Chapter 232

"What's the outcome? I thought Simon was only interested in men," said Verena.

Isaac's brow creased as he met her eyes. "That's what everyone who knows him believed, but Slater's little experiment told a different story. Simon barely reacted. If anything,he looked repulsed. I checked his background before all this, and I'm sure Slater is his type. If Simon really fit the profile, he should have shown at least a spark of interest. But there was nothing. Actually, it was the complete opposite. He even recoiled from the whole situation. And then there's his supposed obsession with cleanliness-turns out,he lives off takeout and lets the trash pile up for days. That doesn't line up with anything in our records.The Simon you see now is nothing like the Simon I investigated. It's almost as if we're dealing with two separate people."

Verena stared at him,bewildered. "Are you telling me the Simon working at the hospital isn't even the same person as the one from your investigation reports?"

She wasn't questioning Isaac's instincts-just struggling to make sense of it all. "I read through every part of his resume when we hired him. It was flawless. The authorities checked his background,and no one found the smallest problem."

But now, nothing added up.

"How could someone just switch identities like that?Even with plastic surgery, you can't just copy a person down to the last detail. And what's more, how did he get through all our background checks without leaving a trace? What is he really after in my hospital?"

Her questions hung in the air, and the tension grew thicker by the second.

She tried to steady her breathing, but a chill crept up her spine, as if she were standing at the center of a mystery she couldn't escape.

Isaac met her gaze, every word measured. "He's here because of you, Verena."

Disbelief clouded her eyes as she struggled to accept it.

"But I've never even spoken to him before," she said,her voice barely above a whisper.

Isaac studied her. "You say you never met him, but are you certain he wasn't watching you all along?"

Verena pressed her teeth gently to her bottom lip, deep in thought.

Questions spun through her mind. She wondered if Simon had been playing a much bigger game all along,slipping into the hospital with his own secret motives.Still, one thing never wavered-her faith in Isaac remained unshakable.

If there was even a chance Simon was hiding something,she refused to sit by and do nothing.

A new resolve filled her eyes as she finally broke the silence. "I'll figure out a way to get close to Simon. If he's not who he claims to be, I want to see how he pulled off such a perfect imitation."

A darker look passed over Isaac's face, and he met her determination with a slow nod. "Okay. Just watch yourself,all right?"

A faint crease formed on Verena's brow as her mind wandered to another possibility.

Out of nowhere, the name Carl floated to the surface.

Was it possible?

Suddenly, she let herself consider every wild theory she'd tried to ignore.

What if Simon and Carl were one and the same? The timing fit. Carl had vanished. There was a possibility he had slipped into Simon's identity while the real Simon was...

A chill ran down her spine.

Was the real Simon being held somewhere? Or had something worse happened to him?

Verena massaged her temples, eyes fixed on the world slipping by outside the car window.

Streetlights and shadows flashed past, and for a moment, it seemed like danger itself was moving just out of sight, waiting for its chance to close in.