Part 2

An officer entered the room, carrying a shoebox-sized package. "Captain Williams," he called, "your wife sent something again...."

Jayden's expression turned cold at the mention of my name. "From now on," he ordered with a disgusted tone, "throw away anything she brings."

Sensing his colleague’s frustration, Zac sighed and patted his shoulder. "Look, it's been a while now. What happened to your father... wasn't Samara’s fault. She's a victim too here."

With that, he opened the box, revealing a transparent jar inside.

A collective gasp filled the room as everyone saw something inside the jar. My husband's hand went slack and the jar tumbled from his grasp, shattering on the floor. Inside was… a perfectly formed fetus preserved in formalin.

But what truly sent shivers down everyone's spine was the disturbing, almost eerie, smile stretched across its tiny face. Even crashing to the floor, the fetus remained eerily still. It even bounced a little on impact.

A forensic doctor reacted swiftly, securing the tiny body in an evidence bag. One look was all it took for them to form a conclusion. "Fake," he declared.

Jayden's face burned red with fury. "This is just another one of her crazy tricks to get my attention!" he roared, accusing me after hearing just a single word.

But I had never sent that.

The officers were clearly shocked by the gruesome display and remained silent. Perhaps, they too thought it was a prank gone too far by me.

Zac sighed as he tried to intervene. "Samara doesn't strike me as someone who would joke like this," he said. "Maybe there's been a misunderstanding? You've been away for a while. Why not head home and sort things out?"

Jayden scoffed. "Huh! What's there to misunderstand? This is a threat! Her sending this over is a clear threat to have my child aborted!"

My husband sneered. "She's a liar," he spat. "She'd make up anything to avoid all blame, even children!"

"Even if she is pregnant, I will never let her have it. Someone like her doesn't even deserve children!"

"I feel so sick every time I see her face! Now, we need to focus on the victim. We need more clues, an identified body, and a closed case. As quick as possible."

I hovered in the air, tears flowing down my face as his words were like a knife in my invisible heart. Apparently… in his eyes, I was not even worthy of carrying his child. 

Who was, then? His perfect past love?

Perhaps, he recalled the moment I told him that I was pregnant. My husband shoved the doll into the nearest trash can.

He then took out his phone and pulled my number out of his blacklist. His voice dripped with ice as he spoke, "Now you’re threatening me with a fake fetus? That only makes you a monster in my eyes.

“You better stop being a crazy liar! Even if you’re dead, you won't get my attention."

But I was already dead... 

…and I never lied. 

That broken corpse ... was me.

Part 3

My husband joined the detectives from the criminal investigation team in a huddle. The whiteboard displayed pictures of my body, along with notes about what they found. Important details were circled.

"The DNA test results are in," one officer announced. "It doesn’t match any criminal’s identity. This woman clearly doesn't have a criminal record."

"We also checked missing persons reports, but no pregnant women are matching her age and description."

An officer furrowed his brow, finding it odd. "The victim has been missing for a couple of days. Why wouldn't anyone report a pregnant woman missing?”

"Didn't she have any family?"

My husband clicked his pen, circling the word ‘child’ on the whiteboard.

"We can't identify her yet," he said. "But if we can find the baby the murderer cut open and run a DNA test, the results might lead us to the father and then to her identity."

Tears welled up, blurring my vision as I crouched by the trash can. My invisible hand, desperate and trembling, reached for the fake fetus, but it passed right through.

I could never touch it.

Our child was exactly right there….

The child you once desired the most….

This doll, this cruel prank you believed it to be, held the very clue you sought, but you tossed it aside like garbage….

Next, my husband wrote down the words ‘dismemberment scene’ and circled them. There was not much blood in the sewer, indicating the murderer just left the body there as a dumping site.

Most murderers took their victims apart in a place they knew well, somewhere they felt safe. They might even go back there later. Finding where the body was cut up would be a huge break in the case.

He then circled the words ‘left ear’ and added a question mark.

"We checked the sewer high and low," an officer said, "but no sign of the victim’s left ear or the other pieces. Looks like the murderer didn't dump everything here."

"Why get rid of them separately? Maybe there's something on that ear, a mark that could tell us the victim’s identity."

Upon hearing this, my husband stopped short and frowned in confusion. He stared intently at the words ‘left ear’ written on the board.

I subconsciously reached up and touched my left earlobe. There, a small red mole. Jayden used to love pinching them, so he'd definitely recognize this mark.

"The murderer performed a brutal, forced surgery, removing the fetus," someone said, “but didn't kill the victim right away. Instead, they inserted some kind of powder and tortured her for days before mercilessly ending her life. This points towards a deep-seated hatred for the victim or her family."

"Drug powder... revenge..."

One officer's eyes shifted toward my husband. "Captain Williams, could this be revenge? Maybe a drug dealer we arrested is holding a grudge and getting back at us? That’s why they tortured the victim and dumped the body in our sewer system to taunt us...."

"That doesn't make sense," another officer interrupted. "No one in the station has a pregnant wife who's missing. Plus, wouldn't a family member report her missing?"

A flicker of realization crossed my husband’s widened eyes but then vanished just as quickly as brushed it off with a shake of his head.

