Chapter 137: Chapter 137: You Must Have Offended Someone

"The thief is getting away! Quick, catch him!"

Another shout rang out from outside, and Yvonne Sutton rushed into the courtyard. The gate was made of wooden slats and was still securely locked. Through the gaps, she could see a tall, thin woman trying to stop a large man with disheveled hair, but he kicked her aside.

"Stop! Don’t run!"

The woman moved to grab the man again, but he suddenly brandished a short knife.

"Let him go! Don’t touch him!" Yvonne Sutton yelled to the woman.

The woman, frightened by the knife in the man’s hand, quickly shrank back.

The man turned his head to look over. He was wearing a clown mask that hid his face, leaving only a pair of sharp, sinister eyes visible. He shot her a look, then ran off.

Yvonne Sutton’s heart pounded. ’It’s him. It has always been him.’

Over the past year, he had broken in several times. At first, he took the cash from her drawer. After she stopped keeping money there, he started stealing her clinic’s equipment, taking whatever he could carry. Later, she locked all the equipment in a separate room. When he couldn’t get into that room, he started ransacking the place to vent his frustration, smashing things and soaking all the herbs from her medicine cabinet in water.

She called the police every time, but the man was extremely cautious. He always wore a mask and gloves during his crimes and always escaped through the alleyways.

Because this was an older district with few security cameras, he would vanish from surveillance the moment he entered an alley.

Yvonne Sutton quickly opened the gate and ran over to the woman, helping her up.

"Are you all right?" she asked with concern.

The woman shook her head. "I just took a tumble. I’m fine."

Some neighbors had also come out, but they were mostly elderly and couldn’t be of much help. Yvonne Sutton thanked them and urged them to go back and get some rest.

"You called the police, right?" the woman asked.

Yvonne Sutton nodded. "I already have."

"Then I should get back home. My son is there by himself."

It was the same woman with the child whom she had met on the subway earlier that day. Yvonne Sutton noticed the woman’s palm was scraped. She asked her to wait a moment while she hurried inside to grab some iodine and a Band-Aid.

She had intended to treat the scrape for her, but the woman was in a hurry to get home, so Yvonne just pressed the two items into her hand and told her to take care of it herself.

"By the way, I never got your name," Yvonne Sutton said.

"I’m Vanessa Summers."

"I’m Yvonne Sutton."

The two of them shook hands. Since Vanessa Summers was anxious to get back to her son, she left in a hurry after they exchanged names.

The police from the local precinct arrived soon after. She had called them so many times over the past year that she had become familiar with a few of the officers.

The officers inspected her clinic but, as usual, came up with nothing.

"Nothing missing this time, either?" an officer asked.

"No, but..." Yvonne Sutton pointed helplessly toward the dispensary, where traditional herbs were scattered all over the floor. "These are all ruined."

An officer went over to take a look. The moment he stepped into the dispensary, he pinched his nose. "Hang on, why does it reek of piss in here?"

Yvonne Sutton hadn’t been inside yet. She hurried in with the other officers, and sure enough, beneath the scent of herbs, there was an unmistakable reek of urine.

She looked closely at the herbs and saw that they were indeed damp.

The police had Yvonne Sutton pull up the surveillance footage for that night, especially for that room. As expected, they saw the thief scatter the herbs from the cabinet all over the floor, unbuckle his pants, and then urinate on the pile.

One of the older officers thought for a moment before asking Yvonne Sutton, "Think hard. Did you offend someone about a year ago? Someone who would come to your clinic every so often just to cause trouble?"

Yvonne Sutton frowned. At first, she had also thought it was just a thief, but his behavior was becoming increasingly bizarre. It certainly felt more like retaliation. ’But who could I have offended? I really can’t think of anyone.’

"Give it some serious thought. We’ll expand our search radius and see if we can spot him on any cameras outside the older district."

"Okay. Thank you for your help."

After seeing the police out, Yvonne Sutton stared at the utter mess on the floor, unsure where to even begin cleaning up.

Just then, she saw Vanessa Summers running toward her, carrying her son on her back.

"Dr. Sutton, my son has a high fever! Please, you have to take a look at him!"

Yvonne Sutton quickly cleared an empty bed and had Vanessa Summers lay her son, Dylan, down on it.

The boy was delirious from the fever, even twitching intermittently. Yvonne Sutton took his temperature—it had already reached 40 degrees Celsius.

A fever that high couldn’t be brought down directly. She first wiped his hands and feet with rubbing alcohol. Only when his temperature had fallen slightly did she give him a fever-reducing injection.

Once the boy’s condition stabilized, Yvonne Sutton took out her stethoscope and placed it over his heart.

"His heartbeat is abnormal. Does he have a heart condition?" she asked.

Vanessa Summers nodded quickly. "He has a congenital atrial septal defect."

"How large is the defect?"

"Twelve millimeters."

Yvonne Sutton removed her stethoscope and checked his lungs. As she suspected, there were abnormal sounds.

"Your son has pneumonia, brought on by his congenital heart disease. I imagine you’ve been through this plenty of times, so try not to panic. I’m going to get my car. Get your son on your back; I’m taking you to the hospital."

But Vanessa Summers was already panicking. Clutching her son, her mind went completely blank.

Seeing this, Yvonne Sutton had no choice but to carry the boy on her own back, telling Vanessa to follow. Her car was parked in the small plaza out front. She placed Dylan in the back seat, ushered Vanessa in after him, and finally drove off.

She drove to Seacliff Hospital as fast as she could, then carried Dylan into the emergency room. After she explained the situation to the ER doctor, the staff began emergency treatment and told the family to handle the hospital admission paperwork.

Yvonne Sutton helped Vanessa Summers get the admission paperwork sorted out. Not long after Dylan was put on an IV drip, his fever began to subside. Only then did Yvonne let out a sigh of relief.

Pneumonia caused by a congenital heart defect is very dangerous, especially when the defect is this large.

"I should have realized he had this condition sooner. I was so careless. I just thought he was a sickly child, always catching colds and getting pneumonia, so hard to raise... I never thought to take him to a hospital for a proper check-up. I..." As she spoke, Vanessa Summers began to cry. "I don’t deserve to be a mother. I’m so useless."

"What about the boy’s father?"

"He’s dead, I guess."

’Dead, I guess?’

’Was there some doubt about it?’

Seeing Vanessa Summers crying so hard, Yvonne Sutton patted her shoulder. ’From a doctor’s perspective, the child’s symptoms were obvious; the parent was indeed negligent. But as a woman, I can see it must be incredibly difficult for Vanessa to raise a child all on her own.’

"Don’t worry," Yvonne said. "Once he has the surgery, Dylan will be completely cured."

Vanessa Summers nodded. "But we’re on a waiting list. The surgery won’t be for another month or so."

Seacliff’s cardiac surgery department was one of the best in the country, and scheduling a surgery with Professor Harvey Dixon, in particular, was notoriously difficult.

When dawn broke, it was time for Yvonne Sutton to head back to her clinic.

She went to have a word with Dylan’s attending physician. They were former colleagues and still knew each other well. She mentioned Dylan, knowing the doctors and nurses would pay a little more attention to him as a favor to her.

As she came down from the inpatient building and stepped out of the elevator, she was surprised to see Wyatt Shaw, dressed in a black overcoat, walking out from the west side of the first floor. They were just about to run into each other.