Chapter Twenty-Six: Conspiracy

Earlier.

Caroline eventually managed to contact the lawyer, Caro, and went with him to the hospital to visit Nia.

Of course, they arrived by bus.

Caro's explanation was that last week, while delivering a contract to a client, he had been in too much of a hurry and parked in a no-parking zone. The traffic police had towed his car, so lately he had only been able to take buses, and sometimes even motorcycle taxis.

Caro kept complaining to Caroline about how unreasonable the traffic police had been, then escalated the matter into a discussion of how backward the country's legal system was.

How should she put it?

He was eloquent... but she couldn't understand a word of it. Caroline only felt as though she were looking at a petty woman haggling with a butcher in a market, failing in the end and looking like a defeated rooster.

When they boarded the bus, Caro paid the fare, but Caroline didn't feel that this fellow possessed anything resembling gentlemanly manners—he should have paid the bill back at the café.

How much could one fare possibly cost?

"Oh! Poor Nia! Forgive me for only learning about your condition now! I should have come sooner!"

When Caro saw Nia lying in the hospital bed, he almost immediately walked over to her, knelt beside the bed, clasped her withered hand in both of his, pressed it against his forehead, and spoke in a hoarse voice as tears of sorrow fell. "You used to be such a beautiful **woman. Why did you become like this? God is truly unfair! Oh... you should have told me sooner. Why didn't you tell me?"

Nia seemed moved by the man's devotion. Perhaps she was also recalling the moments she had once shared with him. Moisture began to gather