Chapter 58
Steve immediately rushed in after Beta Richard, his heart
beating fast as Beta Richard made his way into the living room.
As soon as they got into the living room and saw no one, Steve
heaved a sigh of relief.
“Wow, for someone who has not been home for almost a month
now, your house sure looks so neat and organized.” Beta Richard
commented as his eyes scanned the room and for a split second,
Steve became speechless, not knowing how to respond to Beta
Richard’s comment on the state of his house.
Seeing as Steve didn’t talk, Beta Richard turned to him and
furrowed his brows as he expected a response from Steve.
“Oh, it has to be Megan. She is the only one who has access into
this place, aside from me, obviously. She has the keys and so I’m
guessing she comes from time to time to clean the place up.”
Steve said
“Hmmmmm!” Beta Richard mused as he slid his fingers gently
across the wooden shelf, checking for dust but finding none,
“that explains why the whole place is spotless.” He said,
impressed.
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“Yeah.” Steve agreed as he also looked around, noticing how
orderly the whole place was.
Deep down, he knew that it wasn’t Megan. He knew her well
enough and so he definitely knew it wasn’t her hand work. He
knew for sure that it was Veronica who did it, since she was the
only one aside from Megan who was in the house but he wasn’t
going to tell Beta Richard so that he wouldn’t blow Veronica’s
cover and put them all in trouble.
“What should I offer you?” Steve asked, taking Beta Richard’s
attention off looking around the house.
“Oh, I’m fine. I don’t want anything.” Best Richard responded,
taking his seat.
“Really?” Steve asked, surprised.
“Yes, I’m fine. I just wanted to make use of the opportunity to
visit you today so that you wouldn’t say I haven’t visited your
house in a long while.” Beta Richard said, jokingly and they both
began to laugh.
As they were still laughing, a light creaking sound came from
the room and they both looked towards the door.
“Is it just me or did you also hear that?” Beta Richard asked him.
Feigning ignorance, despite hearing the sound too, Steve lied, “I
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didn’t hear anything.”
“You really didn’t hear that?” He asked Steve again.
“Yes, I heard nothing.” Steve reaffirmed his statement.
“Maybe it was my mind playing tricks on me then.” He said as he
pushed the thought away._____
He soon checked his wristwatch for the time and said, “I think I
need to leave now. Maybe I’ll squeeze out some time to come and
visit you again some other time.”
“Alright. There’s no problem. Thank you so much sir.” Steve said
as Beta Richard got up, set to leave.
As he walked towards Steve, he suddenly stopped and stared at
Steve with a frown.
“You really need to shower, you really stink. And don’t forget to
get rid of those clothes.” He said, making Steve burst into a loud
laughter.
“Now, I’ve got to go. Take care of yourself.” He said and as soon
as he turned, they heard a really loud crashing sound from the
same room they had heard a sound earlier on.
“You heard that, didn’t you?” Beta Richard asked him and Steve
nodded.
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He knew there was no point lying that he didn’t hear anything
since the sound was loud enough for the deaf to hear. If he has
lied about hearing the sound, he would raise suspicions.
“I wonder what that is.” Steve said, not fazed at all. “Maybe
something dropped to the ground, I’ll check it later.” He said
again, unbothered.
“What? No way. How can you even be so unbothered? What if
there’s an intruder in this house? Someone who broke in when
you weren’t home.” Beta Richard said, with concern.
Steve scoffed, “An intruder? Who would even dare to do such a thing?” He said, trying as much as he could to sound normal so
as to make Beta Richard give up and just leave.
“No, I think there is someone in this house.” Beta Richard
insisted.
“You need to be careful. There has been a lot going on in the
pack since you were away. I’m sure I told you all about it in the car, on our way here.” He warned Steve.
“I’ll be very careful from on.” Steve replied and headed for the
door, hoping that Beta Richard was going to follow him, but no,
he had other plans.
“I can’t just leave like this. I need to check the house, at least to be
Chapter 58
sure you’re safe. I won’t be able to forgive myself if after I have left, I hear that someone attacked you or something bad happened to you.” Beta Richard voiced his concerns.
“Oh no, don’t worry about me. I’m not a kid anymore. If anyone tries to attack me, I can fight them off myself. I don’t think I’ll need help with that.” Steve said confidently until he heard Beta
Richard’s next statement.
“Not if you are attacked unawares.” Beta Richard chipped in, and
Steve went mute.
“So you see that there is a need to search. In fact, I have to search every part of the house, especially the room where the noise came from.” Beta Richard informed him, leaving him in shock because he had no more tricks up his sleeve to ward Beta
Richard off.
Searching the living room and the other room, they found nothing, but as soon as they got to the room where Veronica was staying, Steve held his breath in fear. As the door was opened, Steve immediately heaved a silent sigh of relief when he
didn’t see Veronica anywhere in view. The only thing they saw
was a broken portrait which was previously hanging on the
wall but had now broken as it hit the floor.
“This was what made the sound. The portrait. It fell off.” Steve
said in relief as he examined the broken portrait, holding a part
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of it up for Beta Richard to see, hoping that it would convince
him to leave.
H
He checked the wall and noticed that it wasn’t hanging properly
and that was why it suddenly fell. He came to the conclusion
that someone cleaned it and didn’t hang it properly. He already
knew that it was Veronica, since she had been busy with
cleaning, seeing how spotless the house was.
“I guess it wasn’t hung on the wall properly. Maybe Megan didn’t
pay attention to it.” Steve lied as he walked up to Beta Richard,
who nodded, buying the lie.
“Since we’ve found the cause of the noise, I’ll get to searching
other places.” Beta Richard, leaving Steve surprised.
“You still want to search?” He asked him, still surprised.
“Of course. Did you think I was joking?” Beta Richard said,
furrowing his brow.
As he was about to search the room, and approached the bed, his
phone suddenly rang and he immediately checked the caller ID.
The moment he saw who was calling him, he looked at Steve
and his eyes went back to his phone, picking it. Steve didn’t
know what they were talking about but he definitely knew that
it was his dad who was on the call with Richard.
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In less than a minute, he was done with the call and slipped his
phone back into his pocket.
“I’m sorry, Steve, but I have to go now. Duty calls.” He said to
him. “I would have wished to stay back to search but I really
have to go.” He said again and Steve nodded with a slight smile
on his face.
“It’s fine, I understand. There’s no problem at all.” Steve replied.
“Please ensure you search the whole place. Stay safe.” Beta
Richard said as he waved at Steve and stepped out of the house,
leading the way and Steve, coming behind him.
“I will.” Steve assured him, with a big smile.
“And please, stay out of trouble too.” He said on a final note as he
got into his car.
Steve stayed and waited until he drove off and he could no
longer see his car before he walked back into the house and shut
the door behind him.
“Phew! That was so close.” He sighed as he said to himself.
As he walked back into the room, he began to wonder where Veronica was hiding. Seeing as they had entered both rooms in
the house and had not seen her.
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“Where could she be hiding?” Steve asked himself as he began to
search the room again but didn’t find her.
“Vee? Vee?” He called her name with a very low tone but got no
response.
He then decided to call Megan to ask her if she had seen
Veronica and so he sat on the edge of the bed and took out his
phone.
As he began to scroll through his phone, searching for Megan’s
number, suddenly a hand firmly grabbed his leg, sending shivers
down his spine.
