Their Perfect Lie, My Unseen Truth

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My parents stood over my unrecognizable body in the marsh, complaining that I hadn't returned their calls.

To my father, the lead detective, and my mother, the Chief Medical Examiner, I was just another "Jane Doe" who made bad life choices.

While I watched as a ghost, my mother scoffed at the silver bracelet on my wrist-the one I made for her-calling it "tacky street trash."

They spent the morning dissecting my injuries, all while praising my adopted sister, Hope, and grumbling about how I was "acting out" by missing her violin recital.

They called me irresponsible and ungrateful, unaware that I had been kidnapped and murdered as revenge for one of my father's old cases.

I screamed silently as they dismissed my death as the result of a "rebellious lifestyle."

The insults only stopped when they found the waterproof capsule in my stomach.

My father' s hands trembled as he read the note inside: "An eye for an eye, Detective Hood."

Then, my mother saw the scar on my flank-the unmistakable mark of the kidney donation I had given to their perfect daughter.

Chapter 1

Fawn POV

They stood over my body, unrecognizable and broken, and complained I hadn't called them back.

The marsh water, murky and cold, had been my final resting place. Now, it was just the setting for another one of their crime scenes. The air was thick with the metallic tang of decay, a smell I was now inherently part of. It clung to the humid air, heavy and inescapable. I watched, a silent spectator, as the forensic lights cut through the predawn gloom, illuminating the horror that was me.

A young officer, new to the job, stumbled back from the sight. He clutched his stomach, his face pale green under the harsh lights. He fumbled for his radio, his voice a tremor against the crackle of static.

"We've got a Jane Doe, sir. Marshland. Looks... bad. Really bad. Requesting immediate backup and full forensics team."

The words floated over me, impersonal and clinical. I was a problem, a case number, a grim statistic. Not Fawn. Never Fawn.

Minutes later, the sirens wailed their mournful song in the distance, drawing closer with each beat of my non-existent heart. They were coming. My parents. The irony was a bitter taste in my mouth, a taste that wouldn't leave, not even in death. They were always the first on the scene, the best in their fields. And now, I was their latest conquest.

A black SUV, sleek and imposing, cut through the crime scene tape. It was Erasmo' s. My father, Detective Erasmo Hood. He stepped out, his tall frame silhouetted against the flashing blue and red. His face, usually a mask of weary determination, was set in its familiar professional grimace. Beside him, Deborah Bishop, my mother, the Chief Medical Examiner, emerged. Her blonde hair was pulled back in a severe, perfect bun, not a strand out of place. Even at this hour, even at this scene, she commanded an almost terrifying precision.

They were a force, a legend in the city. The dynamic duo of justice. But what kind of justice awaited their own daughter, lying disfigured before them?

"Clear the perimeter, Lieutenant," Erasmo barked, his voice accustomed to authority. "I want this marsh sealed tighter than a drum. No press. Not a single camera lens."

Deborah, ever the pragmatist, was already pulling on her sterile gloves, her eyes scanning the scene with a practiced, detached gaze. She didn't look at me, not really. She looked through me, assessing the damage, calculating the time of death, mapping the trajectory of violence.

"Don't contaminate anything, folks," she instructed the juniors, her voice crisp and clear, cutting through the growing chatter. "Every detail matters here. This isn't a dumpster dive. This is a crime scene."

I saw a flicker in Erasmo's eyes, a brief moment of something akin to pity, as he took in the full scope of the brutality. It was quickly replaced by his usual stoic resolve. He was seeing a victim, a Jane Doe, a puzzle. Not Fawn. I knew this, even then. He focused on the mud-stained ground, the snapped reeds, the violent disturbance of the natural order. He was looking for clues, not for a daughter.

"Jesus H. Christ," he muttered under his breath, the closest I'd ever heard him come to an emotional outburst at a crime scene. "What kind of monster does this?"

The details were gruesome, even to me, who had lived them. My body was a roadmap of agony, twisted into an unnatural pose, a grotesque sculpture left by a deranged artist. The marsh had done its work, blurring the edges of my identity, but the violence was screaming. My face, what was left of it, was beyond recognition. My vibrant, dyed hair, once my defiant badge of individuality, was now a tangled, matted mess, indistinguishable from the swamp reeds it was mired in.

