The Captain I Married by Chance novel Chapter 287

My name is Aidan Nash.

I am an author by trade.

Every day, when I am not chained to my keyboard, my favorite pastime is sitting out on my balcony, admiring the flowers my next-door neighbor grows.

She is a stunningly beautiful single woman, though I have seen a revolving door of different men stopping by her apartment.

My neighbor eventually noticed me. Whenever I went out to look at her garden, she would cheerfully introduce me to the different varieties of blooms she was cultivating.

She was incredibly tender with those plants.

Over time, a quiet familiarity blossomed between us.

She gifted me a small potted plant, and in return, I bought her a vibrantly colored dress. She absolutely adored it.

That very evening, a strange man knocked on her door and didn't emerge until the sun came up.

Suddenly, I found that I completely lost my taste for looking at flowers.

I avoided my balcony for several days, and as a result, I didn't see her either.

Then, one afternoon, the police knocked on my door. They informed me that my neighbor had officially been reported missing.

I feigned absolute shock. The performance was flawless, largely because right as I had opened the front door to greet the officers, I could see her standing perfectly still in the shadows just down the hall. She raised a single pale finger to her lips, gently whispering a quiet, 'Hush.'

A jarring vibration violently shattered the silence of the bedroom.

Having just finished the final line of the chapter, Nora flinched so hard that the phone slipped from her trembling fingers and wedged itself between her pillows.

She dragged a hand through her hair, taking a deep breath to steady the sudden, erratic hammering in her chest. Once the lingering wave of creepiness finally washed over her, she fished the phone out of the sheets.

"Hello?"

As she waited for the person on the other end to speak, Nora's mind kept drifting back to the plot she had just read.

She wasn't exactly a connoisseur of webnovels, but even she could tell the opening was heavily relying on psychological misdirection to hook the audience.

Aside from the eerie final visual, the prose itself wasn't anything groundbreaking.

Was the viral fame really just the result of a clever marketing gimmick in the author's notes?

It made sense—with how fast wild theories spread on social media these days, a solid gimmick could easily manufacture hype.

She just hadn't expected the hype to be this massive.

"Nora, are you asleep?"

The detective's grim voice pulled her out of her thoughts. Nora instinctively glanced at the wall clock.

"But the first-person perspective does give it a really strong sense of immersion. That might be why the readers keep saying it feels so terrifyingly real."

Nathan gave a curt nod. "I'll make sure to check it out later."

"Okay."

The elevator doors dinged open, and they practically sprinted to his car.

Once they were buckled in and speeding down the empty streets, Nora immediately brought up Evelyn's case.

"Dispatch didn't give me many details. They just said they received a 911 call reporting Evelyn murdered in her apartment. The person who found the body and made the call was her boyfriend."

Nora instantly realized why the detective had specifically asked her to come down to the station rather than just heading straight to the morgue.

She was the only person who had actually heard the alleged boyfriend's voice on the phone earlier that night.

"I'm assuming I need to sit in on the interrogation and give an official statement before I can even start the autopsy."

Nora aggressively rubbed her temples. "Should we just call in one of the backup medical examiners to handle the body while I do that?"

"Giving your statement won't take that much time," Nathan replied smoothly.

"And since the Special Task Force has its own dedicated medical examiner, it's better if we don't go pawning our workload off on the other departments."