Chapter 158: Kidnapped
Julian didn’t show much reaction to Vivian’s words.
Vivian simply smiled warmly at him. A short while later, after finishing their warm-up exercises, the two of them got ready to hit the punching bags. But right at that moment, Julian’s phone suddenly rang.
Julian furrowed his brows, taking out his phone for a glance, only to find an unknown number calling.
He instinctively hung up.
His phone had been specially configured, so logically, unknown numbers shouldn’t have been able to get through. The fact that this call came in without a caller ID made him feel a bit strange.
Vivian had her back to him at the time, so she didn’t see what was going on with the phone number. However, not long after Julian hung up, the phone rang again. It was the same number. When he hung up a second time, Vivian also found it strange.
"Who keeps calling you? Why aren’t you answering?"
She glanced over and saw a string of digits on the screen. It was clearly not a number from Julian’s contacts.
"I don’t know. It might be a spam call. I’ll have Vance look into it."
Just as Julian finished speaking, his phone chimed again.
But this time, it wasn’t an incoming call; it was a text message.
"Hmm? Is it that same number? Do they need something from you?"
Vivian leaned in closer. She had a feeling things weren’t that simple. The caller’s persistence made it seem like they had a specific agenda.
This time, Julian didn’t immediately delete the message. He chose to open it to see exactly what kind of trick the other party was trying to pull.
As soon as the message opened, Julian and Vivian saw a picture. The background was pitch black, and in the center sat a woman with disheveled hair, tied up.
Vivian recognized her at a glance—it was Rachel.
Remembering that just an hour ago when she was on the phone with Eleanor Rhodes, Rachel had still been at Concordia Hospital talking with Annie’s associate, Lawyer Donovan, Vivian instinctively grew alert.
"What’s going on?"
Vivian almost thought she was seeing things. It felt like this text message was just some kind of sick prank.
Rachel was tied up and kept in some pitch-black place? What was happening?
Vivian looked at Julian in astonishment and asked, "Is this... Rachel? Wasn’t she just at Concordia Hospital? What’s going on now?"
She truly couldn’t understand it.
Just a few minutes ago, she had been wondering what exactly Rachel was plotting to seize from the Faulkner family after teaming up with Annie. She had even thought about how heartbroken Grandma Faulkner would be if she found out the truth. But now... Rachel was kidnapped?
Was it a coincidence? Or... did it have something to do with Annie?
Vivian was completely baffled.
Beside her, Julian’s expression was noticeably solemn. Hearing Vivian’s questions, he didn’t quite know how to answer, so he simply dialed the number right back.
Standing next to Julian, Vivian listened to the BEEP BEEP echoing from the receiver, her heart involuntarily tightening with nerves.
Whatever was really going on, it should all become clear once this call went through.
The BEEP BEEP continued.
Suddenly realizing something, Vivian took out her own phone and sent a message to Vance Wyatt, forwarding the number Julian was calling.
"Vance, for some unknown reason, this number managed to bypass the whitelist interception on Julian’s phone and called him. Furthermore...
"They just sent a message showing that Rachel appears to have been kidnapped. We don’t know what’s going on, but Julian is calling them right now. See if you can trace the location of the person using this number!"
Vivian had watched plenty of Hong Kong and Taiwanese police dramas.
When someone was kidnapped and the victim’s side contacted the perpetrators, the police usually asked them to keep the caller on the line as long as possible. This gave them time to use technological means to trace the caller’s location.
Vance replied very quickly with just a simple "OK," but Vivian knew she didn’t need to worry given his competence.
After the phone beeped over a dozen times—just when Vivian thought the other party wouldn’t answer—the call finally connected.
"Hello?"
The voice on the other end was electronic, heavily processed to mask the person’s true voice. The caller chuckled softly and asked, "President Faulkner?
"Weren’t you refusing to answer my calls just a moment ago? Why the sudden callback after receiving a text? Sigh! If you knew this was going to happen, why did you ignore me earlier?"
The electronic voice chuckled again, sounding incredibly eerie.
Julian’s face darkened as he demanded, "What is the meaning of your text message? Is Rachel with you? What happened?
"Are you working for Annie?"
The electronic voice continued to laugh, though the tone shifted from contempt to something more profound. Sounding surprised, the caller said, "I didn’t expect you to figure it out.
"Yes, I work for Ms. Adler. And as for Rachel, she is indeed with me. Who told this woman to be so foolish? Thinking she could come over and negotiate with Ms. Adler all by herself.
"As a result, she’s fallen into our hands. President Faulkner, I know this is Veridia and not some foreign country. Veridia’s police force is highly efficient, so I have no intention of trying to extort anything from you.
"I just want to warn you. Ms. Adler lost her child during this trip back to the country, all thanks to your Madam Faulkner. She will not just let this matter go.
"I hope you won’t be stingy with the appropriate compensation. Otherwise... this time it’s Rachel, but next time, who knows who it might be."
With those words, the caller hung up.
"..."
By now, Vivian had figured out the other party’s motives.
If everything they said was true, then they probably wouldn’t actually harm Rachel. But to say they would just let her go...
Knowing Annie’s temperament, Vivian felt that was highly unlikely.
They would still have to find Annie themselves.
Taking a deep breath, Vivian called Vance.
Vance answered almost instantly. "Madam, I’ve already tracked down their approximate location. It’s in the outskirts of Aethelburg, narrowed down to a specific radius.
"However... there wasn’t enough time, and the call was disconnected. Now, we can only dispatch people to that area and search manually."
"Thank you for the trouble, Vance." Vivian knew that accomplishing even this much in such a short amount of time was no easy feat. She then asked, "Well, the contents of that call were just recorded.
"Can you try to parse it on your end? See if you can analyze it to restore their original voice?"
Vance pondered for a moment before answering, "I can give it a try. However, I can’t make any guarantees. Their voice was obviously subjected to heavy processing.
"It will take some time, Madam. Is that alright?"
"Yes," Vivian nodded and said. "Then I’ll leave it to you, Vance. Thanks for your hard work. You might have to work some overtime tonight."
"No problem."
After answering, Vance ended the call.