Chapter 1
My oldest brother, Charles Grant, was a forensic examiner, and my second brother, James Grant, was a cop. One night at dinner, they took one look at the bones in the pot and knew immediately—those weren't animal bones. They were human.
They reported it right away, and the first thing they did was tell their adopted sister to stay safe and be careful.
Their colleagues were confused. "Why aren't you worried about your real sister? The one who got kidnapped by traffickers when she was little and only came home a few years ago?"
Charles scoffed, "She's so obsessed with money, there's no way she'd let herself die. And honestly, if she did? At least the house would finally be quiet."
But my brothers had no idea that I was already dead. The bones boiling in that pot right in front of them? Those were mine. My leg bones, to be exact.
They didn't recognize me. They couldn't tell that the girl who'd been carved into pieces was their own sister—the one who loved pretty things and just wanted to be loved back.
*****
This winter was strange. It was almost spring, but snow had started falling out of nowhere. Charles and James had just gotten off work, and they'd agreed to grab lamb shank stew at that place in the Heritage District.
Ever since they brought their biological sister, Claire Quinn, home five years ago, the house had been in complete chaos. This was actually the first time the two of them had gone out to eat alone.
The moment they stepped through the door, Charles spotted it. As a forensic pathologist, one glance at the bubbling pot of lamb shank stew was all it took—there was a human leg bone in there, and it belonged to a young adult female.
Finding a female leg bone in a lamb shank stew restaurant was explosive news, to say the least.
James arrived with his team and immediately secured the entire street. To avoid public panic, they informed everyone that it was a gas leak and that they were conducting safety checks.
Charles had been in the field for years, and people called him the Soul Whisperer. Every case that passed through his autopsy table got solved—no cold cases, not a single one. He could even piece together the victim's life story from their remains.
James had grown up watching Charles work. After graduation, he'd turned down the family business to become a detective instead. He'd cracked countless major cases since then.
My soul relaxed a little. With these two as my brothers, they'd find whoever did this to me.
After death, you needed a proper burial, and your family had to light the guiding incense before you could reincarnate. Otherwise, you'd become a wandering ghost, and eventually your soul would just dissipate into nothing.
I didn't want that. The thought of reincarnation made my whole soul tremble with hope.
"This method—it's almost identical to that serial killer case from a few years back," one officer said. "The victim's body parts were found in a restaurant kitchen too."
"If this is a copycat of that serial killer case, she'll definitely go after women between 18 and 25 next."
James suddenly thought of something, and his cold expression softened considerably.
He grabbed his phone and dialed. "Emily, don't go out these next few days, okay? Wherever you need to go, take the bodyguards and driver with you. Be good for me."
Charles still wasn't satisfied after hearing that, and he added from the side, "Have the family assign a few more bodyguards. I want them watching Emily twenty-four-seven."
Once everything was arranged, they finally relaxed. A colleague who was close to Charles couldn't help but ask, "What about your other sister, Claire? Aren't you going to warn her too?"
James let out a derisive laugh. "Her? It'd be better if she died. Ever since she came back five years ago, she's done nothing but irritate Emily. Besides, she loves money too much—she wouldn't be willing to die."
Charles thought about calling just to make a token effort, but after scrolling through his contacts for a while, he couldn't find my number.
That was when he remembered—three years ago, when Emily had her depressive episode, he'd deleted my number right in front of her and told her that only Emily was a child of the Grant family, and no one else could ever replace her position.
He calmly retrieved the leg bone from the pot, handling it with the same practiced efficiency he brought to any other case.