I glanced down at the winning numbers again, but the guilt was strong enough now that they didn’t even register in my brain. At that exact moment, as my basest human desires were duking it out with my moral barometer, I heard a voice call out to me from behind. Despite the fact that I wasn’t doing anything technically illegal, this still rattled me pretty good, and I nearly dropped my cell phone into the ocean. I whirled around—it was the island’s patrol officer.
“Wow, that was quite the overreaction, kid. Don’t suppose you were watchin’ naughty videos on that phone of yours just now, were ya?” he teased, lowering the kickstand on his bike before hopping off and walking over to me.
“God, you scared the hell out of me,” I said, twisting around so that my legs were back on solid ground facing the island. “What’s the big idea?”
“Hahaha… Sorry, kid. Didn’t mean to spook ya or anything. Saw you sittin’ there and wanted to chat for a little bit, that’s all.”
I clicked my tongue in frustration. How could someone have such perfectly bad timing? It was honestly kind of impressive.
“Aren’t you supposed to be on the clock?” I asked.
“Aw, c’mon. Checkin’ in with the islanders to see how y’all are doing falls well within my job description. You sure you’re not bitter about the other day?”
“Not sure what you mean.”
“You know—the way that detective from the mainland kept grillin’ you like that. Couldn’t help thinkin’ it must’ve felt real bad for him to treat you like a suspect and whatnot. Would’ve liked to speak up in your defense, but you know how it is.”
“…Sorry, when was this?”
“Whaddya mean…? It was the day you found the body, remember?”
Based on the notes I left for myself in my cell phone, that must have been…the night of the 2nd, right? So it was something I wouldn’t experience for another couple of days—but I didn’t want to raise suspicion, so I simply pretended that I knew what the officer was talking about and tried to pivot away from the subject.
“R-right, of course. Sorry, it’s just been a hell of a week, y’know? It all kinda blends together,” I laughed. This casual dismissal did raise one eyebrow’s worth of suspicion from the officer, but then he accepted my excuse and nodded in agreement.
“Definitely. I’m sure that day especially must’ve been pretty traumatic for you, huh? What with finding his body like that and then gettin’ raked over the coals about it,” the officer recounted with a small sigh. “So hey, did you hear they got the autopsy results back?”
“Yeah. Acute alcohol poisoning, right?”
“Yep, you got it. So the lesson here, kid, is to always know your limits. You go getting blackout drunk and passing out in public this time of year, the cold’ll kill ya even if the alcohol doesn’t.”
“Good thing I don’t drink, then… I’m still a minor, in case you forgot,” I quipped back and then casually looked down at my cell phone. It was rapidly approaching six o’clock. I needed to wrap this conversation up so I could prepare myself for the next Rollback.
“Oh yeah, and somethin’ else I was meaning to tell you, kid: Do me a favor and don’t go meeting up with Akito’s little sister after dark, all right? I let it slide this last time, but don’t let me catch you two breaking curfew again. Capiche?”
Aw, crap. He must’ve seen me and Akari.
“Er, yeah, sorry about that. She really needed someone to talk to last night…”
“Hang on—you guys did it again last night? Gimme a break, kid. You’re just trying to start a scandal now, I tell ya.”
“Wait. What do you mean, ‘again’?”
“You guys were hangin’ out late on Sunday night too, weren’tcha?”
For a split second, I thought I must have misheard him.
“Sorry, did you say Sunday night? As in…April 1st?” I asked to confirm.
“Yeah. I saw you two together while I was out on patrol but looked the other way. Sometime around one in the morning, I think it was.”
That didn’t make any sense. Akari told me herself that she didn’t see me at all that night after we said our goodbyes at the seawall.
“And you’re positive it was me and Akari you saw?”
“I mean, it’s not like I’ve got photo evidence to prove it or anything… Why, are you tryin’ to tell me that wasn’t you?”
He had to be mistaken. If I took his eyewitness testimony to be true, then that would mean Akari was lying to me, and I knew she would never do that. The officer’s eyes must have been playing tricks on him, I concluded… Yet for whatever reason, I couldn’t bring myself to say that to his face with a hundred percent confidence.
I remembered how I’d asked Akari last night if she knew what I was up to on the evening of the 1st and how she’d seemed visibly shaken by the question. Not that that was irrefutable evidence of her lying, mind you, but it did make me unsure of who to believe. Before I could make heads or tails of it, the six o’clock chime began to play. Greensleeves.
This was bad. I’d lost track of time and let the conversation drag on all the way up to six o’clock, and now I was about to hit a Rollback right in front of a live audience. Frantically, I tried to brace myself for what was about to occur—if today was the 5th, then I was about to get sent back to the evening of the 3rd, right?
“Hey, what’s the matter, kid? Why so panicky all of a sudden?” the officer asked.
But it was too late.