Independence Detective Short Stories & Novels

My wife, Alayna Watson, is childish as ever even though we've been married for eight years. From time to time, she'll use her prank toys on me just to trick me. Oftentimes, I just toss the toys into the store without thinking much about them. A few days later, when I'm cleaning the house, I suddenly remember the box that Alayna has pranked me with, so I decide to throw it away. When I open the lid, I smell a foul odor wafting from within the box. A severed arm lies quietly there. I slump to the floor instantly out of alarm and shock. With trembling fingers, I manage to call 911. When the DNA results are out, the police officer shows a weird and conflicted expression. "Sir, the DNA we've extracted from this arm… belongs to Alayna Watson."”

Eight years into our marriage, my husband was as childish as ever. He loved playing pranks on me, constantly leaving gag gifts around the house. I would just smile, toss them into the storage closet and think nothing of it. A few days later, while deep-cleaning the house, I remembered his latest box and decided to throw it out. But the moment I lifted the lid, a foul, putrid stench hit me. Inside the box lay a severed human hand. Terrified, I collapsed to the floor, my fingers trembling as I dialed 911. When the DNA results came back, the detective's expression was a twisted mix of confusion and horror. "Ma'am, the DNA extracted from the severed limb..." he stammered. "It belongs to Michael Miller."

The day I got fired, I received a trial pass from an AI cosmetic clinic. It required neither surgery nor recovery time, yet it could deliver a flawless celebrity face overnight. But there was a catch. The face only lasted seven days after the complimentary trial. To keep it, I signed a contract to become the actress' body double, trading my time, identity, and freedom for another week of beauty. As the years passed, I kept paying the price to maintain a face that wasn't mine until one day, I realized I no longer wanted to live in someone else's shadow.

After the SAT, my daughter turned into something I didn't recognize. She repeatedly stabbed her grandmother, who had raised her, until the old woman bled to death. She pushed her little brother from the tenth floor and killed him on the spot. My wife and I tried to talk her down, our voices shaking, but she only laughed. "Grandma and Caleb were too good to me. That's why they had to die! And you two worked so hard to raise me. You paid for my education and gave me everything. You were too good to me, so you have to die!" Then she set us on fire. I closed my eyes in despair. When I opened them again, I was back one week before my daughter's SAT. This time, I installed a hidden camera in her bedroom. I didn't care what it took. I was going to find out why she killed us. When my wife and I watched the footage later, neither of us could say a word.

The heat apocalypse struck without warning, and the office turned into hell on earth. Global temperatures spiked past 126°F. Ellie Ramsey, the receptionist, collapsed against the water cooler, her skin fused to the plastic tank. When Frank Higgins tried to pull her free, a layer of skin tore away with his hand. Of the hundred-some people who'd worked in our building, only seven of us were left. The survivors retreated into the underground bunker beneath the building, sealed off from the heat above. Water and food ran out fast. We'd have fought over a single rat's blood just to wet our throats. Then Jake Collins, the technician who'd gone to check the UV lamp in the incubation unit, came sprinting back like he'd lost his mind. He was clutching a part in his hand, his face bone-white. "This temperature control module—" He shoved it in front of my face, his fingers shaking. "The manufacture date. It's from last March."

My husband's lottery ticket hit the 30-million-dollar jackpot, and our whole family was over the moon. Our daughter had been diagnosed with end-stage kidney failure, and the medical bills had already buried us under millions in high-interest debt. That 30 million dollars would not only save her life but also finally give our family the comfortable future we had always dreamed of. However, the day before we were supposed to claim the prize, I sold the ticket for one dollar. Our daughter died at home because we could not afford her treatment. My husband, shattered by the loss, jumped from the 30th floor and killed himself. The entire internet called me a monster. Countless people reported me to the police, demanding my arrest. Five years later, my son won the jackpot for 30 million dollars. Yet once again, I sold the lottery ticket for a dollar.

At 9:00 a.m., just as I arrived at the office entrance, two police officers stopped me. "Mr. Clarke, someone reported that you haven't shown up at work for a long time and that they couldn't reach you. They were worried that you might have been in an accident." I was shocked. I thought they had the wrong person. I had gone to work on time every day for the past six months. Sometimes, I even stayed late at the office until midnight. How could my company not be able to contact me? "You must have the wrong person. I go to work every day. Everyone at my company can prove it!" "The people who reported you missing are from your company."

I'm a half-baked forensic examiner whose only redeeming quality is the ability to understand animals. The crime scene is inside a lavish villa. The lady of the house lies dead on the floor with a blunt-force injury to the back of her head so deep that her bone is visible. The safe has been pried open, and a million dollars in cash has vanished without a trace. Clear shoe prints mark the backyard wall, evidence that someone has climbed over it. "This one's clear as day. This is a textbook robbery-homicide. The suspect is likely a young male, around six feet tall, has a prior theft record, and knows how to cover his tracks. Check the surveillance footage in the area and look into places where he might've moved the stolen cash." The director of the forensic science center, Egbert Woodward, has been in the profession for three decades and is a widely respected authority. The officers at the scene nod in unison and begin taking notes. I'm the only one who stares at the 30 flies circling the ceiling for a full 3 minutes before taking a step forward and piping up, "Dr. Woodward, this isn't a robbery-homicide. It's a crime of passion. The murderer is the victim's husband!"

