Her Wedding, My Funeral

The psychopath my mother had been hunting for ten years was killing me when she called.

Every word out of her mouth landed like gunpowder: Your cousin's getting married next week. You're coming back to be her bridesmaid.

Her fianc used to be your boyfriend. If you don't show up as the bridesmaid, what will people think of her?

By then I'd already lost too much blood. Consciousness was slipping away. I didn't have the strength to speak.

But she didn't notice anything wrong. All that came through the phone was impatient scolding: "What are you, dead? Can't even get a single word out?"

"I'm telling you, even if you're going to die, you finish your bridesmaid duties first."

Two days later, she was called to a scene that would haunt anyone who saw it a young woman, dismembered.

One glance at the body and she knew who'd done it.

She never knew the body was mine. Her most hated daughter.

My remains were discovered by workers draining a septic tank.

Three officers in heavy-duty respirators spent an entire day and night sifting through the waste before they recovered all of me.

When my mother arrived at the precinct, her face was grim. "Time of death? Has the victim been identified?"

Chief Examiner Carlson pulled off his gloves, exhausted. "Preliminary estimate puts death at two to three days ago."

"The body sustained severe mutilation. Facial features and fingerprints are both unusable. I've already submitted a request for DNA analysis. Three days at the earliest for results."

At the case briefing, after Carlson finished presenting his autopsy findings, every detective in the room was furious.

"The victim was barely in her twenties. Whole life ahead of her. It's sickening."

"This was torture before murder. Absolutely savage. What kind of animal does this?"

One of the veteran detectives who'd worked under my mother for years froze mid-thought, then turned to her with a look that was seeking confirmation.

"Detective Donaldson. The method. It looks like him, doesn't it?"

My mother's gaze had been fixed on the autopsy report. At those words, her eyes snapped up.

"It's Cedric Cobb. I've studied him for ten years. There's no mistake."

"He's deeply superstitious. Believes the retina preserves the last image a person sees before death. So every victim who's ever died at his hands has had their eyes destroyed."

The room went quiet. Every face hardened.

The newer detectives hadn't worked the case from a decade ago, but every one of them knew Cedric Cobb's name.

The disappearances had shaken the entire country. The investigators who worked that case still carried the weight of it. Now, after ten years of silence, he was back killing again, for reasons no one could explain.

My mother, as captain of the Criminal Investigation Unit and the person who knew Cobb best, immediately assembled a task force and deployed them to canvass the area.

Uncle Arthur, the veteran detective who'd been at her side for years, was also her friend and former classmate from the police academy.

A foot injury kept him stuck at his desk, combing through files.

Once everyone else had filed out, his gaze settled on my mother again.

He looked her over, taking in what she was wearing.

"You've been so busy you didn't even change clothes. This case couldn't have come at a worse time. Must've thrown a wrench in helping Elisa get ready for the wedding."

At the mention of my name, the seriousness on my mother's face snapped instantly into open hatred.

"Why would I help that disaster prepare for anything? Kate's the one getting married. She's just the bridesmaid."

Arthur frowned. "Wait. You're saying Elisa's boyfriend is marrying Kate? How is that possible?"

"What's so impossible about it? Any man in his right mind would choose Kate over the animal who got her own father killed."

Arthur let out a heavy sigh. "It's been three years, Faye. How can you still not let it go? Roderick's death hit me hard too, but it wasn't all Elisa's fault."

"She's carried that guilt every single day. Ever since you threw her out, she's never stopped thinking about you."

"She told me herself. Whatever you asked of her, she'd do it. No matter what."

My mother cut him off as though she couldn't stand to hear another word, her voice shaking with fury. "Like I don't know what she is? All she does is play the victim in front of other people. She says she'll listen to me? Then why won't she come be Kate's bridesmaid? It's been two days and she hasn't even returned a single call."

"She's a selfish, heartless animal. She deserves to lose her own boyfriend."

Arthur shook his head but said nothing more. He wanted to, but in the end, it was someone else's family, and he knew better than to push.

I stood right in front of her, listening to every word of hatred she had for me.

My tears fell and would not stop.

Mom, I'm not selfish.

I just

I'm already dead. I died the day you called me about my cousin.

The body you saw today, in pieces that was me.

"Arthur, stop wasting time on people who don't matter. Pull every missing-girl report filed in our district over the last ten days. Let's see if we can ID the victim."

My mother left those words behind and walked into the forensic lab, standing before my body once again.

I remembered something she used to say: the dead can't speak, but they often have more to tell than the living.

Chief Medical Examiner Carlson was conducting his second autopsy.

