Chapter 445: Good Words Can’t Persuade a Damned Ghost

Chapter 445: Chapter 445: Good Words Can’t Persuade a Damned Ghost

Milton Lambert was stunned. After a long moment, he asked in a trembling voice, "Serena, what did you just... say?"

Before anyone could fully process it, a police officer approached Arabella Donovan. "Miss Donovan, thank you for your help. The arrest went very smoothly. However, there are still some follow-up matters to investigate. The station sent word asking if you could spare some time to come with us. We’re hoping you can get more information out of those traffickers to help our investigation and rescue more victims sooner."

As he spoke, the officer glanced at Hector Donovan and the child beside Arabella, adding, "Ultimately, this case involves the child, too. It would be helpful for the investigation if your brother could bring her to give a statement as well. Would that be all right?"

"Of course," Arabella said. Even if the officer hadn’t asked, she would never have left Hector Donovan to wait here alone with the child.

With a scandal like this, it was obvious the show couldn’t continue filming. The production team would have to notify the child’s family.

But as a child who had long been abandoned by her family, what family did Chloe Coleman really have?

Even if her biological father came, he would likely feel she’d brought him shame and take her home only to abuse her, to say nothing of the wicked stepmother who had tried to harm her.

’Going with me and my brother is the safest option for her right now. Besides...’

Arabella Donovan glanced at Chloe Coleman’s face. With Jude Underwood and the traffickers caught, the signs of a violent death in Chloe’s features had already changed, replaced by the mark of someone who had narrowly escaped disaster. The lines at the corners of her eyes even curved upward, indicating that this brush with death had sparked a new vitality, like a withered tree blooming in spring. It meant she would soon meet a benefactor and her life would be completely transformed.

’We just have to hold on until this benefactor appears and get the child out of that wolf’s den. It’ll count as a good deed and earn us some Merit.’

Faye Collins and the others looked on, dumbfounded. "Serena, what’s all this...?"

"Oh, we have to go down to the police station. The show probably can’t continue filming after this, so you all should probably head back first."

"Oh, oh, right." Faye Collins and the others nodded eagerly before realizing something and shaking their heads instead. "We know you’re going to the station; that’s not what I’m asking. It’s just... their attitude toward you seemed so... so amicable. What’s the story there...?"

Anyone with eyes could see that the "cooperate with the investigation" they used for Arabella Donovan was a world apart from the "cooperate with the investigation" used when they hauled Jude Underwood away.

The officer might have deliberately used different phrasing and a different tone to prevent any misunderstandings about Arabella’s involvement. But no one present was a fool. The contrast was enough for them to read plenty between the lines.

"Oh, that," Arabella said. "I’ve helped them out a few times by chance in the past. It was just a coincidence that I ran into this situation, so I helped out again. They’re probably being polite because of our past experiences."

The officer who had spoken earlier was happy to do Arabella Donovan a favor and chimed in, "That’s right. Miss Donovan is a friend of our department, a model citizen who courageously stands up for what’s right. If she weren’t so low-key and averse to publicity, our bureau would absolutely have to award her a commendation banner for this incident alone."

Milton Lambert and the others were speechless. ’Helping the authorities multiple times and being on the verge of receiving a commendation banner at any moment... What an unusual life.’

They were all dying of curiosity about how Arabella Donovan had helped the police before, but it was clearly not the right time to ask.

As soon as the Donovan siblings left with the child, the livestream chat exploded.

Thankfully, the production team had resisted the pressure and hadn’t cut the livestream the moment the police arrived. Otherwise, if someone with ulterior motives had snapped a picture of the Donovan siblings getting into a police car and posted it online, Jude Underwood’s fans would have dragged them down with him.

Of course, even with the cameras faithfully recording the entire event, some media outlets still deliberately took things out of context, cherry-picking a few screenshots and fabricating stories around them to farm clicks.

But the vast majority were Jude Underwood’s fans, who latched onto Arabella Donovan’s admission of reporting him. They cried injustice for their idol, cursing Arabella for being black-hearted. They smeared her report as an act of jealousy, claiming she was bitter that he had stolen her spotlight and popularity. According to them, this had hindered her plans as an industry-backed "royal" to cash in on her fame, so she deliberately orchestrated the whole scene to ruin his reputation.

Their antics escalated to the point where they even started accusing the officers who arrested their idol of being in cahoots with Arabella. They ran around crying foul, casting themselves as righteous warriors fighting against corrupt, powerful elites. Truly, if you repeat a lie enough, you start to believe it yourself.

At first, Hector Donovan’s fans tried to reason with them, but they soon realized these people were completely unhinged. Deciding it was a waste of breath, they quietly retreated to the sidelines to watch the meltdown.

They knew very well that these fans’ behavior perfectly illustrated an old saying from the fan community: some people just want an idol’s career to flop, but these so-called fans want him dead.

You can’t reason with someone hell-bent on self-destruction. All you can do is respect their choices and wish them the best.

Milton Lambert and the others were also not swayed by the online furor. Besides the officer’s attitude toward Arabella Donovan, they also recalled her incredible skill from the night before, when she had read their pasts and futures from their faces alone. This made them thoroughly convinced of Jude Underwood’s connection to child trafficking.

What concerned them more, however, was that the officer had asked Hector Donovan to bring the child to the station for a statement, calling them "involved parties." ’Could it be,’ they wondered, ’that the child Jude Underwood intended to traffic was...’

The moment they considered this possibility, the parents—already horrified that a potential human trafficker had been in their midst—felt an even deeper chill run down their spines. The looks they gave the production team were now positively murderous.

The director was speechless. ’Oh, crap. They’re coming for me!’

By the time the Donovan siblings arrived at the station with the child, Jude Underwood had already been in an interrogation room for quite a while, adamantly denying any connection to the traffickers.

The traffickers, on the other hand, confessed quickly. They denied being professional criminals with long rap sheets, insisting they had only been paid by someone to purposefully abduct one specific child.

And the first person they named was none other than Mr. Coleman’s new wife.

In an attempt to reduce their own culpability, they even handed over the messages from Mrs. Coleman detailing the plot to abduct Chloe Coleman. Officers had already been dispatched to bring Mrs. Coleman in for questioning.

Having gone to great lengths to finally catch this ring of traffickers, the police certainly weren’t going to take their one-sided story at face value.

However, the case against Jude Underwood had hit a temporary snag. He was surprisingly cautious; the contact information used to communicate with Mrs. Coleman and the account used for the payment were not in his name. While they could eventually be traced, it would take some extra effort.

When Arabella Donovan heard this, she offered a simple tip: "He brought a lot of snacks that kids like for the show. Search them carefully. You’ll likely find a surprise."