Dear sweetheart novel (Rayna and Julian)

Chapter 746

Chapter 746 A Passage To The Dried Well

Rayna lifted her eyes and fixed Curtis with an unwavering stare. “The color of the red roses in Ashley's courtyard is exceedingly suspicious. James, go and take a look at the flowers in Cassidy's courtyard. Then, compare the two.”

“Are you saying that Ashley was the person who sneaked into Cassidy's room?” Curtis asked.

“That possibility exists. The feel of the rose petals at their houses is too strange. While those at Cassidy's house here are large and vivid, they're normal, at the very least. However, the same can't be said of those in Ashley's courtyard. I'm wondering—since there's a dried well at Cassidy's house, could Ashley, a high achiever, and her family have something in their house that connects to this place?” Rayna enunciated, her expression both solemn and earnest.

While mulling things over, she continued, “Don't you find it strange that Ashley applied to be a cook here? Could it be that she wanted an excuse to be here to find something? Soon after she had settled here, some villagers came to raise a ruckus, and Cassidy used the so-called hellfire bird to scare them. Subsequently, Ashley's father-in-law died. Isn't that too much of a coincidence? Would a high achiever who studied medicine believe in something so supernatural in nature?” Her limpid eyes were pinned on Curtis.

“It was to divert attention and use something supernatural to mask what's truly going on,” James chimed in, taking up where she left off.

“Exactly. Also, there's Yuna's muttering earlier. A secret? What's the secret? That aside, are the individuals in the photo really Mr. Zeller and Cassidy?” Rayna gave a detailed analysis of her conjectures.

At once, James and Rayna trained their eyes on her. All three of them wore somber expressions on their faces.

“I'll tell J to use Zita's connections to investigate this matter.” As Curtis spoke, he spun on his heel and left.

Meanwhile, Rayna went into Cassidy's bedroom. Standing beside her, James grabbed her to stop her from doing so. “Rayna,” he uttered.

“It's okay. I'm just going to take a look.” She shook off his hand and stepped into the room, her eyes fixed on the sizable bed.

“James,” she called out to James and signaled for him to examine the bed by shooting a glance at it.

Afterward, she walked over to the window by the corridor. Quirking her brow, she beckoned at Curtis and the men around him. “My hand is injured, Curtis. Come up and have a look at it for me.”

Curtis strode upstairs with his men. Rayna then pointed to the bed in the bedroom before retreating to the side. Consequently, he motioned his bodyguards to uncover the bed.

Two bodyguards stepped forward and flipped the covers. Alas, there was nothing underneath.

Rayna proceeded to point at the underside of the bed and the bed board, gesturing for them to examine the bottom of it.

The bodyguards tapped on the bed board, only to discover that the echo was not quite right.

“Remove it,” Curtis ordered in a deep voice.

Following that, the bodyguards removed the bed board. To their surprise, there was a passage under the bed.

Rayna walked over. She shone her phone's flashlight down the passage and caught sight of a bloodstain. “There's a bloodstain, Curtis.”

Curtis went over and glanced at the blood staining the inner wall. His eyes darkened a shade. “Go down and have a look at things. Be careful while at it.”

The bodyguard in the lead immediately climbed down the ladder under the bed. On the heels of that, a second bodyguard followed. Before he did so, James took a tiny device out of his pocket and handed it to the man. “Attach it to your shirt. With this, we'll be able to see the situation inside there on the laptop.”

No sooner had James said that than he quickly got a laptop over. His fingers flew over the keyboard, and he connected the device.

Rayna and Curtis stood beside him, staring at the image on the laptop screen.

“It seems to be a laboratory down here. There are a few boxes here, but they're all locked,” the bodyguard said to those above through the device.

Rayna studied the place shown on the screen. “Have them snap photos of the notes on the wall and

the documents on the table.”

After saying that, she mused, “How could there be this sort of place under Cassidy's bed as well?” Although she did not trust Cassidy fully, she did not feel that the latter would do such an outrageous thing.

“You can just ask her about these things later. Perhaps she has a justifiable reason,” Curtis coaxed upon noticing that she was in a bad mood.

“Yeah.” Rayna nodded.

The two bodyguards who went down did not find anyone or anything related to the bloodstain. Just when they were about to make their way back up, one of their phones happened to illuminate a side of the wall.

Through the image on the laptop screen, Rayna glimpsed a speck of light on the wall. “Wait! Don't come up first. Try touching the wall on your left.”

Right after her words had rung out, one of the bodyguards reached out an arm and pushed at the wall beside them. He then groped around and discovered a spot that could move, so he shoved at it hard.

A stone door swiveled open, revealing a well-constructed path in front of them. The two bodyguards stepped onto it and forged ahead until they reached a dead end.

“Try and see if there are other doors,” Rayna instructed, standing in front of the laptop.

Using the same method, the two bodyguards found another revolving stone door. That time around, it

no longer revealed a passage but the dried well in the backyard.

Rayna scrutinized the image on the laptop screen. “Curtis, you all didn't see any movement at the dried well in the backyard earlier, yes?”

“Nope,” Curtis answered honestly.

“Try again and see whether there's a second revolving stone door,” Rayna commanded again.

The two bodyguards under the dried well then groped around once more, but there was nothing else to be found. “There's no other door.”

“All right. Come back up first.” Rayna was content with everything she had seen. While she did not know everything yet, she had obtained some useful information, at the very least.

“What are you thinking about?” Curtis asked when he noticed her standing quietly at the side while looking all pensive.

Rayna swept her gaze across the bloodstain on the ground. “I'm wondering about the identity of the person who came in earlier. Were they aware of this passage in Cassidy's room from the very beginning, or did they discover it by accident? Also, how did the blood disappear? Other than the bloodstains on the inner wall under the bed, there's no blood anywhere else.”

“Don't brood over it anymore. When the time is right, everything will come to light.” He led her out of the bedroom and ordered someone to clean the bloodstain in the room. Rayna eyeballed the bloodstain once more. Out of curiosity, she squatted down, bringing her nose close to it and taking a sniff. There was a coppery hint of blood, but it also carried the faint fragrance of flowers.

Rayna reached out an arm and swiped a finger through the liquid. Rubbing it against the tip of her finger, she was surprised to discover that the red liquid was not blood. Naturally, Curtis witnessed it all.

James whirled around and happened to see it as well. “Is that not blood, Rayna?”

In response, she nodded. “Yeah, it isn't. It only looks like blood.”

Bending down, he reached out to swipe a finger through the red liquid. “It's a bit like paint, but the smell doesn't match.”

“Could it be something recently developed?” Rayna tossed out a bold conjecture.

“It's possible.” James straightened his body and threw a look at Vance, who instantly came over with a glass vial.

The latter took some of the red liquid with a dry swab before placing the swab into the vial. “We'll know after performing a test.”

Upon learning that it was not blood, Rayna breathed a sigh of relief.

“Perhaps someone wanted to steal some medicinal herbs from Cassidy and accidentally knocked something over,” Curtis surmised at the side.

“Yeah, that's what I think, too,” Rayna concurred. Then, she stood up and shifted her eyes to the man. “By the way, when Yuna went downstairs, she asked me if I wasn't all that familiar with Cassidy. I admitted to it and inquired about her reason for putting such a question to me, but she said it was a

secret. To me, it seemed like she wanted to tell me something but did not have the courage to do so.”

“She's always like that, acting all eccentrically. Rayna, you should have as little contact with her as possible,” James interjected at the side. Yuna had made a bad impression on him.