Chapter 544: The Missing Cousin

Chapter 544: Chapter 544: The Missing Cousin

After being locked up, Cynthia had initially felt a deep sense of despair. Then, she suddenly remembered that she had a secondary WhatsApp account still logged in on her computer.

Without overthinking it, she sat down as quickly as she could and woke up the screen. She scanned her sparse friends list and finally locked her eyes on Vivian Dunn’s name.

She had heard from others that Vivian had gotten into the police academy and successfully joined the force. Rather than calling anyone else, it was better to speak directly to the police. It would skip the middleman and save precious time!

With this thought in mind, Cynthia initiated a WhatsApp voice call to Vivian, leading to their current conversation.

Vivian, who had been leaning against the wall with a relaxed expression, instantly snapped to attention. Her face turned deadly serious. "Cynthia, are you safe right now? What happened? Why did they confiscate your phone and stop you from calling the police?"

Hearing Vivian’s barrage of questions, Cynthia let out a massive, inexplicable sigh of relief. The fact that Vivian was asking all this meant she was willing to get involved! This was wonderful news!

"I should be safe for now. They don’t know I have another WhatsApp account on my computer," Cynthia said, pausing for a moment before she continued. "Long story short, my husband has a cousin. She’s a bit different from us mentally, but most of the time, you can’t really tell the difference.

"A few months ago, they said she went to some nursing home in a wellness community. She used to contact the family every week, but a month ago, we completely lost touch with her.

"My in-laws aren’t worried at all, but I was concerned. A couple of days ago, I secretly went there to look for her, but the staff told me that no such person had ever been admitted.

"And when I got home, I was locked up."

Hearing this, Vivian frowned in confusion. "Could you have remembered it wrong? Maybe your cousin isn’t even there?"

As soon as the words left her mouth, Cynthia hurriedly rebutted in an anxious tone, "Impossible! My husband and I were the ones who dropped her off last time! There’s no way I remembered it wrong!

"Besides, my excuse this time was that I was going out with friends for a few days, and I didn’t even drive. But as soon as I got back, they somehow knew I had gone there. They yelled at me and almost got physical. When I threatened to call the police, they confiscated my phone and locked me up."

If it hadn’t been for this terrifying chain of events, she never would have resorted to calling Vivian on WhatsApp to secretly report it to the police. The main thing was that it was all just too bizarre! Every single member of her in-laws’ family had been acting incredibly strange. It was as if they were collectively covering something up.

Vivian took a deep breath and asked, "I understand. What’s the name of the place you dropped her off at?"

When she heard the familiar name, Vivian’s tone turned dead serious. "Are you absolutely sure that’s the name?"

"Yes! I remember it very clearly. It’s the Evergreen Wellness Community! Vivian, I’m not lying to you. I’m genuinely terrified for her safety right now." As Cynthia spoke, her eyes darted nervously toward her bedroom door. If anyone opened it, she was prepared to hang up the WhatsApp call immediately to ensure her own safety. "And I don’t know when they might suddenly barge in. Vivian, you have to believe me!"

"Calm down. Just try to calm down first," Vivian coaxed, walking back into the main office as she spoke. "Send me your current address and all the personal information you have on your in-laws. Once you’ve sent it, make sure to delete the chat history."

Vivian marched over to Evan Keller’s desk and stopped. She then turned on the speakerphone and placed her device on the table.

Zoe Sawyer and the rest of the team looked at Vivian with confused gazes, but they refrained from speaking out of fear of startling the person on the other end of the line. By unspoken agreement, everyone remained completely silent, their eyes glued to Vivian’s phone.

Perhaps spurred by her sense of impending danger, Cynthia’s typing speed became exceptionally fast. In less than two minutes, she had sent every scrap of personal information she could remember to Vivian’s phone.

"Vivian, I’ve sent it all to you. For the sake of our old days as classmates, could you please help me find her?" Cynthia’s tone carried a hint of desperate pleading.

Vivian grabbed a nearby sticky note, quickly scribbled down "Evergreen Wellness Community," and slid it over to Evan. She then pointed at her active call screen.

The initially confused team instantly understood what she meant—this was a suspected second victim!

"The police will look into the specific details. If she’s truly missing, we will absolutely search for her," Vivian assured Cynthia over the phone, under the watchful eyes of her colleagues. "Cynthia, your most important task right now is to ensure your own safety until the day I come get you!"

Vivian gave her a few more careful instructions before they finally ended the call.

Once the call disconnected, Evan tapped his knuckles on the desk and looked up at Vivian. "Tell me, what’s the story with this one?"

Vivian relayed everything Cynthia had told her from beginning to end. Once she finished her recount, she added, "At first, I was just planning to get her exact address and contact our colleagues in that jurisdiction to do a welfare check. But after she mentioned that the place her cousin was taken to was the Evergreen Wellness Community, I decided to bring the phone in here."

This was the very same Evergreen Wellness Community that Mr. Turner had sneaked into to film his exposé video. It was all too coincidental. Within a single day, they had received two separate reports directly linked to this exact facility.

"It seems this so-called wellness community is hiding some massive issues!" Evan noted, his tone brimming with gravity. Whether it was Mr. Turner or Cynthia’s missing cousin-in-law, both disappearances were inextricably tied to this compound.

Evan looked back up at Vivian. "How close are you with this Cynthia? Do you know much about her background?"

Vivian shook her head. "We were just ordinary classmates. We exchanged contact info ages ago but never really chatted. If she hadn’t called me just now, I probably wouldn’t have even remembered she existed."

"Alright, got it. Based on the information she sent, let’s dig into her family’s background first," Evan instructed, officially delegating the assignment.

"On it!" Vivian nodded and walked off with her phone.

"I’ve dug up some things for you to look at." Heath Hale placed a stack of freshly printed documents beside Evan. "The shadowy owner behind the Evergreen Wellness Community is a forty-five-year-old doctor of psychiatric medicine. During his early years studying abroad, he worked at a psychiatric nursing facility and was supposedly deeply inspired by it.

"According to claims he made in past interviews, he was so drawn to that facility’s core philosophy that he wanted to replicate it here in the country. Thus, this wellness community was born.

"However, there’s a glaring issue, and it stems exactly from this point."