I was 18 years old when my mother wheeled me toward an operating room and told me that wanting to stay alive was selfish. By then, I had spent my entire childhood learning one rule: my body belonged to my sister before it belonged to me. But as the fluorescent lights passed above my face that morning, one after another, I finally understood something nobody in my family had ever allowed me to say aloud.

By the fifth day after my death, my mother was a prisoner in her own home.

Reporters camped outside the wrought-iron gates of the estate, their camera flashes popping every time a curtain moved. The police had seized her medical files, her computer hard drives, and the fireproof safe in her office.

However, my mother was a master of paranoia. She had anticipated a police raid years ago. The yellow folder—PROJECT PRIMUS—was no longer in her office. She had moved it forty-eight hours before her arrest.

She had hidden it in a private storage locker rented under a false name at a facility near the industrial docks of the Ohio River.

I knew this because I followed her everywhere. I rode on the roof of her car when she slipped past the reporters at three in the morning; I stood beside her in the dark storage hallway as she checked the heavy padlock on Unit 408.

"As long as this file exists," my mother muttered to herself in the dark storage room, clutching a silver key, "they can only prove negligence, not intentional genetic exploitation. I can beat a manslaughter charge."

She didn't know that I was standing right behind her, watching her hide the key inside the lining of her leather coat.

The next morning, a young detective named Sarah Rodriguez arrived at the Wells estate.

Detective Rodriguez was thirty years old, possessing sharp, intelligent dark eyes and an unyielding demeanor that suggested she didn't care about hospital politics or high-society wealth. She was the lead investigator on my death.

She stood in the grand foyer, holding a notebook, staring at my parents with absolute disgust.

"Dr. Wells," Rodriguez said, her tone cold and professional. "We found strange discrepancies in your daughter Emily’s early pediatric records. There are no birth records for her at St. Catherine’s, despite your claim that she was born there."

My mother sat on the foyer bench, her hands folded neatly in her lap, looking entirely unbothered. "Emily was born at home during a winter storm, Detective. I delivered her myself. The paperwork was filed late."

"And what about the genetic therapy receipts from the private clinic in Zurich?" Rodriguez asked, leaning forward. "We found wire transfers totaling three hundred thousand dollars from your private account between 2007 and 2008."

"My family's private financial investments are none of your concern," my mother stated smoothly. "Unless you have a indictment, Detective, I suggest you leave my home."

Detective Rodriguez gritted her teeth, clearly frustrated by the wall of legal protection my mother’s lawyers had built around her.

I floated down from the grand staircase, stopping beside Detective Rodriguez.

I couldn't speak to the living directly unless they were weak with fear or guilt, but I could touch the physical world now. My spirit had grown strong enough to push, lift, and carry objects.

I reached out my hand and brushed my fingers against the sleeve of Detective Rodriguez’s jacket.

A sudden, violent chill ran up the detective’s arm. She shivered, looking around the warm foyer in confusion.

"What was that?" Rodriguez whispered, rubbing her arm.

I walked toward the front coat rack, where my mother’s heavy black leather jacket was hanging. I pulled a long, sharp brass hatpin from the hallway display table and drove it straight through the interior lining of the coat pocket.

RIP.

The silver key to Storage Unit 408 fell out of the torn lining, bouncing sharply against the marble floor right at Detective Rodriguez’s feet.

The detective looked down, frowning. She picked up the key.

Attached to the key was a small plastic tag stamped with a logo: RIVERFRONT SELF-STORAGE - UNIT 408.

My mother’s face went completely slack. She lunged forward off the bench, her hands clawing for the key. "Give that back! That's my private property!"

Detective Rodriguez instantly stepped back, holding her hand out, her sharp eyes locking onto my mother’s panicked face.

"Riverfront Storage?" Rodriguez murmured, a slow, dangerous smile spreading across her lips. "You didn't list any storage facilities on your asset disclosure form, Dr. Wells."