Chapter 1

I stood behind the yellow police tape, watching snow pile up on the officers' shoulders.

They stamped their feet for warmth, breath fogging in the cold air, but I couldn't make that kind of breath anymore.

A few feet away, a rusty industrial dumpster stood open in the gray alley.

A sanitation worker was doubled over by his truck's rear wheel, vomiting.

He was the one who found me.

"Clear the way! Officer Sarah's here!" someone shouted.

My heart—or the place where it used to be—gave a sharp, phantom ache.

Mom was here.

The car door swung open. Sarah Bennett stepped out.

Her gray trench coat was sharply tailored, her blonde hair pulled into a severe bun at the back of her head.

She looked as flawless as ever.

"Tell me this case is worth my overtime, Miller," she said.

Miller, her partner, looked like a bear just waking from hibernation.

His face was grim. "It's bad, Sarah. The city worker found a torso in a black trash bag. Legs in another bag. No head. No arms."

Sarah frowned, visibly annoyed.

She pulled on a pair of blue latex gloves. "Looks like another gang cleanup? Or some junkie dealer making a point?"

"Doesn't fit the gangs," Miller said, lifting the tape for her. "Cuts are messy, and the victim looks young."

I watched my mother walk right through me. Right through my soul.

She didn't even slow down.

She strode over to the dumpster and peered inside.

I drifted closer, unable to stop myself.

The bag was open.

Pale skin, almost blue against the black plastic.

A canvas of bruises—purple, yellow, black.

A map of the last seventy-two hours of my life.

"Female," Sarah's eyes swept over the remains like a machine. "Cold weather kept the decay down. I'd say time of death is over seventy-two hours."

Miller pulled out his notebook, asking another officer, "Three days. No missing persons in this area?"

Sarah scoffed, poking at the bag's edge with her pen. "Look at this dump, Miller. It's the South Side. Girls run away, get high in crackhouses. Their parents don't call it in, half the time they don't even know the kids are gone."

"That's a little harsh, Sarah," Miller tried to soften the mood.

"It's statistics," she shot back. "Send a team to check the shelters. Look for the usual suspects—runaways, dropouts, the little rebels trying to prove they're grown. Girls like that always play with fire, and this time it looks like she got burned." She paused, brushing a snowflake off her collar. "Just like my daughter."

The air seemed to freeze.

A few officers exchanged awkward glances.

She'd mentioned me—even if she didn't say my name. It made my soul tremble.

She was talking about me.

Not as a victim.

But as the stain that shamed her.

"Mia?" Miller looked up, voice edged with reproach. "Sarah, you can't talk about your own kid like that. She's a good girl."

"What's wrong?" Sarah's voice rose. "I'm stating facts. She's got her deadbeat father's blood. Lying, sneaky, manipulative. That man ditched his wife and kid for some side piece, never took responsibility, and Mia is just like him."

She sucked in a breath, venting days of pent-up anger. "She hasn't come home for three days. Why? Because I asked her to help Chloe with her homework. She didn't want to, so she's hiding out, trying to make me worry. But I'm not giving her the satisfaction."

I stared at her, searching her eyes for any sign of worry for me. I wanted to grab her shoulders and shake her awake.

I'm right here, Mom! I didn't run away!

But no sound came out.

Because I couldn't speak anymore.

I was already dead.

"This body," Miller tried to steer the conversation back, looking uncomfortable, "she went through hell before she died, Sarah. Look at those wounds. She was tied up."

Sarah didn't even blink. "You play stupid games, you win stupid prizes. Have dispatch check again—no missing persons matching this in the area?"

A moment later, Miller's radio crackled: "Negative, Lieutenant. No missing persons in District Four this week matching that description."

Sarah's face darkened, but her anger wasn't for the killer—it was for the victim's parents. "Unbelievable. This is what passes for parenting now? This neighborhood's a joke. Even if that girl was trouble, how can her parents just ignore her? People like that shouldn't be allowed to have kids."

I stood there, staring at her righteous face.

But Mom, no one reported me missing, either.

Just then, Sarah glanced at her watch, her anger shifting to impatience. "You've got this, Miller. I have to go."

"Go?" Miller blinked. "The body's only been here ten minutes."

"Chloe's school needs me. I don't have time to waste."

As she opened her car door, her private phone rang in her pocket.

Sarah checked the screen, frowning even deeper. "It's Mia's counselor." She answered, irritation in her voice. "Yeah? If this is about Mia skipping class, don't bother me."

The caller said something. Sarah snorted. "I don't know where she is. She can do whatever she wants. Who knows where she's screwing around—she'll come home when she runs out of money."

Mom, I'm right here! I'm dead, right in front of you, in that dumpster! I wasn't screwing around—I'm never coming home again!

Sarah, of course, couldn't hear me.

She was already about to hang up.

Then the screen lit up again, a new call cutting in.

Chloe's name flashed across the display.

Sarah's icy expression melted in a heartbeat, her transformation almost frightening in its speed.

She picked up, voice suddenly sweet as honey. "Hey, sweetheart. What's wrong?"