Chapter 2

"Leave? I still want to have a good talk with Hugh and ask you two when you're planning to get married!"

My mom paid no mind to what I'd said.

Just then the elevator came down.

The doors opened.

Strangely, there was no one inside.

So why had it been stuck on the sixth floor all this time?

Could it be...

I'd been about to step in, but I suddenly froze.

A terrible suspicion spread through me.

Could it be that the person I was talking to right now was no longer my mom?

It wasn't confirmed.

But my sixth sense told me that going up there meant danger.

So I turned and started running out of the complex.

I ran all the way to a convenience store where there were a lot of people.

My heart was pounding, my nerves stretched to their limit.

Just then my phone rang. It was the police.

"Hello, is this Ms. Christine Simmons, the one who made the 911 call? We just went to your shared apartment. Your boyfriend is perfectly fine. Why did you make a false report?"

"I didn't make a false report. He's not my boyfriend!"

"But we've already verified his identity, and your mother is here too. Your mother said... she said you're under too much work pressure, that you have mild depressive tendencies..."

"My mom said that?"

"Yes."

"She's not my mom! Something's happened to my mom too!"

Captain Chavez went quiet for a moment, probably thinking I was even more unwell than he'd figured.

I pulled up the photo my best friend had sent me and checked it one more time.

That's right, he was not my boyfriend!

"Wait for me downstairs at my place. I'll explain everything!"

After I hung up, my eyes stayed fixed through the convenience store's glass window on the police car across the street, its red and blue lights flashing.

A little while later, three officers in uniform came down from upstairs.

I rushed out and planted myself in front of them.

"You're Ms. Christine Simmons?"

"Yes!"

"Your boyfriend is perfectly fine, and your mother is up there too, so why are you saying something happened to them?"

"Because the elevator was stuck on the sixth floor for three minutes!"

"Hm?"

I pulled up the photo my best friend had sent me and handed my phone to Captain Chavez, who was in the lead.

"Take a look!"

Captain Chavez took it and frowned as he looked it over.

"Isn't this just your boyfriend waiting for you on the sofa in the apartment you share with your friend, holding flowers?"

"Look at these flowers!"

"What's wrong with the flowers?"

I opened my mouth, but the words wouldn't come.

But I was desperate to make him believe me.

Then something occurred to me.

I called out, "Hold on!"

Then I rushed to the roadside and snapped a photo of a passerby who was burning paper offerings for the dead.

Then I shoved the photo in front of him.

"Look at this!"

Captain Chavez squinted at it for a long moment.

Suddenly he sucked in a sharp breath.

His expression turned serious.

"There really is something wrong!"

"I want to pull the surveillance footage from the buildings in the complex between eight and nine tonight!"

Captain Chavez was silent for three seconds, then made up his mind on the spot.

"Come on, let's go find the property office!"