Chapter 3

"I want to see the evidence!" I glared at Bram like a cornered beast. "You're telling me Isolde is dead? You're telling me that body is hers? I want to see for myself!"

Bram stared at me with cold indifference, as if watching a lunatic's final, desperate flail.

"You think denying it is going to get you off the hook?" He pulled a high-resolution forensics photo from his file. "This is a close-up of the victim's face taken by the ME at the scene. It's waterlogged and bloated, but it'll be more than enough to kill your delusions."

He slammed the photo down onto the table in front of me.

Panting heavily, I lowered my trembling head. I braced myself to see Isolde's deathly pale face. I braced myself to face the corpse of my best friend.

But the exact moment my eyes focused on the photograph...

My breath caught in my throat.

The person in the picture wasn't Isolde at all!

It was a man. A man with deep-set eyes, a strong, straight nose, and a thin scar slashing through his right brow bone.

That was... Darius!

My actual husband, Darius!

"This is impossible..." My entire body convulsed like I'd been struck by a live wire, my fingernails digging in so hard they almost pierced the glossy paper. "How could this be Darius?!"

"What the hell are you babbling about?" Bram frowned. "That is Isolde."

"Are you blind?!" I shrieked hysterically. "This is a man! This is my husband, Darius! Look closely at his face!"

Bram stared at me like I belonged in a psych ward. "Have you lost your mind, Sierra? Your husband is sitting in a wheelchair right in front of you."

Those words hit the back of my head like a sledgehammer.

I whipped my head around to look at the man in the wheelchair.

If the person who died in that river was Darius... then who the hell was sitting in this wheelchair, covered head-to-toe in bandages, nodding just moments ago to accuse me of murder?!

I stared dead at my "husband." The bandages masked most of his face, leaving only a pair of eyes visible. Those eyes were calmly staring back at me right now, gleaming with a chilling, eerie mockery.

Right then, an incredibly abrupt sound echoed through the interrogation room.

Tick.

I froze. It wasn't the sound of dripping water; it was the heavy, mechanical ticking of a clock's second hand.

Tick.

The sound seemed to echo from an infinite distance, yet simultaneously felt like it was ringing directly inside my own skull.

I looked at Bram. No reaction. He was still casually organizing the documents on the desk. I looked at the man in the wheelchair. Nothing out of the ordinary with him, either.

Tick.

With the third chime, out of the corner of my eye, I caught a glimpse of something that completely defied the laws of physics.

Inside the transparent evidence bag resting near Bram's elbow, a single droplet of water clinging to that black rubber brake line defied gravity. It slowly dislodged and began floating upward.

It drifted toward the ceiling, then simply vanished into thin air.

Boom!

A lightning bolt of realization tore through my mind.

The "tragic car crash," the "crippled husband who can only nod," the "cheating best friend," the "relentless, hard-boiled detective"...

Why did these tropes feel so familiar? Why did every single plot point fit together so seamlessly, like a heavily rehearsed... script?!

I shot to my feet, the handcuffs clattering violently against the steel desk.

I finally understood why Bram saw a woman in that photo, while I saw Darius.

I locked my gaze onto the man in the wheelchair.

"You're not Darius at all," I gritted out, biting off every single word.

"Who are you?"

The man in the wheelchair didn't nod, and he didn't shake his head.

He just looked at me, and beneath the layers of gauze, his lips slowly curled into a bizarre, twisted smile.

A second later, he stood straight up from the wheelchair.

That battered body—the one the doctors had diagnosed as permanently paralyzed—was now standing perfectly erect.