Chapter 339: How Stupid!
Claire thought she could reach out to Elizabeth as a final lifeline. But now, even that faint hope flickered as her eyes fell on her dead cellphone. Rising to her feet, she scanned the basement once more. There was an electrical outlet. Yet, without a charging cable, her phone remained a lifeless brick in her hand.
A bitter smile tugged at her lips. She murmured, “No wonder Frederick didn’t even bother to take my phone.” It all made sense now. He probably knew beforehand that she wouldn’t be able to charge it down there. Sooner or later, it would die, leaving her utterly cut off. “Well, he’s the almighty Frederick,” she thought, “the General Hawthorne who is in charge of the entire Kingstown Security Department. He faces terrorists on the battlefield without flinching. How could he not have foreseen this when he locked me in the basement?”
Antony’s voice broke through her thoughts. He had noticed her distress from across the way, where he was imprisoned on the opposite side of the basement.
“Antony! Did you bring your phone here? Did Frederick confiscate your phone when he locked you up?”
Claire’s eyes lit up with hope as she remembered that Antony might still have his phone.
“Yes, I’ve got my phone with me, and Frederick didn’t take it away. Do you need to use it? What’s your plan? Want to make a call?”
With a nod, Antony reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone.
“Yes, give it to me,” Claire urged. Realizing that time was slipping through her fingers, she couldn’t afford to wait any longer. With the situation as dire as it was, the sooner she could get in touch with Elizabeth, the better her chances of altering their grim circumstances. Fortunately, she had committed Elizabeth’s number to memory. Now, Elizabeth was the only one to extricate them from this dire entanglement.
“Alright,” Antony agreed. He reached out to pass the phone to Claire, but they were both locked away in separate sections of the basement. The distance between them was considerable, with an open path running through. Despite being imprisoned across from one another, the gap that separated Claire and Antony was about ten feet wide. They extended their arms to the limits of their reach, straining every muscle in an attempt to bridge the gap between them. But despite their efforts, the phone remained just out of grasp.
After several exhausting minutes, both of them were breathless and still no closer to passing the phone.
“Wait!” Claire said. “Just throw it! Throw it close to the ground.”
“Clai, I think we’re overcomplicating this,” Antony replied. “Just tell me who you need to call. I’ll dial the number and put it on speaker. That way, we avoid all this hassle, right?”
He surveyed the space where they were both held captive as he weighed the risks. He worried that if he attempted to throw the phone, it might bounce off the iron fence across from them, landing in some unreachable corner.
“Yeah, okay, you go ahead and dial the number.”
Claire nodded in agreement, feeling that this approach was indeed the safest. Anyway, they only needed to contact Elizabeth.
“130…” Claire began reciting the number. But before she could finish, Antony stopped her. “Wait, I don’t see any signal bars,” he said.
She froze. “What?!”
“Hold on, I’ll restart it.” Antony flicked through the settings, but both SIM cards showed no signal.
“Oh, there’s no need to even try turning it on. There must be something in this basement that blocks the signal,” Claire said. Her shoulders slumped in defeat. She thought, “How naive of me! How could I have thought Frederick would simply wait for my phone to die? He had a larger, more calculated plan. There had to be a signal jammer concealed somewhere within the basement. Holding a mobile phone in here was futile, rendering it no more useful than any other ordinary electronic device. Even if I could charge it, I’d probably just use it to watch something to pass the time.”
Upstairs, Frederick sat in his study, watching Claire and Antony’s futile efforts on the security cameras.
“What a fool! How could I ever think this woman was fit to be my fiancée?” Frederick muttered. He was satisfied that the two of them were safely locked away and unable to cause any trouble. He closed his laptop with a map and decided to call it a night. Tomorrow would be busy with work at the Kingstown Security Department. He needed to rest. But as he lay in bed, his mind refused to quiet. The image of the video, where Okáre and Antony made love, kept flashing before his eyes. Richard’s words echoed in his head. Finally, Frederick pulled out his phone and sent a message to Richard: [Go check the video on Diana’s phone carefully].