Chapter 3

The flashing red and blue lights painted the walls of Matt's apartment, strobing through the blinds. They had found us. My heart plummeted into my stomach, a familiar, sickening drop. It was happening exactly like before, the inevitable closing of a net I couldn't escape. Matt stood frozen, his face a mask of anger and fear, the accusation still hanging in the air between us.

"Police! Open up!" a voice boomed from the hallway, followed by a heavy fist pounding on the door.

There was no running. There was nowhere to go. My body felt heavy, anchored by a sense of crushing despair. I walked to the door and opened it.

Two uniformed officers stood there, hands on their holsters. Behind them, at the end of the short hallway, stood a woman. My breath caught in my throat. It was her. The same woman from my past life. The accuser. Her clothes were torn, her hair was a mess, and she had a theatrical scrape on her cheek.

She pointed a trembling finger at me, her eyes wide with what looked like terror, but I knew was pure performance. "That's him! That's the man who hit me and tried to... to..." She broke down into a series of dramatic, unconvincing sobs.

The lead officer, a stern-faced man whose name tag read MILLER, stepped forward. "Leo Vance? You need to come with us."

It felt absurd, like a nightmare playing on a loop. I had done everything differently, yet here I was, standing in the exact same impossible situation. "Officer, there's been a mistake," I said, my voice shaking despite my effort to keep it steady. "I haven't been anywhere near Seaside Boulevard. I've been here, in this apartment, for the last several hours. My friend, Matt, can vouch for me."

Officer Miller glanced at Matt, who was still pale and silent, his expression unreadable. Miller didn't seem impressed.

"We have evidence that says otherwise, sir," he said, his tone flat and dismissive. He pulled out his phone and played a short video clip. It was grainy, clearly from a traffic camera, but the image was unmistakable. A dark blue sedan, my car, swerving and hitting a figure on the side of the road. The driver's face was obscured, but the license plate was crystal clear. It was mine.

"That's impossible," I whispered. "My car is in my apartment's parking garage. It hasn't moved all day."

"We'll get to that," Miller said, putting his phone away. "We also have this."

The second officer stepped forward, holding an evidence bag. Inside was a man's watch, its crystal cracked. "The victim, Ms. Gina, says this fell off her attacker's wrist during the struggle. It was found at the scene."

I stared at it. It was my watch. The one I wore every day. The one that was, at this very moment, sitting on my nightstand back in my apartment. The contradictions were piling up, each one a brick in the wall of my new prison.

Suddenly, the stairwell filled with noise. The flash of cameras, the shouting of questions. The media had arrived, drawn like sharks to blood.

"Mr. Vance, is it true you attacked a woman?"

"Are you the heir to the Vance Corporation fortune?"

"Why did you run?"

The questions were a barrage of hot, sharp projectiles. The crowd of reporters pushed forward, their cameras and microphones forming a suffocating cage around us. The public spectacle, the trial by media, had begun. I felt a surge of impotent rage. This was their goal: not just to frame me, but to humiliate me, to strip me of my dignity before I even had a chance to defend myself. The narrative was being written, and I was the villain.

"I have the right to remain silent," I said to Miller, my voice tight. "I want to speak to my lawyer." I was trying to cling to the rules, to the system that was supposed to protect the innocent.

Miller just gave a slight, cynical smile. "You can call your lawyer from the station. But right now, we have a few more things to clear up. We sent a unit to your residence to secure your vehicle. They found something interesting."

My stomach clenched. What now?

"You claimed your car hadn't been driven all day, correct?" Miller asked, his voice loud enough for the reporters to hear.

"That's right," I said.

"Then can you explain why the patrolman who checked it found that the gas tank was full? To the brim. As if someone had just filled it up after a long drive."

The world seemed to spin. A full tank? I hadn't filled up my car in over a week. It should have been less than half full. It was another piece of evidence that made no sense, another nail in my coffin. It was their word, their fabricated proof, against my impossible reality. Every piece of their story was a lie, but every lie was backed up by something tangible, while my truth was backed by nothing. I was trapped in a whirlwind of phantom evidence and calculated deceit.

I looked from Miller's smug face to the accuser's fake tears, to the hungry eyes of the media. Despair was a cold, heavy blanket. I was losing, again.