Chapter 3

The call connected!

Aurora’s faint and trembling voice came through the phone.

I could hear the sobs in every struggling breath.

“Mom, why didn’t you pick up? Help me, Mom. Please help me…”

The sound of heavy thuds followed.

It was the sound of something slamming into flesh.

Tears blurred my eyes as the horror of her death filled my mind.

She had been bludgeoned to death.

Her skull had been shattered, her neck had become twisted, and her spine had been snapped. Her chubby and adorable face had been smashed into an unrecognizable mask of blood.

I rushed to the study to find Sam.

The light was on, and the door was wide open, but the room was empty.

I took one quick sweep of the apartment and discovered that I was alone.

I did not take the pills, and I was not asleep, so this was not a dream!

This was real. Aurora was reaching out to me from another time and asking me for help!

What was I supposed to do? How could I save her?

If trading my life meant she could live, I would jump out of the window without a second thought.

From the twenty-seventh floor, there would be no chance of survival.

I sank my teeth into the back of my hand to stop myself from screaming.

However, the killer on the other end of the line had noticed me.

“This stupid witch has been on the phone the whole time!”

It was a voice I had never heard before.

It was the voice of a woman!

The realization hit me like ice water and made it hard to breathe. My heart was racing.

Two people had killed my daughter!

“I know who you are. If you spare my daughter, I won’t come after you!”

Of course I had no idea who they were. It was a desperate effort to stall; I would do anything to buy Aurora a little mercy.

However, the call abruptly cut off.

All I heard was my daughter’s last cry. “Mom…”

I quickly made another call since I had found a breakthrough in the case.

It was not to Sam, though. He would never believe me in a moment like this. He would just think that I had gone mad and had not moved on from Aurora’s death.

Instead, I called my brother, Jared Morgan. In the tense seconds that the phone rang, countless thoughts ran through my head.

I did not tell Jared what had happened earlier tonight. I just asked for the detailed case files on Aurora’s death.

Jared was a detective, and he had been assigned to her case back then.

To avoid unnecessary trouble, I could not tell him yet that Aurora had just called me for help from three years ago.

On the other end of the line, Jared remained silent for a while.

He was clearly hesitating.

However, soon enough, he sent me everything without asking any questions.

After skimming through the key details, I asked him how many killers there had been.

“One… No, hold on. The file says two. But I remember it being just one.”

His confusion sent a jolt of excitement through me.

I ended the call, and my eyes were brimming with hope.

We all remembered it the same way. There had only been one murderer in Aurora’s case.

The original forensic report even confirmed that the assailant was an adult male who stood around six feet tall.

However, the current case file said otherwise.

There were two murderers—a man and a woman. They were partners in crime.

That meant my call across time with Aurora had shifted the course of events.

So, could I take advantage of this and change her fate altogether?

Even if the odds were slim to none, I had to try for Aurora’s sake!

Overwhelmed with excitement, I gave Sam a call. I had to ask him if he remembered the number of Aurora’s murderers.

Surely, like Jared’s, his memory would say one.

However, the file claimed that there were two.

I would finally have proof that the calls across time with my daughter were real.

I called him five to six times, but there was no answer.

Just as I was about to give up and turn to Jared again, the seventh call finally went through.

“Hello? Who the hell is this? It’s the middle of the night! Weren’t the missed calls giving you enough hints? What’s wrong with you?”