"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.

My mom wiped her tears away too, forcing a smile just like last time as she minced the filling and folded the dumplings.

While we waited for them to cook, I grabbed a glass of juice from the fridge and handed it to Justin.

"It's my favorite drink. You should try it."

Justin shot me an irritated look.

I rolled my eyes, set the glass down on the table, and muttered under my breath.

"Drink it or don't. See if I care."

I had no idea what his problem was. Justin acted like he had some kind of personal grudge against me. Every time he saw me, his face went cold.

I racked my brain for the longest time and couldn't figure it out.

So I just asked him.

"Justin, do you have something against me?"

He let out a cold scoff and didn't answer, but turned to look at a childhood photo of me hanging on the wall.

"You clearly weren't a sweetheart even as a kid."

That set me off. I shot to my feet, my eyes stinging red.

"Justin, what is that supposed to mean?"

"Why do you have so many assumptions about me? Do you honestly believe, deep down, that I'm the one who killed them?"

My eyes burned, and the tears came pouring down before I could stop them.

Justin froze for a second, then panicked. He grabbed a tissue and shoved it toward me.

"Don't cry."

His voice came out stiff and awkward. "That's not what I meant. Don't overthink it."

But this time, I wasn't backing down.

"Then what did you mean?"

"You've been on the task force since my earlier boyfriends died. Every time you see me, you get angry."

"This time it was Richard. My boyfriend, Richard Finch."

"He's gone, and I'm the one hurting the most. And you still blame me for it."

Justin stared at me in silence for a long time before finally letting out a sigh.

"I just think you're a bit of a... femme fatale."

"And I feel bad about those lives. That's all."

"No matter what it takes, we will get to the bottom of every single one of your cases. I promise you that."

I burst out laughing. Justin laughed too.

He picked up the juice from the table and took a few sips.

After that, the hostility in his eyes when he looked at me seemed to fade.

We followed the same routine as before, ate the dumplings, and waited on edge for the killer to make a move.

But the last dumpling was eaten.

And Justin hadn't noticed a single thing out of the ordinary.

"I'm not dead?"

The dumplings had already been tested for poison by the task force beforehand. There was never going to be a surprise there.

From start to finish, nothing suspicious had happened at all.

Everyone found it even stranger now.

"Could we have been looking in the wrong direction?"

"Maybe it was never about the dumplings. Maybe the problem was somewhere else entirely!"

Only I stepped forward with a different theory.

"What if the killer already knows Justin is just pretending to be my boyfriend?"

But right then, Kerry got a call from the task force.

They said an anonymous letter had just arrived.

"Chief, there's a strong chance this came from the killer!"

"She's been hiding in the shadows, watching us chase our tails, taunting us!"

Kerry's expression changed instantly. He snatched the letter.

But he only glanced at it once.

And his face turned grave.

I was curious too, so I leaned in to look.

There were just a few words scrawled across the paper in bold, unmistakable handwriting:

The fifth life—I've taken it.

The moment everyone saw it, the air in the room solidified.

The entire task force sucked in a collective breath.

"This is outrageous!"

"This is a blatant provocation!"

"The whole scene was locked down by our people. How the hell did they take a fifth life?"

Chief Finch had been thinking calmly through all of it. He raised a hand, silencing the room's chatter, then passed the letter to one of his people.

"Run it for prints."

The results came back fast.

"Chief, we didn't find a single print."

"The killer has some level of counter-forensic awareness. They likely wore gloves while writing the letter. Not a single fingerprint anywhere on it."

Almost at the same moment, while everyone was scrambling over the dead-end lead, one of the female officers on the task force suddenly looked around in alarm.

"Where's Justin?"

My head snapped up.

"That's not right. He was just here a second ago."

Chief Finch's expression changed in an instant, as if something had clicked.

"Move!"

"Find Justin now!"

The worst possible outcome had come to pass.

In the dumpster downstairs.

Justin's body was found, already stiff and cold.

Shocked cries rippled through the task force. Chief Finch clenched his fists so hard his knuckles went white, a vein pulsing at his temple.

"How is this possible?"

My eyes burned red. My legs gave out and I crumpled to the ground in total despair.

"Who did this? Who killed Justin? Show yourself! If you have some grudge, come after me! Come after ME!"

I sobbed until my throat was raw.

I had completely broken down.

Jacqueline Whitney, one of the female officers on the task force, couldn't stand to watch any longer. Her own eyes were rimmed with red as she came over and gently pulled me to my feet.

"Deborah, you need to calm down."

"Justin's death hurts all of us too. But this isn't your fault."

She lifted her gaze, eyes blazing with fury, toward Justin's body.

"What matters right now is catching whoever did this."

"The killer was willing to leave us that letter. Whether it's the handwriting or something else, there has to be a clue in it."

"And Justin was killed right under our noses."

"I refuse to believe the killer didn't slip up somewhere."

They immediately called in the medical examiner to perform an autopsy on Justin.

The results were identical to those of my four dead boyfriends. Exactly the same.

I broke down wailing.

"Am I really cursed?"

"Justin wasn't even my real boyfriend. Does even pretending to be my boyfriend mean a death sentence?"

But right then.

Chief Finch gripped the letter so tightly his fingers trembled. His head snapped up.

"I know who killed him."