Chapter 3

3: 3

Five minutes later.

Inside the police station, the officer's face was grim.

"We just got a call from an ambulance driver at the state hospital."

"He says he drove a patient to the hospital, and then the patient vanished off the ambulance out of nowhere."

"And the ambulance's surveillance was somehow broken by then."

The officer's eyes turned on me, weighing me. "This driver says you're the one who called the ambulance, and that you watched the old man get loaded onto it yourself."

I nodded.

"I've got video that proves it."

He took the phone and studied the footage.

"The nurse who was riding along says that halfway there, the driver ordered her and the others off."

"And going by the usual travel time, the driver arrived thirty minutes late."

"We also pulled the route the ambulance took."

"We found the driver went out of his way to stop at his own house."

"We've already sent officers over there."

A cold breath caught in my chest. The exact same situation as my last life.

The driver was denying everything, frantic.

"Officer, I swear I never went home!"

"And I never made the nurse get off. I picked the patient up normally and drove him straight to the hospital."

"I don't know why there was no one in the vehicle by the time I got there either!"

Then the driver suddenly turned and looked at me. "Officer, I think he's the suspicious one."

"He got the emergency call, he came to pick the patient up. So why did he turn around and call our hospital's emergency line?"

The officer's look at me carried more suspicion now too.

"Evan Finch, Saul Mason called your hospital's ambulance line, and there was nothing wrong with your vehicle."

"So why did you order the nurse off partway there, and then, once you reached Old Mr. Mason's house, call a different hospital's ambulance?"

"If you can't explain that clearly, we'll be investigating you as well."

My heart was pounding fast. I'd assumed the problem was the vehicle.

But now, different driver, different vehicle.

And the exact same thing had happened.

I glanced at the driver still babbling his explanations, and it was like watching myself in the last life, drowning in panic.

"The officers who went to your house say Saul Mason's body was hidden in the bedroom cabinet at your place. Preliminary examination points to poisoning as the cause of death."

Beside me, the driver stumbled back in terror, shaking his head wildly. "No! Impossible! How could he be at my house?"

"And I never even went home. My family has never bought any poison."

"Most of all, I don't even know that old man. Why would I hurt him?"

Stanley Mason charged forward and grabbed the man by the collar.

"Why? Why would you kill my father?!"

Then he whipped around and lunged at me, his eyes bloodshot.

"And you, Evan Finch, why did you call another hospital's ambulance for my father behind everyone's back?"

"My father's dead now. Did the two of you plan this together, on purpose?"

"Evan Finch, can't you let go of the old grudge?"

The officer gave me no room to breathe and ordered me to explain at once.

"Explain, right now. If you hesitate—"

"Then every statement you make after this, we have the right to treat as a lie."

I felt my heart slamming like it wanted out of my chest.

Part of me was working out how to explain, and part of me was combing through this whole thing for what didn't add up.

"Evan Finch. Five more seconds."

At last I let out a breath and spoke, and the moment the words landed, the officer's suspicion of me vanished on the spot.

"Because..."