Chapter 9 - Poisoned?

"Halia...Halia..."

Halia snapped back to reality and looked at the confused head nurse. "Sorry, my mind just wandered off for a second," she explained.

What was that vision? It felt so real. Was that Sara's memory? Did Sara have an admirer? Did that happen recently?

Halia had so many questions, but one thing was for sure, the killer wasn't Dr. Roberts. She only had two things that she knew for certain about the killer: the laugh she heard belonged to a man and the eyes she saw were dark brown. Dr. Roberts eyes were far from brown!

...

After a long day at work, Halia left work and drove to a restaurant about 20 minutes away. It was a busy restaurant, but it was far enough for her to not run into any familiar people (or so she thought). She then sat down at a booth which had its back against another booth. There was already a man sitting on the one behind her. She was here to give a report for the day.

"Any findings today?" the man asked without turning around.

"Yes," Halia replied as she took a quick glance at the man. It was Dr. Ren. Why was he here? Shouldn't they have gotten her a proper handler or something?

"What are you doing here?" Halia asked under her breath.

"There are only 8 people that know about your mission at the moment: me, the police chief, Dr. Li and 5 assistants that helped with your surgery."

"The police chief couldn't come because he's been appearing at press conferences regarding this case, so he thought it might blow your cover. As for Dr. Li, he's in the middle of running a test, so he couldn't step away," Dr. Ren explained.

"In the end, I offered to come, since you don't know the other assistants."

"The chicken pesto pasta is really good here," Dr. Ren suggested.

Halia sighed and ordered the chicken pesto pasta from the waiter. She then slipped a piece of paper to Dr. Ren.

"I've compiled a list of suspects. There are 6 on there," she explained.

"Did you experience any more memories?" Dr. Ren asked.

"It appears as though someone confessed to Sara at an aquarium. Can you ask the police chief if he knows anything about it? I'm not sure if it's related to the case, but my instincts tell me it is."

Just as Halia finished talking, someone suddenly walked into the restaurant and sat opposite her.

Halia quickly turned away from Dr. Ren and pretended like she didn't know him. She then looked at the person that had sat down. But, her eyes suddenly grew wide. "What are you doing here?" she asked in surprise.

A familiarly cold and handsome man was sitting opposite her. It was Jackson Wu!

"I'm having dinner," Jackson replied casually, as though it was normal for him to be sitting opposite her at a restaurant where she didn't expect to see any familiar faces.

"Look around, the restaurant's full, I had no choice but to sit opposite you," he said as he picked up a menu.

Halia looked around the busy restaurant and turned back to glare at the man opposite her. Was this pure coincidence?

At that moment, Dr. Ren realized his conversation with Halia was over, so he got up and left.

"Look, there's an empty seat behind me. Go sit there," Halia quickly shooed.

"Don't you see the line outside? Even if I move, someone else is going to end up sitting here," the man replied as he waved for a waiter.

Halia watched as Jackson ordered from the menu; she couldn't help but glare at him. He was the last person she wanted to see. Not only did his friends cause trouble at the hospital earlier that day, from what Lily told her, it sounded like this man was involved in some kind of illegal work. As a representative of the law, she hated people like him.

Eventually, their meals arrived and the two started to eat in silence. Halia took a couple bites of pasta and nodded her head in satisfaction. Dr. Ren made a good suggestion; it was delicious.

But, after a few more bites, she looked down at the pasta and suddenly felt her heart pound and her throat tighten. She started to struggle for breath and her head felt dizzy.

What was happening?

Was she poisoned?

"Nurse, what's wrong?" she heard a voice ask. It was obviously Jackson since she never gave him her name and he was the only one that would call her 'nurse'.

"Nurse...?" this time she felt a pat on her shoulder, Jackson was now next to her. How did he get there so quickly?

Suddenly, a frightening thought came to her mind: was he the killer? Did he stalk her and poison her? Was he about to drag her into an alley and slash her throat? She took one last glance at the man that was now holding her in his arms. "How could you?" she thought, before she fainted.