Someone had seen Eli with them earlier that afternoon. It was slim, but it was just enough information to drag him into it. He wasn’t in the car when they found it, but he was close enough to look guilty.
Close enough…
“It looks like the quiet one was the lookout,” a police officer said.
Eli had no record and no voice loud enough to convince anyone he wasn’t involved.
So I lied.
I told them he’d been helping me with a school project after hours. I gave them a time, a reason, and a believable excuse. It wasn’t true, but I said it with the kind of certainty only a desperate person can fake.
And it worked.
They released him with a warning, said it didn’t look worth the paperwork after all.
The next day, Eli appeared at my classroom door with a single wilted daisy in his hand.
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