Chapter 22
The water droplets slid down Scott’s hair and landed on the wet ground, then flowed into the shower drain and disappeared into the darkness.
Scott stared at the shower head for a long time before finally putting on his bathrobe and leaving the bathroom.
It was already dusk, and since he turned on the lights when he came in, he expected the room to be brightly illuminated, but the entire house was pitch black.
Scott took out his phone and dialed Jay’s number.
“Yes, Mr. Lawson?”
“There’s a power outage.”
Jay froze. A power outage? What was he talking about?
Before Jay could ask, however, Scott added, “Who was the one paying the electric bills at my house? Jay finally understood what Scott was talking about. The day that Naomi filed for divorce, she emailed Jay with some instructions about the mansion’s general upkeep. She filled the entire email with detailed instructions that she knew Jay would need, but Jay was so busy that he forgot about it. Naomi already took care of any loose strings before she left, so Jay did not need to do anything at all. All he needed to do was to keep up with what Naomi did, but he forgot about this entirely.
Jay quickly explained to Scott, “Sorry, Mr. Lawson. Ma’am was the one in charge of paying the household bills. She sent me an email a while ago to notify me of this, but I forgot. I’ll go pay the bill right now.”
“Okay.” Scott hung up the phone curtly, then tossed it aside and went downstairs.
Thankfully, the sun did not fully set yet, so there was still some dim sunlight peeking through the curtains. Although it was difficult to see, Scott could still vaguely make his way around the room.
He headed straight to the dining room and opened the fridge. He was feeling a little thirsty and needed a drink, but the fridge was empty.
He stared at the spick and span fridge for a long time before turning around and heading into the kitchen.
He opened the kitchen fridge and was met with the same sight.
At this moment, Jay logged into his email account to check the email that Naomi sent him and realized something was wrong.
Once the electricity got cut off, one would have to restart the electrical meter after paying the electricity bills. If they did not do that, the electricity would not come back no matter how much money you paid.
This meant that he needed to make a trip to Scott’s house to restart the electrical meter, but the problem was, it would take an hour for him to get from the office to Scott’s house.
Jay knew that Scott had the habit of pumping into the shower first thing after returning from a trip, and logically speaking, Scott was probably showering when the electricity got cut off.
This meant that Scott was yet to finish his shower.
After some contemplation, Jay dialed Scott’s number.
At this moment, Scott returned to his room and was about to call Jay to Inquire about his progress when Jay’s call came through. “Hello?”
“Mr. Lawson, I’ve already paid the electricity bill, but we have a problem. Since the electricity got cut off, you need to restart the electrical meter to get the electricity back. I’m at the office now, and if I leave now, I can-”
“How do I restart the meter?”
“There’s a key in the second drawer of the nightstand on the left. It’s inside a black cardholder,” Jay replied, reading out the instructions from Naomi’s email.
Scott opened the drawer as he said and took out the black cardholder. It was full of various keys but he did not know what all of them were for. “What does the key for the electrical meter look like?”
Jay glanced at the email once more. “It’s blue and labeled-”
Scott managed to find the correct key.
With that, Jay added, “The electrical meter is in the basement, on the wall to your left when you enter. NôvelD(ram)a.ôrg owns this content.
“Okay.”
With that, Scott hung up and went down to the basement.
By this time the sun already fully set, and the basement was pitch black. Scott managed to find the electrical meter with the flashlight on his phone and fit the key into the keyhole.
Nothing happened.
He removed the key and stuck it in again.
Scott took the key out of the hole and illuminated it with his flashlight.
There was a small label with a white arrow on the upper right corner of the key, along with the words, insert in this direction.
The handwriting was dainty and familiar–the same handwriting on the divorce papers he was handed.