I lay there like a doll stitched together with rough, careless thread, limbs splayed in all directions.

My mother glanced at me once, then closed her eyes, jaw tight, swallowing hard against the bile.

Then her gaze locked onto Chief Medical Examiner Carlson's hands, brow furrowed in thought.

A moment later, the furrow deepened.

She reached out and gripped my ankle.

My breath caught.

Was she about to find out?

There was a scar on my ankle from when I was little, when I'd been playing and tumbled down the stairs.

But instead, she frowned. "There are ligature marks on the ankles. That doesn't match his previous method. He never restrained his victims before. It was like he knew they couldn't escape."

My nose burned and a dull ache swelled through my chest.

Cedric Cobb never tied anyone upbut that didn't mean no one else would.

She was so strong.

Mom, do you know? I was scared. It hurt so much

Just then, my mother's phone rang.

She walked briskly out of the autopsy room, and for the first time all day, a smile crossed her face.

"Kate, sweetheartI was just busy, didn't hear your call."

"Don't worry about a thing. I'll drag that brat to your wedding if I have to. She refuses? Then she's no daughter of mine."

Kate's sugary voice drifted through the phone: "It's okay, really. Even if Elisa doesn't want to, I won't hold it against her. After all, I'm the one who wronged her first."

Fury flashed through my mother's eyes. "She wouldn't dare. Once I'm done with this case, I'll go get her myself. I don't care if I have to tie her up and haul her thereshe's showing up at your wedding."

"Things have been dangerous lately. Stay home the next few days, keep your doors and windows locked, and don't go anywhere."

When she spoke to her beloved niece, her whole voice softened, went gentle and warm in a way I'd never once heard aimed at me.

For me, there was never anything but harshness.

She had barely hung up when Aunt Margery's call came through.

"Captain Donaldson-Walker, has Elisa come to see you? She told me she wanted to come tutor the kids in her spare time, but I haven't been able to reach her for two days."

Aunt Margery was one of the few relatives who still kept in touch with me.

She was too busy with work to look after the children properly, so I'd offered to come over on weekends to help out and tutor them with their homework.

The anger my mother had just tamped down roared back to life. "Why would I let her stay with me?"

"That girl is always scheming. She lies like she breathes. And you actually believe what she tells you? That's a joke."

Aunt Margery listened to the tirade and spoke up awkwardly: "Captain Donaldson-Walker, Elisa isn't like that. She's never once turned me down for anything."

That only made my mother's voice sharper, thick with resentment. "Oh, she'll do anything you ask, but she ignores mine? All I asked was for her to be Kate's bridesmaid, and she won't even return my calls for days. Now she wants to play some disappearing act."

"Tell her this for me: I'm giving her two more days. If she still won't agree, then she's not my daughter anymore."

She said it with a frozen face and hung up without waiting for a reply.

Uncle Arthur happened to be coming to find her and caught the tail end of it. He raised an eyebrow.

He turned his head deliberately toward the empty air and sighed. "You know, if she's not calling you, you could just call her. She's your kidwhy turn it into a whole war?"

My mother shot him a look, about to walk away, when someone called out to her.

"Captain Donaldson-Walker, someone's here to file a report. His daughter is missing."

In the reception room, a middle-aged man sat with exhaustion carved into every line of his face, eyes red-rimmed as he spoke.

"My daughter is twenty-three. She just graduated from college. The day before, she called me and said she was coming home to see me. But today I can't get through to her phone."

"She's never been out of contact for more than two days. Please, I'm begging you, help me find her."

Uncle Arthur and my mother exchanged a glance, both watching this grown man cry like a child, something raw and heavy settling behind their eyes.

The body lying on that autopsy table was also roughly twenty-three years old.

I hovered in the air, my eyes stinging, something heavy pressing down on my heart.

A man like himthe kind you'd pass on the street without a second look, who probably never fussed over anythingand here he was, shaking apart because his daughter was gone.

His daughter had been gone less than two days, and here he was, sobbing in a police station, ready to drop to his knees and beg.

But my own mother, the mother who once told me she loved me more than anything, was still raging at me five days after I'd disappeared. Still accusing me.

Still convinced I was playing some disappearing game because I didn't want to be Kate's bridesmaid.

My chest had gone hollow, scraped out until there was nothing left to hurt. It was just like the saying:

Someone who cares about you hears you cough once and worries you've caught a cold.

Someone who doesn't care could watch you hang yourself and think you're on a swing.

My mother was still weighing whether to tell the man in front of her about the girl's body they'd found.

The timeline didn't quite match up.

Then his phone rang. An unknown number.

