Chapter 23

"Yes!" Zoey's voice perked up. She finally saw the light and felt pretty good about it.

She rarely smiled, but when she did, her beautiful eyes caught Alexander's attention.

It wasn't until Zoey walked past him that he snapped out of it.

Everything clicked, and their team dove back into monitoring the surveillance footage. Besides taking care of the basics, they spent almost the whole day glued to the video screens.

They logged every car that passed by on Friday morning, then pooled their counts, and started sorting the data based on the owner's real name and whether they lived in the community.

Zoey managed to compile three months' worth of license plate numbers in just one morning.

Zoey called out a license plate number and asked Alexander, who was handling the data for the back gate, "Has this car gone out?"

Alexander had a spreadsheet ready to make the search easier.

He typed in the number and clicked the mouse.

"Nope," Alexander said. "Report its movements."

Zoey reported seriously, "This car is kinda interesting. It comes in around 8:30 PM every Friday and leaves at the same time on Sunday night. For three months straight, it was like clockwork. But after we nabbed Lawrence, it just stopped showing up at Pleasantville Apartments."

"It's been about two weeks since we caught Lawrence, and this car hasn't shown up for two weeks?" Alexander stretched an arm and relaxed a bit. "Hold on, I'll contact the DMV right now! You compare notes with Dennis and the others to see if there are any other suspicious vehicles."

"Got it," Zoey replied.

Alexander and Zoey's team was making quick progress, while Charles and Dennis's team was lagging a bit.

Their job wasn't just about compiling surveillance data; it was way more complicated.

Dennis's bad temper was about to blow.

Dennis shouted, "Lawrence, I just wanna go in and beat him up right now!"

Charles was getting more confused as he compiled the data, and his head started to hurt. Just then, Zoey came over.

Seeing their tired faces, she pretty much guessed what was up.

She offered some comfort, "You guys okay?"

Charles said, "We're fine."

Zoey filled Charles and Dennis in on all the info she and Alexander had gathered. Knowing they had a lead, they got excited and kept compiling data to find more clues.

Around 3 PM, the DMV called.

To share the info with everyone, Alexander put the call on speaker, "Officer Edwards, we checked the license plate you gave us. It's fake. This car is definitely suspicious."

Zoey had already guessed this, so the result didn't surprise her at all.

She stretched lazily and said, "Let's keep digging."

To make future investigations easier, Zoey had meticulously recorded the exact times each car entered or exited.

So it was clear that the suspicious car left at 8:43 PM. Based on its speed at the time, they started figuring out where it might have gone.

Along the way, there were mostly small convenience stores, and the few owners with surveillance cameras weren't too keen on cooperating.

They said they were just small businesses; if the cops showed up, it would hurt their reputation.

Zoey had to explain to each one that she just needed their surveillance footage.

Zoey and Alexander, though speechless, kept trying to convince the store owners to cooperate, but only a few did. It was super frustrating!

Zoey and Alexander worked all day and finally found a car at an abandoned factory near the outskirts around 11 PM.

Seeing the car, Alexander's fatigue vanished! This was it! They had finally found it.

He immediately called Robert to share the news.

Robert, yawning continuously, said, "Alexander, the tech department is off work at this hour. You'll have to wait there. I've already sent a message to the tech team. They'll come over first thing in the morning. But tonight, you'll have to guard the evidence yourselves."

"Alright, that's all we can do." Alexander hung up and put his phone back in his pocket.

As winter approached in Emerald City, the temperature difference between day and night was significant, and it was particularly cold.

Since they were near the outskirts, there were few buildings, and apart from vast fields, there were hardly any houses in sight; only the occasional honk of a car could be heard from the road.

"Are you cold?" Alexander took off his coat to give to Zoey.

Zoey didn't take the coat he offered but instead reached for her bag.

Alexander hung the coat on his arm and watched as she took out two pieces of bread from her bag!

Zoey noticed Alexander watching her out of the corner of her eye. Thinking about how they had been busy all day, she split one piece of bread for herself and held the other out to him. "Want some?"

Alexander usually disliked eating these processed foods because they had too many additives.

But today's bread was from Zoey, so he inexplicably took it and even felt a bit happy.

"Sure." Alexander took the bread. He wanted to say thank you, but then he paused as he saw Zoey taking big bites of her bread.

It was cold outside, so they went back to the car.

They had finished the last bottle of water in the trunk that afternoon.

Alexander was worried she might choke and kept reminding her, "Slow down; no one's going to take it from you."

Soon, she finished the dry bread.

Alexander knew Zoey's appetite well, and one piece of bread wouldn't be enough to fill her up.

Alexander wasn't hungry initially, but seeing her eat so heartily made him hungry too.

Zoey tried to avoid snatching the bread from Alexander's hand by closing her eyes and not looking at him.

She thought, 'Sleep, if I fall asleep, I won't be hungry.'

Seeing her like this, Alexander found her adorable and laughed, "What do you want to eat? I'll treat you to something good."

Zoey's arm had just lifted, intending to wave her hand in refusal.

Alexander added, "Consider it a thank you for the bread."

Zoey's outstretched arm immediately turned into a stretch smoothly.

She slowly opened her eyes, lazily sitting in the passenger seat, and praised, "You really know social manners, huh?"

Alexander was silent. Why did Zoey's thanks feel like sarcasm?