“No! Don’t do anything, Park, just keep an eye on him,” Dean said firmly. “I just need to know what he’s going to do with that woman.”
Everyone looked at Dean in confusion. Kay touched Dean’s arm. “Dean, how about Flynt and that woman ….”
“Sleeping together?” cut off Dean quickly. “Then I just have to ask him to let me go.”
Kay’s eyes watered and he squeezed Mike’s hand tightly.
“Park, can you take a picture of them?” asked Tom. “I’ll look up the data on the woman who was with Flynt if I find out her face.”
“Just a minute,” Park said. “Hang up the phone. I’ll let you know later.”
Everyone waits tensely. Sheryn picked up the phone when she felt it vibrate. He looked at his phone screen. An unknown number.
“Hello?”
“Where’s Tia?” a man’s voice was hoarse and heavy made Sheryn put the phone away. She touched Kay’s arm and pointed at the phone then signaled silence. She touched the loudspeaker mark.
“Who are you?” replied Sheryn nervously.
“Tell me where is Tia? You’re her friend, right?” the man on the phone snapped. “Why isn’t he in the apartment and in the hospital? Her phone is off, too.”
Tom asked Sheryn to come closer to him and put some kind of sticker on the back of his phone that had a thin wire connected to his laptop.
“I don’t know. I’ve changed jobs for a long time, not with Tia anymore. We have to take turns from ward to ward,” said Sheryn.
There was a rustling sound in the background. “Then tell me if doctor Dean is on duty now?” asked the man again. This time his voice sounded a little softer, as if made up. “Maybe he’s with Tia.”
“I’ll have to take a look first then. I work in the pediatric ward, while doctors Dean and Tia are in the internal medicine ward on my top floor.”
“Hurry and find Tia or Dean’s doctor over there. I’ll call in ten minutes. Don’t mess around and avoid my calls, or you might have an unexpected accident on your way home.”
The phone hung up and Sheryn slumped on the sofa where she was sitting, shaking.
“Relax, Shery, you don’t have to worry,” Mike said. “We will protect you.”
“That’s probably the guy I saw going with Tia to the city jail,” Sheryn said in a trembling voice. “It must be Tia who gave him my number.”
“Why is he looking for Tia?” murmured Peter. “Did something happen to her?”
“Lam,” Mike called out to Lamar. “We should probably find a place for Sheryn. I’m sure it wasn’t just Sheryn’s phone number that Tia gave the man, but also her residential address.”
“Why did Tia do that?” mumbled Sheryn.
“Because you know the secret. You said, you avoided Tia after the incident in the cafeteria that time, right?”
“True. Bad people like Tia usually have sharper instincts,” Peter continued confirming Mike’s words. “She must have felt that Sheryn could end up being dangerous for her or at least she needed reassurance that you would keep your mouth shut even if you knew her secret.”
Sherry was scared. “Oh, how is it, doctor? I have nowhere else to hide.”
“Just stay here,” said Lamar. “There’s no one here and only Tom comes occasionally to work on a request. It’s like our secret laboratory.”
“Or … we can bring Sheryn to stay with us for a while,” Mike suggested, looking at Kay.
“Why don’t we just leave Sheryn at Kristy’s house? It’s more neutral there,” said Peter.
“Who’s Kristy?” Sheryn asked confused.
“He’s Grant’s fiancé, one of Flynt’s twins brother. She used to be Gray’s underling, but after meeting Grant she gave up and chose to be on our side.”
“Grant will be wondering about this if we ask Kristy to look after Sheryn,” said Dean.
Sheryn’s phone rang again and Tom, who had been fiddling with something on his laptop, said to Sheryn, “Talk to him for a while. I can almost trace where he’s calling from. Just need a little more time.”
“He-hello?” replied Sheryn nervously.
“Why did it take so long to pick up the phone?” snapped the same male voice as before. “Have you found Tia or Doctor Dean yet?”
“They’re not in the internal medicine ward,” Sheryn answered quietly. “Wait a minute, someone’s passing by.” Sheryn acted away from her phone for a while.
Kay smiled broadly as he held up him thumb.
“According to the nurse on duty, Doctor Dean hasn’t come to work for two days because he’s sick.”
“Damn it! Then what about Tia?”
“Neither did she not come today. She filled out her last absence last afternoon and was supposed to be at work this morning, but she didn’t come and the administration couldn’t reach her phone number either.”
“Fuck! That girl is so troublesome!” growled the man on the phone.
“Could it be….” Sheryn deliberately hung up on her words.
“What?” snapped the man impatiently.
“Tia likes doctor Dean and I know that doctor Dean has had a big fight with his boyfriend recently. Maybe doctor Dean and Tia are finally together and they go out together?”
“Fuck!”
The phone hung up suddenly. Sheryn looked at Tom in confusion. “He hung up.”
Tom smiled. “It’s okay, I’ve got the pattern. Let me borrow your phone first.”
Sheryn gave her phone to Tom.
“I’ll call Kristy and tell her the situation. Kristy might be able to help us with this situation.”
“Guys,” Tom called. “Wait a minute, Lam, don’t call just yet. I have something important to find.”
“What, Tom? Say it fast,” said Peter impatiently.
“The call Sheryn received from that unknown number was made by someone from inside the city jail, where Gray is currently languishing.”
“Oh, damn it!” cursed Mike. “I already guessed.”
“Who’s that person? The voice we heard wasn’t Gray’s,” said Lamar. He was shocked when suddenly his phone rang. Park’s name appeared on the phone screen.
“Lam, I can’t take a photo of that woman,” Park said as soon as Lamar received the call. “Flynt covered the woman and from where I was it was hard to see clearly.”
“Then come closer to Flynt. Where are you now?”
“I just submitted the documents to the head office in the city.”
“So it’s natural for you to meet Flynt there, right? Approach him and act like you saw him by accident.”
“But… Oh, Flynt called me. Wait a minute, Lam, I’ll answer that first.”
The sound of the waiting tone echoed for two minutes, then the phone was turned off.
Lamar stared at his phone in horror. “Park? Oh? Park?”
***