Luke slowly walked over and said softly, "Hey, Caroline, I'm Detective Luke. Are you alright?"

Caroline waved her arms, "Don't come closer, don't kill me, please..."

"Don't be afraid, I'm a police officer, I will protect you."

"You are a police officer?"

"Yeah, tell me, what happened?"

Caroline shivered slightly, her hands clutching her hair tightly, "There's a devil, the devil wants to kill me! I ran desperately..."

Luke pressed, "What kind of devil?"

"NoNoNo..." Caroline kept shaking her head.

"Where did you see the devil?"

"So many houses, I opened one of the rooms… the devil was inside... Ah!" Caroline seemed to recall something terrifying, screaming loudly, flailing her arms and legs.

Brooke came over and grabbed Caroline's arm, "Mom, it's Brooke, the devil has been driven away, I will protect you..."

"Brooke, you're my son..." Caroline calmed down, her eyes bloodshot and staring intently at Brooke, looking a bit penetrating.

"It's me, don't be afraid, I'm right here..."

Caroline shook her head and pushed him away forcefully, "No, you go away, I don't want to see you..."

Emma approached, crouched beside Caroline, and said tearfully, "Mom, don't scare me, I'm Emma..."

"Emma, my daughter Emma."

"Mom, what's wrong?" Emma grabbed Caroline's right hand.

"There's a devil, the devil wants to kill me! I'm so cold, don't leave me, you're all I have now." Caroline hugged her daughter tightly.

Brooke sighed softly and approached Luke, "Officer Luke, my mom is very unstable right now, easily disturbed, can we stop questioning for now?"

Luke looked at Caroline, then at Brooke, "Did you find her?"

"Yes."

"Can I talk to you?"

"Yes."

The three of them left the hospital room, and Luke pulled out a pack of cigarettes, offering one to Brooke, "Did you bring Caroline to the hospital?"

"Yes," Brooke took the cigarette, lighting it after three attempts,

"Last night after leaving the police station, I called Caroline, but nobody answered.

This morning I went to her house and found her trembling in a corner of the yard, seemingly not quite right mentally, as if she had been frightened, so I quickly took her to the hospital."

"Why did you call her last night?"

"That matter... I only talked to her about it, I wanted to see if she had told you."

"Besides mental issues, did Caroline exhibit any other abnormalities?"

Brooke thought for a moment, "She has some wounds on her body, but they look like fall injuries, nothing serious."

David interrupted, "Like the injuries your father had from a fall?"

Brooke defended, "No, I explained very clearly yesterday, that wasn't me or Sofia's fault, it was Lorne who wanted to conceal the attack."

David said, "Lorne is still unconscious, you can say whatever you want, but once Lorne wakes up…"

Brooke spread his hands, "I am guilt-free."

Luke continued to inquire, "Do you know what happened to Caroline?"

"I asked, but she seemed to be terrified, not quite coherent."

"Do you know what she did last night?"

"I don't know."

"Does Sofia know about this?"

"I haven't told her yet."

Luke wasn't entirely convinced by Brooke's accounts and sought out Caroline's primary doctor for information.

After an examination, the doctor also believed that Caroline had been traumatized leading to mental instability and recommended not to provoke her further and to treat her as soon as possible.

Luke and David could only return to the detective bureau, reporting the situation to Susan.

...

At six-thirty in the evening, Luke left the detective bureau on time.

Having frequently worked overtime in recent days, and today's investigation encountering a bottleneck, Luke wanted to relax.

He and Daisy had agreed to meet at the Flying Bar.

Luke went first to the Flying Bar, ordered a curry lamb rice dish and had two drinks.

It was after eight when Daisy finally arrived.

"Sorry, I made you wait," Daisy kissed Luke on the cheek.

Luke glanced at his watch, "Yeah, it's been quite a wait, I was approached by several hot girls in the meantime."

Daisy smiled, "That proves I have good taste."

Daisy ordered a glass of red wine and clinked glasses with Luke, "How's the case going?"

Luke took a sip of vodka, "Not great, Lorne is in a coma, and no one really knows what happened.

Caroline has lost her mind."

"What?" Daisy thought she had misheard, "What did you say happened to Caroline?"

"Caroline has been shocked, she's currently not lucid, her mental state is affected."

Daisy found it hard to believe, "Such a proud person, how could she be like this?"

"We still don't know, she isn't able to communicate normally, and we've tried to track her movements from last night, but haven't found any clues yet." Luke didn't elaborate further.

In fact, back at the police bureau this afternoon, they had discussed the case during the summary meeting.

The team members also had different opinions.

Marcus thought that Caroline might have encountered a robbery.

Luke thought she might have been retaliated against for knowing something she shouldn't have.

