CH 4

Warning: This chapter contains graphic content and may be upsetting to some readers. 

Sometimes you really didn’t know the “true face” that was hidden under the seemingly harmless appearance of human beings.

Lynn returned to work on the aftermath of Caviezel’s case as soon as he was discharged from the hospital. They discovered some prescription medicines in Caviezel’s home, and the doctor determined that the drugs were the most likely cause of Mrs. Caviezel’s schizophrenia.

She had helped him start a company and had owned half of its stock. Later, because of the schizophrenia, she had been unable to do anything. Then all the property had, of course, been transferred over to her husband. Those drugs had been mixed into her medication for her mental problems, and as she had taken it day by day, her condition had worsened.

Prior to her medication, the drugs might have been put in her coffee cup, her cold medicine, or a candlelight dinner. 

There were bruises on Caviezel Jr.’s body that doctors attributed to his father’s inability to control his emotions. Lynn recalled their first child’s death, which had occurred about the same time as Mrs. Caviezel’s schizophrenia. He had only been six years old when he had fallen down from a building and died, leaving the couple devastated.

Lynn wondered if that had been a normal death. If Caviezel had not died, would his second son have survived to adulthood?

Caviezel’s profile showed that he had countless titles. He was an ardent philanthropist and had served as the honorary chairman of several associations. Many public facilities had been named after him. But now, everyone was undoubtedly scrambling to change the names.

When he had been alive, he had had a hand in all the important decisions of the town, because he had been considered an honorable man, dedicated to public good, and should have been a decisive part of the future of the community. Even at the school dinner party that day, there had been many people praising his generosity and kindness.

Why would the world permit such a person, who looked very credible and yet had such a warped and perverted core, to exist?

Caviezel had said that Emma was like his wife. Lynn wondered if she had known about the drugs and the beatings, but there was another possibility—that horrific mutation.

It was almost as if a dark power had been alive inside him and had spread throughout his body, causing his limbs to mutate…

He massaged the space in between his eyebrows. Whenever he thought of this kind of thing, the pain on his head that had finally begun to subside began to resurface. 

He had already discussed with Chrissie about her making friends, and the whole process had been a complete failure. He was not good at communicating with children. In the past, even a discussion about cutting back on eating ice cream could turn into a family war, let alone this kind of thing.

And who could persuade a child to leave her best friend, possibly her only friend, while still maintaining peace?

It was impossible. Chrissie had screamed at him; he didn’t know she could scream like that. Then she cried so hard that the next day, her eyes were swollen like walnuts.

He wondered if Arthur had discussed the same issue with his daughter, and if he would have fared a little better than he had. At the very least, he wouldn’t have been standing there miserably, begging her not to cry. 

Now, a week later, Chrissie was no longer talking about it. She had obediently agreed to his requests, but he knew full well that there was still a tone of Krystyn in her speech. It was almost like seeing a diluted image of Arthur at home, and it was driving him crazy. There was also Krystyn’s handwriting on her homework and craft class work.

His phone rang, and he picked it up.

A detached, courteous voice spoke, “Officer Lynn?”

“Mr. Arthur,” Lynn said frostily. 

“Your daughter is here.”

“What? I had left her in the care of Mrs. Gedell—”

“She’s here. She’s in the tree house in the backyard with my daughter, and she won’t come down. Krystyn threw a puzzle block at me, so maybe you would be willing to come and take her home.”

“I’ll be right there.” He was thinking about saying “Thanks for letting me know,” when the phone simply hung up on the other end. 

What an annoying guy.

Arrogant, secretive, dangerous, self-righteous, unreasonable… He was putting on his coat and piling up adjectives in his head when Donald came running in and said, “There’s been a car accident on Seventh Street. Mrs. Carlyle’s car ran into a foreign car—”

“Is it serious?” Lynn asked.

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So it was three hours later, half an hour after the time he was supposed to be off work, when Lynn, donned in his coat, arrived at Arthur’s house.

