The thought refused to leave him.
Officer Ethan Cole had replayed the previous night in his head a hundred times. He had seen the body lying in the Smith mansion. He had watched the forensic team photograph it. He had helped carry it into the coroner's van. He had watched the van leave...
So why...
Why couldn't he remember seeing it arrive at the morgue?
It didn't make sense at all.
By lunchtime, curiosity had become an obsession.
Without telling anyone, not even his partner, at exactly 2:17 p.m., Ethan walked into the city morgue carrying a takeaway coffee and the confidence of a man who belonged there.
The receptionist barely looked up. "Afternoon, Officer."
"Afternoon." He smiled casually. "Long night?"
She sighed. "You have no idea."
"I heard," he leaned against the counter, "the Smith case kept everyone awake."
The receptionist rolled her eyes. "Tell me about it."
Ethan chuckled. "I'm actually here because Detective Harris asked me to double-check something."
"What?"
"The body from Smith Manor."
She frowned. "One second."
Her fingers danced across the keyboard. The smile slowly faded from her face. "Huh..."
"What?" The officer asked, with the same type of curiosity that kills the cat.
"It isn't coming up." She replied.
Ethan's heartbeat quickened. "Try again."
She searched a second time, then a third. Still nothing... "That's strange."
Ethan forced himself to smile. "Maybe it's under Anthony Smith."
She searched again... nothing.
"No." She frowned harder. "We've got Annabel Morris from the bridge accident..." She clicked another tab. "...but there's no record of Anthony Smith ever being admitted."
The coffee in Ethan's hand suddenly felt much heavier. "That's impossible."
"I know." She laughed nervously. "Maybe the system's acting up."
"Maybe." He thanked her and walked away.
But he didn't leave, instead, he waited until she disappeared through another door, then he slipped into the restricted corridor.
...
The morgue was colder than he remembered. Rows of stainless steel drawers lined both walls, the silence was almost unbearable.
Ethan unfolded the small piece of paper he'd taken from the evidence log the night before.
Drawer 27.
He stopped in front of it, his hand hovered over the handle.
For a long moment... He couldn't bring himself to pull.
Finally... He did. The drawer slid open.
It was empty. It wasn't covered or occupied. It was just empty. His mouth went dry.
"No..."
He checked the number again.
27.
This was the drawer. He looked inside once more. Still nothing. Not a body, not a bloodstain, not even the white identification tag that should have been attached to the tray.
Someone had cleaned it... so perfectly.
His pulse quickened. He hurried back to the records room. The admission log was still sitting on the desk.
He flipped through the pages. He only saw...
Bridge victims.
Bridge victims.
Bridge victims.
Then...
Smith Manor.
His eyes found the entry:
One unidentified adult male.
Below it...
A thick black line had been drawn through the entire page.
Someone hadn't simply crossed it out, someone had torn the paper halfway through before forcing it back into the book, as though they wanted to erase the record... But of course, they couldn't erase the memory of the body he saw that day.
Ethan slowly stepped backwards, his breathing became shallow.
"No..."
His mind raced. He remembered the detective's face, he remembered Mrs. Smith shouting:
"That's not my husband!"
He remembered the missing scar, the wedding ring on the wrong hand, the detective's hesitation.
Then...
Everything clicked... his stomach lurched.
Anthony Smith...
...had never died.
The man lying in that mansion... Was someone else! Someone who had never deserved to die, someone whose name would never appear in any report, someone whose family would never know where he'd gone.
Ethan staggered backwards until his back hit the wall.
"Oh my God..."
A sound echoed through the corridor. Footsteps... Slow and unhurried. He froze.
The footsteps stopped outside the records room. A shadow settled beneath the door.
Then...
A gentle knock came. Knock, knock, knock... exactly three times.
Ethan stared at the handle.
His hand slowly drifted towards the radio clipped to his belt... Static... only static.
The lights flickered once, then went out. The corridor was swallowed by darkness.
A soft voice came from the other side of the door.
"Officer..."
The voice was calm, almost polite.
"You've been asking questions."
The handle began to turn.