Good Crime

The Hawthorne Effect sets a story of a F.B.I survey into the criminal lives of certain individuals identified with a Crime Boss, Ron Druman whose identity the Bureau is unsure of. While the story goes on, a look into the immigrant lives of these individuals forced into crime is looked at.

When I died with a smile on my face, right before my brother's eyes, he looked as if the anguish might tear him apart. Yet, for twenty-one years, he hadn't stopped wishing I would meet this exact end. It all traced back to my fifth birthday—the day I had innocently hoped our parents would come home from their business trip to celebrate with me. They rushed back that night but never made it. A car accident took both their lives. From that moment on, my brother resented me, despised me. He didn't just stand idly by as our cousin snatched up my work as her own; he encouraged it. And when my landlord threw me out, it wasn't a random cruelty—it was my brother pulling the strings. All he had ever wanted, from the very beginning, was to see me die a miserable death. But when he finally got his wish… why did he cry, pleading for me to come back, begging me to call him 'brother' one last time?

The emergency center I worked in went haywire as the typhoon closed in on our town. That night, my husband’s first love made seven emergency calls in a row to me. However, she did not say anything when I picked up. By the eighth call, I thought it was a prank caller, so I gave them a piece of my mind. Then, I heard my husband’s angry voice. “Melinda! This is the eighth time Sadie's called you for help! Haven’t you made her suffer enough?!” After that fiasco, he decided to avenge Sadie by taping my mouth, tying my wrists and legs up, and throwing me into our basement for three whole days, despite it being flooded with seawater, I begged for mercy, but it was to no avail. “You knew Sadie couldn’t talk because she hurt her throat, yet you still hung up on her! I'm going to make sure you feel the same hopelessness she felt!" Those three days left me with a collection of severe infections. I ended up having to remove my kidney. Even after all that, that man still had the gall to kneel by my bed and beg me to give him another chance.

My mother-in-law gets into an accident and is taken to the emergency room. I call my attorney husband, but he only answers after over 20 missed calls. "What are you on about this time? Gigi has a bit of a problem, and I'm helping her. Stop being unreasonable." I suppress my grievance and say, "Mom's gotten into an accident. Transfer 100 thousand dollars to me." However, he believes Gigi Norris' lies and snarls, "What does your mother getting into an accident have to do with me? Don't even think of getting money from me to provide for your family. Now, leave me alone. I'm busy!" He hangs up, and my mother-in-law dies. Three days later, I see my husband in court. Gigi has been taken to court for driving under the influence, and he's there to defend her. He speaks eloquently and manages to get her off based on a lack of evidence. I lose hope in him and ask him for a divorce once the court is out of session. That's when he panics. "Think about how well my mother treats you! You'll break her heart by divorcing me!" I sneer. I throw the hospital bill and death certificate in his face. The idiot doesn't even know he no longer has a mother!

Hayden is a perfect husband for Riz. He's sweet, self-orientated and a successful doctor. They are living happily until a crime happened in their city. A crime of the past. Suddenly, their peaceful life will be fully be entangled into the world of serial killing. It will confuse their life, their marriage and trust especially when Riz started to doubt her own husband's personality. It doesn't make sense. Is her husband the serial killer?

Three years into our marriage, Chris Davis doted on me deeply. But I accidentally discovered that he had been cheating on me for two years. In front of that woman, everything he said showed his disdain towards me. "Who would marry a cripple?" "She's like a dead fish in bed." "She's just a deaf person who makes me want to throw up now." Later, I took the initiative to file for divorce. But he went crazy. Kneeling in front of me, every word was filled with regret...

In the second year of my marriage to Jeffery Sadler, he brought a young woman home. When his eyes met mine, Jeffery smiled carelessly and said, "Naomi, perhaps you should try it too." He added, "After all, young and energetic people are truly different." I knew he was only testing me; he had always enjoyed tormenting and toying with me. But what he didn't know was that this time, I was genuinely tempted. Later, as he stared at the fresh scratch marks on the "young person's" waist and abdomen, his eyes blazed red with anger. "Naomi Sloan," he growled, “Who gave you the audacity to actually take this seriously?”

On Mom's death anniversary, drug dealers break into the cemetery and take me away. To get revenge on my brother, Zack Smith—a forensic pathologist—they torture me until there isn't even a single uninjured spot left on my body. I hold on for almost three days, barely surviving, until I finally get a chance to call him for help. However, Zack replied, "Why didn't they kill you for good? A jinx like you who killed your own mother shouldn't be allowed to live!" When the drug dealers notice my action, they shatter all of my bones. The next day, a janitor discovers several large bags of human remains in the trash can. Zack painstakingly reassembles my body back together with his own hands—yet he fails to recognize that it's me, his younger sister he always claims to hate. When the drug dealers are finally arrested, he descends into madness.

After my mom, Margaret Hale, dies of a heart attack, she starts appearing in my sister Claire Dawson's dreams. In a dream, Mom tells Claire to climb Mount Mistwood before sunrise and burn the entrance ticket for her, or the other ghosts will bully her. Claire doesn't tell me anything. She packs a bag in the middle of the night and forces herself to the summit. While she's gasping her way up that mountain, I'm asleep at home when I suddenly go into cardiac arrest. I wake up in the emergency room with doctors shouting over me. I barely survive before Mom appears in Claire's dreams again. This time, she says skydiving is her last wish. If Claire doesn't do it for her, she won't rest in peace. Claire signs up right away, ignoring everything I say. But then, her parachute refuses to open, and she plummets toward the ground. Luckily, she gets snagged in a tree and walks away without a scratch. Meanwhile, I miss a step going downstairs, tumble to the bottom, end up covered in bruises, and break five ribs. While I'm recovering in the hospital, Mom shows up in Claire's dreams again. Now, she wants Claire to go to the South Pole for her, saying she can finally move on and be reincarnated once Claire completes the trip. Claire doesn't hesitate and books a tour on the spot. While she's taking pictures with penguins, I freeze to death back home during a 104-degree heatwave. Only after I die does it finally hit me that Mom's missions for Claire always end with me on death's doorstep. What I don't understand is how Mom keeps shifting the danger meant for Claire onto me instead. The next time I open my eyes, I'm back on the morning after Mom first appeared in Claire's dream.

There's a saying that circulates among anglers: "If a dead fish still takes the bait… reel in and leave." The day I went fishing with my dad, we ran into exactly that. What unsettled me was not the fish. It was the look on my dad's face: an excitement that felt completely wrong. Then a message flashed across my livestream, and a chill ran down my spine. [Get out. Now. Your dad is about to trade your life for the one who died in this river a year ago.]