My body was discovered in an abandoned building.
The construction worker vomited as he dialed emergency services.
Mark rushed from Emma’s kidney treatment to the crime scene.
The forensic expert frowned, gesturing for them to put on masks.
My husband Mark was the city’s most renowned detective. He’d solved countless murder cases, yet even he faltered when he saw this corpse.
The summer heat had done its work. The body was bloated, the face beaten beyond recognition – a mass of flesh and blood where features should have been.
The injuries were extensive. The head barely hung onto the neck by a strip of skin.
The stench of decomposition filled the air.
Mark closed his eyes briefly, took a deep breath, and pulled on his gloves to begin the preliminary examination.
I watched nervously as he removed the blood-stained necklace from my neck.
Two rings hung from the chain – our wedding rings that I had handcrafted for us with love.
I remembered how proud I’d been, presenting them to Mark. Days spent carefully making them perfect.
But when Emma saw him wearing his, she had laughed cruelly. “What is that ugly thing? Did you fish it out of a dumpster?”
Mark had ripped off the ring immediately, throwing it back at me. His face had burned with humiliation.
“You’re my wife,” he had snapped. “You’re supposed to help me succeed, not make me look ridiculous in front of others.”
Though his cold words still echoed in my ears, I believed surely he would recognize these rings now.
These symbols of our marriage, of my love for him.
But Mark just impassively instructed his assistant to bag them as evidence.
His colleague worked methodically, then suddenly paused. “Mark… the victim was pregnant. About two months along.”
