Car plate numbers

When they left the police station, Kaiden said, "I'll drive you home, it's getting late. Sleep early tonight, yea?" "Mmhm, thanks!" Renae replied as they walked towards Kaiden's car. It didn't take long for them to arrive at Renae's house. After Renae got off, she waited outside of the house for a bit before entering. She watched as Kaiden's car zoomed away, a slight smile started to form on her face as she memorised Kaiden's car plate number. Kaiden drove a grey GranTurismo, a Maserati 2018 model. It wasn't cheap, yet it wasn't expensive either. For such a beautiful car, it's price was not bad at all.

Renae returned to her empty house. Of course it would be empty, her parents weren't home. She felt her stomach grumble as she settled down in her room and decided to cook a mini meal for herself. After changing into a comfy outfit, she headed to the kitchen. Scanning through the food in the fridge, she realised there were quite some easy to make foods in there like frozen pizza and dumplings. Not only that, there were meals already cooked for her! All she had to do was warm it up and she could eat it.

"Mum... thank you..." Renae mumbled as she took out a bowl of spaghetti. She could smell the mouth-watering aroma of the spaghetti as she heated it up.

As Renae ate her food, she thought about many things. One of them being the ways she could proof the fake news were fake. It would be a hard one to get out of, especially since the pictures they used were extremely well edited. Yet she knew, justice would be served. Telling between something real and something fake certainly wouldn't be easy, and convincing others wouldn't be easy either.

She finished her meal and returned to her room to brainstorm more about this problem. Renae pulled out a notebook and her stationary, and she remembered something that might be able to aid her in proving her innocence.

While they were being tailed, Matthew had taken a picture of the car which was tailing them. The car plate number of the car was definitely seen in the picture. Remembering this, Renae quickly sent a message to Matthew, asking for the picture. Matthew did as told, but he also questioned her. "Why do you need it?" All along, Matthew had thought Renae would, in the end, leave the fake news and rumours be without taking action. But after she asked for the picture of the car, what he thought seemed to be proven wrong.

"It's nothing. Thanks for the picture! Goodnight!" Renae replied without giving him a chance to continue the conversation. She left the messaging app and went to her photo gallery. She zoomed in on the car plate number of the tailing car and wrote it down in her notebook. Then, she switched to the website the fake news was posted on and zoomed in on the car plate number which they switched Matthew's one with. If they switched it with another number, that number most likely belongs to someone else. If she finds out who it belongs to, she can easily prove that the picture was edited. Not only that, if she could get her hands on the original pictures of the edited pictures, she could also post them up side by side.

In the end, it'll depend on who the public will put more trust in and believe, but Renae was willing to take that chance. She didn't want such news to bring down their family's name, especially since this news wasn't even true! Thinking about how this might affect her family's reputation in the future, Renae felt her blood boil and her eyes turned a scary level of coldness.

That thought didn't bring her down, instead it just boosted her motivation to solve this problem. Renae had plans, but she'd never written them down. After all, if an enemy found out, all her hard work would go down the drain. She was writing this all in a random page in her notebook, and the page was filled with car plate numbers. The first one was the car which was tailing her and Matthew, the second was the edited car plate number from the picture of her entering a random man's car, and the last being Matthew's actual car plate number.

Renae stared at the edited car plate number. It looked uncomfortably familiar. She didn't realise it when she first wrote it down, but wasn't it the same as Kaiden's car plate number? She laughed a litte. There's no way Kaiden was helping them, right? He's their friend... right? The more she thought about it, the more her doubt started to grow. After all, they had only known each other for less than a year. Who said he wouldn't betray her?

Even though she really, really, wanted to just ask Kaiden directly, her brain told her to stop and discuss the situation with Matthew first. She obediently did as told and sent a message asking if she could go over to Matthew's house tomorrow before heading to bed.

-

Matthew was already asleep when Renae messaged him, so he only replied in the morning. He agreed to it. After reading the message, Renae headed to the toilet to freshen up before making a quick breakfast consisting of only a sandwich and some milk. After which, she packed her bag and was off to Matthew's house.

But the thing was, the moment Renae stepped out of the house, she stopped. In front of her house parked a blood red S650 Cabriolet. It's windows were completely clear, so she could see the bored looking Matthew who sat in it. She was pretty much frozen on the spot. A Cabriolet! So this guy has more than one Maybach? This was definitely what rich meant!

