SWNOVELS Chapter 10
Chapter 10
“Ms. Karla, you were asking about that accident in the news, but you also seem to know about my cousin’s case. Can I just ask–who exactly are you?” Charles‘ gaze was intense, scrutinizing her every expression.
Karla answered with solemn gravity, “I’m a police officer, no doubt about that. The reason I’m here is because a gentleman named Rowan could be linked to a decades–old disappearance case and, believe it or not, it might even have something to do with me.”
Charles furrowed his brow at her words, utterly puzzled. His cousin had vanished without a trace decades ago, and any records about him had been meticulously erased. Logically, no one should know of his existence. How did she come across this information?
Karla knew the story was a tangled one, but she took the time to explain what she had uncovered the night before.
Charles didn’t question her discovery of a man named Johnson from a film, as he himself had a copy of that movie disc, which featured his cousin. However, what he couldn’t fathom was how she knew Johnson was actually Rowan.
When he voiced this question, Karla realized she couldn’t dodge the inquiry and proceeded to tell him about the morning’s revelations. She was prepared for him to think she was delusional, but after she mentioned seeing his cousin, Charles‘ face took on a look of astonishment, and he murmured, “No wonder you looked so familiar.”
“What do you mean? Have you seen me before?” Karla asked, noticing he didn’t question her
story.
Charles stood up, told her to wait a moment, and then went upstairs to fetch a faded, old photo album. After he returned, Charles quickly opened the album and after searching for a bit, pointed to a particular photograph, “Look at this. Is this you?”
Karla glanced at the photo and her face registered shock. The photograph was even older in style, a black–and–white image brimming with a sense of history.
The photo showed a vintage piano, and in front of the piano stood a woman wearing a white shirt and overalls, with a tightly cinched belt emphasizing her slender waist, which could be easily grasped by both hands. Her gaze was fixed off to one side, her brows knitted, with a worrisome look in her eyes as if she was preoccupied with troubling thoughts.
Without scrutinizing closely, Karla could tell–the woman in the photo was her.
“Mr. Charles, where did you get this photograph?” Karla immediately questioned.
Charles didn’t hide anything and candidly responded, “I found it while sorting through my cousin’s belongings. It’s a very old photo. The piano in it was in my cousin’s room.”
Somehow, hearing him refer to ‘belongings‘ stirred a sense of discomfort in Karla. “Is there no other picture of me?” she asked after a while, still fixated on the photograph.
Charles flipped through the album and shook his head, “No, that’s the only one. I’ve looked at It many times before, which is why, when you mentioned it, it rang a bell.”
“And who are all these people?” Karla was eager to leaf through the entire album, but since he held it in his arms, she couldn’t just grab it from him.
“They’re all old photographs. You can take a look if you want,” Charles said as he handed the album to her with great care, fearful of damaging its ancient pages.
Karla took the album and quickly perused it. Indeed, they were all old photos. There were only a few of Rowan, with the rest being strangers.
Flipping through these old photos, Karla was struck with nostalgia, reminiscent of her childhood visits to her grandparents‘ farm, where she’d explore her grandfather’s wartime albums, thick with the scent of history.
“Ms. Karla, you mentioned earlier that it was a photo of you and my cousin that led you to him. Could it be that the photo somehow transported you back in time?” Charles speculated. Hearing such a theory from a middle–aged man made Karla nearly chuckle. She could hardly believe such things herself, and yet here he was, proposing such a notion and seeming to find it quite plausible, “Ms. Karla, I think there’s more to this than meets the eye. In fact, the circumstances surrounding my cousin’s disappearance were quite unusual. It may very well have something to do with you!”
“You don’t think his disappearance was my doing, do you?” Karla said, half–amused, half–exasperated.
Charles shook his head, looking into her eyes with earnestness, “That’s not what I mean. It’s just that many aspects of the past are hard to explain. It could be that some things are destined to be. Ms. Karla, I believe the woman in that photo is you.”
Chapter 11