Jayden, did something just click for you? Remember when I told you I was pregnant? Back then, you dismissed it as a ploy to win you back. You thought it was just a lie fueled by my jealousy of your past love.

Too bad, you missed another crucial clue. Who in the entire police station would drug dealers hate the most? Jayden, my husband, it was you.

Had your heart not been made of ice, the clues that scattered like breadcrumbs might have led you home. A simple visit home, that was all it took.

He was stunned for a moment before returning to focus on his work. He split the officers into teams, each with a specific job. One team rushed to check on missing pregnant women, another team searched for the first crime scene and the missing body parts and the last team went to hospitals to look for records of pregnant women matching the description.

In addition, they even called in experts to put my head back together. It was crushed so badly that it did not even look human anymore. These experts could use things like soft plastic and details from my bones, age, and leftover tissue to reconstruct my face, kind of like a mold based on science. Once they fixed my skull, they could use it to figure out my identity by matching it with ID records in the police computer system. However, it would take some time to put the pieces back together.

My husband rubbed his temples, looking exhausted. At that moment, his phone buzzed and a soft smile played on his lips as he saw the caller ID.

"Jay, I'm so scared…."

"Where are you? Alright. Stay put and lock the windows. If you're scared, turn on all the lights and wait for me. I'm on my way back," Jayden gently reassured.

He hung up and glanced at the clock. It was almost 10 p.m.

"Alright everyone, head home and get some rest. We can pick things up tomorrow."

A wave of despair crashed over me. My husband, a notorious workaholic, would often disappear for days on end during investigations. I never dared to interrupt him. Yet, a single call from her, and he would drop everything to be by her side.

It was painfully clear that… in his heart, I would never measure up.

Part 4

I drifted along, following my husband until we reached a house. It was the place he lived in before we were married. The funny thing was, I never knew until now, until I died, that a woman lived in the house he claimed to have rented out.

A woman named Yve Sinclair, my husband's ex-girlfriend, the one he called his lost, everlasting love.

She was the woman he rescued from drug dealers three months before. And apparently, that was where he spent all those nights he was not at home... with her.

The thought of it all made a fresh wave of pain crash over me. Yve, his ex, was suffering from some trauma after being held hostage in a case. He was worried sick about her safety, fearing both drug dealer revenge and something happening to her in general, so Jayden took it upon himself to look after his ex.

No wonder he drove like a maniac, shaving half an hour off a twenty-minute trip.

He burst through the door, his voice shaky as he called, "Yve?"

The only other time I had seen him this scared was when his father died.

Yve was huddled in the corner of the couch, trembling. When she heard my husband's voice, she scrambled up and threw herself into his arms like a scared bunny. My husband's body tensed for a moment before reaching out and embracing her in her arms.

He stroked her hair with one hand, murmuring comfort in a low voice, "It's okay. Don't be afraid. I'm here...."

Yve clung to him, tears streaming down her face. "Where have you been? I was so scared without you here!"

Jayden offered a warm explanation. "Sorry, I got caught up with the autopsy results for that dismemberment case."

Yve's eyes flickered as she pulled back slightly. "Oh? Did you find anything?" she asked.

"We found out the victim was pregnant. It looks like a revenge killing, but we haven't identified her yet. No leads so far."

"A pregnant woman… That's awful..."

She said it, but her eyes sparkled with something that felt fake, almost smug. The hypocrisy was disgusting.

She pretended to show sympathy while clearly fishing for information about the case!

Facing Yve, my husband spilled everything about the case even though he would usually keep things quiet. It was so unfair.

Was this the difference between someone he loved and... not?

Just because he loved her, his usual strictness vanished. Just because the one asking was Yve Sinclair, he seemed to be very eager to share everything like a dam breaking. “The murderer cut the victim’s belly open, took out the baby and replaced it with drugs inside her uterus. So, we think it might be someone we missed catching three months ago, deliberately taunting the police.”

Yve gasped, her voice trembling in fear. "No way! That’s… way too terrifying! Did you find the culprit?"

"Not yet," my husband said with a frown, looking worried. "We think it might be someone from that group we busted a while back. I'm worried the murderer might target you if they know you're alive."

"Stay inside for a while," he instructed gently. "If anything strange happens, call me right away."

Yve nodded obediently.

Trying to change the subject, she asked. "Jay, you come here every day to keep me company. Doesn't your wife mind? She is your wife, after all. Didn't she mention being pregnant before?"

The mere mention of me made my husband's expression turned cold. However, when he looked back at Yve, his expression softened again as if he did not want to scare her.

"Why bring her up? If it weren’t for her, my father wouldn't...." He stopped with a frown. "You should get some rest, it's late already."

"But I'm scared…." Yve whined.

"Don't be," he soothed. "I'll stay here until you fall asleep before leaving."

I was floating in the air, watching my husband whisper by Yve's bed, his voice gentle and soothing. His eyes held a tenderness I had never known before.

A picture of porcelain perfection, they seemed sculpted for each other.

A knife twisted in my gut, a hurtful realization shattering my world. I had always been the outsider.

But Jayden, my dear husband… the woman you were so worried about... was not the angel you think she was.