“So I made things worse.”
“No. You gave us an observation. We tested it.”
Julian frowned.
“And it was wrong.”
“One part was wrong.”
That distinction mattered.
It became even more important the following afternoon.
A school custodian named Mrs. Alvarez contacted Dr. Mercer.
She had heard about the damaged chair.
She remembered seeing someone in the west corridor early Monday.
Not a stranger.
A student.
Officer Daniels interviewed her privately.
Then he spoke with the student’s parents.
By evening, the mystery of the gray hoodie was solved.
The person Julian had seen was a fourteen-year-old named Caleb Ross.
Julian knew him.
Everyone did.
Caleb was quiet, brilliant with machines, and spent most lunches in the robotics lab.
He also owned bright orange shoes.
When the police spoke to him, he did not deny touching Maya’s wheelchair.
He burst into tears.
He had noticed the caster wobbling weeks earlier.
