The Captain I Married by Chance novel Chapter 336

She swiftly pulled her phone from her pocket, her heart skipping a beat the second she read the caller ID.

"What's wrong?"

One look at her face and Nathan knew all hell had broken loose.

"It's Julia Ryland."

Julia knew she was technically off-duty and would never bother her without good reason.

Especially not right after Nora had just wrapped up Evelyn's autopsy.

Right now, Julia should have been neck-deep in post-mortem paperwork and clean-up protocol.

For her to be calling at this exact moment meant one thing: catastrophe.

"Answer it."

Nathan's tone plunged into absolute ice, catching on to the severity immediately.

"Julia?"

Nora didn't waste a millisecond, swiping to accept the call before Nathan had even finished his sentence.

Julia's voice was vibrating with sheer, unadulterated panic. "Nora, it's a disaster!"

"What happened?"

"Evelyn's body is gone!" Julia sobbed through the line.

...

A corpse vanishing from a police morgue was an unprecedented catastrophe.

On the frantic drive back to the station, Nora ran through a thousand different scenarios, but without a shred of evidence to anchor them, she was drawing a complete blank.

Nathan glanced over and saw her nervously picking at the seams of her clothes—a habit she fell into when stressed. She was scraping the pads of her fingers raw without even noticing. He let out a soft sigh and reached over, wrapping his large hand firmly around hers.

"Don't panic."

Nathan's voice was a steadying anchor. "Anyone brazen enough to pull a stunt inside a police precinct is bound to leave a trail of massive, glaring mistakes."

"It's only a matter of time before we nail them."

With modern surveillance tech, evading the law was already near impossible.

Trying to do it while lugging around dead weight? Forget it.

Drawing on years of tactical experience, the second Nathan heard the news, his mind had instantly categorized the most viable methods for smuggling a body out of a secure building.

Laura gets kidnapped for three days, conveniently breaks free in the exact garage where Nora and Nathan happen to be walking, and serendipitously name-drops Evelyn right on cue.

"I wasn't positive before, but the second Evelyn's body vanished, it cemented the theory."

"But I can't understand why they're doing this."

"The autopsy is already done. Stealing her body now serves absolutely zero logistical purpose."

"Unless... is there a secret hidden on her corpse that we missed?"

Nathan took one look at the deep furrow between Nora's brows and answered with absolute conviction. "No."

Nora blinked.

"No to what?"

"There are no flaws in your autopsy results."

Nora's first instinct was to assume he was just trying to comfort her.

"But—"

"Nora, have you considered that you've been entirely blinded by your own preconceived notions?"