The Man Who Waited vs. The Man Who Wasted novel Chapter 208

Jocelyn closed her laptop, walked over to the chaise lounge by the window, and slowly sat down.

Outside, the freezing wind howled against the glass, sounding almost like a mournful dirge.

Jocelyn sat perfectly still on the lounge chair all night, right up until the sun began to rise.

She didn't sleep a wink.

As the first light broke, the sheer exhaustion finally dragged her under, and she passed out right there on the chair.

When Maria came in later, she practically jumped out of her skin.

"Miss Jocelyn, why aren't you sleeping in your bed?!"

Maria hurriedly grabbed a heavy blanket and draped it over her.

"Oh, my heavens. If you keep pushing yourself like this, your body is going to give out."

"I know your heart is broken, Miss, but what's done is done. You can't change the past. You just have to let it go and accept reality."

"If your father saw you like this, he wouldn't be able to rest in peace."

Her father...

Jocelyn shifted slightly and squeezed her eyes shut, trying to massage the pounding ache out of her temples.

She didn't even know how to process her relationship with Marcus anymore.

Should she love him, or should she hate him?

"By the way, Maria, the last time I asked you to dry-clean that cream-colored coat of mine... did you take the watch out of the pocket?"

Maria looked confused.

"Watch?"

Jocelyn nodded. "Yeah, a men's watch."

Maria thought back carefully.

"There wasn't any watch in there."

Jocelyn felt a surge of panic.

"Think carefully! I know for a fact I put it in that coat pocket."

Maria insisted, "I swear, there wasn't. I remember that coat perfectly. It's the one you wore when you came home with that injured shoulder. When you handed it to me for dry cleaning, I checked every single pocket meticulously."

"They were completely empty."

Jocelyn shot up in a panic.

"Maria, quick, help me look around the apartment! Did it fall out somewhere?"

Seeing how frantic she was, Maria asked, "Is that watch really important?"

Jocelyn went to the bank.

After a teller verified her ID, they handed her a heavy wooden box.

The box wasn't large, but it was incredibly dense.

Jocelyn opened it.

Her first instinct was to look for the nursing home address Marcus had mentioned.

She quickly found it folded inside a plain white envelope.

Along with the address was a single name.

Sylvia Reed.

So that was her mother's name.

Jocelyn pulled out her phone and typed the address into her GPS.

It wasn't in Northwood City.

It was out in the rural countryside of a completely different city.

Crestwood.

Driving there from Northwood would take almost five hours one way.