Escaped

Maya stared at the two men in front of her in disbelief. "Escaped?!" she exclaimed. "What do you mean Nova escaped? I clearly spoke to the hospital and they said..."

Lucas frowned. Did she not believe him? 

"What number did you call?" he interrupted with suspicion as he narrowed his eyes.

Maya pulled out her phone cautiously and showed it to Lucas. Ryan also had a look and he shook his head. Typing the hospital name into his search browser, he found the details for the hospital and showed it to the woman. The phone number did not match.

"You called the wrong number," he sighed.

Maya frowned. She didn't understand how she could have got the wrong number. Noah gave this to her personally.

Seeing that the woman was still confused, Ryan began to explain what they knew. "Roughly a year ago, we actually received a phone call from the police, notifying us that Nova Thomas had escaped from Lakeside Angels Psychiatric Hospital. As she posed a threat to Lucas, they warned him to be careful. We also confirmed the information with the hospital."

Ryan then sighed and looked at Lucas like he was hesitating to say something. But when he saw that Lucas wasn't stopping him, he continued, "A month or so after that, Lucas went on a blind date with a young woman from Shanghai. Unlike his usual blind dates, this woman was very understanding. They mutually agreed that they weren't a good match and decided to be friends. The woman even invited Lucas to her ballet performance."

Ballet? Maya's eyes opened wide at the mention of this word.

"However," — Ryan shook his head — "the next morning, she was found dead in the alleyway behind the club where they met for their blind date...

"Of course, Lucas was the first person the police suspected because he was the last person that was seen with her, but he was quickly cleared of all suspicion. Instead, we began to suspect that Nova was somehow involved. After all, Lucas did receive a jealous message from Nova about the woman.

"But, there was one very strange fact. There were signs of sexual assault on the woman that Nova couldn't have possibly done..."

Maya looked at the man in shock. "Did she...have an accomplice?"

Ryan nodded his head, "That's what the police are thinking. As such, they decided not to release too much information to the public in order not to alert them of our suspicions. However...it's been an entire year since that incident...and Nova still hasn't been found...

"No one knows where she is, and we can't even find her brother..."

At that moment, a chill ran down Maya's spine. Nova's brother? She knew Nova's brother!!

All of a sudden, Lucas turned to Maya with suspicion and asked, "By the way, where did you get the details of Nova's hospital from...?" That wasn't information that could easily be found. Even though she got the wrong number in the end, she still got the name of the hospital, and she seemed to know more than he had told her.

Maya hesitated for a moment, but after everything that she had heard, she decided to reveal the truth, "I was approached by Nova's brother... I asked him for the hospital's contact number..."

Lucas and Ryan almost lost their minds. "You know Nova's brother?!"

Maya nodded her head awkwardly and replied, "You know him too..."

Lucas and Ryan looked at her in confusion and waited for her to elaborate on her answer.

"Nova's brother...is Noah Thompson..." she revealed.

"Noah?" Lucas gasped in surprise. "But...Nova's brother is called Noel Thomas..."

"He must have gotten a fake ID," Ryan guessed. "That's crazy! Why has he been disguised by your side for so many years?"

The two men had no idea about Noah's misunderstandings and what he had been thinking over the past four years.

So, Maya cleared her throat and explained, "Apparently, he thinks you're some psycho playboy that's going around messing with women, hurting them, and even murdering the ones you don't like..."

Now that she said it out loud, it sounded a little ridiculous.

Ryan couldn't hold back his laughter when he heard this. He pointed at Lucas who was standing there vulnerably in just a towel and asked, "Him? He can't even hurt a fly!!"

Maya watched as Lucas frowned and whacked his friend in the head. "Did that hurt?!" he grumbled.

Ryan held his head in pain. Seeing that Lucas was annoyed, he quickly changed the subject, "By the way, what made you believe that you had called the right number? Did someone actually answer?"

Maya nodded her head in confusion, "Yes, and that's the weird thing. The woman knew Nova Thomas and even told me that she was doing well and recovering..."

Lucas and Ryan looked at each other and frowned. "And you said that Noah gave you this number?" Lucas reconfirmed.

Maya began to have a bad feeling about this as she nodded her head. "He even said that he had seen his sister three weeks ago..."

The three people in the room fell silent as they looked at each other. They were all thinking the same thing. 

"Where's Noah right now?" Lucas asked Ryan in seriousness.

Ryan picked up his phone and dialed Noah's number. "Noah, come here right now," he ordered.

Maya watched anxiously as Ryan made the phone call. What was going to happen when they confronted Noah? Did he purposely give her the wrong number? Did he know where his sister was? Were they working together to hurt the people around Lucas so they could frame him with it?

Above all...

Could the woman that Maya spoke to on the phone...

Could that have been Nova herself?!