Angelo POV༄༄༄
The investigation room was quiet.
Too quiet.
The whiteboard in front of us had three names written on it.
Keifer.
Keigan.
Yuri.
Three suspects.
Three different stories.
And none of them matched.
I crossed my arms and looked at Yuri's file.
"If Yuri is telling the truth," I said, "then he left the mansion at ten."
Jay looked up from her notes.
"But the shadow near the driveway shows up at 10:12."
Eman frowned.
"So someone was still near the mansion after he said he left."
I turned my head toward Ci-N.
He was already typing on his laptop.
"We checked the cameras near the convenience store Yuri mentioned," he said.
"And?" I asked.
"There's footage of him walking inside."
Jay stepped closer.
"What time?"
"10:27."
Jay frowned a little.
"The store is only eight minutes away from the mansion."
Eman leaned back in his chair.
"So that leaves almost twenty minutes where we don't know where he was."
Exactly.
Yuri had an alibi.
But it wasn't a strong one.
Ci-N spoke again.
"There's something else."
He clicked another video.
"This camera is from a street near the mansion."
The video showed a car driving away.
"What time is that?" Jay asked.
"9:55."
Eman leaned forward.
"Whose car is it?"
Ci-N zoomed in.
"The plate matches Keigan's."
I looked at the board again.
If Keigan left at 9:55…
then he wasn't there when the murder happened.
I grabbed the marker.
Then I crossed out his name.
"Keigan is cleared," I said.
Jay let out a small breath.
"One suspect down."
But the case still wasn't over.
Two names were still on the board.
Yuri.
And Keifer.
Eman crossed his arms.
"Yuri still has that twenty minute gap."
"Which gives him time," Jay said.
Ci-N nodded.
"Yeah. Plenty of time."
I looked at the board again.
Then I noticed Jay staring at Keifer's name.
"You see something?" I asked.
She hesitated.
"His story," she said slowly. "Everything he said lines up almost perfectly."
Eman shrugged.
"Isn't that a good thing?"
I didn't answer right away.
Sometimes the cleanest story…
was the one someone practiced the most.
I looked back at the board.
"We keep investigating both of them," I said.
Until I knew the truth…
neither one of them was safe.