CHAPTER FIVE
1629 Words
The Plate That Didn’t Exist
The police station felt colder than it had yesterday.
Not physically colder the air conditioner hummed the same dull tune but colder in the way places feel when they hold too many stories that end badly.
I sat in a stiff plastic chair across from a metal desk while Officer Bamidele examined the photograph I had brought.
He held it between two fingers, squinting slightly.
“You said you found this in the park?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Just… lying there?”
“In an envelope.” I hesitated. “With my name on it.”
He looked up.
“And you don’t know who left it?”
“No.”
Technically that was true.
But it wasn’t the whole truth.
I didn’t tell him about the messages.
I didn’t tell him my phone had been guiding me step by step like some invisible narrator.
Because even as the story formed in my mind, I could hear how insane it sounded.
Hello officer, a mysterious number texting me from nowhere is solving a hit-and-run murder.
No.
That would only make them dismiss me.
So I stuck to the facts.
I found the photo.
Daniel believed he was being followed.
And I wanted someone to look closer.
Officer Bamidele leaned back in his chair and studied the image again.
It was grainy, probably taken from a distance with a phone camera. Daniel stood beside his silver Corolla, keys in his hand, one foot slightly turned as if he had heard something behind him.
Behind him, partially visible through the blur of headlights, was another car.
Dark.
Low.
And if you zoomed in enough…
You could almost see the license plate.
“Can you enlarge it?” I asked.
The officer turned his monitor toward him and slid the photo across the desk into the computer scanner.
A soft mechanical hum filled the room.
Seconds later the image appeared on his screen.
He zoomed in slowly.
Pixel by pixel.
The background stretched into a mess of blurry shapes until the car behind Daniel filled the monitor.
My breath caught.
The license plate was visible.
Not perfectly clear.
But enough.
“LAG–48…” he murmured.
He typed something quickly.
The keyboard clacked loudly in the quiet office.
For a moment, hope flickered.
If they could track the plate, maybe they could find the driver. Maybe this whole nightmare would finally have an ending.
But then Officer Bamidele frowned.
“That’s strange.”
“What?”
He typed again.
The screen reflected faintly in his glasses.
“This plate number doesn’t exist.”
A chill ran through me.
“What do you mean it doesn’t exist?”
“I mean there’s no registered vehicle with this sequence.”
I stared at him.
“That’s impossible. It’s right there.”
“I know,” he said slowly. “But according to the database, it’s not assigned to any car.”
My stomach twisted.
Someone had used a fake plate.
Deliberately.
Which meant this wasn’t random.
Which meant the crash that killed Daniel might never have been an accident.
The officer leaned back again.
“Where exactly did you say you found this envelope?”
“In the park.”
“What time?”
“Late morning.”
“And no one else saw you pick it up?”
I shook my head.
His gaze lingered on me a little too long.
Like he was measuring the difference between truth and imagination.
“Miss… Amara, right?”
“Yes.”
“I understand grief can make people search for answers. But sometimes there aren’t any deeper explanations.”
My chest tightened.
“So you’re saying I imagined this?”
“No,” he said carefully. “I’m saying someone could be playing a prank. Or trying to upset you.”
A prank.
I almost laughed.
A prank involving fake license plates and surveillance photos?
That wasn’t a joke.
That was planning.
That was obsession.
I gathered the envelope and photo from the desk.
“Thank you for checking,” I said quietly.
He nodded but didn’t stop me as I stood.
Maybe he thought the conversation was over.
But for me, it had just begun.
Outside, the sky had finally broken open.
Rain fell in thin silver lines, soaking the pavement.
I stood under the station’s small awning and pulled out my phone.
The screen lit up immediately.
One new message.
My heart dropped.
They won’t find it in the system.
A cold shiver crawled down my spine.
Whoever was texting me knew exactly what had just happened inside.
I looked around quickly.
Cars passed through the rain.
Pedestrians hurried by under umbrellas.
No one looked suspicious.
Another vibration.
The plate was cloned.
I swallowed.
Cloned.
I had heard of that before.
Criminals sometimes copied legitimate plate numbers and placed them on different vehicles to avoid detection.
Which meant somewhere in Lagos there might be a real car with that exact number.
And the one in the photo wasn’t it.
