even the downstairs bathroom, as if my key fob might’ve grown legs and wandered off.
Then Wesley appeared in the doorway twirling them around his finger.
“Relax,” he said.
“I just moved your car because you were blocking Dad in.”
I stepped outside and saw my Mazda pulled out of the driveway and left crooked at the curb.
The driver’s seat had been shoved back.
The side mirror was tilted wrong.
There were muddy marks on the floor mat.
I felt that slow, hot kind of anger that starts in your chest and spreads until your hands shake.
“You got in my car without asking.”
“I moved it ten feet.”
“You took my keys without asking.”
Dad came out onto the porch and immediately took Wesley’s side.
“For God’s sake, stop accusing him like he stole the thing.”
That sentence stayed with me.
Because technically, he had stolen something.
Just not the thing Dad thought mattered.
Wesley dropped the keys into my hand with a smirk.
I left before the fight got any uglier.
On the drive home, I was still angry enough that I ignored a notification from the dashcam app on my phone.
I had installed a camera package the week I bought the Mazda, front and rear, mostly because I worked at a credit union and trusted paperwork more than people.
I remember seeing the alert and thinking I’d look at it in the morning.
Then the trooper called before dawn.
By the time I reached Route 315, the sky was turning that washed-out gray that comes before sunrise.
Police lights flashed across wet pavement.
A tow truck was lifting a black SUV away from the guardrail.
Black.
Not silver.
I slowed to a stop and stared.
The front end was crushed.
The grille was buckled.
One headlight hung at an angle.
And then the tow truck shifted just enough for the Cadillac crest to catch the light.
Dad’s Escalade.
Not my Mazda.
My father was still talking when he noticed.
Not shouting anymore.
Talking fast, defensive, angry in that panicked way people get when reality starts moving under their feet.
Then he saw the vehicle clearly.
He went silent.
A state trooper turned toward him.
“Mr.
Gilmore? The registration comes back to you.
Your son appears to have taken this vehicle after moving another car out of the driveway.
Did he have permission to operate it?”
Dad’s face drained so quickly it looked almost theatrical.
Wesley was sitting on the open back of an ambulance in a blanket, shaken but not seriously hurt.
He smelled like stale alcohol from ten feet away.
The medic was checking a scrape on his forehead.
He kept saying he was fine and that the whole thing had gotten blown out of proportion.
Then he saw me and said, “Savannah, tell them I wasn’t taking your car.”
It was such a stupid sentence that I actually laughed once under my breath.
The trooper asked again whether Wesley had permission to drive the Escalade.
Dad started to say something vague about family and misunderstandings.
I opened my dashcam app.
There it was.
A parking event captured at 10:07 p.m.
The camera showed Wesley climbing into my Mazda, backing it out into the street, then leaving the driver’s door open while he stood