He rang the doorbell of Arthur’s house. The semi-retired doctor lived in a single-family home with a garden, a well-kept lawn, a wide backyard, and a large swimming pool behind the house.

Arthur opened the door. He was wearing a rather homely white shirt and dark pants. The two little girls had apparently peacefully come down from the tree house and were now noisily making handmade crafts on the table in the living room.

They had built a medieval castle, with a hillside and moat and all that. They had obviously done some research and done a good job. 

Arthur looked at Lynn with a gelid expression on his face. The police officer was dressed in a wrinkled coat and pants that looked unwashed and like it had been trampled for a month on top of that. He was wearing it like it was both a pajama jacket and a bulletproof vest.

“Officer Lynn, you obviously have confidence in my reputation. It’s been three hours and twenty minutes since I called you.”

“No, it’s only been three hours and ten minutes. There was a car accident on Seventh Street and I had to deal with it.”

“I’m really shocked that you feel so comfortable leaving your child here. Aren’t you worried that an ogre will come and drag her away from my yard?” 

“That’s enough,” Lynn said, walking past him into the house.

The living room of Arthur’s house was not quite what he had envisioned, but it was homey and comfortable, with soft tones that were perfect for children.

When Chrissie saw Lynn, she quickly lowered her head and pursed her lips, while Krystyn took a wary step closer to the blonde girl with a protective expression on her face.

“I invited her to play, and she was just too embarrassed to say no,” Krystyn said, “This has nothing to do with her. But I have to say, you shouldn’t interfere with your child’s friendship, Officer. She’s the one making friends, not you.” 

“Chrissie, I’m sorry, but you can’t…” Lynn said.

“That’s what you want to say?” Arthur said from behind.

“What?”

“I let them both stay here so that you could see what was going on, not so that you could come and say ‘I’m sorry’ to her,” Arthur said, “Kids need to be taught, Officer. If I’d known you were coming to apologize, I wouldn’t have let you in.” 

“Then you tell me what needs to be done!”

“Say something other than ‘I’m sorry’?”

Opposite them, two children stood side by side, one with a tough expression and the other with tears in her eyes. For both of them, this was the biggest problem in the world. Especially since the two of them were still standing on the same side against their fathers.

Lynn looked at Arthur, who looked back. 

The tension of hostility between the two fathers was palpable, revealing a faint smell of gunpowder. In contrast, the little darling girls on the opposite side couldn’t be torn apart as if they were stuck together by all-purpose glue.

Lynn disliked Arthur because this person was overly adamant about hiding something. Lynn, a policeman, hated this situation because he knew that great danger lay behind those concealments.

These people might ordinarily project the image of a good citizen in the community, but once someone touched their secret, they would immediately turn back into desperadoes, protecting their dark past at all costs. These secrets could never be allowed to see the light of day, which was why people like them changed their names.

He would never let Chrissie near this family under any circumstances. 

And he was well aware that Arthur absolutely and sincerely hated him and wanted him to stay away from his beloved family as well. He hated anyone who had found out, or might find out, about his secret, and he would go to any length—as had been proven in the hospital room—to keep others away from his family and his secret.

He said with a cold expression, “Chrissie, come back with me now, I want to have a talk with you.”

He turned his head and looked sternly at Arthur, who looked at him with a wintry expression. “I appreciate you informing me, Mr. Arthur. I’ll deal with this problem. I hope that you can talk to your daughter as well.”

“I will.” 

And with that, Lynn left Arthur’s house with a cold expression on his face and his crying little girl in his arms.

A month later, Arthur sent Chrissie back to Lynn’s house with a frosty expression. She had sneaked away from Mrs. Gedell house and gone to Krystyn’s. Mrs. Gedell couldn’t discipline them at all.

Additionally, Mrs Gedell didn’t want to discipline at all; she didn’t understand Arthur’s dislike of the two girls playing together. She, personally, would really like to see her children running to the handsome policeman’s house every day so that she could deepen her relationship with him.

