Once Bitten, Twice Shy

Howard was the stereotypical engineer-type person who spoke straightforwardly. "I've repaired the surveillance video you tasked me with, Mr. Barker, and I've extracted the time frame you requested. I'm sending it over to you right now."

A grin appeared on Timothy's lips and he said in satisfaction, "Perfect."

Every employee within the Barker Group was a force to be reckoned with.

After the phone call ended, Timothy parked the car on the side of the road and took his laptop from the passenger seat. He then flipped it open and clicked on his email.

Howard had sent the repaired video.

Timothy slid his fingertips across the touchpad and clicked on it.

After watching the videos one by one, he paused somewhere and looked at the figure on the screen.

As he expected, someone pretended to be a housekeeping staff and sneaked into his room.

Unfortunately, there were no cameras installed in his room and the only footage was that of the person entering and exiting.

The person had a slim figure and was undoubtedly a woman.

She had disguised herself well enough and her face was not exposed at all. She seemed to know where the cameras were located and deliberately avoided them, which prevented the cameras from catching her face in the footage.

Timothy's fingertips tapped rhythmically on his knees.

His dark pupils seemed distant and he smiled all of a sudden after staring at the figure for about ten seconds.

His memory was so good that one could describe him as having a photographic memory. That figure seemed very familiar to him.

It was the same figure he passed by in the hospital that afternoon.

How intriguing that the person appeared in his hotel room the day before and at the hospital the day after.

Timothy smiled and he placed his hands on the top edge of his notebook. After closing it shut, he tossed it casually back to the front passenger seat.

He picked up his phone and made a call.

The other side answered immediately and greeted in a cold voice. "Mr. Barker."

Timothy spared all nonsense and merely gave an order. "I have something I need you to deal with."

The answer came at once. "Understood."

Timothy then opened his lips and said something.

The other side hesitated for a second and asked, "Do you want them dead or alive?"

A cold grin appeared on Timothy's lips. His voice was extremely cold but he spoke as if he was talking about the weather. "The usual."

"Understood!" the other person answered.

…

Inside the ward, Samantha's heart tensed up when she looked at Old Madam Barker's pale face. She held the old lady's hands tighter as if doing so would allow her to hold on to the old lady and enable the old lady to persevere.

She could finally understand why Rochelle hated hospitals. At that moment, Samantha hated hospitals with a vengeance too, and particularly loathed her feeling of powerlessness.

The people she cared about and the people she loved always had to face death. They struggled desperately when nearing the brink of death but she could never do anything about it.

Being born, getting old, falling sick, and dying were all normal events in the course of life. Unfortunately, they were also exceptionally cruel events that no one had the power to stop.

Samantha did her best to restrain the soreness in her throat and said in a hoarse voice, "I'm sorry for not being dutiful and filial, Grandma. You wouldn't've ended up like this if it wasn't for me."

Old Madam Barker was actually a very smart and wise old woman. She was old only on the outside and young at heart. She had very keen judgment as well. Her constant self-reproaching in the past three years—which tired her out mentally and physically—turned her into a tiger that had its fangs pulled out. She could not care less about anything else anymore.

Otherwise, Harmony's clumsy methods could not possibly have been successful against the old lady.

During the year in which she survived the drowning incident, she chose not to contact Rochelle and the old lady because she knew that Rochelle had Jonathan's protection and the old lady would at least have Timothy's protection. That what was set her worries at ease.

She scarcely expected Timothy to be such a terrible person.

Aunt Julia told her that the old lady refused to take the pill Samantha left behind because she felt that the pill was the only thing she had of Samantha and she wanted to keep it as a memory.

That revelation practically tore Samantha's heart apart.

Had Samantha known earlier, she would have told Old Madam Barker that she was still alive and gave birth to the grandson whom the old lady had always longed for.

Old Madam Barker would be delighted to hear that.

The thought of that made it difficult for her to contain her tears from falling and Samantha struggled to wipe them off. She could only raise her head and take a deep breath as she tried hard to suppress her tears.

After calming herself down for a moment, Samantha continued, "Please hold on, Grandma. Don't you want to see me again? You'll see me when you open your eyes, and... You'll be able to see your grandson too. He's adorable, handsome, and he's three years old now. I'll bring him to meet you when you wake up, okay?"

"You can't leave us like this when you haven't met him yet. Please answer me if you hear my voice, okay?"

Samantha even told the old lady numerous wonderful things.

She talked about her life in Emsteldt, about the hardships she experienced when Matthew was born, and about all the stuff that happened to Matthew when he was still young. She spoke so much that her voice became slightly hoarse and her mouth ran dry, but she continued to speak without giving up.

She held on to the hope that Old Madam Barker might be able to hear what she was saying. As long as she kept on talking, the old lady might stand a chance of waking up.

Samantha would not give up, not when there was still a tiny glimmer of hope.

She did not know how long she had been talking, but she eventually felt dizzy and fell asleep with her arms on the bed. Before that, she was already somewhat uncomfortable and had a cold, which exhausted her much more because she felt sad and talked so much.

By the time she woke up, Aunt Julia had come in and patted her on the shoulder to wake her up.

Samantha opened her eyes in a daze.

Seeing her exhausted face, Aunt Julia said softly, "You've been with the old lady all night, Sam. Go and get some rest. I'll watch over her."

Samantha took a deep breath. She raised her eyes and glanced at the wall clock. More than ten hours had passed but Old Madam Barker still showed no improvement.

Although she did not want to leave, she knew that Aunt Julia would have another thing to worry about if she collapsed due to the lack of rest.

"Alright then. I'll go out for now and take over from you later."

With that, she got up and walked out of the ward.

After Samantha took off her personal protective equipment, she went to the bathroom and washed her face with cold water. Once she was completely awake, she went to the lounge next to the intensive care unit.

She had asked the doctor for some cold medication and took them with warm water.

Samantha did not feel too sleepy at that point since she had already slept earlier. She leaned on the sofa and took out her cell phone, only to realize that it had run out of battery and shut down automatically.

She dug out her charger from her bag and plugged it in to charge.

As soon as the phone was switched on, notifications for several missed calls began pouring in and all of them were from Alan.

She could not help but feel guilty, but it was still something she had to face.

Samantha rubbed her temples, took a deep breath, then tapped on her phone to dial a number.

The call was answered in a split second and Alan kept a low voice as he tried suppressing his anger. "Why didn't you answer the phone? Don't you know I'd be worried about you?"

He rarely got angry and Samantha knew that he was really angry then.

She replied weakly, "I'm sorry. I… I had to accompany Old Madam Barker."

Then, she took a deep breath and expressed her genuine thoughts to him. "And... And I felt that I…let you down, so I didn't know how to tell you that I wouldn't be going back so soon."

Alan was silent for a few seconds before he suddenly laughed in spite of himself. "I don't know how I'm going to be angry at you when you're so honest."

Samantha did not know what to say and could only follow up with, "I'm sorry."

Alan closed his eyes.

What he wanted from her was never an apology.

After a moment's silence, Alan spoke up and said, "Instead of saying sorry to me, Sammy, why don't you...."