"Huh? What do you mean, someone saw?" Officer Meng asked, startled.
Elias didn't answer directly. He paused, then pointed to the old tree by the side of the road. "I was walking here this morning. From a distance, I saw Leo playing behind that tree."
"If Dr. Liang left her clinic, he should have seen her," he added.
"Why didn't you say something so important sooner?" Meng exclaimed.
Elias stared back blankly. "I'm sorry. I'm slow. I just remembered."
"Uh…" Meng was at a loss for words. What could he say? The kid had a disability.
He was about to go find Leo when Chief Evans emerged from the clinic, having overheard Elias. "You mean the Lees' son?"
Elias nodded.
The chief sighed. "I already asked his family. They said they didn't see anything."
Seeing the chief's expression, Elias could tell he had no intention of asking a second time. Meng, hearing this, also hesitated.
"..." Elias stared at the old tree again. He was absolutely certain in his mind: Dr. Liang had been taken by four men. And while it was happening, Leo was right there by the tree. He must have seen everything.
He didn't see? No... he's the witness,
Elias thought.
But this was something he sensed, not something he could explain. As a boy with an intellectual disability, if he told them the truth, they would just think he was having an episode.
Elias shifted his gaze to the chief and said with deliberate simplicity, "I saw Leo at seven o'clock. Was Dr. Liang already gone that early?"
The chief nodded, assuming that if Leo hadn't seen anything, the doctor must have disappeared before he started playing behind the tree. But a thought struck Officer Meng. That was too early. The clinic opened around seven. If Dr. Liang disappeared after opening the door, and Leo was playing there at that time, how could he have missed it?
"Uncle," Meng couldn't help but ask, "what exactly did Leo say?"
"There wasn't much detail," the chief said. "I just asked if he saw her, and he said no."
"I'll ask him again. Mr. Lee! Hey! Can you bring your son over here?" With Elias's prompting, they both felt it was worth asking again for a more detailed account.
Soon, a man brought over his son, Leo. The twelve-year-old boy looked nervous as the group of adults gathered around him.
"Did you see Dr. Liang this morning?" Meng asked.
Leo shook his head quickly. "No."
"Were you playing by the clinic this morning?" Meng pressed. "Was the door open? What time was it?"
Leo froze. "How did you know?"
"Elias saw you. Was it at seven o'clock?" Meng asked. He didn't suspect Leo was lying; he just wanted to pinpoint the time of disappearance.
To his surprise, Leo blurted out, "What does that dummy know! It was seven-thirty when I got there."
"Hmm?" Meng's eyebrow shot up.
Elias stated calmly, "Seven o'clock."
"It was seven-thirty!" Leo insisted. "You're remembering it wrong."
Elias held the boy's gaze. "Seven o'clock," he repeated, his voice flat.
Leo pointed at him. "See? He just repeats himself! The dummy got it wrong!"
"Elias, how are you so sure it was seven?" Meng asked.
"My grandpa told me to leave and see Dr. Liang at seven. I left early but didn't want to go, so I turned back just before I got there. The time I saw Leo had to be seven," Elias lied, his face a perfect mask of innocence.
He was lying. He had left at seven but had wandered into the fields for a while before going home. He hadn't actually seen Leo. But he trusted his intuition completely—the feeling that told him Leo was behind the tree at the exact moment Dr. Liang was taken. So he deliberately claimed to have seen him.
Once you tell one lie, the next one comes easier, Elias thought to himself.
As long as it's flawless and unfalsifiable, a lie is the same as the truth.
Meng clapped Elias on the shoulder, then turned to Leo. "Elias isn't a dummy. He has a mild disability, but he remembers little things like this perfectly."
"You, on the other hand, are already lying at your age. Tell the truth!" he demanded.
Meng was a cop, after all. He could see the panic in Leo's eyes as he faced Elias's vacant, unblinking stare.
At only twelve, Leo couldn't hide his fear. Under Meng's sharp gaze, his eyes darted away. His father saw the reaction and knew instantly his son had lied. "Are you looking for a beating?" he roared. "You'd lie about something like this? Did you see Dr. Liang or not!" He kicked the boy's leg, and Leo burst into tears.
Under the pressure from everyone, Leo knew he couldn't hide it any longer.
"I… I saw her…" he finally stammered. "They dragged her away. The men were scary… one had a knife. They said if I told anyone, they'd kill me. I was scared…"
"What!" Meng was shocked. Everyone realized Dr. Liang had likely been kidnapped.
Only Elias remained calm, his expression unchanged. This was no surprise to him. Fortunately, no one found his placid reaction odd; they were used to his vacant look and assumed he hadn't grasped the gravity of Leo's words.
