Chapter 4 - The Sabotage
The air in the room felt suddenly devoid of oxygen. I stared at Detective Lin, my brain refusing to process the words hanging in the sterile air.
"Scored?" I repeated, my voice shaking violently. "Someone cut my tire?"
"A deep, horizontal incision along the inner rubber," Detective Lin confirmed, her expression grim. "It was designed to hold pressure at low speeds—like driving through your neighborhood—but violently disintegrate under high thermal stress once you hit highway speeds above sixty miles per hour."
I remembered the rain. I remembered turning onto Interstate 95, the sound of the storm pounding against my windshield, and then the sudden, sickening BANG that ripped the steering wheel out of my hands, throwing my car into a violent spin across three lanes of traffic before slamming driver-side first into the concrete guardrail.
"Who..." My hands clutched the hospital blanket so hard my knuckles turned ghostly white. "Who had access to my car?"
"You lived in a townhouse complex three miles from your mother's house, correct?" Detective Lin asked, checking her notes. "Do you have driveway parking or a closed garage?"
"An open driveway," I whispered. "I parked outside."
"We pulled security footage from your neighbor’s ring doorbell camera from the night before the crash," Detective Lin revealed, pulling out her tablet and playing a short, grainy video clip.
The video showed a tall figure wearing a dark hooded sweatshirt walking casually up my driveway at 2:15 AM under the cover of a heavy downpour. The individual knelt beside my front driver-side wheel for less than forty-five seconds, holding a small metallic object, before melting back into the shadows of the street.
Though the hood covered the face, the figure walked with a distinct, sharp limp in the right knee—a permanent injury from a college skiing accident.
It was a limp I had recognized my entire life.
It was Tessa.
"Oh God," I sobbed, burying my face in my good right hand as a tidal wave of grief and terror crashed over me. "My own sister. She walked up to my house in the middle of the night and cut my tire."
"Your sister," Detective Lin said firmly, "and your mother, who provided the vehicle Tessa used to drive to your house that night. We matched the tire tracks left on the street corner to Evelyn’s sedan."
Detective Lin reached out and gently touched my arm, her touch grounding me amidst the swirling nightmare. "Miss Vance, this is no longer just a case of hospital endangerment or false reporting. This is officially an investigation into attempted first-degree premeditated murder and conspiracy to commit insurance fraud."
"What happens now?" I asked, wiping the tears from my cheeks, a cold, burning core of anger beginning to replace the despair.
"Now, we elevate their bail," Detective Lin declared softly. "The District Attorney is going before a grand jury tomorrow morning to secure a multi-count indictment. Neither your mother nor your sister is going to walk free again for a very, very long time."
As Detective Lin stood up and walked out of the room, my phone buzzed on the bedside table.
It was an incoming call from an unknown, unlisted number.
I hesitated for three long seconds. Then, taking a slow, deep breath that made my cracked ribs throb with a sharp, cleansing pain, I swiped the screen and answered.
May you like
"Hello?"
"Clara..." a frantic, venomous voice hissed through the speaker. It was my mother, calling from a jailhouse payphone. "You listen to me right now, you ungrateful little bitch. You tell those police officers you made a mistake. You tell them you misheard us in the hospital room, or I swear to God I will make sure you lose everything you have ever owned!"
