Chapter 2
Muddy water seeped into my boots. I followed Detective Cross into the dark factory.
The smell in the air changed.
The metallic smell of fresh blood hit me instantly. My stomach churned.
Floodlights illuminated the base of a central pillar.
A massive plastic tarp had been laid out.
"Brace yourself," Cross stopped. "It's a gruesome scene."
I gave a stiff nod. My teeth chattered.
The investigator stood aside. On the ground lay a black body bag, the zipper partially undone.
"Got an anonymous call about a disturbance. By the time we arrived, he'd been dead for less than an hour," Cross said, staring right through me.
"Face was repeatedly beaten with a heavy object. Unrecognizable. No ID."
The investigator pulled the zipper down.
I froze.
It was a mass of mangled flesh. The skull was caved in.
I jolted back, whipped my head away, and clamped both hands over my mouth, dry-heaving.
"Look closer," Cross's voice was freezing cold. "See if there's anything you recognize."
I swallowed the bile in my throat and forced my eyes lower.
The dead man wore a dark jacket soaked in blood. His left hand dangled limply.
Under the floodlights, there was a metallic glint near the wrist.
A black watch. Right on the edge, there was a deep scratch.
Silvan had accidentally scraped it while building Lily's backyard playset last month.
My blood ran cold.
"No..." My knees buckled. I dropped into the mud.
I reached toward the body bag with trembling hands.
"This isn't Silvan... It can't be! That's the watch I bought him!"
I tried to reach for that mangled hand, but Cross grabbed my arm and yanked me up.
"Don't touch the body!" Cross warned.
"Let me go! It's just a watch, how could this be him?!"
I broke down, tears mixing with the cold rain.
"His flight to Seattle is at eleven-thirty! He barely left an hour ago!"
"The time of the murder aligns with when he left your house," Cross said, her face impassive.
"Mrs. Thorne, if he went to the airport, you wouldn't have tracked him here. Right now, this watch is the only thing linking him to the identity."
"Then test his DNA!" I screamed at her, my voice cracking.
I thought of my little girl sleeping at home, completely unaware her world had just ended.
"We will." Cross shut her notepad, her eyes full of suspicion.
"But until the results come back, you need to come to the station with me."
For the next three hours, I sat like a corpse in a freezing interrogation room, answering Cross's questions.
Panic clawed at my chest, but a quiet instinct took over.
I forced myself to give precise answers.
If something terrible was happening, I needed the police to see me as harmless while I figured out the truth.
It wasn't until 3:00 a.m. that I was allowed to leave.
Walking down the empty hallway, my mind raced. Silvan was dead.
My husband, the father of my child, had his head bashed in at an abandoned factory.
But if that really was him...
Why did the AirPods' location suddenly disconnect and vanish right after the police arrived?
A corpse wouldn't close its own AirPods case.
Someone alive had turned them off.