I'd had three boyfriends in total, and every single one of them dropped dead after eating my mother's dumplings.

The authorities assembled a special task force just to investigate their deaths. They spent six solid months tearing my home apart, turning every corner inside out, and still couldn't find a single shred of evidence.

The whole ordeal left me too terrified to date anyone for two full years.

In the third year, I finally crawled out from under that shadow and started seeing someone new.

But after losing three boyfriends, the fear never really left me. I didn't dare bring my new boyfriend, Richard Finch, home to meet my mother.

He was the one who kept pushing for it. He wanted to talk marriage, kept insisting, wore me down day after day until I finally agreed to take him home.

This time, following our family's tradition, my mother made dumplings again.

We'd barely finished eating when I stepped away to use the bathroom. That's when I heard my mother scream.

"No! Not again!"

I ran out and the color drained from my face.

Richard, who had been perfectly fine just minutes ago, sat rigid on the couch. His body was stiff. His skin was cold.

He looked like he'd been dead for a while.

——

I stood frozen in place, staring blankly at Richard's lifeless body slumped on the sofa. My face went white, and my eyes burned with tears.

"How... how is this possible?"

"Richard, wake up! Please, don't do this to me!"

My hands shook as I reached toward his nose to check for breath, but my mother grabbed my wrist and pulled me back.

"Debbie, what are we going to do? Your boyfriend is dead again!"

"We need to call the police. Right now."

My mother was the most timid, law-abiding woman alive. Her only instinct when something went wrong was to call the authorities.

She dialed with a chalk-white face. "They said they'll be here soon!"

"Debbie, stop looking at him."

I sank onto the couch, hollow and numb.

"How could this happen again?"

"Mom, that's the fourth one..."

My mother looked at me with pity, sighing heavily. She seemed to have aged a decade overnight.

Before long, the special task force arrived with a team of forensic examiners and surrounded the apartment. Chief Finch took one look at me and my mother and let out a long, weary sigh.

"How is it your place again?"

"What happened this time?"

My mother shook her head frantically. "Officer, we don't know. We just don't know."

They secured the body on the spot and began a full autopsy examination. My mother and I sat by the front door in silence, waiting.

This was the fourth time.

Even the task force and the forensic team felt like old acquaintances by now.

During a break, one of the medical examiners leaned in close and whispered to us.

"Mrs. Henson, you don't think it could be the house itself? Bad energy or something?"

"Every time your daughter brings a boyfriend home, someone dies. It's like a curse. Terrible luck."

"If it were me, I'd sell this place and move somewhere else."

My mother pressed her lips into a tight line, her face pale as she shook her head.

"It's just the two of us. Debbie's father died young. This place is all we have. Where would we even go?"

As she spoke, tears slid down her cheeks.

"I just feel sorry for my Debbie. She finally had something stable with a boyfriend, and now... this." She trailed off with a broken sigh.

A boyfriend had died in our home. That made my mother and me the prime suspects.

The neighbors gathered around, shooting us dirty looks.

"Another death. There's got to be something going on with that family. It's unnatural."

"I bet those two did it. The mother and the daughter."

"Oh, stop talking nonsense. The best task force in the city is standing right there. If those two were really the killers, they would've been arrested after the first boyfriend died."

"There has to be more to this story."

Hearing everyone whispering, gossiping, pointing fingers, dragging my mother and me through the mud—

My mom was frantic, panic written all over her face.

"We'll cooperate fully with the investigation, officer. My daughter Deborah is studying for the civil service exam. You have to get to the bottom of this. Please don't pin it on innocent people!"

Chief Finch reassured her over and over.

"Mrs. Henson, don't worry. We'll do everything in our power to solve this case."

"If we can confirm you and your daughter had nothing to do with it, you'll both be released."

But we waited until our stomachs were growling, and they still hadn't found a single thing.

Even the forensic examiners with decades of experience were shaking their heads.

"This is bizarre. We can't determine a cause of death."

"Same as the previous three bodies. Clearly sudden death, but no explanation."

The city's most renowned forensic team was brought in to examine the body, but none of them could crack the mystery either.

Another boyfriend, dead in our home.

My mom and I were white as sheets, clinging to each other, trembling.

Tears streamed down my mother's face. She finally broke, letting out a wail of pure despair.

"God, what did we do to deserve this?"

"Is my daughter cursed?"

"Why does every boyfriend die? Why do they all die in our home?"

Before long, the task force turned their attention to me and walked over.

"You're Deborah Henson? Today's victim, Richard Finch, died in almost the exact same manner as the previous three. Think carefully—was there anything they all had in common?"

I fought back the grief and thought hard for a moment.

"If there's one thing they had in common..."

"They were all my boyfriends. Other than that, they didn't know each other. I don't think there's any—"

I shook my head, but something flickered in my mind. I stopped short.

"Wait. I just remembered!"

"They all ate the dumplings my mom made!"

