Chapter 3

On the fifth day of my disappearance, Frank began to feel that something was off.

“Jonathan, Elena has not come to the police station for days, and things haven’t been particularly safe here. Elena is alone too…”

Jonathan pursed his lips. “Just ignore her. Let her act out all she wants this time.”

Since I was bored, I just stared at Jonathan while he busied himself. I sighed helplessly.

In reality, enough time had passed for Jonathan to report me missing, but I knew he would not look for me.

He had completely wasted the golden window.

As time passed, useful information on the body would start to deteriorate.

So, Jonathan had spent the past few days at the police station.

He was short on time and had to fight for every second with my dismembered parts to get as much information from them as possible. He had no time to care about my feelings.

This was not the first time I had argued with Jonathan, and it was also not the first time I had left without a word.

But whenever such arguments happened, I was usually the one admitting defeat.

I knew that Jonathan resented me. In the past, I had made a mistake at an autopsy on one particular corpse and missed the golden window to save Jonathan’s mother.

The criminals had staged a diversion. Their real goal had been Jonathan’s mother.

When I finished extracting the information from the corpse and deduced the killer’s location and identity, the police had found a new body.

The criminals had been lurking in the city all along.

When we saw the white sheet over his mother’s dead body, Jonathan went mad. He started to hate me ever since.

“It’s all your fault! Didn’t you say that they would find their next target in Artillia?! They had been setting us up all along!

“Elena, did you find any corpse in Artillia? You didn’t! Because they wanted to hurt you by hurting my mother! Didn’t you say that your knife can figure out the truth? How could you make such a mistake?!

“If you hadn’t made the wrong guess about their next target, my mother would still be alive!”

Jonathan grabbed me by the throat, and I could not breathe.

“You said that Artillia was the only city with that sort of soil, and what happened?!”

“Jonathan, calm down!”

“How can I calm down?! Elena, they’re taunting you! They hate you! You were the one who made a mistake and sent the police to Artillia!

“You’re the one who challenged them on TV and claimed that you’d bring them to justice! Did you catch them?!

“Why did my mother end up in their hands?! Your pride killed my mother! You’re not worthy of being a forensic scientist!”

My face was pale. When we arrived at the place where I had deduced they would leave behind the corpse of their next victim, we found no body at all. Instead, we were told that someone was killed in our city.

This time, the victim was Jonathan’s mother.

I changed into protective gear. No matter what, I had to figure out the truth.

There must be some sort of information on Jonathan’s mother, Nina.

Jonathan shoved me away. “Stay away from her!”

He stood in the morgue like a lost child, so I could only ask for someone to take him out of there.

My teacher once told me that forensic scientists must always remain logical and rational. Getting emotional in this field of work was a huge mistake.

Time was precious, and I had to make use of every second. I could not let the murderer escape justice.

I insisted on performing an autopsy on Nina.

Perhaps God was merciful, and I managed to find a lot of crucial information from her body.

This was a criminal group that tortured and killed women just for the thrill of it.

Based on the information I got from Nina, we captured several criminals.

While we were pursuing those who slipped through the net, I got into an accident.

“Elena, I never gave you the permission to perform an autopsy on my mother! Can’t you just let her rest in peace?!

“You’re a murderer too! They were right! You really are the daughter of a murderer!” Jonathan ran into my ward and yelled at me.

When I was discharged, I found that I could no longer hold a scalpel, so I resigned.

Jonathan took over my job.

“Serves you right! You’re not worthy of being a forensic scientist.”

I knew that I had let him down, along with Nina.

So, I quit and became a housewife.

Besides, Nina’s wish was for Jonathan to have a family of his own.