The stench, a cocktail of decomposition and marsh gas, was thick enough to taste. It made the younger officers gag, their stomachs heaving. Deborah, however, barely flinched. She was a professional, impervious to such trivialities. She just pinched the bridge of her nose, a subtle gesture of annoyance.

She approached my body, a flashlight beam dancing over my ruined form. She knelt, her movements precise, almost reverent, as if performing a sacred ritual. There was a moment, just a fraction of a second, where her gloved hand hovered over my cold, clammy skin. A touch, almost. It was the kind of gentle, almost tender gesture she reserved for the dead, for the strangers who couldn't disappoint her.

See? She can be gentle, I thought, a bitter laugh bubbling in my spectral throat. Just not with me when I was alive.

I held my breath, the one I no longer needed, watching her every move. My heart, the one that no longer beat, thumped with a phantom hope. Would she see it? Would she recognize something, anything? A birthmark, a scar, the way my fingers curled?

Her gaze, cold and analytical, swept over my left wrist. There, glinting faintly in the harsh light, was the custom silver bracelet. I had made it for her, painstakingly etched with tiny silver ferns, her favorite plant. A peace offering, a desperate plea for connection. She had rejected it, of course, calling it "too busy" and "not her style." So I wore it. Always. A constant reminder of my failed attempts to reach her.

"What's this?" Deborah asked, her voice devoid of emotion, as she carefully pried the bracelet from my stiff wrist. "Some kind of cheap trinket?"

My spectral form flinched, as if her words were physical blows. The memory of crafting it, the hope I poured into every curve of the silver fern, flashed before my eyes. I had spent weeks on it, sacrificing my lunch money for the sterling silver, burning my fingertips with the soldering iron. I had imagined her wearing it, a subtle sign that maybe, just maybe, she saw me.

"Looks like a tattoo artist made it," Erasmo mused, peering closer. "A bit rough around the edges, but some skill there." He didn't recognize the style, the signature tiny fern patterns I used in all my work.

"Tattoo artist," Deborah scoffed, dropping the bracelet into a standard evidence bag. The clink of metal against plastic was like the sound of my last hope shattering. "Probably some rebellious phase junk. Fawn makes better stuff, far more delicate. This is just... tacky."

My throat tightened. Fawn. She said my name. But not my name. Not me. Always Hope. Always the delicate, the elegant, the perfect Hope. My adopted sister, the one who could do no wrong. Even in death, I was nothing but a cautionary tale, a bad example to be contrasted with her ethereal perfection.

Maybe... maybe she'll still see it, I thought, clinging to the irrational hope that she would look closer, feel the weight of it, remember the design. Maybe she'll realize.

But Deborah just tossed the bag to an assistant. "Log this. Probably nothing. Some street trash, trying to make a statement with her fashion sense."

My breath hitched. Street trash. That's what I was to them. Always had been. The wild child, the one who didn't fit, the one who dared to be different. The ungrateful one who needed to be disciplined, unlike my brother, Kyle. He was the only one who seemed to get it, who saw past the tattoos and the dyed hair, who saw me. He had always been my anchor, my quiet supporter. He wouldn't have called me street trash. He would have known.

"This poor girl," Deborah continued, shaking her head. "No ID. Probably ran away from a good home, wasted her life with bad choices. What a shame."

The words echoed in the cold marsh air, cutting deeper than any knife. She was talking about me. My whole life, summarized and dismissed in a few harsh sentences. My choice to pursue art, my piercings, my tattoos-all of it, a "bad choice" that led me here.

I felt a cold dread settle over my ethereal form. They wouldn't recognize me. Not now. Not ever. The bracelet, my last desperate attempt to whisper my identity, was just "tacky junk."

"Make sure it's properly documented, forensics," Erasmo instructed, his voice gruff. "Standard procedure. Who knows, might lead us to something."

But he wasn't looking at the bracelet. He was already sweeping the marsh, his detective's mind moving on to the next clue, the next piece of this macabre puzzle. I was just a piece. A nameless, faceless piece.

They won't know. They'll never know, a voice whispered in the depths of my being. And for the first time, the chill I felt wasn't from the marsh. It was from the absolute, crushing certainty of their indifference. I was gone, and they were here, doing what they always did, solving crimes for strangers. But this time, the stranger was me.