I declined his offer. I told him, it was probably because I had shopped and was under the sun for so long yesterday. So, nothing like a little rest could heal me.

Arnold gently ruffled my hair, then scooped me into his arms and laid me back on the bed. He said, "Alright. However, if you still feel bad later, call me and I’ll take you to the hospital. Don’t worry about bothering me.”

He added, "Just cancel the car maintenance online later."

The whole time, I kept a close eye on his expression as I looked for any telltaling signs. However, his concern was the same like before.

His action only made me more confused.

After Arnold left, I headed down to the underground garage. The moment I saw the car parked safely in its spot; I finally exhaled a sigh of relief.

The car was given to me last month. Arnold gifted it to me as a present for our tenth wedding anniversary.

In my past life, after I drove the car out, our whole family was destroyed. However, this time, I would not let that happen If someone was trying to frame me, as long as I did not touch the car, I would be safe … right?

With this thought, I clenched the car key and went back upstairs. After I grabbed a quick bite, I lay on the bed while trying to piece together all the chaos from my previous life.

Before I could gather my thoughts, my phone suddenly rang.

When I looked at the caller ID and saw the number one-one-two, my heart sank.

I forced myself to stay calm and pressed the answer button.

“Are you Carol Cunnings? Your car was involved in a fatal crash that killed three people. You're also suspected of fleeing the scene. Please turn yourself in and cooperate with the investigation.”

The officer’s voice was cold, clipped on the phone and it made the hairs on my neck stand on end.

“W-what? Impossible!" I stammered. “Officer, there must be some mistake. My car’s parked safely in the garage. I haven’t driven anywhere today.”

When the police heard my words, he thought that I wanted to evade responsibility and his tone became even colder when he said again, “The vehicle is registered in your name. As the owner, you're responsible for cooperating. Whether or not you were the one behind the wheel, the officers at the scene will determine that.”

I ended the call and bolted downstairs to the garage. The sight that greeted me made my legs go weak because the car was gone and the place where it should have been was completely empty.

It was clear I had both car keys in my hand. How could the car just vanish?

As I took a deep breath, I pulled out my phone and dialed Ellen Bordeaux, the receptionist at my company.

Then I opened my mouth to ask, “Hey, do you know what time Arnold got to the office today? Has he left at all?”

“Mr. Jefferson got in around ten this morning,” she said. “He’s been in a meeting with the design team ever since. He hasn’t even taken a lunch break. He definitely hasn’t left at all.”

Arnold had left our house around half past nine in the morning and arrived at work by ten o'clock. The police said the crash happened just thirty minutes ago.

Since Ellen was my cousin and we were close, she would not lie to me.

So, if he was not the perpetrator, who could it be?

I did not say anything for a while. Finally, Ellen persuaded me with a lowered voice, “Don’t worry, Carol. I’ve got your back. No little vixen is getting near your man.”

"Calm down. I mean it. According to my observation, your husband is very loyal. He always talks about you. Everyone here’s jealous of what you two have …."

However, these were not the words I wanted to hear,

“I was just curious, that’s all,” I replied and hung up.

Although frustration welled up inside me, I knew I had to stay calm. If I panicked now and became disoriented, I would walk right into whatever trap someone had set for me.

I replayed the officer’s words in my head. He only said my car was involved but he never said he had confirmed I was the driver.

This time around, I hadn’t even left the house. Maybe—just maybe—things could still be different.

I quickly called a taxi and headed straight for the crash site.

However, when I arrived, I saw it was exactly just like it was happened in my previous life.

As soon as I arrived at the scene, the same horror that happened in unfolded in front of my eyes.

People in the crowd spotted me almost immediately.

She shouted, “That’s her! Officer, it’s her! She was driving like a maniac. She didn’t even try to slow down before she rammed straight into that family of three!”

“Yeah, and we banged on the window for ages! She finally came out of the driver’s seat with some guy. Both of them were half-naked. No one knows what they were doing in there.”

“Even after she got out of the car, she didn’t call for help from the police or ambulance or even check on the victims. Instead, she grabbed her phone and asked a livestream lawyer how many years she’d get if someone died. When the lawyer said seven years …. max, she laughed.”

“The worst part was that poor kid's head was completely severed from his body! However, this unhinged woman actually said, ‘Damn, that kid had a hard skull and cracked my windshield!’ "

Their words hit me like bullets. However, this time, I forced myself to stay calm.

In my previous life, this exact moment broke me. I lost my grip on reality, panicked and everything spiraled from there.

When a police noticed my appearance, they approached me and asked, "Are you the of the vehicle?”

After he got my affirmation, he said in a clipped serious voice, “Then please explain what happened. We need your full cooperation.”

I looked him in the eye and in serious tone answered, “I don’t know what happened because I wasn’t the one driving.”

That one sentence was all it took to arouse the crowd's outrage.

"Don't lie! Don't say it's not you. I saw the whole thing. It was you who got out of the car, don't think I don't recognize you just because you changed your clothes.”

“We have so many pairs of eyes watching, you still want to batter words. You are still remorseless about this.”

“Just because she’s rich and drives a fancy car, this kind of person thinks she’s above the law. I reckon she intentionally killed that family to vent her anger. She should be arrested and got the death penalty!”

