"Dead?"
"Yes. As the appointment time approached, the secretariat started contacting Mr. Tadel, but the butler at his residence kept telling us that Mr. Tadel had already left for our clinic by car;
so we thought he might have been caught in traffic or held up by something else;
but during the last call, the butler told us Mr. Tadel had been in a car accident and had died."
"So soon."
Miss Bersha reached up and tapped her temple:
"They said a piece of rebar pierced straight through his head in the crash."
Kallen sighed and said,
"A moment of silence for Mr. Tadel. May the Goddess of Nature guide his soul."
"Yes, may the light protect his soul." Miss Bersha continued, "We'll follow up on the matter. Not to collect the appointment fee, of course, but as part of the clinic's basic care for its clients. Oh, right, Mr. Kallen, you can leave work now."
"All right. Thank you for your hard work."
Kallen nodded, put the background information sheet in his briefcase, then picked it up and left the office.
Walking into the elevator, Kallen looked thoughtful. He did not believe Mr. Tadel's death was merely an ordinary traffic accident.
When the elevator reached the first floor and the doors opened, Kallen saw a middle-aged man in a red crewneck wool sweater standing outside. Behind him was a group of... bodyguards in black suits.
The bodyguards' bearing and positioning made them all too easy to identify. After all, Kallen had lived at Allen Manor for some time.
The middle-aged man's gaze swept over Kallen, who immediately looked alarmed, clearly "frightened" by the group's imposing presence. He promptly edged along the side of the elevator and cautiously stepped out.
The middle-aged man entered the elevator with his bodyguards.
Once