The moment the words left my mouth, every pair of eyes in the task force snapped toward me.

"Dumplings?"

Just like the three times before, they zeroed in on my mother's dumplings.

And just like every time before, the search turned up nothing.

The dumplings offered no clues whatsoever.

"Eating dumplings and then dying? Did someone poison them?"

The task force members studied my mother and me with cold, appraising eyes.

"We're innocent, officer!" my mom cried.

"And we're not stupid! If we really wanted to kill someone, would we make the dumplings ourselves and let him die right here in our own home? Do we have a death wish?"

"And even setting all that aside—he was my daughter's boyfriend! He could've been my future son-in-law! What possible motive would we have?"

Chief Finch cut her off, his voice calm and measured.

"The dumplings from that evening—are there any left?"

"Yes!"

My mom jumped in immediately. "I made extra filling that day, so I wrapped a whole batch more and put them in the freezer."

"And everything happened so fast that night. The leftover dumplings are still in the pot. I never had a chance to clean up."

So the team inspected every last dumpling my mother had made.

They tested the dough she'd kneaded for the wrappers. They tested the filling she'd chopped and seasoned by hand. They tested the finished dumplings, every single one—checked and screened for poison.

"Well? Find anything?"

The forensic analyst shook his head.

"No trace of any toxic substance."

"These are perfectly normal dumplings."

A young task force member named Justin Dickerson suddenly lifted his head and fixed me with a cold stare.

"Deborah. You'd better come clean."

"Why does your mother insist on making dumplings every single time?"

That was something I'd been wondering myself. I pulled my mom over so she could explain.

My mom slapped her thigh, her face a mask of bitter grievance.

"Officers, you have to understand—this is just how things are done where we come from."

"Especially when a daughter's boyfriend visits for the first time. The mother always makes dumplings by hand. It's tradition."

"And with the holidays right around the corner, every family makes dumplings. Every single one."

"It's been this way for as long as I can remember. So how could... how could my daughter's boyfriend just..." Her voice cracked. "Lord have mercy."

But Justin Dickerson from the task force kept his eyes locked on me, refusing to look away.

"Maybe there's a more sophisticated method of poisoning we haven't considered."

The color drained from my face. I opened my mouth, ready to defend myself.

But before I could get a word out, Chief Finch spoke up for me.

"Dickerson, the probability of that is virtually zero."

"Didn't you hear what the coroner just said?"

"There were no signs of poisoning in the victim's body whatsoever. He didn't die from poisoning."

The task force members shook their heads in frustration.

"So we can rule that out. This has nothing to do with the dumplings your mother made."

I couldn't help muttering under my breath.

"Besides, I ate them too."

My mom loved making dumplings more than anything. And before those three boyfriends died, I used to love eating them too.

This time, though, I'd been so anxious about something happening to Richard that my appetite was shot. I'd barely touched them.

But my mom had eaten two full bowls without hesitation.

If there had been anything wrong with those dumplings, how could the two of us still be sitting here, perfectly fine?

One by one, every theory was shot down.

So the task force kept eliminating possibilities until, finally, someone raised a new angle.

Could this be a crime of passion? Someone with a grudge against me?

Chief Finch turned to me. "Deborah, think carefully. Is there someone like that in your life?"

"Someone who pursued you and was rejected—someone who might be operating in the shadows, killing each of your boyfriends one by one. It's a real possibility."

I racked my brain, thinking hard for what felt like forever. Then my head snapped up.

"Actually... there might be."

Everyone's eyes settled on me, their expressions unreadable.

I had no choice but to lay it all out.

"There was a colleague I knew from work. His name was Oscar Parsons. He pursued me for a while, but he was a heavy smoker, and I just wasn't interested, so I turned him down."

"After that, he threatened me several times—sometimes to my face, sometimes behind my back."

"He said that when he set his sights on a woman, he'd have her no matter the cost."

"I told him I had a boyfriend. He just looked at me and said we wouldn't last."

The further I went, the more goosebumps crawled across my skin.

I was on the verge of tears. I looked up at Chief Finch, desperate.

"Chief Finch, do you think it could be him?"

"But how would he even know every time I started dating someone? And how did he manage to kill each of my boyfriends without fail? How is that even possible?"

Chief Finch's brow furrowed, his expression thoughtful. "We can't confirm he's the killer just yet. He's a person of interest, that's all."

"To test this theory, we'll need to investigate further."

The task force proposed having Justin pose as my boyfriend and visit my family's home.

"Me?"

"Him?"

Justin and I said it at the exact same time.

I looked at his handsome face, written all over with reluctance, and my own brow creased.

"Can't you send someone else?"

Chief Finch smiled faintly. "He's the only one on the task force close to your age. Anyone else wouldn't be convincing."

Fine.

So Justin followed the task force's plan and posed as my boyfriend, coming to my family's home for a visit.

I recreated the scene exactly as it had been the day Richard came over.