Chapter 166 – Beginning with a Daring Encounter

“I will give you a call the moment we are done, okay?” Sonia asked curiously.

“Sure. Let’s talk later then, I love you,” Celsie said before hanging up.

Once the private investigator was done with organizing all the information he had gathered, he picked up his phone and dialed Mrs. Miller’s line, as he wanted to deliver his findings to her.

“I have some interesting findings that I need to share with you,” he informed her the moment the call connected, without bothering with pleasantries as the relationship between them was strictly business.

“Interesting. Have it delivered to my residence,” she said, before hanging up the call.

Once the private investigator dropped his phone, he heard a knock on his door and stood up to go see who was at the door.

Jade lay on her bed, curled up in a ball with her blanket over her head as she tried to stop the shudders that were going through her body. She had called in sick at work as she was still too shaken to step out of her house.

Since the police left a while ago, she had become scared and jumpy over every little sound she heard, despite the fact that they had assured her that the blood she had seen was pig blood.

She had received a call from an unknown line just some minutes after the police left, and the caller had asked her in a robotic voice if she liked the gift she had received.

Going to get a massage and makeover was the last thing on her mind now. Funny how the state of her physical appearance didn’t matter to her anymore now that she felt like her life was in danger. A person needed to be alive to look beautiful.

She knew that she needed to brace up herself and be stronger as threats of even worse nature awaited her if she was set to continue in this career path. There were always going to be displeased defendants, and the nature of the threats would vary depending on the nature of the cases she chose to handle.

She didn’t feel safe in her home anymore. Where else could she go to? The home of either of her female colleagues? Nah. She shook her head to discard the thought. She didn’t want them to know just how scared she was. They thought she was the bravest amongst them, so she didn’t want them to see her in this state and make fun of her even after she eventually gets over this. Perhaps she could go lodge in a hotel? Nah. She shook her head once again. That was also out of the question. She didn’t want to give them the satisfaction of knowing that their threat had invoked fear in her. It was never good to show fear to the enemy.

Jade’s heart almost jumped out of her chest when she heard the sound of her doorbell. She threw the blanket off her, and her eyes frantically moved around the bedroom in her bid to find a defense weapon. When the doorbell rang again, Jade quickly rolled off her bed and picked up a baseball bat that was hanging on one end of the bedroom wall.

With the baseball bat raised slightly above her head, Jade took very slow and deliberate steps towards the door. She was still dressed in her bathrobe as she had been unable to summon up the needed courage to go into the bathroom to have her shower. What if someone comes in when her eyes are closed? What if that someone does something to her and makes it appear like a home accident?

The doorbell rang once again as she stopped by her door. She discreetly peeped through the peephole on her door, and her eyes rounded as large as saucers when she saw Harry standing there with a worried frown on his face, while one hand was raised to ring the doorbell again. Harry Jonas? What was he doing here? She wondered as she quickly ran to the bedroom to replace the baseball bat, and ran a hand through her rough-looking mop of hair in a bid to organize it before returning to open the door.

“Esquire?” Harry asked, looking at her like he couldn’t recognize the person standing in front of him.

“What are you doing here?” Jade asked with an awkward smile as she motioned for him to get inside the house. She looked outside her door and noticed the black sedan car parked behind hers before shutting the door and turning to face Harry.

The lady standing in front of him sure did sound like Jade Delgado, but she didn’t look anything like the beautiful and lively Jade he has met four years ago. Her hair was different, her complexion was dull. She was looking too pale and thin, and very scared too. If he didn’t know better he would think she was some sort of crackhead, and not the intelligent lawyer she was.

“What happened to you?” Harry blurted out before he could stop himself. He knew this wasn’t the right time to ask, and this definitely wasn’t a good conversation starter, but somehow he felt like he needed to know why she had changed so much in the space of just four years. Was it because of her fiance’s death?

Jade’s gaze moved away from him for only a brief moment as one hand moved to comb her hair, while the other hand held the lapels of her bathrobe together self-consciously. She couldn’t help feeling slightly embarrassed that he was seeing her in such a state. All of a sudden the makeover didn’t sound not-so-important anymore.

Jade gave him a forced smile, “Nothing happened. What are you doing here? We were on the phone just a while ago…” Her words drifted off when her eyes fell on the wall clock and she realized that it had been about four hours already since the last time they spoke. That meant he had probably come over because of what he heard.

“Don’t tell me you came here because of that,” Jade asked Harry who was just standing there staring at her like she was a stranger.

“I did,” Harry said without pretense.

“You didn’t have to. I’m completely fine,” Jade said with an assuring smile, and Harry scoffed.

“You look the complete opposite of fine. You look like a complete mess right now,” Harry said and winced once the words left his mouth. He was honest to a fault and was used to being brutally blunt. Benne was right. This was probably one of the reasons he didn’t have a girlfriend.

“You didn’t just scoff at me or call me a mess when you turned up in my house uninvited, did you?” Jade asked, glaring at him.

“Yeah, I didn’t. Forget whatever you heard,” Harry said with a sigh as he walked over to her lone couch which was covered with different books and materials, and made room for himself to sit, while Jade watched him, wondering what he was doing.

Did he just ask her to forget what she heard? Like he was some sort of vampire and was trying to compel her or something? Jade asked herself in disbelief, “I don’t remember asking you to sit. As you can see, I’m fine. You can leave now,” Jade said in a tight voice, gesturing to the door for him to leave.

She knew she was being rude, considering the fact that he had come all the way here to make sure she was okay, but she hated that he was here seeing her in this state. The damned man had even said she looked like a complete mess, so now she was feeling even more self-conscious. She possibly couldn’t beg him to leave, as that would embarrass her even more than her present physical state.

Harry sat with both legs apart and both hands spread on the armrest of the couch as he stared at her as though he was a king looking at his subject, “How many bedrooms do you have?” He asked as though he hadn’t heard her rude remark as he looked around the tiny living room.

“I beg your pardon?” Jade asked with a frown.

“I asked, how many bedrooms does this apartment consist of?” Harry asked again.

“Just one. Why?” Jade asked, letting her curiosity get the best of her.

“Too bad. I will take the couch then. You can move your books to your bedroom,” Harry instructed her, making Jade look at him dumbstruck.

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