your father again!"

Then. "I signed you up for the SAT this year."

Later. "Fine, don't come home. But are you not even going to visit your mother's grave anymore?"

His final message was. "Carol, I don't want the next time I see you to be in my courtroom."

I silently floated in front of Mason.

Dad, you'll never see me again.

The pigs in that pen had already eaten me.

"Judge Leighton, we're here."

Mason looked up. But he seemed slow to understand what Alexander had said.

When he got out of the car, his legs were trembling slightly.

He stubbornly kept calling my phone. "Carol, please pick up. If you come out now, we can still count it as you turning yourself in. If we find you ourselves, it will be too late."

Alexander held up a sealed evidence bag.

His expression was complicated. "Judge Leighton, this is a tissue sample we collected from the scene. If Lillian's statement is true, then this is most likely..."