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."