The Captain I Married by Chance novel Chapter 285

The entire private room had fallen dead silent the moment Nora answered the phone.

Every single detective at the table heard the piercing scream echoing from the speaker.

Nora locked eyes with her colleagues. "Where are you right now?"

"Hello? Ma'am, can you hear me?"

"Ma'am?"

Nora's grip on the phone tightened until her knuckles turned white. The scream had been entirely too harrowing, and her expression darkened into something lethal.

The other detectives immediately whipped out their phones to check in with the precinct dispatch.

"We received a few emergency calls today, but they were all male callers."

The detective shook his head at Nora, confirming that whoever was on the other end of the line definitely hadn't tried dialing 911 first.

A few people started wondering if it was just a sick prank.

But in their line of work, they couldn't afford to take that gamble.

Since the line was still connected, Nora kept the phone pressed to her ear, motioning for one of the detectives to run a quick trace on the incoming number.

"Hello."

Just as Nora was bracing herself for the absolute worst, a smooth, polite male voice came through the speaker.

The faint crackle of static sent a bizarre shiver down her spine. Pulling the phone slightly away from her ear, she firmly asked for his identity.

"Oh, I'm the owner's boyfriend. She had way too much to drink tonight, dropped her phone on the counter, and just ran to the bathroom to throw up. I am so incredibly sorry. Did she say something crazy to you?"

A collective sigh of relief washed over the entire table.

"No."

"Thank god," the man sighed, sounding thoroughly exasperated. "I'm really sorry about this. She must have just mashed the keypad and accidentally dialed your number by mistake."

A strange glint flashed in Nora's eyes.

"It's alright."

"Well, since everything's fine, I'll go ahead and hang up."

"Alright. So sorry again to bother you, and thank you for being so patient."

Nathan walked over and took the empty seat next to Nora. "Why would a random girl have your personal cell phone number?"

Usually, anyone in a life-or-death situation would dial 911.

Why on earth did this woman bypass emergency services to call Nora directly?

The rest of the team had been so hyper-focused on whether a murder was actively happening that they had completely glossed over that glaring detail.

Thinking back on it, the caller had clearly treated Nora like a close contact.

She had operated under the assumption that the person on the other end would instantly recognize her voice, which was why she hadn't bothered to give her name and had just screamed for help.

"If she was in a situation where she knew she couldn't stay on the line with a 911 dispatcher to explain everything, calling a close friend is actually a very smart survival tactic."

"A friend would already know her address and her usual hangouts, and they could relay all that information to the police immediately."

Nora's fingers tightened around her phone.

But that girl had dialed the wrong number...

The mere thought that a young woman might be facing a horrific tragedy right this second settled over Nora's chest like a suffocating weight.