America: The Gear-Up Detective

After quickly settling Gabriela in, Hank heard Rod's shouts and, thinking he had discovered Evelyn's whereabouts, hurried into the bedroom.

When he came in and saw the bed full of documents and materials, he was completely confused.

Rhodes handed Hank a birth certificate application form bearing the name Evelyn Brooks. After reading it, Hank couldn't help but ask, "What's this?"

Rod instinctively replied, "Didn't you see those words? Birth certificate..."

Hank picked up a few more documents and discovered that these were materials needed to apply for a birth certificate.

Beneath these documents were several layers of photographs.

The photos were taken at different times and in different places, but without exception, the subject of the photos is the missing Evelyn Brooks. In the photos, Evelyn is wearing different clothes and smiling brightly.

The angle was too concealed, making it look more like a candid shot.

At this moment, Rhodes recalled the seemingly incomprehensible words Gabriella uttered under the influence of [Bewitchment] at the door:

"I want to be like that... I want to be her..."

An unbelievable guess, one that made Rhodes' hair stand on end, popped into his mind.

Gabriella Payne wants to replace Evelyn Brooks!

Regardless of the success rate of this operation, given Gabriella's mental state, it seems like something she's capable of doing.

Rod told Hank his guess, and Hank gasped in the afternoon heat of Los Angeles, exclaiming, "Jesus Christ!!"

This is too much...

"Unbelievable, isn't it?"

Then Rod took out the rubber gloves he always carried with him and collected and organized all the photos and documents on the bed.

He then briefly explained the situation to Connor.

"OMG... I understand, I'll apply for a search warrant and an arrest warrant immediately."

The ambulance shouldn't be long before I have Jose and Anna go directly to the hospital to take control of Gabriella Payne.

You and Hank stay there and thoroughly search Gabriella's room!

Connor's tone couldn't hide his shock.

"clear!"

......

Just as Rod hung up the phone, he could faintly hear the alarm sounding "Hell Hell" downstairs.

A red and white ambulance pulled up downstairs, and two paramedics carried a stretcher up to the third floor. They saw Gabriella lying at the doorway, still convulsing, and then looked at Hank standing behind her, asking, "Is this her?"

Hank didn't speak, he just nodded.

A paramedic crouched down, made a quick assessment, and said, "It's an epileptic seizure; it's not a serious problem."

Hank interjected, "She's a key suspect in one of our cases. Given the current situation, when is the earliest we can begin interrogation?"

"Tomorrow."

With that, the two men lifted Gabriella onto a stretcher, secured her, and put her in an ambulance, taking her to the hospital.

A few minutes later, Jackson and several patrol officers arrived at the scene with a search warrant.

"Bro, I heard about it from the captain. What's the situation now?"

Rhodes shrugged and said, "It's a bit complicated. If I knew what was going on, I wouldn't have needed you to bring a search warrant."

Then, the group began to search the entire house thoroughly, turning everything upside down, leaving no corner unchecked.

Half an hour later, looking at the stacks of documents and a thick diary in the center of the living room, Rod wiped the cold sweat from his brow and asked, "Is that all?"

Jackson looked at Rod, who was panting a little, and teased, "Rod, my bro, what's wrong? You're already this weak after only half an hour? Look at Hank, he's over forty years old and he's still not showing any signs of fatigue."

Hank secretly wiped the sweat from his hands with his trouser leg, ignoring the two men, and changed the subject to the main topic, "There are more than three hundred documents in total, and all of them have Evelyn Brooks listed as the signatory. There are also several bank loan contracts among them."

I've seen Evelyn's handwriting before; the signatures on these contracts are only somewhat similar, and you can see the signs of deliberate imitation.

After a pause, Hank picked up a thick notebook, looked at Rhodes, and continued, "This is the diary I found in Gabriella's bedside table drawer. Congratulations, Rhodes, you guessed right again..."

Rhodes reached out and took the notebook. It was a custom-made notebook, thicker than some of the "Annotations to the Complete Laws" that Rhodes had seen at the Clark Memorial Library last time.

Rod flipped through a couple of pages at random and started reading.

This should be Gabriella's diary, which she started keeping when she was ten years old and ended when she was about twenty-one.

After reading a few pages, Rhodes felt overwhelmed by negative emotions.

A large portion of the diary entries record Gabriella's complaints about her life, her lack of self-confidence, and her self-loathing.

It wasn't until Evelyn Brooks began to be mentioned in the diary.

At the beginning, Gabriella described Evelyn as a "pure angel," a "graceful dancer," and "best friend."

However, as Evelyn was mentioned more and more frequently in the diary, the emotions and content recorded began to change.

Jackson also leaned over to Rod and started reading Gabriella's diary together. Hank had already read it during the search, so he just sighed and then sorted out the materials found at the scene.

In the diary.

At some point, Gabriella began to describe Evelyn Brooks' family and appearance more and more frequently.

One page of the diary also contains two portraits.

One painting depicts a pure white swan standing on a lake under the moonlight, poised to take flight. In the lower right corner of the painting, Evelyn's name is written.

Gabriella's painting skills are excellent; she depicted every feather of the swan and its flying posture with great life.

The other one is a portrait of a person, but it looks like a simple line drawing that a child casually made.

The figure in the painting has a large nose, a face covered in spots, and messy, flying hair. The painting is surrounded by annotations that express Gabriella's self-loathing.

She hates her appearance and body, and even her entire life.

It's unclear when exactly, but Gabriella's initial friendship and admiration for Evelyn Brooks gradually turned into jealousy, as evidenced by the most frequent description in her diary:

Evelyn was like a pure angel dancing gracefully, while I was like a worm lurking in the shadows!

The diary entries stopped when Gabriella Payne turned twenty-one. After that, Gabriella never wrote in her diary again. Evelyn was sixteen that year.

Until six months ago, Gabriella started writing in her diary again.

However, in Rhodes' view, the subsequent contents were less a "diary" and more a "plan" by Gabriella.

A detailed plan of the crime.

This year, Evelyn is twenty-one years old.