353: Cemetery

Cemetery

Joshua was going berserk as time ticked by. He could not find out where Ivy was. He had even enquired about her whereabouts from all the possible people he knew. He had not even spared her colleagues Max, Kira, Sasha and Cedric as Ivy was frequently in touch with them. However, nobody knew where she was.1

He even sent Kaito to her apartment to see if she had gone there, just in case. But Kaito returned with negative results. Ivy was nowhere to be found. By then, Aria and Noah arrived and Joshua looked at the couple with guilt. He could not meet their eyes especially Aria's after the way he had treated Ivy.

"Did you find any news about Ivy?" Aria did not question him a thing about the reason for Ivy to leave the house. She instead focused on other matters. Joshua only shook his head, not knowing what to speak.

"How about her friends?"

"They haven't seen her since three days."

"Wait, let me check with Danny," Aria called her best friend and enquired him about her sister. But he too did not know where she was. Dejected, Aria could only end the call and stare at Noah. "Where could she have gone?"

"Any relatives, perhaps," Noah suggested.

"We are not that close to anybody. So, I don't think she would have gone to meet them."

"Jo, can't you check the CCTV cameras around your house? Maybe we can find out where she has gone."

"Why didn't I think of that before?" Joshua smacked his head for his forgetfulness. He immediately rushed towards his lab and Noah led Aria behind him slowly.

This was the second time Aria was coming to Joshua's house. However, this was the first time she was seeing the interior in a sober mind. The last when she was here, she was not in her clear state of mind as she was still grieving over killing someone even though the man was a criminal himself. A betrayer who sold his own country and murdered his own countrymen.

Aria could not help but gawk around her surroundings even though now was not the time for it. While Noah's mansion had an aesthetic touch to it, Joshua's was in a modern style. Noah led her downstairs and Aria's brows furrowed in confusion. "Where are we going?"

"To Joshua's lab."

"Joshua has a lab here?"

"Yes." The duo were near the lab now and what Aria saw made her gasp in wonder. There were a lot of electronic devices some of which she could not even recognize. It looked like the laboratory of Tony Stark in Iron Man, more or less. For a gadget freak, this place was paradise.

"Wow," She stared around her in wonder, taking in all she could. But she came back immediately when she realized they had other pressing matters to attend to rather than admiring this interesting lab. So, she followed Noah silently and stood behind Joshua who at that moment, was busy typing codes on his laptop. 

He checked the time when Ivy had left the house and from there, he tried searching for all the CCTV cameras around his house that might have tracked her. "Got it." He finally found Ivy in one of the cameras and he started to track her slowly, trying to find out where she had gone.

Although he could not make out her face clearly as she was wearing a hoodie, he could still make out that it was Ivy. Her silhouette was etched in his mind. Aria too leaned in to see where she was going and wondered why she was walking along the streets at that time of dawn. They followed the CCTV footage until King's Street and after that Joshua could not find out where Ivy had gone. There were no more surveillance cameras for him to follow up.

"Shit," He cursed loudly. "I cannot track Ivy from here. The last she was seen was on King's Street and after that, there are no more cameras." Joshua replied, his hands still not stopping their work on the laptop.

"Great. We at least know that she has gone somewhere near King's Street. We can go there and ask around. Maybe somebody might have seen her." Noah suggested and Joshua nodded. This idea seemed the most logical one right now.

The two men prepared to leave only to find a frozen Aria, staring hard at the laptop screen without blinking. "Aria, is anything the matter?" Noah called her, but there was no response. She stood still as a statue.

"Aria," He called her again and this time he nudged her lightly. The girl's thoughts broke on his touch and she blinked lightly at him before collecting her thoughts. "Is everything alright?"

"Did you say she was at King's Street?" Aria questioned and directed her gaze towards Joshua. 

"Yes, that was the last record of her on the CCTV footage." Seeing Aria's weird gaze, both the men looked at each other before they went back to staring at her. "Do you know something Aria?"

"What is today's date?"

"What?" Both the men asked at once in confusion.

"What is today's date?" Aria raised her voice by an octave and Noah immediately told her the date.

"Oh my God. How could I forget it? How could I?" Aria placed her hand on her head and blinked continuously, her eyes turning red at once.

"What did you forget, Aria? What happened?" Noah held her lightly and seeing her eyes turning red, his heart ached. It pained him to see her this way and he wanted to make it go away. But the problem was he had no idea what Aria was talking about.

"Noah, we have to go home right now. We need to get Dad. I know where Ivy is." Aria replied wiping the tears that had fallen down her cheeks.

"Where is she?" Joshua stepped forward immediately and he asked the question, his eyes turning anxious and concerned.

"There is a burial ground behind the King's Street. I am sure Ivy will be there right now."

Her answer spooked both the men and their eyes widened in shock. "Aria, what do you mean? Why will Ivy be at a cemetery?" Joshua held her tightly and shook her trying to get an answer.

"Today is my Mom's death anniversary and that is where she is buried."

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