Chapter 338

The moment the housekeeper finished speaking, Emily Blair’s finger was still hovering over the “block” button when another unknown number flashed on her phone—a number with an area code from the far south.
The shrill ring of the phone sounded urgent and out of place in the quiet hospital room. The housekeeper frowned. Emily’s expression didn’t change. She declined the call and, with practiced ease, added the number to her blocked list.
“Ms. Blair, why are you getting so many calls?” the housekeeper asked in a low voice.
Emily, head down, silently continued blocking the remaining unfamiliar numbers. Even as an outsider, the housekeeper couldn’t help but sense something was wrong. Her heart began to pound-something big and out of control seemed to be brewing.
She studied Emily’s face, searching for any flicker of panic or helplessness, but Emily remained calm, her voice steady when she finally spoke.
“It’s nothing. Probably just a bunch of bored people who got hold of my number and decided to mess around.”
The housekeeper felt a small sense of relief at Emily’s explanation.
But just as she relaxed, another call came through from a different unknown number.
Emily didn’t hesitate; she rejected the call and blocked it as well.
By now, the housekeeper couldn’t accept Emily’s casual explanation anymore. She spoke quietly, “Ms. Blair, is there something you can’t handle? Mr. Lane told me if you ever needed anything, I should let him know. He said he’d help you with whatever it is.”
As she spoke, the phone kept buzzing with new calls, over and over. The housekeeper watched Emily block each number, her voice still cool and unruffled. “That won’t be necessary.”
The housekeeper grew anxious at her refusal. “Ms. Blair, really, Mr. Lane meant it. If you-”
“Alice.” Emily cut her off, still focused on blocking number after number.
The housekeeper’s concern only deepened as she watched the calls pile up, one after another, barely a pause between hang-ups and new rings. Clearly, these were harassing calls in waves.
She heard Emily say, quietly but firmly, “Don’t tell Mr. Lane.”
The housekeeper pressed, “Why not? If you tell Mr. Lane, maybe he can put a stop to all these calls. Ms. Blair, you have to be careful-don’t let yourself get scammed. If you lose money to con artists, it’s almost impossible to get it back. Please, be careful.”
She assumed Emily’s number had been leaked to scammers, which would explain the persistent calls.
Emily understood what the housekeeper was thinking-she believed these were scam calls.
Suddenly, Emily let out a short, sharp laugh. It startled the housekeeper. “Who knows? Maybe it’s Mr. Lane behind all this.”
The housekeeper’s brows shot up in shock. “How could you say that? Ms. Blair, you must have misunderstood. Mr. Lane cares about you. There’s no way he’d do something like this. Really, you must be mistaken. He’s wealthy he wouldn’t need to scam you.”
“And Mr. Lane has told me many times to inform him right away if anything happens. He wants to help. He really does care about you-otherwise, he wouldn’t pay me so well to look after you. Please, Ms. Blair, don’t get the wrong idea about Mr. Lane.”
The more she spoke, the more she recalled her recent conversations with Mr. Lane. Not a day had gone by since she started caring for Emily that she hadn’t carefully followed his instructions: every evening, after Emily finished dinner, she’d call Mr. Lane to report every detail—how Emily was feeling, the state of her ankle, her mood, her appetite, exactly what and how much she’d eaten.