Chapter 104: An Astonishing Discovery!

Inside the interrogation room, Fletcher looked dispirited, but his mind was clearly sharper than it had been the day before.

Mona entered carrying her laptop and sat in the chair opposite Fletcher. Roan tossed a folder onto the table and stood beside them.

“Good morning.”

Catching Mona’s questioning gaze, Roan’s eyelid twitched, but he pretended not to notice. He tilted his head toward Fletcher.

“Would you like a cup of coffee?”

“No, thank you,” Fletcher replied stiffly, shaking his head. Then, hearing Roan’s words, he asked, “I already told you everything yesterday. Why am I here again?”

“No, Fletcher, there’s still a lot you haven’t made clear to us.”

Roan’s eyebrow arched as Fletcher unknowingly refused their bitter coffee. He went on, “I need you to tell us about everything that happened after you finished writing that script.”

Fletcher’s mental state hadn’t been particularly good yesterday, and what he’d shared was just a rough outline. Roan needed more details. After all, the devil was in the details—and so might be the bank robbers.

“What?”

Fletcher’s scalp tingled at Roan’s request, and he shouted, “How is that possible? That was so long ago! How could I remember everything that happened each day?”

“Not every day,” Roan said, shaking his head and crossing his arms. He knew Fletcher’s memory couldn’t be that precise. “Just tell us who you met and what you did during the time you were writing the story.”

“That’s impossible,” Fletcher insisted, still shaking his head. Roan’s lips curled downward as he replied coldly, “Don’t forget about the flour, Fletcher. I’m not forcing you—I'm helping you earn a chance to request a reduced sentence before the judge.”

Fletcher froze at Roan’s words. After a long silence, he sighed, finally looking up and asking quietly, “I’ll try to remember those things carefully, but before that, could I have a cup of coffee?”

“No problem!” Roan grinned, waving Mona off and leaving the interrogation room to fetch the coffee himself.

“Thank you,” Fletcher said politely when the coffee was set before him. And then—

“Pfft—!” The bitterness exploded across his tongue, and his eyes widened as he spat the coffee out at once.

“Feeling more awake now, aren’t you?”

Seeing Fletcher’s suddenly red face, Roan, who had deftly avoided the coffee, smiled slightly, placed the folder in front of Mona, and then switched on the recorder, signaling Fletcher to begin.

Mona was speechless.

Now considerably more alert, Fletcher shot Roan a fierce glare, then, after a moment’s silence, closed his eyes and began to speak slowly:

“When I decided to spend the rest of my life fulfilling my wife’s dream, the first person I sought out was…”

Fletcher’s calm narration filled the interrogation room. More than half an hour later, Roan’s phone rang.

“Go on,” Roan gestured for Fletcher to continue, then stepped out to answer the call.

“It’s me, Lacey.”

On the other end, Lacey’s tone was resigned. “Roan, I have good news and bad news. Which do you want first?”

Roan’s brow twitched. “Let’s hear the bad news.”

“The bad news is, after Rider used his unique interrogation techniques, we learned something. In the manager’s office of the two-story repair shop,” Lacey said, watching the busy employees below, “the staff here really don’t take money left behind by car owners. But as for everything else, they’ve done it all—taking a cigarette or two, sneaking a slice of pizza… and, of course, peeking into someone’s notebook.”

“So every employee here knows the story Fletcher wrote in his notebook. One of the part-time boys even said the story was pretty good—if only it could be made into a movie.”

“…Alright.” Roan’s expression stiffened. “What’s the good news?”

“The good news is, I found out why Delano, one of the robbers in those two later cases, planned to use a woman to case the bank without ever having read the script.”

Lacey sighed, flipping through the repair records. “Because after Delano got out of prison, he brought his car here. While chatting with the staff, he got the idea.”

“…That hardly sounds like good news,” Roan muttered, rubbing his brow. After a moment’s silence, he said, “So we really have no idea how many people might have heard about this story from the car wash staff, right?”

“Well, not exactly,” Lacey replied, shaking the repair records. “We can check the client list for everyone who’s been here in the past two months.”

“…Fine, bring the list back.”

After hanging up, Roan felt pain not only in his back but now his head as well.

He returned to the interrogation room and explained things to Fletcher. As Mona frowned in frustration, Roan spread his hands.

“Unfortunately, Mr. Fletcher, unless something unexpected happens, it’s unlikely your story will be made into a film script—too many people know about it. I can’t guarantee someone didn’t write a script based on your story and submit it to a film company before you did.”

Hearing this, Fletcher, who had been quite tense, finally let out a breath and waved dismissively, unconcerned. “No, that’s not possible. As soon as I finished the story, I registered it with Hollywood. If someone writes an identical script after me, it’ll just be considered plagiarism. In fact, right after I registered it, a film company contacted me wanting to buy the script. They only offered five hundred dollars, though—far too low, so I turned them down.”

“A film company contacted you?” Roan frowned even deeper. Just how many people knew about this story? How many knew the details?

At least the media hadn’t picked up on it yet—no newspapers had printed anything, which was a small relief. At this point, aside from entertainment papers, the other papers in New York were far too proud to pay attention to Hollywood.

For a moment, Mona’s brow was tightly knit while Roan was full of unspoken curses.

Taking a deep breath, Roan suppressed the turmoil in his heart and asked, “What was the name of the film company?”

“Golden Light Pictures, Hollywood,” Fletcher replied with a disdainful curl of his lip—he’d never even heard of them.

Meeting Roan’s gaze, Mona nodded, her fingers flying over her keyboard as she started looking into the company.

“Okay.” Roan shifted his stance and had just asked Fletcher a few more questions when Mona suddenly slapped the table.

“Roan, come and look at this!”

“What is it?” Roan hurried to her side.

Following Mona’s pointing finger, Roan looked at the laptop screen.

There, clear as day, was a photo of the boss of Golden Light Pictures, sitting in a café, chatting with a man.

(End of chapter)