Chapter 3

Melvin immediately pointed the wrench at her. "What could possibly be more serious than someone dying? I saw you talking to the victim alone. You even handed her a bottle of water. Did you know her?"

The pregnant woman was so anxious that she couldn't get a word out.

But my attention was on the man in the trench coat.

He looked at the pregnant woman with a mocking smile, as if none of this had anything to do with him.

He had been the last person to get into the car. He also had no luggage, so there was nothing that could give away his job.

I had been watching him closely ever since the car broke down.

He hadn't had any contact with the victim. Yet something about him felt very strange.

"Give it to me!"

Melvin's angry shout snapped me back to reality. By then, he had already snatched the pregnant woman's backpack and forced it open.

The woman burst into tears.

Then Melvin found a stack of intimate photos hidden inside. "What... What the hell are these?"

The moment the photos were pulled out, the woman stopped fighting.

She collapsed to her knees. "I'm really not the killer. I made a terrible mistake when I was drunk during a trip to Drakemoor a while ago. Someone secretly took these pictures of me. That bastard threatened me and told me to meet him in Drakemoor. He said he would post the photos online if I didn't go!"

She covered her face and sobbed. "My job has been so busy, and I'm pregnant. I didn't want to go at all. But what could I do? I had no choice..."

She hugged her head and could no longer form a complete sentence.

Melvin and I didn't believe her right away. We searched through her luggage and checked her laptop as well.

Her name was Ruby Lowe. She really had received a threatening email from someone in Drakemoor.

Her work records also showed that she had stayed late at the office every night for the past week.

Everything about her story seemed to check out. She didn't have a signal jammer in her luggage either.

I decided she wasn't a suspect.

I turned my attention to the man in the trench coat.

Before I could even speak, he gave me a faint, mocking smile. "I was going to Drakemoor to visit a patient. I couldn't get a ticket, so I booked a ride instead. Here's my ride history. It was a random match, so I had no idea whose car I'd be getting into or who the other passengers would be.

"And I didn't know the victim either. I've been sitting in the back seat since I got in. I never talked to her or touched her.

"But all of you had spoken to her. You even shared food with her."

I let out a cold laugh. Was he trying to shift the blame and make us turn against one another?

But he had made one mistake. I hadn't had any contact with the victim either.

Melvin immediately looked at me. "What do we do now? We've all explained ourselves. It looks like none of us is the killer!"

Ruby was still kneeling on the ground. She raised her head with a trembling expression. "Maybe... Maybe we're thinking too much about this. Maybe she really did just die suddenly. Maybe her death has nothing to do with us."

I frowned, deeply confused.

The man in the trench coat hadn't even told us his name. He was quiet and strange. Yet Melvin and Ruby had accepted his story so easily.

We had also searched the victim's luggage earlier. Her travel guide showed that she had been planning a trip to Drakemoor. She had even signed up for a skydiving course.

Someone healthy enough to take part in skydiving was unlikely to suddenly die from a serious illness.

But there was something else bothering me that I couldn't put into words.

Before I could figure it out, I looked at the man and said, "You still haven't explained everything. Who is the patient you're going to visit in Drakemoor? Do you have any messages or other proof that you know her?"

He calmly pulled out his phone and showed it to me. "The patient I'm visiting is Christine Sherman. These are our messages. You can look for yourself."

I nodded and slowly walked toward him, then I motioned for him to hand me the phone.

The moment he let his guard down, I lunged at him.

I grabbed him by the throat and slammed him hard against the ground. "You really are the killer!"