"Useless coward!" Leo's father kicked him again. "They scare you and you wet your pants? Useless!"
"It's true!" Leo cried. "He wasn't joking! If I told… Dad! He'll kill me, and he'll kill you too…"
"Worthless kid!" his father muttered.
Meng's face was grim. What had been a potential disappearance was now clearly a criminal case. The fact that Leo, a twelve-year-old, had been so terrified that he'd kept silent showed that the threat was not an idle one. It had to be a genuine, terrifying threat to silence him so effectively.
Meng immediately called his precinct to report the situation. With a witness, they could tentatively classify it as a kidnapping.
Meanwhile, the chief had gotten the full story from Leo. Just before seven in the morning, Leo was supposed to be heading to school in the nearby town. Instead, he stopped at the old tree in front of the clinic to play, feeding ants with a piece of his breakfast bun. Around 7:05 AM, a van drove into the village. Besides him, the road was empty. Four men got out, went into the clinic, and dragged Dr. Liang out. The whole thing was clean, efficient, and incredibly bold. As they were leaving, the man with the knife spotted Leo. Seemingly in a hurry, he simply threatened him before driving off. Terrified, Leo promised to stay quiet, then went to school, where he spent the entire day telling himself over and over: I saw nothing. I was at school the whole time. He had probably repeated it so many times he had started to believe it himself. If it weren't for Elias, he might have taken the secret to his grave.
"A kidnapping… but why? For money?" the chief wondered aloud. A kidnapping in their rural corner of the world?
Meng was taking detailed notes when his phone rang. He listened, and his expression grew even stranger. "It's not for money. Her mother hasn't received any ransom call."
"Could it be revenge?" someone asked.
"No way," another villager chimed in. "Dr. Liang is too nice for that."
"Then what? You think they took her for her looks?" It was true that Dr. Liang was beautiful, a fair-skinned city woman who stood out in the countryside.
Seeing the speculation getting wild, Meng shouted, "Stop guessing! The police will handle this. Everyone, please go home."
Twenty minutes after the crowd dispersed, a police car arrived. The officer who got out was on the phone, his face a mask of disbelief. "What? They ran?"
Meng was confused. "You caught them and they escaped?"
The officer shook his head, lowering his phone. "Not the criminals," he said, bewildered. "Dr. Liang's… her
family ran."
"What?" Meng was truly stunned now. Evelyn Liang was the doctor's name. The victim's family fled? What was going on?
"Explain. What happened?"
The officer frowned. "We contacted Evelyn's mother at her rental in the county seat, informed her that her daughter might have been kidnapped, and asked if she'd received a ransom call. She said no. A few minutes later, our colleagues in the county went to her house to set up a wiretap for a potential ransom call. By the time they got there… the place was empty. Evelyn's parents had packed their valuables and left. We checked traffic cameras. Their car got on the interstate, headed north."
Meng was speechless. Why would the victim's family flee like criminals?
"There's something more going on here," Meng said.
"Obviously," the other officer replied. "But that's not our problem. Our job is to secure the scene and get a sketch artist for the kid."
Meng felt helpless. As a junior officer, he was out of his depth in a major criminal case like this. He was only here because they were short-staffed.
The two officers documented the scene and took photos, but it was clear there was little of value left. A full day and dozens of villagers trampling the area had erased any useful evidence. Still, they filed a complete report to send to the county.
Just as they were about to get in their car to find Leo, Meng noticed a piece of paper tucked under the windshield wiper.
"Are there parking tickets out here?" the other officer joked, not seeing it clearly in the dark.
Who would give a police car a ticket here? When they got closer, they saw it was just a piece of flyer paper with writing on it. The words were written in a very neat, standard script: "We have Evelyn Liang. Trade her parents for her."
It was signed:
Rhys.
Meng and his colleague looked at each other, a chill running down their spines. Was this from the kidnappers? They scanned the area, but the village entrance was pitch black and empty. They had only been inside the clinic for a few minutes, and in that time, someone had placed a note on their car. The criminals were this close? And this arrogant? Instead of demanding ransom from the family, they had delivered a note to the police, demanding they trade the victim's parents for her?
"They're still nearby… they never left!"
The two officers searched the surrounding area and the inside of their car but found nothing. Whoever left the note was long gone.
Meng immediately called his superior. "…that's the situation. We have the note. It's signed, probably with a fake name, but we should run it, right?"
The chief on the other end was just as shocked. Kidnappers who wanted the police to help them catch someone? And they even left a name? This was unbelievably brazen, as if their heads were made of iron. And to make things stranger, Evelyn Liang's mother really had vanished without a trace.
For this quiet, rural region, the kidnapping of Evelyn Liang was the most bizarre case anyone had ever seen. Whatever was behind it, it was something big.