"Did you find anything unusual when you got home?" Charles asked cautiously.
"Well, the living room was in a complete mess when I got home. The kids were gone, but their toys were all over the place. No one had taken care of the mess. I got a little curious as to what Nancy was doing at the time." Gary knew nothing about the kidnapping, so he couldn't have known what had happened to Nancy. Seeing the mess, he was a little angry and irritated by Nancy's irresponsibility.
But Nancy was known to be a very hardworking servant. Usually, she would never leave a room messy, with so many toys lying around everywhere. It was worrying as to why she had just left without putting them away.
"That's okay, Grandpa. I will give her a call. She probably had something urgent to deal with." Charles didn't want Gary to know anything about the kidnapping. He was too old to bear such horrifying news.
"Yes, you should ask her why she left the house in such a hurry." Gary knew that Nancy would never be this careless, and that she must have had a reason of some sort.
"I will, Grandpa. You don't have to be worried about this. We are retiring to our bedroom," Charles said with a warm smile, when he saw the concern on Gary's face.
"Okay, go ahead."
They quickly went to the bedroom and closed the door. As soon as they were inside, Clark couldn't help but ask, "Dad, is Nancy okay? I am a little worried about her. I feel that something terrible might have happened to her."
"Clark, when you were kidnapped in the morning, were you both home or outdoors?" Charles asked his son. Clark had always struck him as a careful and cautious child. If something had not been right with Nancy, he would have noticed it.
"Shirley and I were playing with toys in the living room, and at that time, several men burst into the house. They brought Nancy to the floor violently and then took us away! Their unexpected arrival shocked us all. When we were being taken, Nancy was lying on the floor. She looked like she was hurt."
He and Shirley had been through so many ups and downs since morning. But he remembered everything so clearly and was eager to tell every little detail to his father.
"So, Nancy was with you when the men barged into the house. Was she shocked to see them as well?" Charles asked, finally getting a clear picture of what had happened to them in the morning.
"I suppose so," Clark said, nodding.
Sheryl quickly reached for her phone and dialed Nancy's number. After letting the phone ring for a while, someone picked up at last. Sheryl immediately said, "Hello, Nancy?"
Sheryl's tone was full of concern.
"Are you Sheryl? Mrs. Lu, right?" a man's voice came through from the other side.
"Who are you? Where is Nancy?" Sheryl got suspicious. She had thought that Nancy had nothing to do with this whole kidnapping. She hoped that Nancy was fine.
From Clark's words, she figured that Nancy was another victim in this kidnapping case. She hoped that whoever was behind this hadn't gone after Nancy, to continue to threaten her and Charles. When she had picked up the phone to call her, she had been hoping that Nancy would be unhurt.
However, no matter where Nancy was, it seemed that something bad had happened to her. Something that was not supposed to happen had actually happened. But from Sheryl's judgement, it seemed that the person who had answered her phone was not a bad guy. His tone sounded more worried and irritated than Sheryl's.
"I am Nancy's son. My mother is at the hospital." The man's voice was calm, but clearly it contained much anger. Sheryl felt that. He continued, "If I hadn't called my mother in the morning, she might have lost her life! Since she wasn't answering my calls, I realized that something must have happened and immediately headed to her workplace. When I arrived at Dream Garden and stepped into the house, I..."
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