The Wife on His Autopsy Table

A year ago, my husband’s first love was kidnapped. I was her bodyguard. When I went to rescue her, she trapped and tortured me instead. To cover her tracks, she disfigured me with sulfuric acid and sank me in a lake. Then she claimed I had plotted with her kidnapper to hurt her before running away with him. My husband called me a depraved, vicious whore. Afterward, she offered a huge reward for finding me, using it as an excuse to air every filthy lie about me. Looking wounded, she said, “Claire, I forgive you. Haven’t you played with people’s feelings long enough? It’s time to come home.” My husband held her close, aching over how kind she was. After that, everyone knew me as a whore. But a year later, when my husband—a man with severely impaired sperm motility—discovered that the pregnant corpse on his autopsy table was mine, he completely fell apart. A new body arrived in the autopsy room. Ryan, the intern, fought the stench filling the room and kept sighing over the remains. “Her face is completely gone! Her flesh is peeling away, her eyes have been eaten away, and her tongue’s been severed. What kind of psychopath did this woman run into? How could anyone do this to her?” I looked at my rotting body. My stomach twisted, and the pain of my final moments seemed to swallow me all over again. Ethan Hayes calmly pulled on his gloves. As he began the autopsy, he explained his findings to Ryan. “There’s extensive tissue destruction and multiple fractures. Adipocere has formed on the remains. Preliminary estimate puts her death at about a year ago.” I floated in the air, staring at him. We hadn’t seen each other in a year. I had never imagined that death would stand between us when we met again. Ethan cut away the few scraps of clothing left on me and examined them. “Based on the fabric fragments and skeletal structure, the victim appears to be female.” Ryan gently brushed a gloved hand over my battered body, his expression full of pity. “A woman… There’s extensive blackening across her face and body. Someone probably poured sulfuric acid on her while she was alive. I can’t imagine how much pain she was in—how hopeless she must have felt when they threw her into the water after torturing her.” “Where was she recovered?” Ethan asked quietly. Ryan answered without thinking. “Westhaven Lake. The same place where that incident with Claire happened.” Everything that had happened before my death flashed through my mind. I didn’t understand why Ethan had never looked for me. Not once. Maybe my need for an answer was what had kept me from fading away. Once my body was recovered, I finally broke free of whatever had held me there. All I wanted was the truth! Ryan immediately fell silent. Startled, he pressed a hand against the body and hurried to apologize. “Ethan, I didn’t mean to bring up something painful. I promise I won’t mention Claire again—” Ethan frowned and pushed him aside. He had just noticed an unusual swelling in the corpse’s abdomen. Carefully, he made a horizontal incision with his scalpel. Two slick, dark-red fetuses appeared. An even fouler wave of decay filled the room. Ryan finally lost his composure. “Holy shit! She was pregnant! What kind of monster did this? What could possibly make someone kill a mother and both her babies? Ethan, we have to get justice for them!” Suppressing a strange uneasiness, Ethan nodded. “If no one comes forward to claim them, I’ll pay for a proper burial. All three of them.” Ryan looked deeply moved. I stared at Ethan for a long moment. He had never been the type to get involved in anything that didn’t concern him. Had he sensed something? If he knew these were his two children, would he have been the most loving father in the world? As though remembering something happy, Ethan spoke gently. “Vanessa and I have a daughter. She’s over four now. Once you’re a parent, you understand that these little ones were lives, too. I just want every child to be treated with kindness.”Their daughter was over four… The words struck like thunder, leaving me trembling. Had Ethan and Vanessa Reed already been together four years ago? Then what had I been to him when I was pregnant a year ago? Suddenly, my babies and I felt like the cruelest joke in the world. He was playing happy family with the woman who murdered us, while my children and I were nothing but rotting flesh? He was the one who had told me about his poor sperm motility. He was the one who had cried because he didn’t want the Hayes family line to end with him. To give him what he wanted, I had been willing to endure anything. The twins inside me had been conceived through IVF. It had taken hundreds of injections to keep the pregnancy viable. Every memory became another blade, stabbing the softest part of my heart. I looked at those two dark-red little bodies. The pain was unbearable. With a man, the difference between love and indifference was painfully clear. If he loved you, you were worthy of bearing his children. If he didn’t, your children didn’t even deserve a chance to be born! Ethan reflected the tissue covering my skull and continued. “There are multiple fractures to the head, consistent with repeated blows from a blunt object. The degree of closure in the lambdoid suture suggests the victim was approximately twenty-five.” He paused for a few seconds, then looked over the body. I stared at him, certain he had recognized me. But the coldness in his eyes never changed. His expression grave, he told Ryan, “The killer likely incapacitated her with a blunt object before torturing her. The wounds, damaged tissue, and discoloration all indicate an extremely brutal assault.” I wrapped my arms around myself and sobbed. Every injury he described felt like a hand closing around my heart. Back then, I had wanted him to save me. God, how desperately I had wanted it. But Ethan had been the one who pushed me into hell. That year, his first love, Vanessa Reed, was supposedly kidnapped. Ethan was stuck in traffic. He threatened to kill himself unless I, her personal bodyguard, went ahead to rescue her. I had never dreamed it was a trap Vanessa had set for me. I lay in the grass with blood pouring from my head. Vanessa proudly displayed the weapon she had used to beat me. A trophy. Blood and tears blurred my vision. But I could still see exactly what it was—the trophy Ethan had treasured so much he had never even let me touch it. The murderous resolve in Vanessa’s eyes sent a chill down my spine. Clutching my stomach, I bowed my head and begged. “Vanessa, I’ve never done anything to you. Please let me go. I promise I won’t tell anyone what