The Captain I Married by Chance novel Chapter 286

"Don't let it get to you. It's highly likely it was exactly what that guy said—she just had way too much to drink."

Nathan knew Nora better than anyone; one look at her face was all it took to see how deeply unsettled she was.

He reached over, wrapping his warm hand around hers. "Let's just wait for the patrol officers to report back."

Nora offered a tight nod.

The waiter returned, pushing the door open to serve their extravagant meal. Nora had been starving earlier, but with this heavy anxiety gnawing at her stomach, her appetite completely vanished.

"You just got discharged from the hospital today. You need to eat to get your strength back."

Nathan gently ladled a hearty serving of chicken soup into her bowl.

Nora murmured her thanks, but just as she picked up her spoon, one of the detective's phones began to ring loudly.

Every head at the table snapped toward him.

Feeling the intense weight of their stares, he checked the caller ID and immediately answered, putting the call on speaker.

"We followed up on that address and name you guys gave us. We knocked on the door and checked it out. Turns out the couple is just celebrating an anniversary or something. The girl named Evelyn was definitely wasted—she was completely out of it, throwing a massive drunken tantrum in the living room."

"The neighborhood group chat is already blowing up with people demanding the upstairs unit keep the noise down."

"Copy that. Thanks for checking it out, guys."

The patrol officer brushed it off as just part of the job and ended the call.

Knowing that a potential homicide hadn't just occurred right under their noses, the team finally let out a collective breath.

"Can everyone actually relax and enjoy the food now?"

Nathan asked, a faint smile playing on his lips as he began transferring choice cuts of meat onto Nora's plate.

Since it was incredibly rare to get a free meal at The Southlake, the detectives didn't hold back, diving into the feast with absolute enthusiasm.

By the time they finished eating, it was getting quite late. Since Nora had just been discharged from the hospital and still needed to unpack, she bid the team goodnight and rode back to her apartment in Nathan's car.

Nora took a long, hot shower and collapsed into bed.

Even though her body ached from scrubbing floors, her mind was buzzing with adrenaline.

Figuring she wouldn't be falling asleep anytime soon, she grabbed her phone and decided to look up that viral webnovel the team had been gossiping about at dinner.

The search results immediately pulled up the book titled "Hush!".

In this era of fast-paced media, the single-word title felt incredibly vague and bizarre; you couldn't even guess the genre just by looking at it.

Driven by nothing more than a desire to kill time, Nora tapped the screen and opened the prologue.

She raised an eyebrow in surprise when she noticed that the author and the main character actually shared the exact same name.

It really did give the whole thing a very eerie, meta vibe.

Swiping the screen, Nora began to read the first chapter.