Chapter 793

Will was supremely confident in himself. First, he was handsome. Second, his family background and status were impeccable. He was the embodiment of everything a young woman dreamed of in a partner. With such credentials, it was only a matter of time before Caitlin was conquered.
Ham, ever the sycophant, nodded eagerly. “Exactly, my Lord! You’re the Prince Charming of every unmarried woman’s dreams. Forget unmarried-even married women can’t resist your charm! I bet that woman from Eldermere is just playing hard to get. Let her pretend. She won’t be able to keep it up for long.”
Will nodded, thinking Ham was absolutely right.
Back in her hotel room, Caitlin sat down at her computer and began looking up the address where Tina worked. A quick search led her to the Vance family. Tina, it turned out, was a private physician at Vance Castle.
The current head of the Vance family was the Dowager Vance. She’d had a son and a daughter; the son died young in an accident, leaving behind his widow, Flavia. The daughter, named Rosemary, was thirty-five and unmarried.
Caitlin’s eyebrows rose at the name. “Rosemary?” Why did that sound so familiar?
Then it hit her. “Oh, right. The sellout.”
Of course, Rosemary wasn’t her primary target. Switching to her secure alias, Caitlin started digging for information on Flavia. Since Flavia had immigrated to Valerium with the Vance family years ago, her records would only be in Valerium’s databases.
Ten minutes later, she found Flavia’s file.
Name: Flavia
Age: 46
Status: Orphan, raised at the Lakewood City Orphanage.
Original Nationality: Eldermere
Current Nationality: Valerium The latest_epɪ_sodes are on_the.net
Family Members: Diana (mother-in-law), Quinton (husband, deceased), Rosemary (sister-in-law)
When Caitlin clicked on Flavia’s photo, only a blurry, black-and-white image appeared. Scrolling down, she found nothing but a blank page. In the twenty years since the Vance family had moved to Valerium, Flavia had never once appeared in public not even for a doctor’s visit. If she had been out even a few times,
her file wouldn’t be completely
empty.

It seemed it wasn’t just Flavia who was suspicious-the entire Vance family was.
Caitlin thought back to her first
encounter with Rosemary, how the
woman had gone out of her way to make things difficult. At the time Caitlin had chalked it up to a
icult
personality. Now, she realized things
weren’t so simple.
to
It was highly likely that Flavia was being held captive by the Vance family, and that
she herself had been deliberately targeted by Rosemary.
With this thought, Caitlin immediately picked up her phone and called Celia.
Celia sounded surprised to hear from her. “Freya? Is something wrong? It’s pretty late.” It was nearly midnight. Caitlin wouldn’t be calling unless it was urgent.
“Celia, I was wondering, did your mother post my mother’s information on the missing persons registry yet?”
“Not yet,” Celia replied. “Don’t worry, Freya, my mom said she’d go down to the department first thing tomorrow morning to handle it personally.”
“Celia, please thank your mother for me, but something has come up. I need you to tell her not to post my mother’s information for now.”
Although Caitlin hadn’t started investigating the Vance family in earnest, her intuition screamed that this was a dangerous situation. If her mother was now Flavia,
publicizing the search could put
her
in grave danger. She couldn’t take
that risk. She had to be prepared for
the worst.
Though Celia didn’t know the reason for the sudden change of plans, she trusted Caitlin’s judgment. “Okay, Freya. I’ll go tell my mom right now. If you run into any trouble, you have to let me know.”
“I will. And Celia, March and I won’t be leaving tomorrow after all, so you don’t need to see us off.”
After ending the call with Celia, Caitlin dialed her grandmother, Hannah. It was daytime back home.