The two fathers completed the handover ceremony with a chilly expression. This was already the seventh time. Several times, Lynn had found them in Chrissie’s room doing homework or playing games, and had called Arthur to pick up Krystyn. 

Several times, they both disappeared. The two fathers asked each other in panic, and finally found them in the school activity room, on the roof, or the neighborhood park.

No matter how many times they talked, neither of them were willing to change.

Chrissie used to be a child known for her obedience, but now it was clear that she had a clear opinion and didn’t agree with Lynn at all.

Chrissie went to her room, leaving the two fathers glaring coldly at each other at the door. 

“Well, I’ve run out of ideas,” Lynn said.

“They’re very opinionated.”

“I can’t control her at all. She’s like a squirrel. She’s out the window as soon as I stop paying attention!”

“Krystyn doesn’t listen to me.” Arthur sighed. “I spoke to her about her making friends, and she said she could sue me if I interfered with her personal life again.” 

The two stood in silence for a while. The originally hostile atmosphere was filled with a despairing sense of helplessness for their children.

Lynn thought that he might never know what Arthur was trying to hide, but at this moment, he was sure they were in the same trench, fighting the same war.

Lynn’s phone rang and he took it out to look at the number, and Arthur said, “Well, I’ll leave first then…”

Arthur hadn’t finished his sentence when his phone also rang. 

Lynn’s call came from the police station of the neighboring town. There had been a series of traffic accidents on the nearby highway. There were too many injured people for the local police to handle. They were asking to dispatch a part of Oak Town’s police.

Lynn said they would arrive there in half an hour with the necessary equipment while thinking, damn, I have to let Chrissie stay overnight at Mrs. Gedell’s place again.

As he hung up the call, he noticed that Arthur hadn’t left. He was still standing by the car answering the phone, and Lynn heard him say, “I’ll be right there.”

Then he ended the call and turned to look at Lynn. 

“Serial traffic accidents in Rainfield Town?” Lynn asked.

“The casualties are severe. They need us to send some doctors from Oak Town to help out on the road,” Arthur said.

Lynn knew that Arthur was qualified as a doctor, but he had never seen him in action. It was said that he mainly did research at home. Lynn had also read some of the papers that were allegedly written by him, which were filled with an air of profoundness. Currently, he occasionally took up operations in other regions as a favor for others.

Lynn had once doubted whether he was a doctor. Now it seemed that he really was. Which fake doctor would dare to go to the scene of a traffic accident and operate on the injured? 

“I can’t believe this accident has mobilized you too,” he said.

Arthur spread his hands, expressing something along the lines of although he did not work very often, there was nothing wrong with helping.

“It seems that I won’t be able to spend the night with Chrissie at home again.”

“Will you send Chrissie to Mrs. Gedell?” Everyone in town trusted Mrs. Gedell’s nursery. 

Lynn nodded. Arthur thought for a moment and said, “I’ll send Krystyn there, too. Although I can find someplace else, Officer Lynn, the car accident is very serious. We don’t know how long it will take before we can leave. It’s safer for them to stay together, otherwise they will run out alone to find each other. I don’t want to take such a risk.”

Lynn looked at him for a while, then laughed. He was one hell of a dangerous guy out-and-out, but there was one thing he had never ever doubted—his care for his daughter.

“Me too,” he said, “I’m going to go get Chrissie now. You go and pick up Krystyn.”

The scene of the serial traffic accident resembled a miniature hell. 

Countless vehicles were twisted and squeezed into a lump, becoming a deadly, fatal weapon. Blood and limbs were seeping from the corners. Someone was crying, someone was screaming, and there were some small explosions in the beginning. The scene was in pandemonium, and made more chaotic by the lights of ambulances and police cars trying to squeeze in.

The police and medical staff were busy, with focused expressions that could only be seen when faced with a great disaster. Lynn maintained order at the scene as he directed a crane to pull up a truck to reveal the squashed car underneath.

