The moment I heard Alayna's voice, my tears cascaded down. My hands were still shaking, but the crushing weight on my chest suddenly vanished.

Thank God. Alayna wasn't a killer.

But just as I let out a breath of relief, I heard her speak to the officer on the line. "I've been away on this business trip since late March. I never brought home any gift."

A piercing cold swept up from the soles of my feet.

It wasn't her.

Then who was the person I had been intimate with? Was it actually possible to mistake a complete stranger for my wife? That face, that voice…

"Ms. Watson, the 3:00 pm meeting is about to start," Alayna's assistant called out in the background.

"Okay."

Alayna acknowledged her, then spoke back into the receiver, her tone laced with apology. "Officers, I really can't walk away from this right now. The moment this meeting wraps up, I'll book the earliest flight back to cooperate with the investigation.

"Honey, don't be scared. Do whatever the police tell you to do. Officer, please watch over my husband for me. Thank you."

The call disconnected.

I sat there frozen, her words looping relentlessly through my mind. "I never brought home any gift."

My phone slipped from my hand and clattered onto the floor, but I didn't even process it.

As the officer bent down to retrieve it, I lunged forward and gripped his arm. "Officer… then who was the person in my house on April Fool's Day? She looked exactly like my wife. We…"

The words caught in my throat. I couldn't bring myself to finish the sentence.

The impostor had walked right into my home, shared my bed, and slept by my side.

Who on earth was she? What did she want? Was she the killer?

The male officer quickly supported my swaying shoulders. "Mr. Collins, for your own safety and to help us move this investigation forward, we need you to come down to the precinct with us right now."

Without a second thought, I agreed instantly.

Walking down the stairs of my building, I practically glued myself to the officers' sides, terrified that something was lurking right behind me.

I scrambled into the back of the police cruiser. Even with the midday sun beating down through the windows, I was shivering.

It wasn't until we reached the precinct and the harsh lights of the interrogation room beamed down on me that the warmth slowly returned to my limbs.

The male officer taking my statement was the same one who came to my house. His name was Ethan Newman.

"How long have you and Alayna been married? How would you describe your relationship?"

I blinked, confused as to why the questions were suddenly centering on my marriage.

Still, I followed his lead and replied, "Eight years. We've always been great. She takes care of me and handles everything around the house so I don't have to worry about a thing. Since I'm a freelancer and don't work a regular job, I don't go out much. I'm pretty dependent on her, and all our neighbors know it."

Ethan nodded before asking, "So do you think the person who impersonated her did a convincing job?"

"Yes," I said, my fingers mindlessly picking at my skin again. "Incredibly convincing. Her voice and even mannerisms were identical. We had a candlelit dinner that night, and the lighting was dim, so I didn't notice anything out of the ordinary.

"Officer, you have to find her! She must still be out there somewhere. It's too dangerous!"

Upon hearing this, Ethan suddenly fell silent. He stood up, walked around the table, and looked down at me with a piercing gaze.

"We expanded the perimeter of our surveillance search. Aside from the cameras directly outside your building, none of the traffic or street cameras in the entire surrounding area captured this woman you're describing. Instead, only footage of you coming and going was captured."

He paused, his tone shifting into something deeply solemn. "Are you absolutely certain someone else brought that box into your home, Charlie?"

I sat there entirely paralyzed, my brain completely short-circuiting.

"W-What do you mean?" I stammered. His words floated into my ears but failed to register in my mind.

"Officer Newman, you've got to be kidding me, right?" I asked.

Ethan didn't say a word, just kept his piercing gaze fixed on me. His stare sent a freezing shiver straight down my spine.

"Charlie, I know this is incredibly hard to process right now, but the cameras don't lie."

He turned his computer monitor toward me. The footage was paused on a clip of me—and only me—walking into my building.

I stared blankly at the screen.

It was true. The streets had been empty that night, and I was the only person captured on camera. And right there in my hands, I was carrying that exact gift box.

My memory began to fracture, and I desperately tried to piece it back together, but nothing made sense.

"C-Could the footage have been tampered with?" I asked, my voice trembling as I clutched at the final straw.

"If this person could successfully impersonate my wife, she could easily hack into a security system. Hacker tech is insanely advanced these days…"

Ethan let out a slow sigh, a flicker of pity crossing his face. "Charlie, you can alter timestamps, but the person in that frame is undeniably you, and that box is undeniably in your hands.

"Are you suggesting a killer specifically chose an object you handled, managed to bypass every single camera to slip into your apartment, and left absolutely zero physical evidence behind?"

He leaned forward. "What kind of master criminal has that level of counter-surveillance capability? And all of that just to frame an ordinary, stay-at-home guy?"

Ethan's words hit me like a bucket of ice water.

I opened my mouth, but no sound came out.

Yet, I knew my memory wasn't playing tricks on me. Someone had been in my home that night.

Suddenly, a spark ignited in my brain. "I took pictures that night!"

I bolted upright, knocking my chair backward with a loud clang. "We took photos during dinner! Alayna is right there in the frame! The photo will have the timestamp!"

With frantic hands, I scrambled to open my phone's gallery and shoved the screen toward him. "Look! This has to prove it!"

Ethan took the phone, exchanging a quick look with his partner.

The screen clearly displayed the metadata for the photo. "April 1, 2026, 9:47 pm."

When zoomed in, Alayna's face was perfectly clear. She was smiling at the camera, raising a wine glass, with the gift box sitting right next to her hand.

The interrogation room plunged into a heavy silence.

As Ethan stared at the image, his brow furrowed into a tight knot.

He looked back at the surveillance footage, then back to the photo.

On one side stood the absolute objectivity of the security cameras, proving no one had entered.

On the other side stood a hard digital file, proving the dinner had actually happened.

The two pieces of evidence sat side by side like two parallel universes, grinding the investigation to a complete halt.

No one spoke. The only movement in the room was the red digits of the digital wall clock, silently ticking away the seconds.

I slumped into my chair, completely drained of energy. My mind was a tangled web of chaos.

When I closed my eyes, all I could see was Alayna's face, warping back and forth between her usual gentle smile and the cold look in her eyes under the candlelight that night.

The images blurred together until I couldn't tell what was real anymore.

Suddenly, a sharp knock shattered the silence, and a female officer burst into the room.

The folder in her hand seemed to weigh a ton. Her face was deathly pale—visibly worse off than mine.

"Captain Newman, the expedited lab results just came back."

Ethan snatched the report from her hands and skimmed through the lines of text.

In a fraction of a second, his pupils dilated with absolute shock. "The DNA from the severed hand… matches Alayna?"