Chapter 3
Wyatt's voice was steady.
My gaze fell on the photo, and my breath caught in my throat.
It was a photo of the crash site.
The sky was dim, as if it were evening.
The place looked like an old apartment complex.
A white driving school car sat with its front end completely wrecked.
In front of the car, a person lay beneath a white sheet.
Police tape cordoned off the area nearby.
Police officers were investigating the scene.
My mind went completely blank.
"W-What is this?" My voice trembled.
"At 4:50 PM today, a serious hit-and-run happened at Sunlight Gardens in Southhaven," Wyatt spoke as if he were just stating a fact.
"The victim died on the spot," he said. "This is the car that hit them."
He pointed at the car in the photo.
My heart was pounding.
"W-What does this have to do with me?" I blurted out. "I... I don't know them, and I've never even been to Sunlight Gardens."
"Take a closer look at the car," Wyatt said.
Wyatt's gaze was like an X-ray, as if he could see right through me.
I forced myself to look at the photo again.
It was a white Santana, the same model I'd been behind the wheel of earlier.
It looked ancient.
On the side, the red letters spelling out "Safepath Institute" were all crooked and uneven.
It was just like the one I drove today.
My eyes were drawn to the license plate, almost against my will.
The blue metal plate was a little blurry in the photo.
But the numbers and letters on it were seared into my retinas, like a branding iron.
My eyes widened sharply.
It felt like my blood had turned to ice.
Impossible. Absolutely impossible.
The license plate was exactly the same as the one on the car I drove at Safepath Institute today.
Not a single digit was different.
"How is this even possible..." I muttered under my breath.
It felt like the whole world was spinning out of control.
"This can't be happening!" I blurted out.
I jerked my head up, staring at Wyatt.
"This is impossible!" I shouted."I was at Safepath Institute all afternoon, practicing on the training grounds! S-curves, reverse parking—I spent the whole afternoon on those! I never even drove out of Safepath Institute's gates!
"My instructor can vouch for me! The surveillance footage at Safepath Institute can prove it!"
I was so agitated, I was practically yelling.
Wyatt watched me quietly.
His face remained expressionless.
"What's your instructor's name?" he asked.
"Rashad," I replied.
"We've already spoken to him," Wyatt said.
"What did he say?" I asked.
"He said he chewed you out this afternoon, and you took off around five," Wyatt replied.
"As for where you went, he has no idea," he added.
I felt like I'd just been struck by lightning.
How could he say that?
Yeah, he did yell at me, and I left, but that was after five o'clock!
The accident happened at 4:50.
At that time, I was still on the training grounds at Safepath Institute, with Rashad pointing at me and shouting!
"That's a lie!" I yelled. "He's absolutely lying!"
"What about the cameras?" I grabbed onto my last lifeline. "There are cameras all over Safepath Institute! Go check them!"
Wyatt said, "We already did."
His next words pushed me right over the edge. "The cameras at Safepath Institute weren't working from four to five-thirty this afternoon."
The cameras were down?
What were the odds?
My mind went numb.
It was like I'd been hit over the head with a club.
Every single piece of evidence fit together perfectly, all pointing right at me—time, location, and vehicle.
Rashad's statement, the cameras that just happened to be down.
And the most damning thing of all.
The hit-and-run driver was me.
And then there was that phone call.
That fake traffic cop—the scammer.
"The phone call!" I suddenly remembered.
I gripped the edge of the table, desperate for something to hold onto.
"A scammer called me this afternoon!" I said. "He pretended to be a traffic cop, told me I'd hit someone, and had to turn myself in! That's why I ended up saying all that weird stuff to you! You can check my call history!"
I pulled out my phone, unlocked it, and handed it over.
"This is the number!" I said.
Wyatt took my phone and glanced at the call history.
For the first time, his brow furrowed just a little.
He jotted down the number and handed it to an officer standing nearby.
"Look into it," he said.
The officer nodded and hurried out.
Once again, it was just the two of us in the interrogation room.
I looked at Wyatt, a flicker of hope rising in my chest.
That phone call was my alibi.
There was no way the scammer could have predicted this.