The phone continued ringing in Alina's hand while the three of them stood near the glass wall of the international terminal. The noise of rolling suitcases and boarding announcements filled the background, yet none of them were paying attention to anything except the sound coming from the speaker.
One ring passed. Then another. Alina glanced nervously at Kai and Ryan, silently hoping someone would answer. For a moment, she thought the call would go unanswered like the previous attempts. Then finally, after several rings, the line clicked.
A man's voice came through the speaker. "Hello?"
Alina straightened immediately. "Uncle?" she said quickly.
There was a small pause on the other end. "Who is this?" the man asked.
"It's Alina," she replied. "Alina… Maya's friend."
Another brief pause followed before the man responded again. "Oh… Alina."
The voice belonged to Mr. Hayes Maya's father. Alina spoke quickly, her concern spilling out without delay. "Uncle, is Maya okay??"
On the other end of the line, Mr. Hayes sounded almost puzzled, then replied slowly. "She.... she is absolutely fine."
Alina frowned slightly, confused by the answer. "Then why isn't she answering my calls?" she asked.
A short silence followed before he spoke again. "She might have lost her phone," he said.
Ryan and Kai exchanged a glance. Another pause followed, this time longer. Ryan's eyes narrowed slightly. Kai watched Alina carefully, sensing something strange in the tone of the conversation. Then Alina spoke again.
"Uncle… is she with you right now? If she is, can you please give her the phone? I just want to talk to her for a minute."
There was complete silence on the other end of the line. A few seconds passed. Then Mr. Hayes spoke again, but his voice sounded different now—slower, heavier.
"She… is not here." The words were followed by another long pause. Alina waited, expecting him to continue explaining, but instead, he spoke again with an oddly casual tone that felt strangely forced.
"You know Maya," he said. "She has always loved adventures. Maybe she packed her bags and went somewhere else to enjoy herself."
The sentence sounded rehearsed. Almost unnatural. Before Alina could respond, the call ended abruptly. The line went silent. For a moment, none of them spoke. The airport noise returned around them, but it felt distant, as if the three of them were standing inside a bubble of silence. Alina slowly lowered the phone from her ear.
"That was… weird," she murmured.
Ryan frowned deeply, replaying the conversation in his mind. Kai had been watching the entire call carefully, his expression growing more serious with every word that Mr. Hayes had spoken.
Finally, he said quietly, "He's lying."
Both Ryan and Alina looked at him. "What?" Alina asked.
Kai's voice remained calm but certain. "He's definitely lying."
Alina frowned. "But why would he lie?" she asked. "He sounded normal at first."
Kai shook his head slightly. "No, he didn't."
Ryan looked at him with interest. Kai continued slowly, explaining his observation. "Didn't you notice the way he was speaking?"
Alina thought about the conversation for a moment. "What about it?"
Kai crossed his arms while looking toward the airport floor. "He paused after almost every sentence," he said. "Not the kind of pause someone takes while thinking… the kind of pause someone takes when they are choosing their words very carefully."
Ryan nodded slightly. Kai continued, his voice lowering. "It sounded like he was afraid that if he spoke normally, he might accidentally say something he wasn't supposed to."
Alina's eyes widened slowly. "You mean…"
Kai finished the thought. "Like someone else was listening to the conversation."
The realization settled heavily between them. Ryan spoke next, his voice calm but darker now. "Or someone was standing right next to him."
Alina looked back at her phone, her mind racing with possibilities. "If that's true…" she whispered.
Kai's gaze sharpened. "Then Maya might not be the only one in danger."
Ryan looked toward the terminal entrance again, his instincts telling him the situation had just become much bigger than they had thought, and somewhere far away, in a house in New York, a man named Hayes had just been forced to lie about his own daughter.
The thought settled heavily between them. If Maya's father had been lying, then there were only two possibilities. Either he was hiding something intentionally, or he had no choice but to lie.
Ryan spoke again, his voice steady but serious. "We need to see him in person."
Alina looked at him. "In New York?"
Ryan nodded. "Yes. A conversation like that should never happen over the phone."
Kai agreed immediately. "If he's under pressure, we might only understand the situation by seeing him directly."
Alina took a deep breath and nodded. "Then we go to New York."
Within a few hours, they were on a flight heading across the Atlantic. The journey felt unusually long because none of them slept. Ryan spent most of the flight reviewing the CCTV footage again, studying every frame carefully. Kai remained quiet, looking out the window while mentally piecing together everything they had discovered so far. Alina sat beside them with her laptop open, making notes about Maya's timeline.
By the time the plane finally landed in New York, the three of them were more determined than ever. Several hours later, they were standing in front of Maya's family residence.
The house stood behind tall iron gates surrounded by thick security fencing. The building itself was massive, elegant, and intimidating. But something about the atmosphere felt wrong. It was too quiet.
A line of bodyguards stood outside the main entrance, their expressions hard and unreadable. The moment Kai, Alina, and Ryan stepped out of their car and approached the gate, several guards shifted slightly as if preparing to stop them.
As the three of them walked toward the main door, one of the guards stepped forward and raised his hand.
"You can't go inside," he said firmly.
Alina didn't even hesitate. She pulled out her phone and opened an email. "I have an appointment," she said calmly while showing the screen.
Both Kai and Ryan looked at her in shock. Neither of them had heard anything about an appointment before. The guard glanced at the phone, read the confirmation message, and then stepped aside. "You may go in."
The heavy doors opened, and they were escorted inside. As they walked through the long marble hallway of the mansion, Alina noticed Kai and Ryan staring at her.
"What?" she asked.
Kai spoke first. "Appointment?"
Alina smiled proudly. "I made it on the plane."
Ryan raised an eyebrow. "On the plane?"
She nodded. "I figured we might need one. I didn't want us to be turned away at the door, so I contacted their office and scheduled a meeting."
Kai shook his head slightly, half impressed and half amused. Ryan gave a small nod of approval. "Smart move."
The hallway they were walking through felt unusually tense. The house that Alina remembered as lively and welcoming now felt suffocatingly quiet. Two unfamiliar guards stood near every corner, their eyes following them carefully as they walked past.
Ryan noticed everything. The number of guards. Their positions. The way they watched every movement. But he didn't say anything.
When they were finally escorted into the study, Maya's father was already sitting behind a large wooden desk.
Mr. Hayes looked older than the last time Alina had seen him. His shoulders seemed heavier, and dark circles surrounded his tired eyes as if he hadn't slept in days. But what disturbed Alina the most was not his exhaustion. It was the fear in his eyes. The moment he saw her, something flickered there—relief mixed with panic.