Susan continued to stutter,

"They're the children of an acquaintance.

"

Acquaintance?

Lauren started to get a little angry when she saw that Susan was still trying to hide the truth and was not willing to tell the whole truth.

"Auntie Susan, I already know everything. Ruby has the same father as Samuel and Rene, right?

"

Susan did not expect that Lauren would know about this. She opened her eyes wide and her hands on the table tensed up. She held the edge of the table tightly.

"How...how did you know about this? Did Ruby know about it too?

"

Huh?

Ruby did not know about this?

Lauren remembered the conversation between herself and Ruby last night. Ruby's reply clearly implied that she knew about this.

She even talked a lot about love and exclusivity.

However, from Susan's tone, it seemed that she had been hiding it from Ruby. How did Ruby find out about it then?

"Auntie Susan, this matter is getting stranger and stranger. If you want to clear your name, I suggest you tell us everything. Even if you don't think these things are important, it's possible that they are inextricably linked to Ruby.

"

Lauren needed to get a different version of the clues from Susan to unravel Ruby's strange behavior.

Susan was silent for a while. She lowered her head and seemed to be thinking about something. After a while, she nodded her head as if she had accepted her fate.

"Okay, I'll tell you.

"

Then, she looked further away. It was clear that she was looking at a wall, but Lauren felt that she was reminiscing about her life.

"My husband...his name is Maxton Cromwell. When I first met him, I didn't know that he already had a wife and child. He was very thoughtful and handsome, and I was quickly attracted to him. I've been with him ever since. I only found out about his wife and children the second year after I gave birth to Ruby.

"

She slowly told the story from before with a calm tone.

"Ruby was able to enter Thomas Johnson High School's kindergarten because of Maxton's arrangement. Later on, I found out that Ruby's good friend in the kindergarten was Maxton's biological daughter, but I've been keeping this from Ruby.

"

"Ever since I found out that he had wife and children, I took the initiative to cut off contact with him. I didn't want to be a third party in their relationship, but Maxton never gave up on us. He would visit us every few days until last year...

"

Ruby's mother, Susan, fell silent for a long time.

Lauren opened her mouth and helped Susan relate the regrettable incident from last year.

"Last year, Samuel and Rene died in a fire.

"

Susan nodded with a heavy expression.

"Yes. That fire...

" Susan reached out her handcuffed hands and covered her face. Her voice was a little shaky.

"Actually, Ruby and I were also in that fire.

"

Lauren was very surprised, Samuel and Rene were unfortunately killed in that fire, but she did not expect Ruby and Susan were also inside. What did they have to do with this?

"Auntie Susan, what exactly happened?

"

The police officer at the side was carefully making notes.

"Ruby and Rene were good friends at that time. We hadn't moved to our current house yet. Maxton and I were not getting along, so we moved out of the house he arranged for us and found an old residential building to live in. Ruby invited Rene over to play, but the electrical circuit of the old residential building short-circuited and caused a fire. At that time, I was washing vegetables in the kitchen.

"

"The fire spread very quickly. At that time, I only had time to carry and leave with Ruby. When I just escaped from the building, I saw Samuel running over. After knowing that his sister was inside, he ran in, but in the end...

"

Susan's voice was already filled with tears. She seemed to be very scared.

"In the end, neither of them came out.

"

Susan covered her face and sobbed after she finished speaking.

There was a lot of information to take in, and Lauren was silent for quite a while.

The location of the fire was actually in Ruby's former home...

Lauren could imagine Rene's fear and panic when she was surrounded by the raging fire.

"What happened after that?

"

"Nothing happened after that. When Maxton found out about it, he rushed back to deal with it. Later, Maxton's wife found out about our existence and came to our house to look for us, but she didn't come back after that. After Maxton gave us a sum of money, he didn't appear again.. The aftermath of the fire was also settled by Maxton and no one came to look for us.

"