We started watching the video. It contained a wide shot of the entrance ramp to the parking at the Eastern Columbia. There was a date stamp watermarked on the video that read02/19/2024—the night of Henry’s death. David fast-forwarded until around nine that night, and we simply watched. I recognized my car making its way into the building. Around ten minutes later, we saw the Mercedes-Benz we’d broken into that afternoon—Henry’s car. Close behind it followed a silver Toyota Prius.
“Stop the frame!” I said to David. “Let’sCSIthe shit out of this.”
“And how would we go about this? The only software I have on this computer is for grammar correction,” he said.
“Seriously? This is the pop culture joke you actually get?” He smirked at me. “Can your grammar software enhance that image?”
“No, but I also have an image editing tool here somewhere,” he conceded. “Since now I need to write but also most times they expect me to provide the pictures illustrating my articles.”
David screenshotted the video image and zoomed in to the Prius. The driver was indistinguishable and the car’s license number too pixelated, but there was a bumper sticker—it was green with a red star-shaped motive. I had perhaps seen something similar, but I couldn’t recall where.
“See, it pays to be a multifaceted journalist,” I told David after the sticker discovery.
“The only thing this proves is thatthatis not my Prius,” David said. His own vehicle of the same model was white and had a Freedom of the Press sticker in black and white and a UCLA Alumni license plate frame. “But we still have no clue who the mystery Prius driver is.”
David’s phone rang then and my dad’s name appeared on the screen. David picked up right away.
“Mateo,” David said, his voice polite and strained. “I see, can you give me a few more hours?”
Whatever my dad told him didn’t seem to make David too happy.
“Okay, let’s do that. Thanks, chao,” he said and hung up. “Your dad says the cops went searching for me and weren’t happy when they didn’t find me home. They have a warrant, so they may be making a complete mess of my apartment. And I just had it deep cleaned!”
“You’re worried about the mess? What if the killer planted something else at your place?” I panicked. “You said you took care of the watch, right?”
“I did, and I’m also quite certain there’s nothing else.”
“Can I ask you how you handled it?” Curiosity was killing me.
“Does your Olivia Pope character always tell all her tricks?”
Aw, he remembered. “It’s not my Olivia Pope, it’s Shonda Rhimes’s. And no, she doesn’t.”
“Let’s keep the mystery here as well,” he said. “I’m not sure what I did is completely legal, and I prefer to keep you out of it.”
“But you trust me?” I needed to know.
“There’s no one I trust more. You’re also the last person I’d like to see dragged into this ugly legal business any further.” I felt a thrilling pang in my stomach. “Your dad told me the cops tried locating me by finding my phone. I left it at home, so they didn’t get very far. I’m using a burner,” he said when I looked confused.
“Oh my god, you’re like a professional law-avoiding citizen!” I quipped.
“Being an investigative reporter helped me know how to remain hidden and, of course,” he leaned over, whispering in my ear, “having you as a lover also helps.”
“You should thank my mother,” I joked, but I savored his use of the wordlover. I liked it so much better than girlfriend, girl, significant other, and the other qualifiers we’ve used in the past for one another that sounded so childish and ordinary now somehow.
“It looks like I’ll have to thank both your parents,” David said. “The cops reached out to your dad when they couldn’t find me. He told them I was in the middle of an article assignment and momentarily incommunicado.”
“Which is technically true,” I said.
“He does have a way of describing almost-facts in a creative way,” David admitted. “I should surrender in the next twenty-four hours or things will get ugly, though.”
“Ugly?”
“Legally, I’ll be a wanted man.”
I was going to go the irreverent way and say that non-legally speaking he very much was a wanted man already, but then I realized the gravity of the situation and forced my hyperactive libido to sober up a little.
“I see. We have twenty-four hours,” I said.