Amid the chaos, Arnold arrived. His steps were hurried. He was visibly shaken by the accusations but he was still trying to defend me.

“You’ve got the wrong person,” he insisted. “My wife’s always been timid and she can’t even watch someone kill a chicken, let alone hurt a person on purpose!”

However, his defense only fueled their anger.

“You think we can’t recognize her? It wasn’t just her face, it was her voice too!”

Then a sharp-tongued auntie from the crowd turned to him with a sneer and asked, "Are you her husband? Then take a look at this video I recorded before you keep defending her.”

She held up her phone and played the recording after she said this.

Onscreen, after people banged harshly on the car windows, I slowly stepped out of the driver’s seat while arranging my clothes back into place and saying impatiently, "What are you doing? Do you realize how expensive my car is? Do you even have the money to compensate me if it gets damaged?"

Then I added, “So what if a few people died? It’s not a big deal. My family got a lot of money and my high price insurance can cover it.”

“That lowlifes shouldn’t have been in my way. Who told them to block the road? I think they got what they deserved.”

"They even ruined my car glass. I'm so unlucky."

After throwing a tantrum, I quickly wrapped my arms to the man who got out of the car with me and said, “Babe, we weren’t even enjoying ourselves just now, what do you think if we find some other place and pick up where we left off?"

The man in the video pinched my ass with a wicked grin on his face as he said, "Yo, little slut! Why are you playing hard to get? Is this your idea of fun?"

I laughed. “That was nothing. Didn’t you say you had something bigger I could play with?”

The video ended with me hopped into a taxi with a man amid the gasps of horror from the people around me.

Arnold's face turned crimson red with rage and he went crazy. His hand stuck hard at my face."Carol! Are you even a human?" he yelled. “How could you do something so shameless and twisted like that?"

That slap sent me crashing to the ground. However, the real pain landed straight in my heart.

Just like in my past life, Arnold went from defending me to despising me in an instant.

He never once asked for my side of the story or asked what really happened. He just joined the crowd in condemning me as a murderer.

The onlookers, who didn’t even know the full story, started screaming and pointing at me.

"Why don't people like you go to hell? You kill people and feel no remorse. You even said something like that!"

"This woman is so evil and malicious. She's already got a husband, but you’re out here whoring around like it’s nothing. I bet she was messing around in the car, lost control and killed them!”

“She’s lower than scum. How can this kind of person deserve to live in the world? If I were her husband, I’d beat her to death myself!”

Their outrage only grew louder. A few of them clenched their fists and started moving toward me.

The police, sensing things might spiral out of control, quickly put up a barricade and stepped in.

One officer looked at me sharply and said, “We’ve just reviewed the surveillance footage from the city’s street cams. What we saw matches the accounts given by eyewitnesses.”

“All the evidence points directly to you. We need your full cooperation. Be honest and give us the name and contact information of the man who was in the car with you. We’ll need to investigate him too," he added.

Even if I asked them to check for fingerprints inside the car, it would be useless. Whoever set this up came fully prepared.

I knew then that at this moment I was reliving the nightmare of my past life. The same crushing sense of despair and helplessness of not being able to defend myself surrounded me.

However, I forced myself to stand tall and with steel determination, I said, “I’ve been at home all day and never left. I don’t even know the man in that video.”

“Officer, please … look this case deeper. I don’t care if you arrest me, but if you stop here, the real criminal will walk free. That family of three … they’ll have died for nothing.”

The way he looked at me changed instantly … his eyes filled with judgment, like he was staring at a remorseless killer.

“There are multiple eyewitnesses, physical evidence and the footage from your car’s dashcam." He added, "Everything clearly shows you were there. In such a short time, who do you think could fake all of that? If it wasn’t you behind the wheel, who was it? You have a long-lost twin or something?”

I also wondered who it was. If I had a twin sister, this whole thing would be easily resolved.

However, I knew for sure that I was the only child. My mother almost died giving birth to me and after that, my father had a vasectomy. There was no chance of some secret sibling showing up … much less one who looked and sounded exactly like me.

So, who was this woman pretending to be me? How could her voice be identical to me? To this day, I still do not have the answer.

I shook my head slowly in resignation. This made the crowd start throwing insults again.

"Even after the evidence is so clear, you're still trying to lie your way out of it. I think she is worse than those old-time femme fatales!”

“God knows what kind of parents raised someone like her! If I were her father, I’d have sat on her at birth and saved the world the trouble!”

I knew this was already blowing up online.

It wouldn’t take long before people started digging through my family’s personal info in the name of justice.

In my previous life, the moment I was taken away, my parents were surrounded at home by angry vigilantes claiming they were “bringing justice.”

My parents were beaten and cursed in every possible way. One day, while out, they were hit and killed by a car driven by one of the victim’s family members.

As for me, things weren’t any better while I was in custody. Once the other inmates heard about my case, although they were also criminals, they acted like righteous messengers of justice so they beat me to death.

I did not want to relive my life only to end up with the same fate. This time, I have to protect my parents and clear my name.

My mind raced as bits and pieces of my experiences in both lives constantly flashed through my mind.

Just a split second before the police officer was about to handcuff me, I shouted urgently, “I know who the real perpetrator is!”