happened today. Just let me live.” Vanessa smiled without answering. Then she crouched down, grabbed my hair, and forced my head up. “The only people who can’t talk are the ones without tongues. Let me help you with that.” She forced my mouth open and used a pair of pliers to yank at my tongue. Once. Twice… The pain was so severe I couldn’t scream. All I could force out was a broken sound in my throat. With a look of disgust, Vanessa tossed aside the pliers and a piece of bloody flesh. Her eyes were venomous. “Ethan is mine! Claire Bennett, who the hell do you think you are, carrying his children?” My heart lurched. Instinctively, I covered my stomach and tried to crawl away. Vanessa gave me no chance. Her face twisted as she pinned me down and kicked my belly with all her strength. I curled up on the ground, making helpless, muffled sounds. Still unsatisfied, she took out the sulfuric acid and splashed it over me. My skin burned as though someone were slicing away my flesh an inch at a time. The pain cut straight through me. White fumes rose from my nose and eyes as they began to dissolve. I rolled on the ground, reduced to a wounded animal. “Stop fighting it,” Vanessa said shamelessly. “Do you really think Ethan will come save you? Remember how he talked you into becoming my bodyguard. I’m the person who matters most to him!” “Tell me—if I say you were working with my kidnapper and the two of you ran away together, who do you think he’ll believe?” As she bound me with rope, she sneered. “You thought a baby could tie Ethan to you? How naive. The day he gave me that trophy, he said he was giving me all his glory and happiness. I’m the woman he loves!” Agonizing cramps tore through my belly. I fought desperately to get away. Vanessa saw what I was trying to do. She viciously stomped on my arms and legs until they broke, her voice triumphant. “You’re the one who came between us! I’ll send you and your babies straight to hell! Remember this—I’m the one who wins!” She shoved me into the lake. The rock tied to the end of the rope dragged me farther and farther down. I knew I had lost. My love for him had cost me everything.Ryan looked at my body with pity and muttered, “Westhaven Lake is so isolated. There’s barely anything out there. Her age, the time she died… It’s strange. It lines up so closely with when Claire disappeared.” Ethan’s brow tightened, and fury crossed his face. “I never want to hear that bitch’s name again! A vicious, cheating woman like her is probably living better than either of us. She’d never let herself die! She just wants to punish me and humiliate me!” My eyes went dead. We had spent more than a year together, day in and day out. Everything he knew about me, everything I had given him, meant less than one lie from Vanessa. Ryan obediently shut his mouth and turned back to examine my remains. Then, as though he had made a major discovery, he called out, “Ethan! The acid didn’t destroy the skin on her feet. There’s still material under her toenails. It could lead us to the killer. And on the sole of her foot—” My heart tightened with sudden hope. Ethan had once teased me that a woman with a mole on the sole of her foot was destined to follow her husband everywhere. If he saw that mole, would he realize something? Would he know it was me? Ethan cut Ryan off, sounding exasperated. “All right. Put it in the report. I’ll look later. It’s my wife’s birthday today. I need to get home early.” Ryan nodded. “Then go celebrate with her. I’ll find out who this poor woman is. Hopefully, she’ll be reunited with her husband soon, too.” At that, Ethan took a long look at my ruined body. There seemed to be pity in his eyes. Regret, perhaps. But not a trace of love. He hurried home in his car, carrying my spirit along with him. When Grandma had given me that old house, she had wanted me to have something of my own to fall back on. The foundations were still there. But the old house had been remodeled into a new home. Vanessa greeted him with her daughter, smiling as she accepted his roses and cake. Ethan kissed her cheek and whispered, “Happy birthday, Vanessa. I hope our daughter and I get to spend every birthday by your side. I love you.” I floated behind them, tears streaming down my face. Why was the woman who murdered me and my babies still free to enjoy her life? Why was my husband with her? Why did they have a child? And why was I nothing but a lost ghost with nowhere to go? How could anything be so cruelly unfair? By candlelight, Ethan and the little girl sang “Happy Birthday” to Vanessa. A deep sadness settled over me. It was my birthday, too. As far as I could remember, Ethan had never bothered to make the slightest effort. He had only snapped at me impatiently. “You’re not a kid anymore. What difference does it make if I remember your birthday? You know I’m not romantic.” Now I understood. It wasn’t that he didn’t know how. He simply hadn’t wanted to do it for me. A knock at the door interrupted the celebration. Then came a woman’s urgent cries. “Open the door! Please, open up! It’s my daughter’s birthday! I know she must have come home!” My eyes stung. Mom had never stopped looking for me. Ethan glared at her. “How many times do I have to tell you? She ran off with another man! This is my house. My home! Stop bothering us!” Vanessa rushed over and roughly pulled Mom away. “Like mother, like daughter! Your daughter runs off with men, and you’re probably no better. My husband told you to leave, so get out before I make you!” She grabbed a broom and swung it hard at Mom. I threw myself in front of her, screaming for Vanessa to stop. But every blow passed straight through me and struck my mother. Mom couldn’t get out of the way. She fell against the steps and coughed up blood. Someone raced over and kicked Vanessa, sending her stumbling backward. Ethan helped Vanessa up and shouted, “Enough! You think you can assault someone right outside my home? Get over here and apologize to Vanessa!” The young man gave Ethan a contemptuous look. “You can barely father a child, and you think you get to order me around?” Vanessa screamed like a madwoman. “I’m calling the police! I’ll have you scum arrested!” The young man shrugged. “Go ahead! Tomorrow’s headline can read: ‘First Love Murders Wife and Unborn Twins to Steal Infertile Husband!’” “Here’s another one: ‘Man Abandons Wife and Children to Raise His First Love’s Affair Baby!’” “And the tagline? ‘Two Pieces of Trash, a Perfect Match!’” His eyes were red as he glared at Ethan. “She didn’t even spare the twins your wife was carrying! They were the only biological children you would ever have!”