Animal Whisperer: Take Back My Life and Love Chapter 422: The Empty Seat

The Chief Commander’s usually composed expression flickered with a visible trace of surprise.

He raised a hand slightly, signaling for silence. His voice was steady and powerful as it carried through the microphone and across the hall.

"We will delay the start of the meeting for a moment. We will wait for Miss Nancy to arrive."

A low murmur rippled through the audience. Hundreds of eyes met, and hushed whispers spread like a tide through the rows.

"Nancy isn't here yet? It has already been three minutes."

"The entire hall waiting for one person?"

"There must be a special circumstance. Didn't you see the Chief Commander himself give the order?"

"Who exactly is this Nancy Summers anyway?"

"I heard she is incredibly young."

"It is a short list of people who can put a room like this on hold."

Just as the atmosphere of curiosity and anticipation reached its peak, Nancy arrived outside the meeting room, her breath slightly ragged from a light jog.

She caught the secretary leading the way and whispered. "Has the meeting already started? Is there a back door I can slip through? Also, where exactly is my seat tucked away?"

The secretary offered a faint smile, her tone heavy with meaning. "Your seat is very prominent. You will see it the moment you walk in."

With that, the secretary pushed open the heavy, soundproof double doors.

The moment they swung open, Nancy felt the world expand before her. The grand hall, capable of holding hundreds, was pin-drop silent. Every eye in the room acted like a spotlight, converging on her all at once.

And her seat? It was far more than just visible.

It was right at the front of the hall, in the dead center of the speaker’s platform.

Sitting in that same row were the giants of the police world, the legends she had only ever seen on the news.

Nancy froze in the doorway, her mind going completely blank.

Just then, the elder man sitting next to her empty chair stood up. His booming voice rang through the hall, laced with a warm smile.

"Let us welcome the model for our police elite, Special Consultant Nancy Summers!"

Those words acted like a starting pistol, instantly igniting the room.

A wave of applause thundered through the hall, so intense it felt as if the roof might lift.

The Chief Commander also picked up his microphone, his voice full of praise. "You may be wondering why Miss Nancy is arriving a few minutes late. Just before coming to this venue, she intercepted an extremely vicious poisoning case and protected a high-profile citizen! That is the kind of efficiency we expect from Nancy!"

As the words fell, the applause grew even louder, punctuated by genuine gasps of admiration from the crowd.

Nancy felt her face flush. She had no choice but to push forward, walking step by step toward that brilliantly lit, high-pressure center seat under the gaze of hundreds.

She did her best to maintain a dignified smile and nod to those around her, while her mind was screaming in panic.

My god, this is too much! My social anxiety is going to kill me!

Once she took her seat, her heart continued to throb against her ribs.

Fortunately, the intense scrutiny did not last long. After a few brief pleasantries and expressions of concern from the top officials, the meeting cut straight to the core agenda.

They were there to discuss cross-disciplinary collaboration to solve cold cases that had remained shrouded in mystery for years.

Nancy was handed a thick case file.

The Chief Commander took the lead, his expression turning solemn as his gaze swept the room. "The first case we are reviewing today is a heavy cloud that has hung over our department for years. The incident of the Seabed-173 and the mysterious death of its entire crew."

Nancy flipped through the file, her confusion growing with every page.

The incident had occurred three years ago on a fog-shrouded morning. The location was at the edge of the territorial waters, roughly twelve nautical miles from the nearest coastline.

The vessel involved was the Seabed-173, a high-speed patrol boat on a routine night watch.

The three experienced coast guard officers on board had reported nothing unusual that night. Their last routine check in with the command center was at 11:15 PM.

However, around 6:00 AM the following morning, another patrol boat discovered the Seabed-173 on radar, drifting in slow circles. There was no response to any radio calls.

Sensing something was wrong, the crew of the second boat boarded the vessel after their calls went unanswered. They were met with a gruesome scene.

All three officers on the Seabed-173 were dead, their bodies slumped in different locations.

Nancy began to go through the file page by page.

The first page showed the crime scene photo of the captain, Maine Lemore. He was sprawled on the floor of the cockpit. The autopsy result was death by asphyxiation, and there were deep ligature marks on his neck.

The strange part was that no weapon, no rope, wire, or cord, could be found at the scene. The cockpit door had been locked from the inside, and the windows were completely intact.

The second page was the Chief Engineer, Harold Holmes.

He was found in the corridor of the lower engine room, his heart pierced by something incredibly sharp.