Mistaken by the Billionaire Marquess

CHAPTER 27: Photo and Chestbox

– LIA –

WHILE KELLEON is driving, I’m on the passenger seat and flipping the pages of the files that we got on the other day in the hospital. I wasn’t able to review it yesterday since Kelleon and I had an intimate time together.

My femininity is still kind of sore…

I shook my head. I should not think of things like that right now.

I focused myself on reviewing the files. My eyes furrowed more as I flip through the pages. And, as I view more of its content, more questions formed in my mind.

“There are missing pages here,” I muttered. From my peripheral vision, I saw Kelleon turned his head to my direction slightly.

“What do you mean?” he asked. He turned his head back to the road as his hand reached for my thigh.

I didn’t mind his touch. It’s not that he haven’t touched me before. He reached the deep and intimate parts of my body that no one ever did before.

I touched his hand as I read the files. “The number of the pages skipped a lot. From page 3, it jumped to page 10,” I answered.

“Maybe, that Mr. Ferrer interntionally removed the other pages,” he responded.

I shook my head. “No,” I said.

His grip on the thigh tightened. I turned my head to him and I noticed that he is clenching his jaw.

“I saw him when he printed the files until when he handed it to us. He chose ‘print all’ on his monitor. The front of the printer is facing towards us and away from his table, that’s why he can’t remove a page without leaving his table and circling around. I was the one who removed the papers from the printer and he stapled it in front of me,” I explained. “He can’t remove the pages.

Kelleon sighed deeply. “You’re defending him,” he said firmly.

“I’m not defending him,” I answered. “I’m just telling you what I really happened. We can’t just accuse him of removing the pages easily.”

His jaw clenched more and I can even see some roots on his temple showing. “That’s the same thing for me,” he responded. “Are you defending him because you’re close to each other?”

I furrowed my eyebrows at him. “What? No!” I exclaimed. “How can you say that we’re close to each other? I can’t even call him a friend! He’s a stranger to me!”

I waited for an answer, but he didn’t respond. He just kept on driving but he looks so pissed.

My lips formed into a grin when I realized what is going on in his mind.

“You’re jealous,” I said confidently.

He was stunned for a little bit but he was able to pull himself back. “No, I’m not,” he answered while trying to spat out a laugh at my answer.

“Oh? Okay,” I said. “If you’re not jealous then… I can ask Mr. Ferrer for a date. He actually fits on my standard.”

Kelleon suddenly pushed on to the brake, making the car stopped immediately. I almost bumped my face on the windshield, but the seatbelt saved me.

“What the fuck?!” I exclaimed. “Do you wanna get us killed?!”

He turned his head to me. As fast as lightning, he pinned me on my seat. He grabbed my chin and pulled me closer to his face.

“You… will ask him for a date?” he said while staring at my eyes. I didn’t feel any single fear even if he looks like he was about to kidnap me so that he can have me only for himself.

Instead, I feel aroused. His hand on my chin and our bodies near to each other made me want him to eat me inside this car.

“Yeah,” I answered shortly, not cutting our eye contact.

“You can’t do that,” he said under his breath.

I grinned at him. “I can. I don’t a boyfriend.  I don’t have a fiance. I don’t have a husband. I’m single.”

“You have me!” he exclaimed, his jealousy evident on his face. “We’re fucking each other yet you’re gonna date another man?”

My grin grew wider. I want to laugh at his face but the sound of beeping cars stopped me. I looked at the back and I noticed that we caused a traffic!

“Kelleon!” I shouted at him. “Go back to driving! You’re causing traffic!”

But he’s hard-headed. “Not until you tell me that you won’t date him.”

I unbelievingly looked at him. “What? Okay! I’m just joking when I said that!”

He shook his head lightly. “That’s not the answer that I want.”

I took a deep breath and close my eyes. When I opened it, I looked at Kelleon. It was the ‘you’re the only man who fits on my standard and I will marry only you’ look.

“Cariño,” I called him sweetly. “Of course, I won’t date him. I’m just teasing you earlier.”

I cupped his face and gave him a peck of kiss. “You’re the only man in my life. You’re the only man that I will date. You’re the only man who can kiss, touch, and make me his.”

His face softened. “And he doesn’t fit your standards?” he asked.

I chuckled and carressed his face. “He doesn’t. You’re the only man who passed my standards. You even surprassed it.”

Kelleon was so pleased to hear it that he started to give me a french kiss inside his car. If not for the beeping cars who are already losing their patience on us, we would have make out here.

MR. FERRER was already waiting for us in the receiving area of the hospital. Kelleon immediately grabbed me by the waist. I just laugh at him because I’m sure that he still remembered what happened on the car earlier.

“Good morning, ma’am, sir,” Mr. Ferrer greeted us. He offered us our seats and motioned his hand towards the other man, who I think is a doctor.

“This is Doctor Aaron Caalim, one of our anesthesiologist here in ICH. He’s the one who has Doctor Andres’ things,” he introduced the doctor.

Doctor Caalim bowed. “Good morning.”

He then proceeded to grab a box, which I think is about 20 centimeters tall. He put it on the table between the four of us.