She went on alert instantly, signaling him in a low voice to put it on speaker.

"Dad, I'm sorry. I just realized someone stole my phone. I'm calling from a classmate's. Don't worry, I'll be home in an hour."

The man nodded over and over, tears streaming down his face.

He'd been crumpled against the wall moments ago; now he braced one hand on it and dragged himself upright.

On his way out, he bowed repeatedly. "Officer, I'm sorry for the trouble."

My mother watched him go, and the sadness in her eyes looked real. "Children are everything to their parents. Every missing-persons casethe thing I dread most is the look in those parents' eyes."

I drifted beside her, watching those eyes.

Mom, you just said children are everything. So what am I?

To you, am I nothing but something to resent?

You feel for them. Why couldn't you ever feel for me?

A full day and night of searching, and the task force had turned up nothing. Not a thread. Every face in the room looked hollowed out.

"A whole person goes missing from someone's household and nobody notices?"

"Nobody even filed a report."

"What, was she an orphan? Living on the street?"

Everyone was speculating, tossing out guesses about who I might have been.

That was when the switchboard operator knocked and stepped into the conference room.

"Captain, someone's calling insays they'll only speak to you."

My mother frowned, puzzled, and picked up.

"Detective Donaldson? HiI run the company where Elisa's interning. She hasn't shown up in three days and none of us can reach her."

"Since you're her mother, I figured I'd call you directly. This counts as me reporting it, all right? Whatever happens to her from here on out, that's not on us."

The irritation she'd barely tamped down ripped loose again. "What does she have to do with me? I'm telling you right nowcall this line about her garbage one more time and I will book you for obstruction."

My boss was stunned into silence. The moment he heard "book you," he stammered out an apology and hung up.

The room went quiet. Everyone knew her temper. No one dared say a word.

Uncle Arthur made some excuse about case files and pulled her into his office.

"Faye, this doesn't add up. Three days and Elisa hasn't been to work. Her great-aunt called toocan't get through to her either. What if something's actually happened?"

"I tried calling her myself while you were on the phone. Still no answer."

"Let me take a few people and go look for her."

My mother's face was hard, her voice sharp. "There's a victim lying in a freezing autopsy room waiting for us to get her justice. That killer is still out there. We don't have time to waste on her little stunts."

"She's doing this on purpose. She doesn't want to be a bridesmaid, so she's playing these childish games."

"Trust me. Give it three days and she'll show up."

She was right that, before, no matter how much she hated me, no matter what she said, I'd go to the Criminal Investigation Unit to see her every so often.

Even when she threw everything I brought her straight into the trash.

I still went.

But Mom.

This time, I was already inside the Criminal Investigation Unit.

I'd been right here beside you the whole time.

My mother didn't go home that night. She called Kate, reminded her twice to lock all the doors and windows, then slept at the officeif you could call it sleep. The hunt for Cedric Cobb had stalled, and she refused to leave the building until it broke.

She worked past midnight, barely shut her eyes before her phone jolted her awake.

Six in the morning. Calls at that hour were never good news.

She shot upright and grabbed the phone.

"Hello? Is this Elisa Walker's mother? Your daughter's rent is over a week late. I can't reach her, and you're listed as the emergency contact. Come pay it for her."

The landlady. An old woman.

She slept little and had a habit of calling people at dawn.

Because it was an elderly woman on the other end, my mother swallowed her anger. She said "Fine" in a flat, cold voice.

Then hung up fast.

She sat back in her chair, frowning. For days the victim's identity had stayed a dead endyet somehow my name kept needling its way into every call, every loose thread, every interruption.

The irritation built until she couldn't stand it. She pulled out her phone and scrolled to my contact.

After a long hesitation, typing and deleting and typing again, she sent one line: *You have one hour to get your ass in front of me.*

The message went out instantly. A red exclamation mark appeared beside it.

Her eyes went wide with disbelief. She slammed the phone onto the bed.

"Elisa Walkeryou actually had the nerve to block me."

She paced the room with her hands on her hips, fuming. The phone rang several times before she even heard it.

She glanced at the caller ID.

Walker.

That was the name she'd saved for me.

"Elisa Walker, you really have nerve. Playing these childish games with me."

"I'm warning youyou could be dying tomorrow and you'd still owe me today. You're doing your bridesmaid duties first."

"Don't think a stunt like this will make me forgive you. Let me be clear: unless you die, I will never forgive you. Not in this lifetime."

A few seconds of silence on the other end. Then a voice came through, tight and uneasy: "Captainit's me. We found the scene. The first crime scene. This phone was picked up right here."