The day before the SAT, strange comments suddenly appear before my eyes. "In a while, your childhood friend, Savannah Dunham, will come to you complaining about a stomachache. She will ask you to accompany her to the restroom. "She'll give birth there, then accuse you of being the baby's father. Since you'll be at the scene and she'll personally identify you as the father of the baby, the police will arrest you on the spot. By the time the truth comes out, you'll have already missed the SAT." The very next moment, Savannah clutches her stomach and grabs my arm. "Benny, my stomach hurts. Can you come to the restroom with me?" Every word she says and every move she makes matches the comments exactly. Then, another comment appears. "Her boyfriend is Michael Crowley, the one who always comes second. If you miss the SAT, Michael will become the top scorer this year." I shake off Savannah's hand immediately. "I'm sorry. Ms. Kirkland asked to see me. She said there's a problem with my exam admission pass. You'll have to go by yourself."

I've bought an old DVD online for 1.50 dollars. When I play it, I start trembling. The bride on the screen looks exactly like me. But I've never been married.

Getting into one of the nation's top universities, Newhaven University, is something I achieve after putting in all my effort throughout high school. The orientation bus for freshmen is traveling along the mountain road toward the new campus. Everyone on the bus is filled with anticipation for university life, but I'm curled up in the very last row, drenched in cold sweat. No one here knows that I've already died once. The GPS clearly shows that following this winding mountain road to the summit will lead to Newhaven University's new campus. However, in my previous life, the bus drove through a dense fog for a full three hours before finally plunging into a deserted valley. Yesterday, it was in that valley that I lost my way entirely, plunged off the cliff in sheer panic, and shattered every bone in my body. The roar of the bus engine pulls me back to reality, and I jerk my head up to glance at the time. In ten minutes, that eerie, all-encompassing fog will arrive.

The day after our wedding, my wife claimed she didn’t know me. I’d spent years working myself to the bone and saving every penny before I could finally marry the woman I loved. Between the house, the car, and everything I’d paid toward the wedding, I’d spent three million dollars. But the very next day, my wife stared at me in terror and insisted she was single. Worse, the county clerk’s office had no record of us ever getting married. The house and car were both in her name. Half a lifetime of savings had vanished overnight. Furious, I tracked down her friends, certain they could prove the truth. Instead, every one of them claimed they’d never seen me before. I stormed into the county clerk’s office demanding answers. The staff thought I was delusional and called the police. “You’ve gone crazy from wanting a woman that badly, haven’t you? You probably got married in a dream. What bride refuses to recognize her husband the day after the wedding?” After trying to mediate, even the police decided there was something wrong with me. Desperate to recover my house and car, I fought to take back what was mine. Instead, my wife accused me of running a marriage scam and trying to steal her property. Whenever I showed up, the building’s security guards beat me and threw me out. My wife posted videos of my breakdowns online, and the entire internet mocked me. Everyone believed I was insane. In the end, exhausted and tormented beyond endurance, I wandered into traffic and was struck dead. But when I opened my eyes again, I was back on the day we were supposed to get our marriage certificate.

On the day my adoptive father, Claude Bolton, is buried, my biological parents, along with the fake heiress, Gwen Walton, force their way into the funeral hall to pressure me into signing a statement of forgiveness. They say Gwen is about to be recommended for graduate school, so she can't afford to have a disciplinary record for driving a mechanic to his death. My biological mother, Lorna Pollard, holds my hand and cries. "Claude is already dead. Don't ruin Gwen too." My biological father, Joseph Walton, presses the pen into my palm. "The dead shouldn't stand in the way of the living." Gwen kneels in front of the casket, crying pitifully. "Ada, I'm sorry. I didn't know Mr. Bolton would really jump off the building." Just as I am about to sign, the funeral home calls. They say a pearl button fell out of Dad's hand before cremation. Meanwhile, Lorna's cuff is missing a button today.

I didn’t get into college, so I took a job driving a city bus. Once I finished training, I started working the night shift with Uncle Tim. He had always been the kind of guy who followed every rule. But that night, he wouldn’t let me pick up a single passenger. He even made me keep the bus dark the entire route. Uncle Tim died shortly after that incident. A few days later, someone told me something that made my blood run cold. Uncle Tim had actually been dead for quite some time. So who the hell had been riding with me that night?

On my first night after moving into Building 4 of Hawthorne Lane Apartments, the elevator stopped at the nonexistent thirteenth floor. My younger brother, who had been missing for three months, was kneeling outside the doors. An old apartment-number plaque hung around his neck. It read 1204. I was just about to call out to him when the red light above the elevator doors came on. A building manager in a blue uniform suddenly appeared behind me and pushed a report form into my hand. His lips lifted into a frozen smile. “No talking under the red light. If you want to live, write down a neighbor’s apartment number.” Only later did I learn the truth. The most terrifying thing about this building wasn’t the thirteenth floor. It was that behind every door lived someone waiting for me to speak.

At 11:00 AM, my husband, Silas Vexille, slowly drowned in our indoor thermal pool. At the time, I was having my usual morning tea with the other mafia wives in the estate's back garden. The pool room was directly above the garden, barely a dozen feet away. Originally, if I had gone back to the main house at 11:00 as usual, I would have had plenty of time to save him. But as fate would have it, Victoria Harrison insisted on inviting us over to her nearby home to see her new pink diamond. At 11:20 AM, my daughter April and I pushed open the doors to the pool room. By then, Silas was already gone. At the lavish funeral, I was devastated, fainting several times. The mourners murmured in sympathy. "Don Vexille and his wife always had such a beautiful marriage..." "Yeah, what is she going to do now that the Don is dead?" Silas's mother, Martha—a tough woman who ran a Texas farm alone after her divorce—flew in overnight. Under the watchful eyes of everyone present, she walked straight up to me. Her expression was stone-cold, and she spat out every word: "You are the one who murdered my son."