The Captain I Married by Chance novel Chapter 338

"Exactly."

"And according to the security footage we pulled," Nathan continued, "prior to Evelyn's death, Mr. Lawson, her parents, and Liam Jennings all set foot in her apartment."

"Plus, since they were supposedly celebrating that day, her place had a revolving door of guests. That furious voice you heard on her phone was almost certainly someone from her inner circle."

This was entirely new intelligence to Nora. Remembering that she had gone to the Special Task Force to find him earlier only to be told he was out on a lead, she asked directly, "Didn't you take a team out to run a background check on Liam? What did you find?"

Nathan tapped a rhythmic beat against the steering wheel. "We found that while Liam comes from a perfectly happy, stable family, his personality is notoriously withdrawn and isolated."

"Withdrawn?"

Nora recalled the man she had interviewed.

Sure, Liam had been highly agitated and emotionally volatile during his statement, but 'withdrawn' wasn't a word she would have ever assigned to him.

In fact, he had seemed desperately eager to talk her ear off.

"Yes."

"His parents claim he's an obedient, dutiful son who never gave them a day of trouble in his life. But when it came to his obsession with Evelyn, he was fiercely, dangerously stubborn."

"Are you saying his parents didn't approve of the relationship?"

Nathan weighed his words carefully. "It's less that they disapproved, and more that they saw the writing on the wall."

"Mr. Lawson wasn't blowing smoke when he talked about Evelyn's toxic reputation. The word on the street is that she was brutally two-faced. She'd play one character for a specific crowd, and then switch to a completely different persona elsewhere."

"People were genuinely confused about which version was the real Evelyn."

"Confused about which was the real Evelyn?"

Nora found the phrasing bizarre.

"Meanwhile, Mr. Lawson claimed their love was rock solid, boasting that no matter how hard he pursued Evelyn, she never once wavered..."

As these testimonies collided in Nora's head, she felt her fingers brushing against the absolute truth, even if she couldn't fully grasp it yet.

Evelyn's autopsy report was an irrefutable fact. She had been subjected to horrific, chronic abuse, and had even given birth.

Those kinds of physical traumas left a paper trail. Medical records existed somewhere.

If Liam was telling the truth, then Evelyn's sudden illness was likely a catastrophic psychological break triggered by that exact abuse.

But if Mr. Lawson was telling the truth, and Liam was the only man intimately involved in Evelyn's life from start to finish... then it didn't take a genius to figure out exactly whose hands left those bruises.

Nora thought back to Laura's bizarre kidnapping. Her brow furrowed into a tight knot.

What the hell was the actual truth?