A Wrong Surrogate for the CEO-Chapter 126: With another man

Curtis forwarded the location his bodyguard sent to him to everyone else.

And without doing too much speaking, everyone drove down to the destination. Laura drove her mother and Kayla, none of them wanting to share a car with Curtis out of fear of being chewed out.

The location was a small town mall. They all frowned as they alighted from their respective cars.

The area they were in was an obscure, nondescript place. It had the feel of the small towns usually depicted in dramas. And to the four of them — Curtis, Laura, Lisa and Kayla — who were used to the big cities, standing before the mall where people gawked openly at them was weird.

But Curtis didn’t care about that for long. If this was where his wife was, fine. All he needed to do was convince her to come back home.

Curtis strides into the mall, and they all file after him. Lazarus and the rest of the bodyguards were already there, and it was to the head bodyguard that Curtis made a beeline for.

Laura slowed down to talk to the man who seemed to be the manager of the mall, explaining that they were there to look for someone.

Lazarus gave his boss a short bow before speaking.

"I have gone through the CCTV cameras in this place, and she was indeed here. The cameras caught her thrashing the cell phone, but luckily, we found it," he explained, holding up a Ziploc bag with a burner phone sealed in it.

Curtis snatched the bag from Lazarus, his hands reaching in for the burner phone. Lisa and Kayla crowded around him as he switched it on.

But there was nothing on it. Nothing, except the text she had sent to Lisa at midnight.

Curtis’s frustration spiked. "You’ve searched the whole town?" he asked Lazarus.

"Yes we have. But the town people are not... cooperating. They are not hostile, per say. But I think it’s obvious that they are hiding something," the bodyguard explained.

Curtis turned to glare at the local shoppers who were doing nothing to hide the fact that they were blatantly eavesdropping.

His hands curled into fists, and the burner phone cracked in his hands.

Before he could say anything though, Laura walked over to them. There was a grimace on her face, and she directed her words to her brother.

"I think I might have found your wife," she said.

Surprise flashed across Lisa and Kayla’s face. "How? What did you do?" Lisa asked.

Laura shrugged. "I spoke to the manager of this place. Apparently, he and the rest of the town folk don’t like the fact that we are here. He says we are obstructing business. But the hulking bodyguards made it hard for him to say anything. Anyway, I apologised, gave him a few bucks and showed him a picture of Lara."

Kayla gasped. "Really? That was all it took? An apology and a few bucks?"

Laura shrugged again.

"Anyway, I think Lara has been staying in a cheap motel very close to this place. I think that’s why we couldn’t find her. This entire town is like...very obscure and hard to find on the map."

Curtis grabbed his sister’s shoulders. "He gave you the address of the hotel? Let’s get there. Now," he snapped.

Laura eased herself out of his grip. "She’s not at the hotel currently. She’s at the town’s beach."

Without wasting any more time, they all walked out of the mall. Laura waited behind to say another thank you to the mall manager, and the man smiled at her as she left.

Curtis’s car was followed by Lisa’s. But that wasn’t what drew the attention. Lazarus and the rest of the bodyguards drove four cars in total, and the entourage was what people stared at.

The drive to the beach was very short. And as the cars got parked, everyone started to stare at them. Again.

Curtis didn’t give a damn about the growing attention. He got out of the car and walked down the sandy terrain, his eyes roaming over the waves as he looked for his wife.

Lazarus and the rest of the bodyguards fanned out too, as well as Laura, Lisa and Kayla.

Curtis’s heart was pounding in his chest as he looked for Lara. They hadn’t seen each other since the day she walked out on him, and even though all he wanted to do was find her and make sure she was safe, he was still anxious about seeing her after a long while.

Kayla was the one who found her first. Lara was sitting so close to the water, and her back was turned to the crowd. Headphones were over her head, and she obviously didn’t notice the arrival behind her.

Kayla saw that the rest of the search party were far from where she was, so she sent a broadcast text to them all.

They all arrived at the same time. As Curtis laid eyes on his wife, his knees buckled as relief slammed into him.

Lisa and Laura heaved a huge sigh of relief too, and Kayla wiped tears away from her eyes.

After weeks of being worried to death and scared that something might have gone wrong, they finally found her.

Neither of them bothered to call out to her because they knew she wouldn’t hear them due to the headphones. But they had almost gotten to where she was seated when something that made all four of them stop in their tracks happened.

A man walked up to Lara, two cans of beers in his hand. They all watched as he tapped her on the shoulders and handed her one.

Lara looked up at him, smiled and accepted the beer. Curtis tensed up immediately, but nobody said anything.

And as if it couldn’t get worse, the man sat down right beside Lara, and threw his arms over her shoulders.

Lisa and Laura gasped, Kayla’s jaw hung open, and the bodyguards stopped in their tracks.

But Curtis...

Curtis said nothing. He just turned around and walked away.