Upon hearing Riley’s words, Samantha pursed her lips. “I don’t think Elise did it. Still, Elise, as the
watch is in your bag, you’ll have to give me an explanation for this.”
“She didn’t take it.” Zachary emerged from among the crowd to defend Elise. His expression was grave
as he looked at the classmates around him. “If she really took it, then she must have been a fool. She
would be telling everyone that she was the thief by storing the watch in her bag.”
The crowd fell silent as no one spoke up.
After a long while, a classmate finally asked in a meek voice, “If she didn’t take it, then who did?”
“Yeah! If she wants to prove her innocence, she should find the real culprit! We can’t tolerate such
behavior in our class!”
The corners of Zachary’s lips curled into a confident smile. “Actually, it’s effortless if we want to catch
the culprit; we just have to report it to the police! The investigation techniques are extremely advanced
nowadays, right? Anyone who touched this watch before would leave their fingerprints. Since everyone
has unique fingerprints and our
class isn’t huge, we can just let the police compare our fingerprints and find out who stole the watch.”
Upon seeing that Zachary had a point, Samantha took out her phone right away. “Then, I’ll call the
police now. No matter who it is, I’ll find the culprit before the day ends!”
He gestured for her to go ahead, so she dialed the number.
The other classmates waited patiently in the classroom while Elise stood in silence. She had never met
with such a situation before, so she was a little flustered. Not to mention, it wasn’t a pleasant feeling to
be accused of something she didn’t do.
Zachary looked at her and seemed to have summoned enough courage to pat her on the shoulder. He
then gave her a look of assurance.
She understood that he meant well, so she quickly whispered, “Thanks!”
When the police arrived, Samantha told them a brief summary of what happened
before she asked them to compare the fingerprints on the watch to those present. However, this
request had greatly troubled the police.
“Miss Greene, if various people had handled this watch before, we cannot really do anything with the
fingerprints, which would have been smudged. We can extract the fingerprints on the surface, but it
wouldn’t be sufficient to pinpoint the culprit. To put it simply, this technique isn’t reliable if you want to
find the real culprit.”
Samantha frowned before she looked at Zachary, who simply smiled. “They are right, though. We
cannot find the culprit by this technique alone.”
She was puzzled. “Then, why did you…”
He withheld his answer as he looked toward the crowd. “If my guess is correct, then there’s one person
missing from our class right now. In other words, she has probably escaped.”
As soon as they heard that, everyone exchanged glances with each other. Then, by the process of
elimination, they found the identity of the missing person.
“I know! It’s Amanda! She was here just moments ago, but she has already run away.”
After hearing that name, Elise remembered how Amanda looked at her while realizing the truth.
“Amanda is a wretch! That was such a dirty move!” Samantha raged.
“She must be feeling guilty and was scared that the police would check the fingerprints, so she
escaped!” Riley agreed. She never thought that Amanda would resort to such a thing.
It was then when everyone quickly understood that this incident had nothing to do with Elise, for
Amanda was the one trying to frame Elise instead. Samantha walked forward and apologized shyly,
“I’m so sorry, Elise. I went overboard with my words.”
Elise’s expression was still dark. “Let’s not talk about that now. We have to find Amanda first. Sir, is it
possible to prosecute Amanda?”
The policeman then explained, “If you have concrete evidence illustrating that she was the one who
stole the watch, she can be charged for the crime. Her sentence will then be determined by the value of
the item, so judging by the price of this watch,
she could be behind bars for at least a year and a half.”
“That’s a problem; we don’t have evidence!” Riley sighed.
Elise, on the other hand, smiled. “Don’t worry, we’ll get the evidence we need.”
With that, she turned and looked at her classmates. “Now, I hope everyone will cooperate with me.
We’ll let the facts speak for themselves.”
Everyone present nodded their agreement, afterwhich Zachary looked at her and asked, “Is there
anything I need to do?”
Although Elise had wanted to say no, she eventually thought of something and whispered in his ear.
Upon hearing it, his eyes brightened. “All right, we’ll do as you say.”
Meanwhile, Amanda had just arrived at the school gates when she saw a patrol car entering. Since she
felt guilty, she hid before she watched as the car made its way toward the classroom. After that, she
emerged from her hideout and ran outside.
Her chauffeur was already waiting for her at the gates, so she immediately jumped into the car and the
car drove off.
Amanda could feel her heart racing. She merely wanted to create a rift between Elise and Samantha
with this incident, but failed and brought harm upon herself instead.
Then, Amanda took out her phone and called her father in panic. She told him everything that
happened before she sobbed, “Dad, what do I do now? I don’t even dare to go back to the classroom.
What should I do if they found out that I was the one who did it?”
On the other end of the line, Eric Hudson asked hastily, “Where are you now?”
She looked at her surroundings, then relayed her location. “I just left school and I’m on the way home.”
He immediately shouted, “You idiot! Why did you leave just like that? Leaving right now just means that
you’re feeling guilty about what you did! Go back there now and
pretend nothing has happened. Trust me, even the police won’t be able to find you out. Even if they
suspected that it was you, they can’t give any solid proof that you did it.”
Amanda was stunned to be reprimanded like that. “Okay, I understood, Dad. I’m going back now.” She
hung up and asked the chauffeur to turn around.
When she returned to the classroom, everyone was seated in their own seats, as if nothing had ever
happened.
She sighed in relief and returned to her own seat. However, it was moments after she sat down when
she overheard a classmate behind her.
“I heard that the police are already checking the CCTV footage. They’ll find the culprit soon enough.”
“We mustn’t let the culprit off the hook so easily! How dare they do such things!”
As Amanda listened to them, she felt her heart skip a beat. She excused herself to the bathroom before
she ran to the security room. She opened the door to discover that the place was deserted.
“You’re finally here.”
Elise’s voice rang out behind her and Amanda turned to look at Elise. “It’s you?”
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