Trapped with a Lawyer

"Happy New Year, baby Jane. Can you call me Grandma again?" Little Jane was a replica of Samuel, and the recollection of her son made Viola's eyes turn red. Putting her arms around Melody's neck, Jane said sweetly, "Grandma!"

At this moment, Viola was almost choked with tears.

Seeing this, Samuel suddenly felt extremely lucky to have Jane in the family.

Of course, Ella was the one he should thank for all this.

After Viola went into the living room with Jane in her arms, Vincent took over from his wife. He couldn't help chucking when hearing Jane call him grandpa. "Grandma, grandpa, what about me?" said Jerry, wearing a frown, tugging at Viola's house dress.

Despite the happiness that Jane brought to the family, and the legitimacy with which Jane had now entered the family, Jerry couldn't help feeling left out. "There's no one who dislikes our baby Jane!" Melody's august voice floated through the house into their ears.

Samuel rushed into the house to help his grandmother Melody walk down the stairs.

"Grandma, a smart girl like her truly deserves everyone's favor!"

Seeing Melody, Jerry dashed towards her, "Great-grandma, Jerry missed you so much!"

Following him, a little figure walked up to Melody as well, "Great-grandma, I missed you as well!"

Strange, Samuel pondered. Jane had just said she had missed a woman he assumed she'd never laid eyes on before. He racked his brains for half a minute trying to recall when she had, and why he didn't know about it.

Melody put her arms around the kids. She felt strong in their presence, as if all she needed from life was a family to keep it healthy and honorable.

"Jerry, Jane. I missed you, too. You guys are having a good vacation? Why don't you stay with me for a couple of days? Eh? And we'll make scones and brownies?" "Okay."

"Okay." Both of them said yes at the same time.

Immersed in a swarm of cacophonous thoughts, Samuel stared intently at Jane's face as if, again, he had never seen it before, or wished to inspect it for pestilence.

'Jane and Ella's face are pretty much the same.'

Jerry and Jane skipped along with Melody to the living room. Ella walked into the kitchen with Viola. Leisurely sitting on the sofa, Samuel kept watching Jane, who was laughing with her brother. Samuel sensed something was wrong, but he couldn't figure it out.

He merely felt that Jane presented a malevolent novelty. She was something terrible and familiar all at the same time. At first he thought it was Ella, but after he took a closer look at Jane's eyes, he denied this possibility, because those eyes looked nothing like Ella's.

They were far less like Ella's compared with Jerry's.

While Samuel was racking his brains out, Ella interrupted him, saying, "Go wash your hands honey, dinner is ready."

The clues setting into shape were all cut off by Ella's interruption.

"Ella, is there anything you haven't told me?"

Ella's eyes snapped back to Samuel and his questioning glare."What? It's dinner time. Go and wash your hands." Then she forced Samuel to walk into the bathroom, Which made the man more and more sure that she was hiding something!

He decided to take measures to get a confession out of her by tonight!

All of the four stayed the night.

There happened to be a bunk bed in Jerry's room, which was enough for the kids. Ella asked Samuel to leave the room and get the kids to sleep.

In the next room, Samuel stood in front of the window, thinking of Jane's face with a cigarette in his hand.

'Why is her face so familiar?" 'Especially her eyes. I must have seen them somewhere before.'

While something was flashing through his mind, his cellphone rang, which cut off the provisional network of clues again.

Irritated, he took out the cellphone. It turned out to be the hired P.I., the man looking into Catherine's crimes.

"Go ahead."

The man reported, in schematic and rough fashion, what he knew. Samuel nodded, "Send the available evidence to my phone. I'll have my assistant transfer the money tomorrow." Soon after the call ended, his cellphone received the pictures.

bet

The first was Catherine shaking hands with a dignitary from a foreign organization. The second was the record of Catherine phone calls, with several calls underlined in red. These calls were to a number which belonged to the man in the photograph.

The third was a picture of the man Samuel had harangued in court, and sent to prison, the man who told Samuel that Catherine was the person who had ordered him to buy the drugs. The fourth piece of evidence was bank print-out of a money transfer between Catherine and the members of the crew.

...

All of these pictures were associated with her crimes. Samuel immediately replied, "Search deeper." Then he saved these pictures in his encrypted cloud disk before he deleted the chat. The moment after he had done it, Ella pushed the door open. She was talking on the phone.

"No problem. I'll tell him later... Hm. We all will go... Okay. Goodnight, Lola."

Hanging up, Ella frowned as she watched her husband standing with a cigarette. "Sam, can you stop smoking for a while?"

"As you wish." Samuel put his arms around her waist.

"Save the seduction," she said, "will you quit smoking for me?" Ella's mouth twitched. She stretched out her legs and walked into the bathroom with a robe in her hand.

While Samuel intended to follow her into the bathroom, Ella closed the door and locked it without any hesitation.

"Honey, let me in and I'll tell you if I can quit or not."

"Samuel, I'm no fool." She would gladly let herself be subdued if she ever let Samuel in.

"Well," he said under his breath, "sometimes you truly are."

He strode out of the room and went to the study. His firm's partners were expecting hourly updates from him so they could keep tabs on him, so he wrote a few sparsely-worded emails to them.

At the airport, Dashing along with a suit case was a woman in a large hat, shades, and veil, all jet black.

Pressing the rim of her hat, she went to the ticket-barrier.

Soon the boarding gate was checking tickets. When the inspector took over her ticket, he looked at her up and down, then took a look at the name on the ticket.

He signed to two uniformed men not far from him. They came forward alertly, and escorted the woman to a nearby confined room.

"Let me go!" the woman shrieked. "Get your hands off me." Catherine kept struggling. She was

traumatized since Samuel near/met

pushed her into the river. She

wanted to throw up when the men had approached.

As soon as she broke loose, she dashed towards the plastic-lined bin in the corner to vomit.

The men looked at each other, unsure of how to proceed. They parted, and locked the heavy door behind them.

No matter how loudly Catherine hammered and shout, no one paid any attention.