Getting back into the SUV.
Repositioning.
Waiting.
Nobody spoke.
The teenager filming nearby whispered:
“Oh my God.”
Vanessa lunged for the tablet.
Noah pulled it away.
“Don’t!”
Avery moved between them instinctively.
“Back up.”
Vanessa stared at her.
“That’s not what happened.”
Avery looked toward the screen.
“We just watched it happen.”
“No.”
“The camera angle makes it look—”
“Makes it look like you reversed into my car?”
“I was parking.”
“You were parked.”
“I adjusted.”
“Into my car.”
“It was an accident.”
Avery’s eyes narrowed.
“Then why were you waiting to tell me I hit you?”
Vanessa opened her mouth.
Nothing came.
Noah looked from one woman to the other.
Avery asked him:
“Can you preserve that footage?”
“Yes.”
“Already downloaded.”
Vanessa snapped:
“You cannot give her private video.”
Noah said:
“I’m giving it to police.”
Vanessa’s face went white.
Avery took out her phone.
This time Vanessa did not touch her.
Avery called 911.
By the time Officer Daniel Price arrived, three different people had recorded parts of the confrontation.
That would matter later.
At the moment, Avery wished none of them had.
She wanted rain.
Fuel.
Her meeting.
Home.
Instead she stood beneath fluorescent canopy lighting while a police officer watched security footage for the second time.
Daniel Price was forty-five, Black, quiet, and looked tired in the way people do after a career of hearing strangers tell incompatible versions of the same five minutes.
He watched Vanessa’s SUV reverse into the Vesper.
Paused.
Replayed.
Then looked at Vanessa.
“You told dispatch she hit your vehicle.”
Vanessa crossed her arms.
“She did.”
Officer Price looked at Noah.
Noah stared.
Avery stared.
Even the second officer, a white woman named Rachel Mendoza, looked confused.
Price said:
“Ma’am, the video shows you arriving after her.”
“It doesn’t show everything.”
“It shows her vehicle stationary.”
“She might have hit me somewhere else.”
Avery laughed once.
Vanessa turned.
“This isn’t funny.”
Avery answered:
“No.”
“It’s getting strange.”
Vanessa looked at Price.
“You’re taking her side.”
He did not react.
“I’m taking the camera’s side at the moment.”
“She’s probably already told you who she is.”
Avery’s expression changed.
Price glanced at her.
“No.”
“I haven’t asked beyond identification.”
Vanessa looked at Avery’s clothing.
Her hair.
The Vesper.
Then back at Price.
“This whole thing is ridiculous.”
Price asked:
“Did you ask Ms. Monroe for twenty-five thousand dollars?”
Vanessa hesitated.
“That was an estimate.”
“Did you request she pay you directly instead of involving insurance?”
“I gave her an option.”
“After you struck her parked car.”
“It was a minor accident.”
“Then why say she caused it?”
Vanessa looked away.
Price waited.
Rain tapped the metal canopy.
Noah clutched the tablet with both hands.
Avery could hear the pump clicking behind her.
Price said: