Lemira returned to her dorm room, weighed down by her thoughts. She told Stella everything that Orion had uncovered.
Stella drew in a sharp breath. “I actually suspected it might be business competition too, but I don’t have Orion’s resources or speed. This really could be it!”
The Sinclair family had already started celebrating their new energy project, which meant they were certain they’d win the bid.
If the car accident had been orchestrated by the Sinclairs, then everything made sense.
Stella gave Lemira a hug. “Don’t be upset. Finding a clue is a good thing. Once we catch Evelina’s father, that’ll be the proof we need. The Sinclairs must pay for what they’ve done!”
“That’s exactly how I feel. My parents can’t have died for nothing!”
Lemira wiped away her tears. “With two wonderful friends like you, and people who really care about me, I already have so much.”
She was determined to live a life ten—no, a hundred—times better than her last, and to make those responsible for her parents’ deaths pay the price.
That night, Lemira tossed and turned, unable to sleep. Her mind kept circling back to the connection between the Sinclair family and the accident all those years ago.
She dreamed about the crash again.
She was sitting by herself in the back seat, happily playing with a toy. Her mother, sitting in the front passenger seat, kept trying to cheer her up, promising to buy her a cake to make up for something.
Lemira wanted so badly to tell her parents to just go home, that she didn’t want the cake anymore.
She didn’t want them to be harmed.
But the accident still happened. Her head felt like it was splitting open, and her vision blurred into darkness.
Through the chaos, she heard her mother’s desperate, frantic voice: “Save her! Save the child first!”
Lemira vaguely remembered someone carrying her out of the car, but the hands that lifted her were clearly young—not the hands of a middle-aged man.
She jolted awake and stared at the ceiling in a daze.
If her dream was a memory rather than just a dream, then the person who saved her wasn’t the driver—it was someone else.
Could that person have been from the Sinclair family’s car?
Maybe it was the driver who caused the accident, or maybe just a passenger in the back.

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