Chapter 1

The dismembered body parts on the autopsy table were swollen like giant jellyfish, with pale yellow mucus oozing steadily out of them. It must've smelled awful. Not that I could tell. I was dead.

"The chief's here," said Dylan Hale, the forensic pathologist, glancing up as the door creaked open.

Police Chief Samuel Wharton then entered, pinching his nose, his expression tight. "What’s the situation?"

"The body parts are bloated beyond recognition. No visible tattoos or identifying marks, but we can barely confirm the victim is female. It's pretty brutal. A lot of bones were smashed before dismemberment." Dylan sighed. "But there’s something interesting. The moss found on the safe suggests the body’s been underwater for about five years."

Samuel paused, his hand frozen mid-air as he adjusted his face mask. His surprise flickered briefly before he joined Dylan, leaning in to examine the remains.

Five years? I had been dead for five years?

Hovering above them, I smirked bitterly. After my body was dumped, my soul drifted through the depths of the ocean, lost in that silent abyss where even the fiercest storms could not reach me. It was only a few days ago that a fishing boat, illegally straying into restricted waters, stumbled upon me.

But, I never expected Samuel the chief of police to oversee my autopsy himself. If I remember correctly, he was a neat freak.

"Ugh!" Dylan groaned. The stench of a bloated corpse was far worse than a regular body. Even he, seasoned as he was, grabbed a trash bin and vomited after making the first cut.

Samuel stepped back, his face scrunched in disgust. After a moment, he asked, "Jasmine isn’t here today, is she?"

"No. She’s off trying on wedding dresses," Dylan replied, wiping his mouth. "Don’t worry, Chief. I won’t say a word to her about this. You’re trying for a baby, right? This smell wouldn't be good for her."

"Mm." Samuel nodded, his cold eyes softening, a tenderness in them I had not seen in years.

This display hit me like a lightning bolt. The man I had loved, the man I thought would always be mine, was marrying Jasmine Bardot? The very woman who killed me? And they were trying for a baby?

"Samuel Wharton! How could you!" I screamed, my voice shaking with rage. "It was Jasmine who murdered me!"

But no one could hear me.

The autopsy went on.

"The organs and skin are too swollen to retrieve any usable DNA," Dylan muttered. "We could try the bones or teeth, but the skeletal remains are completely shattered. And worst of all, there’s no skull in this pile of body parts. The killer wanted her erased from existence." He slammed his fist on the autopsy table. "And to make things worse, we found the remains of a developing fetus in the victim’s uterus. It's not even three months along."

I froze, staring blankly at the table below. My grotesque, swollen uterus lay open on the table, revealing a tiny fetus still connected to me by a fragile umbilical cord.

I had been pregnant?