Chapter 49: Chapter 49

Sophia's pov;

At the breakfast,

"Did you prepare for the exams well?" My brother asked me while I was eating my breakfast before going to the school.

"Yeah." And continued eating my breakfast.

"Can't you answer while looking at me? And, why are you eating in a hurry? There's still time for school."

I didn't give a response and continued eating.

"Why are you mad at me? Did I send her away? She ran away on her own. And, she didn't run without anything. She took two million dollars along with her. I know that she took a lot of jobs to make her living but I never knew she was so desperate for money which made her quit school."

"I have heard a lot in school, do you want to do that here too?"

"I wasn't wrong though. She did run away with that money, right? Did she contact you?"

I shook my head and stood from the table.

"Wait, let me drop you at school."

"It's fine, I can take my bicycle." And left the house.

While I was driving, I wondered what would have really happened to leave like that.

At school,

"Hey! How did you do your exams yesterday?" Evelyn asked me.

"Yeah, good. What about you?"

"I gave my best."

Noah said to Evelyn, "Don't boast yourself. Ha! We're all striving to be in the grade list while you're ranking on the first. So we're the one who's giving our best. You will rank first and I'm sure of that."

"How will you get ranked if you keep on looking out for me?"

Evelyn and Noah quarrelled as usual while Liam was still trying to find anything about Isabella. Since Isabella's news got spreaded in school and in the headlines, he's been looking for Isabella.

"My brother talked about Isabella today." I said to get Liam's attention.

Liam asked, "What did he say?"

"Like everyone. Did you find anything?"

"No, all i know was Isabella ran to see her mother in the hospital but her mother was moved by some person already. After seeing an empty room, she ran from the hospital. She didn't go to her house. I don't know where she went after that."

Noah said, "I wonder how her phone was found in her house, if she didn't even go there."

"Since news of her affair news spreaded online, no one's trying to help us." Evelyn said to us.

I asked them, "Do you guys believe that she's having an affair with that CEO?"

Everyone gave me a weird look.

"I didn't mean that I believed it either. I was just asking you."

Noah said, "You gotta be kidding, right? Isabella having an affair with a CEO, really? She didn't even know how to talk sweetly to a guy. Take an example of this guy, Liam flirted with her but she didn't even react to it. I don't believe it even if someone says that she can hold a guy's hand in a romantic way." And laughed.

Liam said, "Yeah, there must have been something behind this. And, she wouldn't leave the state for money too. She won't accept anything if doesn't earn it. Why did everyone accuse her of having an affair with some guy and running away with money? I think she's the only person who can answer this question."

"But how to do it?"

"If we find who took her mother from the hospital, I think we can find a lead."

"Yeah."

"Okay, I'm going to the hospital to investigate it. Who's coming with me?"

"Count me in." Noah said when Liam asked.

"Mee too." Evelyn said.

Noah said, "I think two of us are enough."

Evelyn gave a stare at him and went back to looking into her notebook.

Bella, you have gained very good friends. You could have told us. You could have talked with us. Why didn't you tell us? Why didn't you say anything to me? You could have at least told me about this. Don't worry, we'll find you soon, so hang in there.

While I was on the way to my house, I turned my bicycle away from my house and drove towards Alexander Martinez's house.

At the entrance, I was stopped by some guards.

I said, "I'm Isabella's friend. I'm here to see Mr Martinez. I have to talk to him."

"Do you have an appointment, Miss?"

Appointment?

Another guy came and said, "Wait, why does your face look familiar to me?... Hey! I remember you! You're the girl who came that day, right? You asked for Ms Garcia."

"Yes."

"Why are you here again?"

"I came to see Alexander Martinez. I have to talk to him about Isabella."

"But he's not here. He went overseas yesterday."

"Where did he go? Do you know when he will be back?"

"We're not sure about that."

I let out a sigh and remembered someone who I saw in the hospital. Isabella called him her big brother.

