“Let me look for it now,” Joyce said. She’d practically pressed her ear against Natalie’s cell phone to listen. Upon hearing what the detective had said, she immediately bolted over to Natalie’s computer to search for the news online.
Natalie joined her. Watching as Joyce scoured the internet, she queried, “How is Jasmine now?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t go over to check on her. But from the solemn look on the policemen and paramedic’s faces, it’s likely that…”
The detective trailed off, leaving Natalie to draw her own conclusions.
Natalie’s hand curled up into a fist.
Jasmine’s room was on the twelfth floor. The average distance between each floor was a little less than ten feet. Twelve floors was a whole 120 feet from the ground.
Could anyone survive falling from that height?
“Got it!” Joyce cried. She’d found information about Jasmine’s suicide.
Natalie watched the video that played on the screen. The footage was extremely shaky and blurred. A passerby had probably captured it on his cell phone.
In the video, a disheveled-looking woman in a patient’s gown was sitting on the window ledge, facing inward. The next second, she had tumbled out and hurtled downward.
She hit the ground a few seconds later. Her body violently convulsed twice, then lay still. A crimson pool gradually seeped out from beneath it and gathered around her.
Joyce screamed in terror. She covered her eyes with her hands and refused to watch any further.
Natalie was similarly petrified. Her face had grown visibly pale. With a trembling hand, she reached forward and turned off the computer.
“Nat.. was that really Jasmine?” Joyce lowered her hands from her eyes and asked shakily.
The scene flashed once more before Natalie’s eyes. She opened her mouth, then finally admitted, “I don’t know. Her figure looked very familiar, though, and that was the window of Jasmine’s room.”
“Does that mean that was really Jasmine? So she has really committed suicide!” Joyce gulped. It seemed like an absurd thought.
Natalie, too, was overwhelmed by how surreal it all felt. However, she could not refute the evidence that she had just seen. It had happened regardless of whether Natalie was willing to believe it or not.
Just then, it occurred to her that the call hadn’t ended. Natalie brought the phone to her ear and inhaled several times deeply before asking, “What’s the situation like over there now?”
“Hold on, Ms. Smith. Let me take a closer look,” the detective replied and walked over.
He had barely made it a few feet forward when a car abruptly came to a halt right in front of him.
A man in a white coat got off the car and strode towards the police cordon on the scene.
The sight of the white coat stopped the detective in his tracks. It was enough proof in itself that the situation was as they feared.
“Ms. Smith, Jasmine is dead. The coroner is already at the scene,” the detective said.
Natalie’s mouth went dry. It was a long time before she managed to croak out her reply. “Got it.”
The call ended. Natalie stonily put her cell phone down on the table and collapsed onto her chair.
Joyce looked at her, distraught. “Is she really dead?”
“The coroner’s already arrived,” Natalie answered, bowing her head.
The coroner would only be called in when there was no life left for he had to examine the body and announced the time of death.
Joyce was silent. It was a long while before she spoke again. “What do you think happened that made her do such a thing? I absolutely detest Jasmine, but I’ve never wished for her death.”
Don’t I feel the same? Natalie brooded. Disliking Jasmine is one thing, but wanting her dead?
Natalie had never imagined that.
“I can understand, though,” Joyce said sympathetically, taking a seat. “So many men had violated her. Her reproductive organ was badly injured, and she was a cripple too. It’s only natural that she would have suicidal thoughts. If I were Jasmine, I would probably have done the same.”
Natalie said nothing in response. Her gaze fell on the documents that she had left on her desk earlier. They contained the results of Jasmine and Harrison’s DNA profile.
She’d only just confirmed that Jasmine wasn’t Harrison’s daughter. What was Natalie supposed to do with this information now that Jasmine had ended her own life?
The significance of this revelation no longer mattered.
