Chapter 2

Lily's POV

I followed Sarah into the medical examiner's office. The smell of disinfectant was everywhere, cold as an icebox. My body lay on the examination table at the far end, covered with a white sheet.

"Good morning, Marcus." Sarah walked toward a middle-aged man wearing glasses.

"Morning, Sarah." Marcus pulled down his mask. "Is this the little girl's case?"

"Yes. Lily Martinez, ten years old."

Marcus nodded and walked over to my corpse. He pulled back the white sheet.

I stood beside him, looking at myself. My skin was that unnatural grayish-white color, lips purple. I looked so small, so fragile, like a broken doll.

"Cause of death is clear—cardiac arrest." Marcus put on latex gloves and began examining me.

"Time of death? Can you confirm it?" Sarah asked.

"Based on rigor mortis and body temperature, somewhere between 5 and 6 PM yesterday." Marcus picked up a magnifying glass to examine my arm closely, then stopped. "But Sarah, this child..."

His voice became heavy.

"What?" Sarah stepped closer.

"This child is chronically malnourished." Marcus said. "Look at her weight. A ten-year-old girl should be between 70 and 90 pounds. She's only 62."

Sarah's jaw tightened.

Marcus continued examining me. He turned over my arms, checked my back and thighs. With each area he looked at, his frown deepened.

"These injuries..." he said. "They weren't made in a day or two."

I looked down at my translucent arms. The bruises were still there. There were scratches on my wrists, like someone had grabbed me hard. Stripe-shaped bruises on my forearms, like marks left by a belt.

Marcus pulled back the sheet to look at my back. "There are multiple bruises here. Some have already turned yellow, indicating they're old injuries. And these..." He pointed to the bruises on my thighs. "These are marks from being kicked."

Dad did this.

Memories suddenly flooded in. I tried to block them out, but I couldn't.

Every time he got drunk. Every time Mom "made him angry." Every time I was "too noisy"...

His belt. His fists. His feet.

"You little brat! Get away from me!"

"This is all your fault! If it weren't for you, your mom would've listened!"

The sound of the belt hitting my back. Crack. Dull pain. Then sharp pain. Then numbness.

I didn't want to remember these things. I shook my head desperately, trying to throw these memories out of my mind.

"Any signs of sexual assault?" Sarah's voice interrupted my thoughts.

"No." Marcus shook his head. "But this child clearly suffered long-term domestic violence. I'll document it all in detail in my report."

Sarah nodded, her eyes turning cold. "Thank you, Marcus."

She turned and left. I followed.

Back in the car, Sarah didn't start the engine right away. She gripped the steering wheel with both hands and took a deep breath.

"Damn it," she said quietly. "Another one."

Next, Sarah drove to the abandoned amusement park.

The tech team had already set up police tape around the control room.

The control room was a small space with the door half-open. Sarah pushed it open. Inside was covered in dust and cobwebs. On a broken-down table sat an old tape recorder, its red indicator light still blinking.

"Still playing?" Sarah asked the technician nearby.

"Yes." The young man in the white protective suit said. "On a loop. Listen."

He pressed play.

Laughter came from the speaker. Clear, happy, like tinkling bells.

It was my laughter.

"What is this?" Sarah asked.

"We're still looking into it." The technician said. "But Detective, you need to see this."

He pulled out an evidence bag. Inside was Grandma's phone.

"We checked this phone's usage records. Starting from 6 PM last night, she's been playing a 30-second video on loop."

Sarah took the phone and opened the video.

The image showed me sitting on a swing at the park. The sun was bright. Mom was pushing me. I was laughing happily, my laughter echoing in the air.

That was from a few months ago. Dad wasn't home that day. Mom had secretly taken me to the park. She pushed the swing, and I laughed so happily.

She recorded a video on her phone, and then she cried. I didn't understand why she was crying then.

Now this video was on Grandma's phone.

"How long was it playing?" Sarah asked.

"From 6:15 PM until the police arrived. Nearly six hours." The technician said.

"We also did an audio analysis." He opened his computer and pulled up two waveform graphs. "This is the 'girl's laughter' that witness Tom Harris said he heard. This is the audio from the phone video."

The two waveforms were nearly identical.

"Perfect match." The technician said. "The laughter the witness heard was this phone video playing out loud."

Sarah was silent for a few seconds.

"Someone was creating the illusion that Lily was still alive," she said.

I froze. What?!

Sarah returned to the station. She pinned all the evidence on the whiteboard in the conference room.

I stood next to the whiteboard, looking at these puzzle pieces.

Sarah's team filed in one by one.

"Okay, let's go through this." Sarah said.

She pointed to Gloria's medical records posted on the board. "Gloria Martinez, 63 years old, severe Alzheimer's disease."

"What did her doctor say?" Johnson asked.

Sarah opened the file. "She often can't remember what she ate yesterday. Sometimes she doesn't even recognize family members. Her memory only lasts a few minutes to a dozen minutes."

Mark frowned. "Then how could she remember to loop a video for six hours?"

"And," Kelly added, "how would she know when to start playing it? The witness said he heard 'a girl laughing' at 6 PM. That means she started playing the audio at that exact time."

Sarah nodded. "That's exactly the problem."

She wrote several questions on the whiteboard.

"A person who can't remember what happened yesterday," Sarah tapped the board, "how could she possibly complete such a precise operation?"

The room went quiet.

"So someone taught her?" Mark asked.

"More than taught." Sarah said. "Someone planned the entire cover-up."

Kelly looked at the evidence photos. "So what do we need to investigate?"

"The video source." Sarah said. "Whose video is this? When was it sent to Gloria? Who told her what to do?"

"Also," Johnson said, "we need to know where Lily actually died. If someone's creating a false scene, the amusement park might not be the primary location."

Sarah nodded. "Kelly, check Gloria's phone records. Call logs, text messages, everything. Mark, search the amusement park again. Thoroughly."

"And," she paused, "I need to get a search warrant. We're going to the Martinez house."