"Um, is there someone can I talk to? Like Isabella called some guy a big brother here…"

Before I finished, one of the guys said, "Are you talking about Mr Johnson. Isabella always calls him Big Brother."

"Yeah! That's him. Where can I meet him?"

He checked the time and said, "He'll be in Skyland corporation. Since Mr Martinez left overseas, he's the one who's taking care of the company."

"Thank you."

I left after getting the address of that company.

At Rodriguez corporation,

I was stunned when I saw that company's outstanding construction and infrastructure when I entered the company. Woah! The structure of the company looked so rich and etiquette than the companies showed in dramas as a rich company. I saw a wide space having a single desk in one corner, I think it was a reception desk. All I could see were paintings all over the place, to my surprise. Because I have never seen this many paintings in a company. If it was in a house, it would be fair but in a company?

While I was mesmerised with the structure of the company, a guy in a suit came to me and asked, "Are you looking for Mr Johnson?"

I nodded and said, "yes."

He showed me the way by walking in front of me. We got into an elevator, when I looked at the buttons, 13 floors?

We got out on the twelfth floor, and he took me to a room and left.

I entered the room and saw the guy who I saw in the hospital. I clearly remembered that he's the one who paid the bills for Isabella's mother's surgery.

"Have a seat."

I took the seat and looked around the office.

"I'm Noah Johnson, it's nice to meet you."

I nodded to him.

"You're Sophia, right?"

"Do you know me?"

"Know you?" He chuckled and said, "Isabella talks a lot about her friends all the time. And, she shows pictures of all of you taken together and says how it went in school. Since you're her friend, you would have known how she talks. After coming from school, she recited to me what happened on that day. She adores her friends very much."

"Yeah, she did."

"I'm sorry for taking this conversation on a different track, I heard that you went to the house and asked for me after knowing Mr Martinez left overseas. Why did you want to meet him?"

"To talk about Isabella."

"Do you believe that rumour?"

"No! No, I don't. I just wanted to talk about Isabella. To know if he knows anything about Isabella. To know if he knows where she left. Actually, we're investigating her. On the day she disappeared, she went to the hospital to see her mother. But her mother wasn't there and was taken by someone. So some of my friends are going to the school to investigate further. I came here to ask him if he knows something about her disappearance."

"I don't know if i can say this to you but you can stop investigating here."

"What?"

"You heard that Mr Martinez went overseas, the reason he left is to find Isabella."

"He went to look for her?"

"Yeah."

"Well, why did you ask us to stop investigating? He can search for her on the side while we're searching here, right?"

"It's because we found out what happened to her."

"What!? You know that? What happened to Isabella? Why did she leave?"

"But you have to keep this secret. I'm saying this to you because Isabella said she has as many friends as she can have but she mentioned only her closest friends among them. Can you keep this secret between us?"

"Yeah."

"Isabella was forced to leave the state in order to save her mother."

"From who?"

"We don't know it yet but we'll find out soon."

"Okay. Thank you for telling me."

I left Rodriguez corporation.

When I came to my house, I thought about informing this to our friends but i can't do it, if i did, they will ask me about Alexander. How will I explain about him to them? What if they come to the conclusion that the news which they believe is a rumour and think it's real. I know they won't think like that. But what if they did, even in smaller amounts. What if they ask, how did I know that? I couldn't say what I've found out about Isabella to them? What situation is this? What should I do now? Alexander went to search for Isabella. Even if it calms me down a little that someone is looking out for her, I couldn't give this feeling to my friends. Wait, why is he looking for Isabella by himself? Isabella said she's working under him. That means Alexander is her boss and Isabella is his employee. I never heard of a boss searching for an employee who ran away by himself. His house and his company looked so enormous and big. There were a lot of guards in his house as well as in his company. He could have sent them to look for her but why is he doing it by himself? Did Isabella like Alexander? As far as I know, Isabella hasn't said anything about Alexander apart from that he's her boss and she didn't look like a person who's interested in someone too. I think it's Alexander, who wasn't seeing her as an employee. His actions were proof of that too.

