Chapter 675
December 24th, afternoon.
It was Christmas Eve, and the streets of Los Angeles were filled with the joyous atmosphere of Christmas.
While driving, Linda asked her youngest son on the passenger side, “Jack, haven’t you always wanted to spend Christmas at Luke’s house? Now that your dream has come true, be happy.”
“Mom, I’m happy now.” The little chubby boy replied.
Linda shook her head, “You don’t look like you’re happy.”
Little Fatty didn’t answer and turned his head to look out the window.
“Hey ……,” Linda sighed softly.
He knew very well the reason why his son was unhappy, probably because he was missing someone, so he didn’t pursue it any further.
Sometimes it was nice to think about a simple love like theirs.
The two drove to the Palisades neighborhood.
Linda had always loved this neighborhood, with its beautiful surroundings and every house built beautifully.
Now with the Christmas decorations, it was even more beautiful, with colored lights hanging from every house, and a festive atmosphere.
The car pulled into Luke’s house and saw Luke and Robert decorating the yard.
Linda parked the car, opened the trunk, and shouted, “Jack, get out of the car and move things.”
The chubby little man walked over very obediently and carried the contents of the trunk of the car out of the garage and saw Luke and Robert decorating a Christmas tree, “You planted a real Christmas tree in the yard?”
Luke smiled and asked, “That’s right, do you like it?”
Chubby walked over and touched the branches, “Great feeling. Where’s Uncle Val?”
Robert, who was hanging the colored lights, said, “He’s working overtime at the supermarket, triple pay today, and won’t be back until later.”
Fatty spread his hands, “That’s not the Uncle Val I know.”
Robert laughed, “People always grow up. Val has taken a lot of wrong turns before, but he’s been doing pretty well lately.”
Linda circled the yard and smiled, “Gentlemen, you’ve decorated the yard beautifully, how about I have a potluck dinner in the yard tonight? I’ll go pack up the ingredients.”
Luke said, “Mom, I didn’t prepare a full turkey, I just bought some turkey meat so it would be easier to roast.”
Linda said, “Good job, we won’t be able to eat a whole turkey, and I don’t want to have to eat turkey tomorrow or the day after.”
Although that wasn’t very traditional, Robert had no problem with it, he preferred his own grilled steak to the turkey.
The three of them chatted while they worked, and soon had the yard decorated in a joyous atmosphere.
They then went to the kitchen as well to help Linda prepare Christmas Eve dinner.
Because many of the ingredients were prepared in advance, the preparation of the dinner was not complicated.
At six in the afternoon, the crowd set up a table in the courtyard, and Robert opened a bottle of red wine and drank it first.
The food for dinner also came out one after another.
Roast turkey, pies, prosciutto sausage, vegetable salad, sautéed salmon, oyster bisque, strawberries, pudding, and Christmas cake.
Luke ate a piece of prosciutto and gave a thumbs up, “It tastes superb.”
Linda clapped her hands together, “OK, dinner’s ready, why isn’t Val back yet?”
“Don’t have to wait for the guy.” Robert shrugged, “I just called him, he said he was spending Christmas with a friend and wouldn’t be back today.”
“Friends?” Linda frowned, “He’s hanging out with those foxy friends again?”
Robert shook his head, “I don’t know, but he’s been doing pretty well lately ……”
Luke took a sip of his red wine and laughed, “Maybe, things aren’t as bad as you think. Uncle Val is an adult, he needs some space and freedom.”
Robert trailed off, “Sounds like you know something?”
Luke said, “No, we haven’t talked in a while.”
The chubby little man took a big bite of pie and slurred, “Apparently, Val’s in love.”
“What did you say?” Robert thought he had misheard.
The chubby little man swallowed his pie, “Val got a girlfriend.”
Linda was curious, “How do you know?”
“I saw it.” Chubby recalled, “Last month, Luke took me to a restaurant and he was dining with a lady.”
Robert said, “It was just eating together, that doesn’t mean anything, I sometimes eat with female friends.”
Chubby continued, “We went to a couple’s theme restaurant.”
Except for Luke and I, almost all the people eating there are couples, and that restaurant’s spending is very high, no one would go to that kind of restaurant if they weren’t a hot couple.”
Robert frowned, “How expensive is that restaurant?”
Fatty said, “Luke and I spent two thousand dollars.”
Luke laughed, “The two of us are among the more foodie ones, not representative of the average spending at that restaurant.”
Linda glared at the brothers with a scowl, “Why didn’t you ask me to come along? What kind of romance can you two assholes eat?”
Luke explained, “At the time, Jack was in the midst of a breakup, and he’d always wanted to go to that restaurant with Maggie, so I took him to experience it.”
Linda hummed, “Who wouldn’t want to go to a restaurant that costs a thousand dollars per person?”
Luke hurriedly said, “Mom, when it’s your birthday, I’ll ask you to go. Just invite you alone.”
“That’s more like it.” Linda nodded and looked at Robert, who was a bit stunned, “Didn’t Val say anything about this new lady he met?”
