Chapter 4

But then...

The car stopped in front of the police department.

Officer Miller opened the door and looked at me. "We're here."

The identification process went much faster than I had anticipated.

I was led into a cold, sterile room. There was a metal table in the center covered with a white sheet. An assistant walked over and gently pulled back the top half of the sheet.

I saw the face.

It was clean.

The bruises were gone, the dried blood was gone. There was only grayish-white skin and closed eyes.

But the features were unmistakably Chloe’s. The brow, the nose, the shape of her jaw—it was all her.

I stood there, a cold sweat breaking out across my back.

This was Chloe.

No, this wasn't Chloe.

Two conflicting voices screamed in my head, tearing at my sanity until I couldn't tell what was real anymore.

"Lucas?" someone whispered beside me.

I turned and saw Officer Miller looking at me with a worried expression.

"Can you confirm if this is Chloe Vance?"

I stepped closer to the table, staring at the face for a long time. Then, I reached out, took the corpse's left wrist, and flipped it over.

There should have been a scar.

Chloe had a very deep scar on her left wrist, from a suicide attempt back in high school.

She had told me she was severely depressed back then and wanted to end it all. She was saved, but the scar remained.

When we were together, I used to gently run my thumb over that scar, asking if it still hurt.

She’d smile and say it didn't hurt anymore, it just looked a bit ugly.

But on this wrist, there was nothing.

The skin was smooth, pale, and completely unblemished. Not even a faint line.

I whipped my head around to look at Officer Miller.

"This isn't Chloe."

Officer Miller stepped forward, glanced at the wrist, and then looked back at me.

"Are you sure?"

"Chloe has a deep scar on her left wrist."

"It’s very prominent. This person doesn't have it."

Officer Miller was silent for a few seconds. He pulled out the DNA report and looked at it again.

"But the DNA matches."

He handed the report to me.

"See for yourself."

I took the paper, my eyes locking onto the bold letters at the bottom.

*DNA match probability with Chloe Vance's parents' reference samples: 99.97%.*

My hands began to shake violently.

"This is impossible."

I looked up at him.

"If this body is Chloe, then who the hell was staying in my apartment this past week?"

Officer Miller stared at me, speechless.

"She came back," my voice cracked.

"For seven days, she was with me. I cooked for her, I bandaged her. She called me Lucas. She remembered everything about us. If this is Chloe, then who is she?!"

"Lucas, you need to calm down."

"How can I calm down?!" I snapped, interrupting him.

"The DNA matches, which means this body is Chloe. But Chloe has a scar on her wrist, and this body doesn't! It makes no sense!"

Officer Miller frowned, looking back at the corpse's wrist.

"Is it possible you misremembered? Maybe the scar wasn't that deep, or it faded over time?"

"I would never forget that scar," I said, glaring at him.

"I touched it a thousand times. It runs from left to right, about two inches long, and the middle is slightly raised and lighter than the surrounding skin. I could draw it with my eyes closed."

Officer Miller remained silent for a moment before turning to the medical examiner standing nearby.

"Can you explain this?"

The medical examiner walked over, examined the left wrist closely, and then checked the right one.

"There is indeed no scar tissue here," she said.

"But DNA doesn't lie. Unless..."