Kelsie peered into the box for several seconds before she raised it, turning it over to see if she was missing something. Anything.
Then she shook it. But really, it was empty.
"Why would she store something so useless in a bank?" She sighed in resignation, dropping the box beside her.
Landon thought the same but didn’t voice it out.
He then reached into the second briefcase and showed her the proof he had mentioned.
It contained several tapes and photos, some in color, others in black and white. But it wasn’t hard to recognize her mother, given how she was a stark image of her.
These were the most photos she had ever seen of Lois Fletcher. So after flipping through a few of them, she dumped them into the box and announced, "I’ll keep these."
Landon nodded and rearranged the documents inside the box.
"Don’t think I have anything in mind going back with these. These are just copies of the original materials and I feel safe keeping it."
"But not only did your mother submit these same copies to the bank, she also kept the originals somewhere no one knows."
Kelsie leaned back and stared up at him blankly.
After a while, she got to her feet and stretched a hand toward him for a handshake.
He handed the briefcase to the guard behind him, and took her handshake.
Kelsie lowered her eyes to their eyes and began matter-of-factory, "She wouldn’t just give a company worth so much to someone who didn’t know how to run it."
"Two decades and a half later, and you’ve grown the business into a multi-billion-dollar company. That shows she was right in her choice."
"As long as Bryan Baker doesn’t take over as heir, and whoever does won’t try to pull anything funny with the company’s ownership, you won’t have a problem with me."
Landon stared at her, speechless.
"What? You don’t like what I just said?" She narrowed her eyes, assuming what she said about Kelsie offended him.
The man grimaced, a sincere smile stretching across his face as he shook his head.
"Your mother told me the same thing. I thought she was bluffing and would be back, so I kept looking over my shoulder for several years until I found out she hadn’t touched anything in the account the company set up for her."
"I’m nothing like my mother," Kelsie suddenly said, retracting her hand and glancing around the reception. "That woman ran most of her life, only to end up dying."
Landon sighed softly.
"I’m certain everything she did, she did for a reason. For example, she knew she was going to have you, and she hid you so well I never once thought she was pregnant the entire time we met up."
"It wasn’t until I saw her moving around with a baby crib that I realized she had a child. Even then, I doubted you were hers."
This was her second time hearing someone speak so favorably of her mother, but unlike the first time, hearing this grater on her nerves so much.
When he was done speaking, she slipped both hands into her coat pockets and shrugged.
"She ran and made herself invisible, yet still died at such a young age. As a mother, I wouldn’t run if my children were in danger. I’d demobilize that danger. That’s just the way it should be."
Then she turned and began strutting inside.
Landon stood rooted to the spot, watching her leave, unable to disagree with her.
Indeed, Lois Fletcher had everything a woman could possibly have.
She was the center of attention wherever she went. She was the brains behind anything absurdly unique but incredibly helpful to people.
She never started trouble, but alwsys finished it. Anyone competing with her was bound to come in second.
She knew just what to do to earn money and capitalized so much on it.
Despite always having a baby crib with her wherever she went, she still had numerous men lining up in the streets every day to marry her.
That’s why he was so surprised when she ended up with a loser like Jerry Sutton.Back then, he could barely hold his head high.
At first, Landon even doubted she really loved him. But upon realizing they had been together long before she bore Kelsie, his doubts vanished.
"Sir, if you’re leaving, you can use the exit at the back." Molly’s voice seeped into his subconsciousness and he snapped to the present to see her peering at him cautiously from a distance.
He nodded and quietly slipped out through the back.
Since their cars were parked inside the compound, his bodyguards flagged down a taxi for him.
Two got in with him while the others walked around to the front of the practice.
The reporters had seen the back of an elderly man inside. So when they didn’t see him emerge with security, they grew mad and began photographing the guards instead.
The guards didn’t mind. One of them even reached out to tear off the front license plate, while another did the same at the back.
Laura wasn’t bothered with them and walked over to the practice, trying to peek in—all to no avail.
What was happening? No one was paying her any attention. Was the information she gave to the media not enough to force Kelsie into helping out their parents?
Confused, she took out her phone to browse the news.
However, not a single thing she said was trending. Netizens were all too preoccupied with news of the Adler family and which one of the Sutton sisters was Jett Adler’s possible fiancée.
Biting down worriedly on her lower lip, she raised her eyes.
What if she threatened Kelsie with outing her relationship to the public?
The thought had barely formed when she quickly dismissed it. She couldn’t do that.
Jett Adler had already threatened to make life a living hell for them if the public found out anything else about him and Kelsie.
Left with no choice, she grabbed a handful of gravel and began throwing it at the glass door.
It barely did any damage, but the sound of it hitting the door was too much noise for those inside to handle.
Kelsie quickly recalled there were people protesting outside and hurried into her office.
Lifting the telephone to her ear, she lodged a noise complaint with the police and gave them her practice’s address.
Afterward, she spread out the photos she had taken from Landon across the surface.
Then she took out the tapes, slid open her drawer, and dumped them in.
The model used to record it was quite old, so she’d have to visit the antique market one of these days to get a compatible device.
"Dr. Sutton, one of the patient’s seizing!" Just as she was about to relax to go through the photos, Molly’s panicked voice abruptly rang out from outside the door.
Kelsie grabbed the photos on her desk and slipped them into her pocket before hurrying out.
However, she had just done so when she suddenly stopped and turned to look at Molly.
"Yes, Dr. Sutton?" Molly answered, looking up at her cluelessly.
Kelsie scrunched her nose slightly, lowering it to sniff Molly for a second before straightening up and frowning hard.
"I didn’t smell this perfume on you earlier during both surgeries today."
As a medical practitioner, Molly knew better than to wear perfume, so she was taken aback for a moment, almost denying wearing perfume before she recalled the man who came into the practice some minutes ago.
"Oh, you must be talking about the scent from the man who came asking for you a few minutes ago."
"It looked like you needed some time alone, so I told him to come back later. He said he would, but he left his contact card saying you’d definitely want to reach him." freew\ebno\vel..(c)om
She reached into her pocket for the card and stretched it toward her.
Kelsie took it and immediately sucked in her teeth, not because of the name sprawled across it, but because of what was written on it.
To be exact, it didn’t look like a card given to everyone. It seemed tailor-made for her.
You know you have questions for me.
Here’s my new number. Call me."
Molly was naturally startled when Kelsie suddenly crumpled the card and tossed it into a nearby trash can.
As they both hurried to check on the seizing patient, a car pulled up outside Adler Group just as Jett exited the building with Eric in tow.
He didn’t stop at all when he saw Serbian Howard and casually walked past him, almost brushing shoulders with him like he wasn’t even there.
He had nearly reached his car when Serbian turned toward him and said, "Did you know? The lab scientists who manufacture your eye drops went missing. I think it was... three days ago."