My fingers hovered above the keyboard.
For the first time, I typed back.
Who are you?
The reply came almost instantly.
Someone who wants the truth found.
That wasn’t an answer.
Why me?
The typing dots appeared.
Then disappeared.
Then appeared again.
Finally, the message arrived.
Because you were supposed to see something that night.
My pulse quickened.
Supposed to see something.
“What did I miss…” I whispered.
The rain grew heavier.
Another vibration.
Go home.
That was it.
No explanation.
No hint.
Just two words.
Frustration burned in my chest.
But beneath it was something else a strange trust I couldn’t explain.
Every message so far had led me to something real.
The voicemail.
The photograph.
The fake plate.
So maybe the next piece was waiting at home.
I pulled my hood up and started walking.
By the time I reached my apartment building, the rain had soaked through my shoes.
The hallway smelled faintly of detergent and old paint.
Everything looked the same as it always did.
Same dim lighting.
Same creaky staircase.
Same quiet neighbors.
But as I climbed the stairs, the feeling returned.
The one I’d had the night Daniel died.
Like someone was watching.
I paused halfway up and glanced behind me.
Empty hallway.
Nothing but flickering lights.
Still, the sensation lingered.
I reached my door and unlocked it.
The apartment was silent.
Too silent.
My heart began to beat faster.
Had someone been inside?
The messages clearly knew where I was.
Maybe they knew where I lived too.
Slowly, I stepped inside.
Nothing looked disturbed.
The couch was exactly where I left it.
The kitchen counter still held the mug from this morning.
But something felt different.
I walked toward my bedroom.
Then I saw it.
On the desk beside my laptop.
A small black flash drive.
My entire body froze.
I hadn’t left that there.
I lived alone.
Which meant someone had entered my apartment.
Or…
Someone had access to it.
My breathing became shallow as I approached the desk.
The flash drive sat there innocently.
A tiny piece of plastic holding who knew what kind of secrets.
My phone buzzed again.
I didn’t even need to look to know who it was.
You’re ready now.
My hands trembled as I picked up the flash drive.
“What’s on this?” I whispered.
Another message appeared.
The moment everything changed.
A knot formed in my stomach.
I plugged the drive into my laptop.
The screen flickered.
A single video file appeared.
No title.
No timestamp.
Just raw footage.
My finger hovered over the mouse.
Part of me wanted to shut the laptop and pretend none of this existed.
But the other part the part that had spent a year drowning in unanswered questions couldn’t stop now.
I clicked.
The video opened.
At first it was just darkness.
Then the image stabilized.
And my heart stopped.
It was security footage.
From across the street.
Outside my apartment building.
The date stamp read:
June 17 — 11:42 PM
The night Daniel died.
My throat tightened.
The camera showed Daniel’s car parked by the curb.
He stood beside it, checking his phone.
Exactly like in the photograph.
Then headlights appeared behind him.
The dark sedan.
The same one.
My pulse roared in my ears.
The car slowed.
Not passing by.
Stopping.
Daniel turned slightly.
Like he sensed it.
Then the driver’s door of the sedan opened.
Someone stepped out.
The camera quality was too poor to see their face.
Just a tall shape.
A man.
He walked toward Daniel.
My chest tightened painfully.
What happened next made the blood drain from my body.
They argued.
Even without sound, it was obvious.
Sharp movements.
Daniel shaking his head.
The stranger stepping closer.
And then,
The man shoved him.
Hard.
Daniel stumbled backward into his car.
My breath caught.
The stranger returned to his sedan.
Started the engine.
And waited.
Daniel got into his own car seconds later.
And drove away.
The sedan followed him.
My entire world tilted.
The crash hadn’t started on the road.
It had started right outside my apartment.
Someone had confronted him.
Someone had chased him.
And someone had been waiting.
The video ended abruptly.
My laptop screen went dark again.
I sat there, frozen, my heart pounding so violently it hurt.
This wasn’t an accident.
It was a pursuit.
And whoever had been in that sedan had been the last person to see Daniel alive.
My phone vibrated one last time.
Slowly, I picked it up.
Seven messages left.
I stared at the words.
Seven.
And now the game had changed.
Because this was no longer about grief.
Or closure.
This was about a killer.
- Writer
