Chapter 3

After taking that family photo—the one missing only me—Isabella used the excuse of wanting to change out of her dress and left the living room.

I drifted upstairs after her, only to find her walking straight into my bedroom.

The room looked like it had been ransacked. Drawers were violently yanked open, and the clothes in my closet had been tossed around in complete disarray. Isabella stood at my desk, holding my backup phone.

Then, she skillfully opened my email app and drafted a message:

[I've had enough of this family. I'm sick of forever living in Isabella's shadow. I'm leaving. Don't look for me.]

With her thumb hovering over the "Send" button, a twisted, chillingly smug smile crept across her face.

She reached out and gently stroked the fabric of the evening gown she had just changed into—a dress that originally belonged to me.

"You should have disappeared a long time ago, Harper," she whispered to the empty room. "This family only needs one daughter."

...

As night fell, the lavish birthday dinner downstairs reached its peak.

Julian picked up a tiara encrusted with crushed diamonds and gently placed it on Isabella's head.

"Make a wish, my little princess."

Isabella closed her eyes and clasped her hands together in a picture of perfect, innocent devotion.

But just as she opened her eyes and took a deep breath, ready to blow out the candles—

A series of heavy, frantic knocks on the door, accompanied by the manic ringing of the doorbell, violently sliced through the laughter in the dining room.

The butler hurried over and pulled the heavy oak doors open.

Two police officers stood on the porch. Leading them was Detective Davis.

"Detective? Is there a problem?" My father frowned, clearly incredibly displeased that the police had interrupted his perfect evening.

Detective Davis pulled a transparent evidence bag from his trench coat pocket. Inside was a silver bracelet caked with foul-smelling mud. The charm on it was engraved with the initial "H"—my coming-of-age gift.

"Our dredging team pulled the body of a young female from the riverbed two miles downstream," Detective Davis's voice echoed through the dead-silent dining room. "The deceased had this on her person. We need next of kin to accompany us for an official identification."

"That's utterly absurd," Richard blurted out. His face paled, but his jaw was clenched tight in stubborn denial. "Yes, she was locked in the basement earlier, and yes, that is her bracelet. But Harper is an excellent swimmer. There is absolutely no way she's dead. She definitely threw that bracelet into the mud on purpose to fake an excuse to run away."

"Regardless of how strong a swimmer she is, sir," Detective Davis continued smoothly, "protocol dictates that the family must make an identification. You need to come with me. Now."

The air pressure inside the car on the way to the hospital was so low it felt suffocating.

"Even if Harper wanted to throw a fit, there was no need to throw her gift into the river for this kind of sick prank. She's completely lost her mind!" Julian gritted his teeth as he drove, his knuckles stark white from gripping the steering wheel so tightly.

"When I get my hands on her, I swear I'm going to beat her half to death. She is doing this on purpose just to ruin everything!"

Isabella rested her head on Mom's shoulder, her body trembling slightly. "Mom... Harper's going to be okay, right? The detective must have made a mistake. She probably just dropped the bracelet by accident..."

Her acting was absolutely flawless, pitching the fear in her voice perfectly. Only I knew that her trembling had nothing to do with the fear of losing me—it was pure, unadulterated anxiety that her crime was about to be exposed.

The hospital's underground morgue was thick with the pungent stench of formalin and a nauseating, undeniable scent of death.

Detective Davis stood by the door next to a medical examiner in a crisp white coat. He looked to be in his forties, his eyes reflecting the cold detachment of a man who had seen far too much death.

"Mr. Richard, I need to prepare you for what you are about to see," the ME's voice was flat and devoid of emotion. "The body was submerged in turbulent floodwaters for over twenty hours, during which it sustained severe impacts from submerged rocks and industrial debris. The facial trauma is... extremely extensive."

"Cut the crap and unzip the bag," Julian stepped forward impatiently, his tone dripping with undisguised arrogance. "I just need one look to confirm if this is another one of my spiteful sister's sick jokes."

The medical examiner stared at Julian for a long moment, looking at him as if he were an irredeemable idiot.

Without a word, he turned, walked to the stainless steel autopsy table in the center of the room, and grabbed a corner of the heavy, white waterproof tarp.

He pulled it back.

To call it a body was generous; it was a horrific, ravaged mass of flesh that had been battered almost to pieces.

Due to severe and prolonged water exposure, the skin had taken on a terrifying, saponified pallor, bloated so tightly it looked ready to split open at any second. The long hair I used to take so much pride in was now a nauseating, matted tangle, caked with rotting river mud, dead weeds, and dried black blood.

But the face... that face was a true nightmare.

Repeatedly smashed against underwater rocks, it was completely unrecognizable. The jawbone was shattered and twisted at a sickening angle. The cheekbones were caved inward, and the lips had literally peeled back from the gums, swollen into a purplish-black mass of hypoxic putrefaction.

It was a face utterly stripped of every human characteristic.

"Oh my god—" Mom let out a blood-curdling, utterly devastated scream, immediately vomiting onto the floor. Her knees buckled and she collapsed, clawing desperately at her own throat as if her airway had been crushed.

Dad stumbled backward, the blood draining instantly from his face. He slammed hard into the wall behind him. His mouth opened and closed in pure, unfiltered, absolute terror, unable to produce a single syllable.

Isabella buried her face deep into Julian's back. "No! That's not her! That's not Harper at all!"

But Julian... Julian turned to solid stone.

The arrogant, impatient sneer on his face evaporated instantly, replaced by a devastating, hollow blankness.

His eyes bypassed that mangled ruin of a face and locked dead onto a small, undamaged patch of dead skin right behind the corpse's left ear.

There, against the pale skin mottled with purple lividity, was a bright red, crescent-shaped birthmark.

It was the only physical trait that distinguished the two of us twins.

"Julian?" Detective Davis stepped forward softly. "Please take a close look. Is this your sister, Harper Richard?"