“Does Aaron Pike have any connection to the school?”
“Not officially.”
“Then why would he be there?”
Rebecca was silent.
“That’s the problem.”
“What?”
“Police checked.”
“And?”
“Aaron Pike died eleven months ago.”
Every thought in my head stopped.
“What?”
“Car accident. Last November.”
I looked at Julian.
He noticed my expression.
“What happened?”
I put Rebecca on speaker.
She repeated it.
Julian turned pale.
“Then I didn’t see him.”
“No,” Rebecca said.
Maya, who happened to be on video chat with Julian, heard everything.
Her face filled the tablet screen.
“Wait. Then who’s the guy in the gray hoodie?”
Nobody knew.
For twenty-four hours, the investigation changed direction.
The person near Maya’s chair could not have been Aaron.
The orange shoes had created a false certainty.
And that bothered Julian.
He kept repeating the same thing.
“I was sure.”
Officer Daniels finally told him, “Memory isn’t a recording. Your brain noticed the shoes in the photograph and connected them to what you remembered. That happens to adults too.”