Since the neighbours were all staring, Renae was a little embarrassed as she approached the car. "Matt?" She asked when she opened the car door. "Hey, get in," Matthew casually replied. Renae raised her eyebrows. Was this guy for real? "Do you know how much attention you're attracting? You could've messaged me beforehand, oh my god! How many cars do you have?" Renae exclaimed as she settled down in the passenger seat.

Matthew thought for a while as he started up the car. "I'm not sure... I lost track..." He replied. If any other 18 year old male had said that, it definitely would've sounded arrogant. But when it came out of this male's mouth, it was completely different. It made you feel insignificant when you were beside him instead.

Renae playfully rolled her eyes. They were off.

Thinking about it, Renae hadn't been to his house yet. She was a little curious to see how big it was since he was rich. In the past, they had always hung out outside or at her house, but never Matthew's.

The house did not disappoint. Renae stared in awe as the gates of the Italian styled mansion before her opened up. "Oh my..." Renae was so starstruck that she didn't even finish her sentence. Matthew chuckled. "Fret not, my parents aren't snobs so they won't be judging you the whole time," Matthew said. Renae looked at him a little confused. "Did you forget? I know your parents." Hearing this, he laughed.

Matthew parked his car and two butlers quickly opened their car doors for them. Matthew casually got out, meanwhile, Renae was flustered and was a little shocked when the butler opened her door for her. Seeing this, Matthew was once again, in a fit of laughter. The butlers and maids had never seen Matthew bring a girl home before! Was this his girlfriend? They all secretly wondered.

"Welcome, Miss...?" "You can just call me Renae," Renae hastily replied. "Miss Renae, young master Matthew, right this way." To that butler, the name 'Renae' sounded very familiar. Where did they hear that before?

The two guards by the double-door opened it for them as they greeted them the same way the butler did. They already knew Renae's name, word had spread fast throughout the workers at the mansion.

Matthew knew that Renae was uncomfortable with such formality, so he led her straight to his study room instead of giving her a tour.

"Study room? I wanted to see your room," Renae pouted. "I... I don't think it would be erm... appropriate for you to just enter a boy's room so easily..." Matthew said, this time it was his turn to be uncomfortable. Renae didn't back down, but instead teased, "What? You think something will happen between the two of us? Being a coward? Hmm?" She giggled. Matthew took that as a challenge and replied, "What? Of course not. Fine then, let's head to my room. Don't complain if I pounce on you then!"

Hearing this, Renae's face paled. She was just teasing, she didn't think Matthew would take it literally! He wasn't this daring when he was younger!

They entered Matthew's room and Renae's eyes gave the room a quick scan. She put down her bag on the desk by his bed. "The toilet is there if you need to go. Wait, let me ask for another chair," Matthew said. "You can sit first, I'll sit on the bed for the time being," he added after he asked for the chair.

Renae nodded and pulled out the notebook from before. "I was thinking about a lot of things last night. And..." Renae was interrupted by the sound of the door opening. A butler entered pushing a big black comfy office chair with him as he did. "Here, young master," he said politely. Matthew thanked the butler and switched over to the office chair.

"Continue."

"So look, the first car plate number I have here is..." she explained everything she had found last night to Matthew. After Renae finished, the cogs in Matthew's brain were moving none stop. "Since you told me all of this, I'm guessing your plan is to head to the shops of the car that was tailing us and the one which they edited my car's one to be?" He asked. "Yes! My plan exactly," Renae exclaimed. She had yet to tell Matthew about how his edited car plate number might be the same as Kaiden's car one.

"I don't mind this method, but it's going to take very long. How about this, I can ask my parents for help on this, they have connections so it's definitely going to help us. I'm sure they'd be willing to help too, since our family name was used," Matthew suggested. Renae agreed with it. "I'll ask them privately. They can probably contact the different car shops in Singapore and send them the car plate numbers."

"Okay! I can't thank you enough... If you didn't help, it'd probably take me a long time to do this," Renae said as she smiled cheerily at Matthew. "No problem, I would've helped you no matter the situation. The same applies in the future. It's getting pretty late, how about we continue this tomorrow?" Matthew suggested. He added, "I'll drive you back."

"Okay, but I think you're going to attract too much attention with your Cabriolet..." Renae said as she packed up. "Hmm... I have a Mercedes-AMG GT Coupe. It's the cheapest one I have. I bought it for about $114k." Renae almost cracked up laughing. "Fine... but how does it look? Not too eye catching right?" Renae said. They walked down to the car park. "Yep, it looks pretty average but still beautiful," he replied.

"My Mercedes-AMG GT Coupe keys please," Matthew asked a maid swiftly. The maid nodded and rushed to get the keys.

They both got into the car and they were off.