“Those are the things that Doctor Andres left on his locker. I only touched them once, that’s when I transferred the things into this box,” he explained.

“I waited for someone to claim Doc Andres’ things. From a family member or a friend, but no one came.”

I opened the box and removed the things inside of it. “Did the other police inspect this box?” I asked.

Doctor Caalim shook his head, which is strange. “No. You’re the first from the police who inspected that. Actually, you’re the first person who knew about the box. Aside from Mr. Ferrer, of course,” he answered.

I didn’t reply anything but a nod. That’s strange. Usually, police will look for anything that a missing person left behind before they disappeared. However, they didn’t even look for the things in his locker. It’s like they didn’t investigate this case.

Usual things are inside the box. Pack of surgical gloves, eyeglasses, pen, and used bundle of papers. Nothing special.

Kelleon suddenly reached something from the other side of the box. I leaned closer to him to see what he is holding.

My eyes widened and my mind became confused when I already have a clear view of it.

“Is that… me?” I asked while slowly extending my arms to reach for the photo that Kelleon is holding.

He nodded. “Yes, it’s you.”

Kelleon gave the photo to me. I looked at it and touched it gently.

It was a photo of me, when I was still in college. I can remember this memory very clearly since it is the first field trip that I joined ever since I started studying.ConTEent bel0ngs to Nôv(e)lD/rama(.)Org .

The photo was taken on the mini bridge of the Venice Grand Canal in Taguig City. I remember that Althea was the one who took this photo. I was posing as Sailor Moon while looking at the camera.

How did the doctor get this photo? Did he print this?

Althea took this photo using only her phone. I even made this as my profile picture that time. I don’t remember us printing any of this.

But looking at this with much focus, I noticed that the perspective of the camera is not the same as the one that Althea took. It was pushed to a little degree in the right. I can even see a small part of Althea’s hands in the photo.

Another person took this one.

“Why is this here?” I asked so lowly that it’s almost a whisper.

Kelleon touched my hand. “We’ll find more about this, mi amor. Don’t stress yourself over this, okay?”

He removed the photo from my hand and  put it inside the expandable folder that we brought.

I took a deep breath and look for other things that can give us leads. While removing some unnecessary stuffs, Doctor Caalim spoke.

“I don’t know if this can help, but before Doctor Andres disappeared, he told us that he got large amount of money,” he said.

I looked at him and was about to ask mo when someone intervened.

“Ah yes, doc!” a nurse said. “Doc Andres even boast it to us. He said that the amount of money is so huge that he can buy a house in Forbes with that!”

After revealing that information, the nurse walked towards the other staff.

“Did he tell you where he got that money from?” Kelleon asked.

Mr. Ferrer answered by shaking his head. “No. He didn’t tell us. We just assumed that it was from one of his successfully surgeries, which is quite true because he’s a good neuro surgeon.”

“Others even guessed that he won in a lottery because there are times that Doc Andres received calls from unregistered number. He always looked happy everytime his phone is ringing,” Doctor Caalim added.

As they where talking, my eyes were glued to a small chestbox. I grabbed and tried to open it. However, there is a lock.

“Do you know what’s inside this chestbox?” I asked while trying to open it. I grabbed a hairpin from my bag.

“No, but there was a time I saw him carrying that. He said that has his documents and old IDs from ICH,” Doctor Caalim responded.

After several attempts of opening the lock, I finally did it.

Instead of old documents and IDs, bundles of money and a check greeted me. The two hospital staffs’ eyes widened when they saw that.

Kelleon grabbed the check and read the details.

“Five million euros,” he said while reading the check.

I was shook. “That’s a lot of money. That’s almost half of a billion here,” I said.

“Just a cent for me,” he said arrogantly.

I want to hit his head because he’s being boastful, again.

I leaned towards him and checked the paper. “Annaliza Cantos,” I said as I read the part where the name of the donor is written.

“Do you know who she is?” I asked Kelleon.

He nodded slowly. “Yes. I do.”

He put the check back to the chest box. I closed it again, not saying to anyone that I noticed something on the box.

“We’ll pass these things to the police for further investigations. Thank you for helping us,” Kelleon said while holding the box after I tied it up.

“No worries,” Doctor Caalim said. “And before you leave, Doc Andres’ best friend is on that office,” he added while pointing the door on the other aisle.

“You can ask him about Doc Andres, if he’s not busy. Their close to each other since they we’re friends since high school,” he said.

“It’s just that, after Doc Andres went missing, Doc Silvio became a quiet person. He seldom talks to everyone after that.”

Kelleon answered. “We’ll take note of it. Thank you so much.”

We walked towards the office Doctor Silvio. I knocked on the door first before opening it. When we entered, I saw the doctor doing some paperworks. He looks so busy.

“Good morning, doc,” I greeted him. “I’m Maria Mahalia Mendoza, profiler from NCRPO. Can we have a minute to ask you about Doctor Adrian Andres?”

He didn’t even bother looking at me. He just continue on writing some stuff.

“No. I have nothing to say about him. You can leave now.”