The rescue workers immediately rushed over, cut open the door, and pulled out the woman stuck inside.

She was a bloody mess. Lynn didn’t know how badly she was hurt, but he could see her trying desperately to breathe but failing. In such a situation, a person could die in a heartbeat. Lynn felt suffocated just by looking at the scene. 

Arthur walked over to her, still looking like his usual self, but with a doctor’s badge on his chest. He moved over to listen to her breathing, then said something to the new intern next to him who had been transferred there. The intern frantically rummaged in his bag but couldn’t find what he was looking for. Arthur grabbed his medical bag, pulled something out of it, and pressed it onto the woman’s chest.

She shuddered for a moment before her breathing began to smoothen. Lynn subconsciously breathed a sigh of relief.

Arthur examined her pupils and shoulders. His movements were neat, professional, and efficient. He asked the intern to hold her down somewhere—probably to stop bleeding—and then quickly spoke about the kind of medical treatment and help the injured person needed.

Then he left the place and headed for the other victim, while the paramedics carried the woman away. Lynn thought about how she had been extracted out of this nightmare and would begin a difficult recovery period in the hospital. 

Arthur examined another man’s injuries, spoke to him, then ordered the paramedics behind him to get the injured man into the ambulance.

He still looked expressionless and worked nimbly the entire time, but Lynn noticed that he was the fastest at saving people.

“Officer Lynn?” A voice called.

He turned his head and saw that his colleague was calling him, asking if he could start cutting up the other car, and he hastily turned around and said he would start immediately. 

It was a long and torturous job.

They were still working on the site until the edge of the sky turned white, and it looked like they wouldn’t be able to sleep for the rest of the day.

Some volunteers brought coffee and Lynn took a cup. Thank God for that.

He turned his head and saw Arthur standing in the opposite direction. He hadn’t seen him for a while, but knew that he had been busy. His always well-fitted clothes were a little wrinkled, and his hair was messy from the wind. He should have looked haggard after staying up all night, and he did look like he had been up all night, but his eyes were bright, just as focused and efficient as always. 

He was on one knee, and Lynn couldn’t see what he was doing, but he was obviously very busy. He picked up a cup of coffee and walked over to him.

Arthur was examining a young girl who had just been dragged out of a car. Even after the tragedy, her face was still full of youthful luster, but her leg was a mess. It was hard to take a second look at it.

“This requires amputation,” Arthur said.

The girl grabbed his arm and looked at him. The look in her eyes was even more difficult to face than her injuries. 

Arthur stood there, looking into her eyes, and the silence was excruciating. Then the doctor said slowly, “I’m sorry.”

The girl slowly loosened her hand, and the paramedics carried her to the ambulance. Arthur turned to look at her as it slowly drove away.

He turned his head and saw Lynn. The police officer handed over the coffee, which he took silently.

“Is it dreadful?” Lynn said. 

Arthur took a sip of coffee and immediately spit it all out.

“It’s so awful!” Arthur exclaimed.

“Doctor!” A voice called from another direction, and another injured person was lifted up. Arthur put the coffee on the roof of a car and turned around to walk away.

Lynn looked at the paper cup and concluded that the aristocrat was not interested in this kind of drink at all. 

Arthur was halfway down the road when a man sitting on the side of the road, bleeding from the corner of his forehead, grabbed his arm and called out, “Doctor, am I going to die, doctor?”

Lynn thought that Arthur would shake him off because the man’s injury looked like it was skin trauma and he had more serious cases to oversee.

But, contrary to his expectations, the doctor stopped, moved over, checked his pupils, asked his name and the current date, and told him, “You’re not going to die, you only have a mild concussion.”

He ran to another injured person, and the man on the side of the road pulled another doctor to ask if he was going to die. 

Lynn watched with a strange interest as Arthur went about his business. He finished his cup of coffee, picked up Arthur’s cup on the roof of the car, took a sip, and returned to his post.