Mr Johnson looked calm when he said that Alexander went to look for her. Should I take his calmness that Alexander will find her somehow? If he did, I'd be really happy.

I heard knocking on the door, it must be my brother.

"What do you want?"

"Open the door."

"Why?"

"I want to talk to you."

"If it's about Isabella, I'm saying that I'm not in the mood to listen to your gossip."

"No, it's about something. How long are you going to make your brother stand out of your room like this?"

I stood up from the bed and opened the door to him, "What do you want to talk about?"

He walked past me and entered my room and sat on my bed.

"It's about Isabella."

"What? Aren't you tired of it? How many days are you going to talk about her like this?"

"Wait, I didn't come here to talk about that."

"You said it's about Isabella."

"Yeah, i… I knew it."

"What do you know?"

What is he doing? What does he know? Was he something related to Isabella's disappearance?

"I knew that you like her."

"What?"

"Yeah, you've always asked why am I being mad at her whenever she comes to our house. Because of that, I hate her. I don't like her. It doesn't mean I'm against your dating thing. You can date any girl you want, I'm not restricting that. I'll support you to the core but it doesn't apply to Isabella."

"Why Isabella?"

"Because she's straight. And, I don't want you to get hurt. I don't want you to get hurt because of that."

"When did you know it?"

"I had a doubt from middle school and it got confirmed when both of you kissed. I saw how you got broke when she friendzoned you. I don't want you to get hurt again so I stopped you from seeing her. But you still did. Do think I'm a dumb person and i won't hear even if someone jumps into your room and jump out of the house? I can hear, Sophia. I know you're hurt seeing her leaving like that. I don't know about what happened since I didn't see it with my own eyes. Whatever it is, Don't lose hope, she'll be back."

I hugged him and cried in his arms. He patted my head and tried to calm me down.

After he left, I laid on the bed. When I tried t o go to sleep, suddenly my phone rang. Who's calling me in the middle of the night?

I took the phone and saw Noah's name on the display so I answered it. Why is he calling me at this time?

"What is it?"

"I got some information about Isabella's mother. I asked the nurses who took care of her mother in the hospital after her surgery. They said that a guy took her out of the hospital saying that he's her son. I sneaked into the manager's office and checked the surveillance camera. Now we have the face of the man who took Isabella's mother out of the house."

Noah Johnson said to stop the investigation. What should I do now? Should I tell him to stop it but what if I ask for the reason? Let it go with the flow. Maybe we find the person who threatened her to leave the state.

"What do we do with the face? How can we find out about him with just a face?"

"Actually, i looked into the parking lot too so i got the car's plate number too."

"That's good. Do you know anyone who can run a plate for us?"

"I did. My uncle is working in traffic maintenance so I went to see him with the plate number in my hand to check who that car belongs to. The thing is, the number doesn't exist. It was a fake number plate. A deadend."

"Even if it's a fake car, it would have travelled in all places so what about checking the traffic cameras for that car's whereabouts."

"That's great. Wait."

He didn't talk to me after but still was on the line. What is he doing?

"Sophia, my uncle is running a search on that car. Wait."

"Where are you?"

"At my uncle's workplace along with Liam."

"Liam was there all this time? And what are you doing in your uncle's workplace in the middle of the night?"

"If we want to search for something, we shouldn't stay still even while having a lead. We should do it when it's fresh."

"Okay."

After some time, Noah said, "The car driven by that guy who we saw in the surveillance and Isabella's mother was back of the seat inside the car. The car took off from the hospital and stopped in a garage."

"What? Then what about Isabella's mother?"

"In Between they changed the cars, I think. Another deadend. Whoever it is, they know we will search for them. I bet they're intelligent and people who are in power. The people who are rich and known to her are the club owners she worked in. Should it be someone who she worked under? Do you think there's a possibility?"