The call connected!

Aurora’s faint and trembling voice came through the phone.

I could hear the sobs in every struggling breath.

“Mom, why didn’t you pick up? Help me, Mom. Please help me…”

The sound of heavy thuds followed.

It was the sound of something slamming into flesh.

Tears blurred my eyes as the horror of her death filled my mind.

She had been bludgeoned to death.

Her skull had been shattered, her neck had become twisted, and her spine had been snapped. Her chubby and adorable face had been smashed into an unrecognizable mask of blood.

I rushed to the study to find Sam.

The light was on, and the door was wide open, but the room was empty.

I took one quick sweep of the apartment and discovered that I was alone.

I did not take the pills, and I was not asleep, so this was not a dream!

This was real. Aurora was reaching out to me from another time and asking me for help!

What was I supposed to do? How could I save her?

If trading my life meant she could live, I would jump out of the window without a second thought.

From the twenty-seventh floor, there would be no chance of survival.

I sank my teeth into the back of my hand to stop myself from screaming.

However, the killer on the other end of the line had noticed me.

“This stupid witch has been on the phone the whole time!”

It was a voice I had never heard before.

It was the voice of a woman!

The realization hit me like ice water and made it hard to breathe. My heart was racing.

Two people had killed my daughter!

“I know who you are. If you spare my daughter, I won’t come after you!”

Of course I had no idea who they were. It was a desperate effort to stall; I would do anything to buy Aurora a little mercy.

However, the call abruptly cut off.

All I heard was my daughter’s last cry. “Mom…”

I quickly made another call since I had found a breakthrough in the case.

It was not to Sam, though. He would never believe me in a moment like this. He would just think that I had gone mad and had not moved on from Aurora’s death.

Instead, I called my brother, Jared Morgan. In the tense seconds that the phone rang, countless thoughts ran through my head.

I did not tell Jared what had happened earlier tonight. I just asked for the detailed case files on Aurora’s death.

Jared was a detective, and he had been assigned to her case back then.

To avoid unnecessary trouble, I could not tell him yet that Aurora had just called me for help from three years ago.

On the other end of the line, Jared remained silent for a while.

He was clearly hesitating.

However, soon enough, he sent me everything without asking any questions.

After skimming through the key details, I asked him how many killers there had been.

“One… No, hold on. The file says two. But I remember it being just one.”

His confusion sent a jolt of excitement through me.

I ended the call, and my eyes were brimming with hope.

We all remembered it the same way. There had only been one murderer in Aurora’s case.

The original forensic report even confirmed that the assailant was an adult male who stood around six feet tall.

However, the current case file said otherwise.

There were two murderers—a man and a woman. They were partners in crime.

That meant my call across time with Aurora had shifted the course of events.

So, could I take advantage of this and change her fate altogether?

Even if the odds were slim to none, I had to try for Aurora’s sake!

Overwhelmed with excitement, I gave Sam a call. I had to ask him if he remembered the number of Aurora’s murderers.

Surely, like Jared’s, his memory would say one.

However, the file claimed that there were two.

I would finally have proof that the calls across time with my daughter were real.

I called him five to six times, but there was no answer.

Just as I was about to give up and turn to Jared again, the seventh call finally went through.

“Hello? Who the hell is this? It’s the middle of the night! Weren’t the missed calls giving you enough hints? What’s wrong with you?”

It was Sam’s phone, but a woman had answered it!

Judging by her voice, she was around thirty.

I was stunned, and anger surged within me. But what she said next made me realize that it was not the right time to snap.

She snarled impatiently. “Whoever you are, you stupid witch, you’re really pissing me off. Damn you for ruining my night!”

She hung up after that, and I shot to my feet.

That voice sounded too familiar, especially the way she said the words, “Stupid witch!”

It was the same woman from the call, one of Aurora’s killers.

My husband was with the murderer!

Were Sam and the murderer working together?

No. That could not be. Before I even got pregnant, he would always say how much he wanted a daughter.

He joked that sons could be such handfuls. At a certain age, they might even become so mischievous that it drove everyone crazy.

A daughter was different. She would be his sweet and gentle little princess.

‘Oh, no! Sam must be in danger!’

The thought chilled me to the bone.

I called Jared right away and told him what happened as I hurried to change clothes.

“Please, you have to pull all the strings you can and find Sam as soon as possible. He’ll die if we wait any longer.”

I knew the rule that no missing person could be reported until after 24 hours.

Plus, Sam’s phone had been answered, though it had not been him on the line.

Everything had to be done according to procedure. I had no intention of putting Jared in a difficult position either. But I had lost Aurora, and I could not lose Sam too.

“Calm down, Claire. Listen to me. I heard every word, and I promise you that I won’t let anything happen to Sam. Just stay home and wait for my call.”

“Okay, I’ll wait.”

I had to believe him. Jared had never lied to me, not even when we were kids.

I paced back and forth across the living room with my phone gripped tightly in my hand.

Every few seconds, I would check the screen. Whether it was a call across time from Aurora or a call from Jared, I could not afford to miss either one.

I knew I was a wreck since I was panicking and unstable, but I could not help it.

Five minutes passed, then ten, then twenty…

It became the length of a battle in an online game, two episodes of an anime, and five songs on repeat.

Twenty minutes were so short, yet it felt like an eternity.

Eventually, the phone in my hand lit up.

It was Jared!

“Claire, Sam’s alive.”

“Thank goodness. I’m so glad he’s okay.”

My tension eased, and I could breathe again.

“But…”

That word hit me like a gut punch, and my breath caught.

A terrible image flashed in my mind.

Sam was alive, but that woman had tortured him terribly.

Like Aurora, he had been bludgeoned. His body was bloodied beyond recognition, and he was on the verge of life and death.

The words that came next suffocated me further.

“Sam’s having an affair.”

However, I sighed in relief a moment later. It took me a few seconds to comprehend what he had just said.

Should I be thankful or furious?

I snorted and asked Jared where he was.

When the call ended, I slapped myself hard across the face twice.

I forced myself to stay calm.

Since Jared claimed that Sam was cheating, he must have caught him in the act.

It had not even been thirty minutes since that woman answered Sam’s phone.

That could only mean one thing: Sam was indeed having an affair with her, the woman who had murdered Aurora!

At this moment, I finally understood why Aurora could reach me across time.

There was injustice and a terrible, cosmic wrong.

Even if I could not save her, I would avenge her!

I would not let that witch and that cheater get away with this!