“No.” Robert shook his head, he is not opposed to Val to have a girlfriend, just this level of consumption makes him a little worried …… However, Val is not there, it is useless to say anything, Robert laughed: “Don’t worry about him, let’s eat.”
After eating dinner meal, the four of them watched TV while playing cards.
At ten o’clock in the evening, Christmas carols came from outside …… Luke’s four people began to exchange gifts.
Luke bought Robert a watch, Linda a necklace, and Fatty’s was a Lego.
At night, all three stayed at Luke’s house, which was large and had plenty of room.
For two consecutive days, the 25th and 26th, Luke spent time with his family, and the days were laid back and relaxing.
December 27th, morning.
Luke receives an invitation from Naomi Inoue to go to Malibu Beach for a vacation.
Malibu Beach is located in the southwestern part of Los Angeles and is one of the few most famous beaches in Los Angeles.
It was a beautiful day, blue sea, blue sky, and a light breeze, perfect for sunbathing on the beach.
There were many rocky landscapes on the beach, and Luke also saw a pair of Chinese-Americans taking wedding photos, adding a little more romantic atmosphere.
Luke reclined on a chair and saw Nami Inoue who had just changed into a swimsuit and walked in, wearing a sky blue swimsuit, with fair skin, full breasts, thin waist, long legs, and a kind of oriental beauty flavor.
Nami Inoue sat down on the chair next to her, “Merry Christmas!”
“Merry Christmas.” Luke handed her the orange juice on the table, “Bought it for you.”
“Thanks.” Naomi Inoue took the orange juice, took a sip and asked, “How was Christmas?”
“It was pretty good with the rare time I got to spend with my family. How about you?”
“Not bad at first, but it’s hard not to get a little bored after a while.”
Luke laughed, “So, you asked me to come to the beach today for some excitement.”
“To be exact, I’m trying to dig up some news from you.”
“You’re referring to the Henrik Laurie kidnapping case?”
“Yes. Wasn’t this case originally investigated by the Robbery and Murder Division? Why was it transferred to the Secret Service?”
“It’s a bit complicated and there’s a gag order from above that the case needs to be kept secret.”
Nami Inoue blinked her big black eyes, “Does that include me too?”
Luke smiled, “I really can’t say much.”
“Then tell me what you can, even if it’s just some side information that would be valuable to us.”
Luke pondered for a moment and said, “Actually, before the case was handed over, we had already successfully rescued the hostages and the case was basically cleared up. It was only because of the intervention of certain departments that we had to hand the case over to the Secret Service.”
“So, it was the Secret Service that stole the credit from you guys?”
Luke said, “I didn’t say that.”
The corners of Naomi Inoue’s mouth turned up slightly, “That’s right, that’s what I investigated on my own. Can you tell us how you found out the whereabouts of the hostages?”
“The robbers extorted a ransom from the hostage’s family, we placed a hidden tracker in the ransom box and then tracked down the robbers’ hiding place.
While the robbers were counting the money, we carried out the operation, killing the robbers and rescuing the hostages.”
Nami Inoue smiled, “A wonderful operation, can you tell me more about the details of the investigation?”
Luke thought for a moment, “Actually, during the course of the investigation, we received multiple blackmail calls, they all claimed to know the whereabouts of the hostages and demanded that a ransom be paid before informing them of their whereabouts.”
Nami Inoue asked, “How can we tell if what they say is true or not?”
“Ask them to describe some details, and if they can get it right, it means they do have something to do with the kidnapping.
But it’s not absolute, for example, we’ve received such a blackmail call where someone claimed that he saw Henrik Laurie being kidnapped, in fact, he only met Henrik Laurie and knew the approximate location and time of his kidnapping, he didn’t actually see him being kidnapped.
However, because the circumstances he provided were similar to the circumstances of Henrik Laurie’s abduction, it was also easy to mislead the investigation of the case.”
Nami Inoue gratefully said, “Luke, thank you for telling me this. Currently, there are very few reports on this case that are this detailed.”
Luke raised his glass bottle of Coke and clinked glasses with her, “Friends are supposed to help each other, aren’t they?”
“You’re right.” Naomi Inoue took a sip of her orange juice, her delicate cheeks a little out of focus as if she was considering how to cover tomorrow’s news.
Luke changed his position and got comfortable in his chair, watching the passing swimsuit beauties.
The half-truths he had just said were already enough for Inoue Naomi to write a news article, and sometimes these kinds of half-truths were more likely to attract the public’s attention.
Moreover, Luke’s words just now had indirectly taken the credit on the LAPD.
As for whether or not it would be broken, Luke wasn’t worried at all.
In the past, after a case was solved, the police would hold a press conference for some cases that had a greater impact, so the reporters didn’t dare to write about it, and if they did, there was a possibility that they would be slapped in the face by the police, and ultimately, the police’s statement was the main focus.
But this case was different, the case was completely in a state of secrecy, there would be no public press conference at all, so what Luke said was the truth.