Murdered, but My Cop Mom Thought I Ran Away

After the report came in, the police rushed to the scene of my death. The empty building was drafty on all sides, thick with the stench of rotting blood. The blood on the floor was still wet, with swarms of flies clinging to it.

The moment Mom saw my body, she froze for a moment. Then, she turned around and ran outside, covering her mouth as she gagged uncontrollably.

Officer Zane silently put on a mask and handed her a bottle of water.

I watched as she steadied herself before stepping back into the foul-smelling room.

The body in front of her had no head, seemingly brutally chopped off at the neck. The upper torso had been split open from the chest, exposing organs that were already decaying. The lower half was a mangled mess of flesh and blood, making it impossible to even determine the victim’s gender.

As I watched Mom carefully examine the body, my soul felt a quiet ache. It had been so long since we were this close.

Every time we met, it always ended with tension and arguments.

Mom frowned. Her gaze was fixed on an old scar on the arm.

Hope flickered in my eyes. Did she recognize me? I got the scar as a child when I tried to pour her some hot water. I accidentally burned myself. There was no way she could have forgotten!

Back then, she had looked at it with such pain and said, “I'll never allow you to be hurt again, Kara.”

However, after my cousin, Wendy Page, came to live with us, I was no longer the one she protected. She felt sorry that my cousin had no one and left me to live like an orphan.

However, Mom only glanced at the scar briefly before looking away. She looked away without a trace of concern. She frowned at the gruesome body and turned to the medical examiner, “Ms. Hudson, any initial findings?”

The medical examiner stood up with her brows tightly knitted together. “The victim is a young woman, around twenty-five. She was forced to ingest a corrosive liquid before death. The exact cause will need further examination back at the station.”

She paused for a moment, then forced out through clenched teeth, “She was also subjected to severe sexual assault and abuse before she died.”

Mom's eyes reddened when she heard that. “Judging from the condition of the body, the killer was acting out of rage. Such a young girl. What a tragedy.”

My dear mother had always been deeply empathetic. She could grieve the loss of a young life like this. Yet she had never once shown me the same compassion.

I studied the sympathetic look on her face. If she knew the victim was me, would her eyes still turn red?

Of course not. She would probably feel relieved to be rid of a daughter she found so bothersome.

Even when my cousin and her friends were picking on me, Mom had only looked at me with disgust and said, “Kara, can you stop lying? I’d be grateful enough if you weren’t the one bullying Wendy.”