Chapter 2

Before I left, I assured them again and again. "Don't worry. The police won't find a thing when they come. You have my words."

I hauled the trash bin with Rosalie's body inside and slowly walked out of the yard.

Their worries were totally unnecessary. A person as professional as I would never breathe a word of this to anyone. I take the money, I do the job, and I'm the most professional crime scene cleaner there is.

I cracked a satisfied smile. Bullies never got away with what they did in the end.

Rosalie's family came looking for her after she hadn't shown up at school for three days.

They were nothing like the coal tycoon family Rosalie had bragged about. Her parents were dressed plainly and drove an old Volkswagen. Anyone could tell at a glance they were middle-aged folks struggling to make ends meet.

They raised a ruckus in the counselor's office like vendors in a wet market. "Rosalie didn't come home yesterday. She's been missing for three days now. Doesn't this school bear any responsibility at all?"

"If we don't find her today, we're not leaving! Yeah, we'll just camp out right here. Let's see what you do about it. We pay so much money for this school every year, and it's just a heartless institution," they yelled.

The counselor tried to reason with them. "Please calm down. The school takes this matter very seriously. We're already working with the police to find her."

But Rosalie's parents wouldn't let up. "I raised my daughter so well. I was counting on getting at least two hundred dollars in her betrothal gifts! Now that she's gone, you should pay us for the lost money.

"Her little brother is still so young. Who's gonna help pay for his house and car? We scraped together every penny to get her into this fancy school, and now she didn't even land a rich guy before missing.

"It's all your fault. If you don't give us a proper explanation, I'm gonna go protest outside the police station tomorrow."

The counselor had probably never dealt with parents like this before. He was left tongue-tied and beet red. "The school... The school will do everything in our power."

Rosalie's parents made a scene until noon. It was only when the school offered them some compensation that Rosalie's parents finally quieted down.

No one could've guessed that the person who exposed Rosalie's fake rich-girl act would be her own parents.

She wasn't the daughter of a coal tycoon at all. She was just a girl raised as a cash cow for her family, forced to shoulder the burden of earning a huge betrothal gift. It was absolutely shocking.

Rosalie's parents' outburst caused a huge stir on campus, and everyone was talking about it.

Rosalie had always put on the act of a spoiled rich girl at school. Her social media was full of posts about traveling the world, dining at Michelin-starred restaurants, and she drove a different luxury car to school every month.

She even hung out with her girl gang at high-end venues, always offering to pay the bill with her card. There was no shortage of rich boys chasing after her—some for her money, others for her looks.

The students at this school learned how to judge people by their status from an early age. Rich boys would never waste their time on a poor Cinderella.

There were plenty of other students who faked their wealth as Rosalie did, but none of them pulled it off as well as she did.

She had her own little squad of rich kids and a fully fabricated backstory as the daughter of a coal tycoon.

Everyone in our school was talking about her. "If Rosalie's family was that poor, where did she get all that money?"

Another student chimed in, "How could she drive luxury cars and splash the cash in bars? Look at her social media. All that stuff costs a fortune."

"She could have been an escort, trading her body for money," said a student.

Someone said, "Totally. It's probably just like her parents said. She was here to trap a rich guy."

"She was so good at pretending. She totally fooled me. No one ever found her out before? Wonder if any of the guys who dated her caught a whiff of her poverty," a girl said.

A boy said, "And she had the nerve to look down on everyone else. Have you seen such a beat-up old Volkswagen at this school before? Her family is probably worse off than Sandy's."

I sat at my desk, tuning out all their gossip. But someone still tried to drag me, her favorite target for bullying, into this chorus of accusations against Rosalie.

"Sandy, what do you think? Rosalie bullied you for no reason for so long. Didn't you notice anything weird about her before?" someone asked.

I kept my head down, scribbling away at my tedious homework, and forced a bitter smile. "How would I know? She only ever took her anger out on me. I'm actually relieved she's gone."

If only they knew how much I really knew. I also knew that the police were desperately searching for Rosalie, and her body was currently hidden in my house.

But I was a professional crime scene cleaner. The police would never find a single trace of her. By day, though, I was just an ordinary student at this school, and an easy target for bullies.

A student said, "Ugh, why bother asking her? She's like a ghost around here. It'd be a miracle if she knew anything at all."