Chapter 4

At ten the next morning, in the top-floor conference room of Bayview International's headquarters, no one had any interest in the tea on the table.

On the left sat the group's legal director, the head of the IT department, and two officers from the local precinct. On the right sat me, Molly, and Nova, who had insisted on coming back from her uncle's place.

Across from us were Ronnie Whitney and Old Mrs. Whitney, who'd just finished giving her statement.

She'd barely walked in before she slammed a hand flat on the table.

"All this show of force, who do you think you're scaring!"

"The engagement money gets returned today, right here!"

"Plus compensation for the emotional distress of me being hauled into a station!"

Ronnie laid out the thirty-seven printed records.

"I exported all of this straight from the hotel system."

"Order numbers, room numbers, and the co-occupant information."

"Not one missing."

"You wanted to look into it, didn't you?"

"So today we get it all straightened out, right in front of the police and the group's legal team!"

Old Mrs. Whitney pulled out a stack of paper too and threw it down hard on the table.

Sample flyers, already printed.

Nova's photo sat dead center, and beside it, in blood-red letters, the words 37 times.

"You little brat, you still dare to make trouble!"

She jabbed a finger toward my face, her voice climbing higher and higher.

"You pay up, call off the engagement, then get down on your knees and admit you were wrong!"

"The second we walk out that door, every person in this city gets one of these!"

"I'll make sure you never get married in your life!"

The tears were welling in Nova's eyes as she grabbed the cup and jerked it up.

Molly moved fast, pressing her hand back down to the table.

"Old Mrs. Whitney, the original records haven't been verified yet."

"That material in your hands, anyone who passes out one more copy of it,"

"is just handing us another piece of evidence for defamation."

Under Molly's stare, Old Mrs. Whitney's neck pulled in a little, but her mouth didn't back down.

"Fine, look into it!"

"It's in black and white. How could it be fake?"

Nova set the cup back on the table, looked at the thirty-seven records, and said it out one line at a time.

"The date on the first record, I was in a closed training camp in the state capital."

"School attendance, my teachers, the registration records, all of it can back me up."

"The other thirty-six dates, I'll match them one by one too."

"Do you dare?"

The IT head opened his laptop and put the screen up on the big display in the conference room.

"I'll enter Nova Lawson's ID number now."

"And run a global search across the group's system."

A few seconds later, a dialog box popped up on the screen.

【Search results: 0 records.】

The IT head pushed his glasses up.

"Across every hotel in the Bayview system for the past ten years,"

"there is no check-in record of any kind for Ms. Nova Lawson."

Old Mrs. Whitney's eyes went wide, and she shot to her feet.

"That's impossible!"

"When she went in with those men, maybe she just didn't register at the front desk!"

Molly leaned back in her chair and tapped the printed pages twice with a finger.

"The thirty-seven records you've been circulating each list a co-occupant."

"The name is Nova Lawson, and the ID number is hers too."

"Search by that ID number now, and the result is zero."

"Which means at least one of them, the printouts or the original data, has been altered."

Ronnie's face changed on the spot.

His lips moved a few times, but he couldn't get out a single complete sentence.

Molly turned to the IT head.

"Please take the order numbers they provided,"

"and check them against the original backend data, one by one."

The head nodded and typed in the first order number.

A thin sweat broke out on Ronnie's forehead, his throat bobbing up and down, his hand creeping quietly toward the edge of the table.

The head pressed enter.

The page changed.

The first original check-in record came up on the screen.

Guest name: Ken Norris.

Age: fifty-six.

Sex: male.

Place of origin: a rural region.

From head to toe, not the faintest connection to my pink-haired Nova.