The deputy chief thought that Caroline was pretending to be insane.

All three views were possible, but none had relevant evidence.

Luke looked at the beauty beside him and smiled, "What made you think of asking me out for a drink today? You weren't afraid of going home alone, were you?"

"Cough..." Daisy coughed lightly and took a document out of her bag, "This is a will from two years ago by Lorne Bulls, I think it might be helpful for the case investigation. It took me a lot of effort to get it, and I brought it to you first thing.

And you're still teasing me."

Luke took the document, "A will from two years ago? So the written will was changed by Lorne later."

"Lorne was originally a client of a predecessor, who later moved to New York and referred Lorne to me.

The will in this document was also handled by that predecessor, but it has already been invalidated. That predecessor made a great effort to find the electronic draft from the cloud."

Luke flipped through the will, which was similar in content to the written will. Most of the estate was left to Sofia, but this will included additional inheritance items.

Besides property and cash, Sofia also acquired a private warehouse.

The fact that this warehouse was listed alongside real estate and cash suggested that the items inside were valuable, but the written will didn't mention this warehouse.

This warehouse piqued Luke's interest.

...

The next morning.

Luke and David rushed to the Moon Warehouse Center to investigate.

This was a private storage center, located in the suburbs of Los Angeles, covering a large area with thousands of private warehouses.

The warehouse manager, Boreet, was a middle-aged white man who was almost as round as he was tall.

Luke showed his badge, "I'm Detective Luke, and we are investigating a major criminal case. We'd like your help."

Boreet seemed confused, standing up with his large belly, "What do you need?"

"We need to check on a warehouse possibly rented by Lorne Bull."

"Do you have a search warrant?"

"We just need to confirm he has a warehouse here, then we'll apply for a search warrant."

"OK, I'll help you look." Boreet operated the computer for a while, "Found Lorne Bull, he indeed rented a warehouse here, and there's still half a year left on it."

Boreet then looked troubled, "However, private warehouses need a key, and only the tenant can open it, our company can't do anything about that."

David made a call and reported the situation to Susan while asking her to apply for a search warrant.

Applying for a search warrant would take some time, Luke suggested, "Manager Boreet, can you show us around the storage center?"

"OK, no problem." Boreet looked somewhat reluctant.

The storage center was very large, and based on the area, there were three different specifications of warehouses available for monthly, quarterly, or yearly rent.

If it weren't for the numbers marked on each warehouse, it would have been easy to get confused.

Luke had walked around most of the storage center, "Why is there no surveillance here?"

Boreet explained, "This is a private warehouse. We tried installing surveillance cameras in the past, but it actually reduced our customers. Later we simply removed them.

If there are valuable items, they are directly stored in bank safety deposit boxes; there's no need to store them here.

Many people rent warehouses just to store miscellaneous items."

Luke noticed a crowd not far away, gathering in groups, "What are they doing?"

"Today is auction day for abandoned warehouses. Those are all participating Treasure Hunters." Boreet said smiling, "Last time, a lucky guy spent three hundred US dollars on a warehouse and found a pile of gold coins inside, worth at least several hundred thousand US dollars.

If you're interested, you might want to give it a try."

Luke actually felt like taking a look...

"Ding-a-ling..." David's phone rang.

After a brief conversation, David hung up, "Marcus has arrived with the search warrant and the technicians, we can start now."

Having received Marcus and the others, the group went straight to warehouse number 53.

Boreet looked at the search warrant, pointing at the silver rolling door, "It's yours.

However, this door is made from special steel, and without a key, how do you plan to get in?"

The technician opened his tool kit and pulled out an electric saw, "How about this?"

"Oh my," Boreet slapped his forehead but was helpless.

"Zzzz..."

The chains were quickly cut by the electric saw.

David pulled open the rolling door, and a faint stench wafted out of the warehouse.

David crinkled his nose and instinctively pulled out his gun, "It's the smell of rot."

The warehouse was a bit messy with many oil paintings scattered on the floor, and a huge gray box against the wall, approximately seventy to eighty centimeters wide and over a meter long.

Marcus stepped forward to check, "What kind of person keeps an ice chest in a warehouse... wow... there seems to be a pool of blood here."

Luke also pulled out his gun, cautiously saying, "Marcus, open the chest."

"Why me?"

David said, "You're the closest."

"Fuck!" Marcus was somewhat displeased, took a deep breath, rubbed his hands, and yanked open the lid of the chest.

A strong odor of decay wafted out.

"Cough, cough..." Marcus nearly passed out from the fumes.

Luke, covering his nose and mouth, went over to check, inside lay a corpse holding an oil painting, its empty eye sockets staring right at him...