Soon after, Cierra tearfully managed to tell the whole story.
It turned out that she had been going to the park with old Mr. Foley every day not too long ago. Old Mr. Foley had a group of card-playing friends there, a bunch of retired folks with nothing better to do who gathered together under a shady tree after lunch. They played cards, gambled, played chess, watched birds, and lived a carefree and leisurely life resembling that of immortals.
During this time, Cierra accompanied him. Among the people playing chess with old Mr. Foley was an elderly gentleman who was a bit different – he could only come out once a week. At first, Cierra didn’t pay much attention to him until the day he brought a cute little green-headed turtle.
He said he wanted to give it to her and be friends with her. For the turtle’s sake, Cierra agreed without thinking much of it, not realizing anything was amiss about a little girl of just over two years old befriending a man in his seventies.
It wasn’t until later, after old Mr. Foley found out about this, that he told her the old man’s story.
“That old man is sick, very seriously. Great-grandpa said his son and daughter were unfilial and left him in the hospital without caring for him.”
“Great-grandpa also said if I ignored him, in the future, he might end up just as miserable as that old man.”
“I don’t know why, except for Great-grandpa, no one else plays with that old man even though he’s actually very good. He would buy me snacks, tell me stories, dig for worms with me, and play pretend with me.”
“He said he was Spiderman, would catch dragonflies and grasshoppers to eat; also said he was a reincarnated fairy from the sky who could perform magic.”
Cheyenne listened to the beginning without any problem, but the more she heard, the more she felt something was off. Why did that old man sound more and more like a con artist? At the very least, he seemed like a lunatic!
Thinking back to when she was little, didn’t her own grandfather use to deceive her with a few old books at the school gate? This was the first time Cheyenne had heard her daughter mention this old man. In the past, Cierra would always share even the tiniest things with her mother when she came home.
Given that Cierra had known this old man for a while, why was this only being mentioned now? Concerned about any potential risks around her daughter, Cheyenne’s expression became extremely serious.
“Wait, Cierra, are you sure that old man isn’t a con artist? Do you really believe in fairy tales about heavenly incarnations?”
Cierra was on the brink of tears at being accused of her elderly friend being a con artist. Her face turned red as she argued with her mother, “No, Grandpa is a real fairy, he can climb trees… faster than a dog.”
“He has a son, named Little Turtle, who loves staying in the water and eating the little worms I dig for it.”
Little Turtle was the green-headed turtle the old man had given Cierra, but unfortunately, her “godson” was accidentally run over by a passing taxi.
It was a bloody scene.
That afternoon, Cierra was heartbroken. With her godson gone, she and the old man cried together for the entire afternoon. In the end, they dug a grave under the tree, buried the little turtle, and offered a wildflower from the park as a ritual.
Cheyenne was speechless.
From her daughter’s words, she could see that the old man was likely a mentally ill patient. Otherwise, how could he mistake a turtle for his own son? And with her naive daughter having a “godson” at just two and a half years old, Cheyenne, at only twenty-five, had been upgraded to “grandma.”
“Absolutely ridiculous,” she said with a mix of amusement and exasperation.
“Wait!” Cheyenne seemed to have a revelation and let out a piercing scream, her red lips slightly ajar.
“Hiss!” Upon hearing her cry, Iker urgently pulled over to the side of the road. The sudden halt of the speeding car caused a spark of silver-white light to burst from the friction between the wheels and the ground.
“What’s wrong, Cheyenne?” Cheyenne frantically tapped on the car window, her voice filled with urgency as she said, “I just remembered, yes… that’s it! At the psychiatric hospital, the wristbands are fluorescent-colored.”
She had just flashed a picture in her mind-there was a photo in the information Sean brought a couple of days ago. It was taken last year. The photo showed Nora in a hospital gown, sitting on a hospital bed, smiling at the camera. At that time, she was also wearing a wristband like that.
“However, to be certain, I think we should go back and find the photo for comparison,” Cheyenne said anxiously. “On the other hand, we need to send someone to the psychiatric hospital quickly to see if there are any patients who haven’t been discharged but are missing their wristbands.”
“This matter needs urgent attention because if we’ve missed twice, the other party might have realized that they’ve been exposed and could be planning to move elsewhere,” she continued. Even patients like Nora, who were brought back by their families for treatment, would need to visit the hospital regularly as long as their illness wasn’t completely cured, and the hospital would issue a wristband to them.
Therefore, starting from this aspect might yield some information, although investigating the information of all patients on file within a short period of time would be quite a task.
Cheyenne now needed to rush to see Kate, she could only entrust this task to Iker.
He had more subordinates, and the efficiency of his work was undoubtedly much faster than her doing it alone.
Although all of this was purely Cheyenne’s speculation, Iker chose to trust her unconditionally.
“Don’t worry, Cheyenne, I’ll make a call now to verify and then take you to the hospital to see Miss Zamora,” Iker assured her. “As for comparing the photo from Nora’s file, we can do that later once the results are out in the evening.”
“Well, for now, that’s our best course of action,” Cheyenne nodded.
With that said, he immediately took out his phone and made a call to his security guard. He then contacted Gordon.
Because a patient’s personal file was a private matter, even he as a military officer could not easily access it, and the military regulations were even more stringent. Applying for a search warrant would be too time-consuming. It would be easier to start from Gordon’s side, as he was investigating a child abduction case, and Nora was one of the missing persons in the case. She was also a patient at that hospital.
Having the public security bureau intervene would be more appropriate and transparent. Both of them had their own tasks to handle, so they naturally forgot about Cierra’s matter for the time being.
Cierra, holding a Spider-Man toy, sneakily glanced at her mom and then at Uncle Iker, who was driving seriously, blinking in disbelief. Did she get away without her mom scolding her for what happened today? Uncle Iker said he would give this toy to her. In that case, could she give this toy to that old man?
The thought made Cierra smile happily, “Uncle Iker is really nice!” At least better than her stern mother. But the best person to her, of course, was her daddy. Cierra began to miss the best daddy in the whole world.