Eleven Years All to the Wrong Man novel Chapter 65

Evan’s reply was simple: [Don't engage. Just tell her I'll contact her later.]

After sending the message, he put his phone away.

When he looked up, he saw that Emma had already walked quite a distance ahead, and he hurried to catch up.

“Why didn’t you wait for me?”

Emma casually browsed the items on the shelves, replying nonchalantly, “You looked busy, so I didn’t want to disturb you.”

“I wasn’t busy. It was just Jason with a small update from the office.”

Following behind her, Evan thought about the phone call she had walked away to take. He asked, trying to sound casual, “What about you? Who was that on the phone earlier?”

“Just a telemarketer.”

Was a telemarketer really worth walking so far away to talk to? And for that long?

Evan was skeptical. Emma seemed to belatedly realize her excuse was flimsy, so she quickly added, “I recently bought a life insurance policy. The payout is pretty high, but I listed you as the beneficiary, so I didn’t want you to know. After all… there are a lot of those murder-for-insurance cases these days.”

Hearing this, Evan’s lips curved into a smile, and he played along. “You bought a life insurance policy? Then I guess you really do need to be careful around me.”

Emma laughed but didn’t say anything more, letting the topic drop.

She knew Evan was suspicious by nature and would probably have someone look into whether she had actually bought a policy. He wouldn’t care about the paltry sum of the payout; he would just be afraid she was lying to him.

So, Emma brought up the insurance on purpose. That way, even if Evan investigated, he wouldn’t find anything amiss. She had, in fact, bought a policy. The only difference was that the beneficiary wasn’t him, but her mother.

Emma looked out the window at the blue sky and white clouds. The weather was nice. Since she had already told Mr. Allen she wasn’t coming to the hospital today, and she had nothing else to do at home, she nodded. “Alright, let’s go check it out.”

The Firefly Estate was still some distance from the superstore. By the time they arrived, it was dusk.

Emma had dozed off and woke up groggily. The first thing she saw was a vast, open landscape. Outside the window, the fiery red sunset hung at the horizon, painting half the sky in a deep orange-red. It was surrounded by fields of golden farmland, with a backdrop of dense, dark green woods.

In the center of the woods, she could faintly see a hotel built like a castle.

The combination of colors was strange—red, orange, yellow, contrasted with the dark green forest and the inky blue sky—but it was surprisingly beautiful.

The car drove onto the estate and pulled up to the main gate, where a man in a suit, flanked by three young attendants, was already waiting for them.