As I pulled out, Evan stepped into view near the station’s glass doors.

He watched me with an expression that looked more desperate than angry.

For one reckless second I wanted to roll down the window and ask him whether he had seen Lena lying in the road.

Instead I drove away.

Later Brooks called to say investigators had located the gray pickup and were comparing its damage with evidence from the road.

She did not tell me where it had been stored.

I imagined the tailgate under bright forensic lights, every dent suddenly carrying a question.

My father had once told me that machines remember impacts even when people pretend not to.

He had been talking about a bus collision that revealed a cracked support bracket.

The memory comforted me because metal could not be persuaded to protect a family reputation.

But even physical evidence required interpretation.

At dinner Ian asked whether I believed Gwen had personally entered the garage.

“I don’t know,” I admitted.

“I know she’s been threatening us, but I never saw the face under that hood.”

“That’s the right answer,” he said.

Maya listened quietly from the kitchen counter.

“What if Evan confesses?” she asked.

“Then the case may move forward, but we still need to see what he actually admits,” I replied.

“What if he doesn’t?”

“Then the investigators keep working with the evidence they have.”

She watched me for a moment.

“You sound like Detective Brooks.”

I laughed for the first time that day.

“I’ve been listening to her.”

A few hours later the local news aired a brief report about progress in the hit-and-run case.

It named neither Evan nor Gwen, but it said investigators were examining a vehicle of interest.

My phone filled with messages from neighbors asking whether I knew anything.

I replied only that Lena’s family deserved privacy and that the police would release information when appropriate.

Across the fence Gwen’s upstairs light burned until nearly four in the morning.

On Thursday, Alice called from the apartment where she was staying with a coworker.

She sounded steadier than when she had arrived at my kitchen door.

“My mother left me six voicemails,” she said.

“She keeps saying I’m destroying the family.”

I asked whether she had shown them to the detective.

“Every one,” Alice replied.

She told me that she had agreed to speak with a lawyer before giving any additional statements.

I told her that was wise.