My grandpa, He Cole, was a total old-school superstitious guy.
He swore that a person's given name had to have two characters—one-character names would leave your fate incomplete, he said. He was too old and set in his ways to change his own name, so when he named my dad, he went with two characters: Guowen Cole.
And my original name wasn't Ethan Cole, either. It was Fuguang Cole.
I changed it to Ethan when I was a kid, after a terrible illness that almost killed me. Grandpa dragged in some so-called "fortune teller" to take a look at me. The guy mumbled something about my fate being "unusual"—I can't remember the exact words, since I never bought into that hocus-pocus stuff back then.
All I recall is him telling Grandpa that my fate needed to be "lacking" in something, or I'd bring death to everyone around me. So Grandpa swapped my name for Ethan, figuring it sounded plain enough to balance out my cursed destiny.
But right now, none of that old superstition mattered. All I could hear was Detective Liu's voice echoing in my head: Guowen Cole.
Jake and I both froze, the color draining from our faces at the same time. We both thought of my dad instantly.
Names are just labels, though, right? Duplicates are common. It didn't have to be him.
Besides, my family was never rich—middle-class at best. The house we lived in had drained every penny of Grandpa's savings. There was no way in hell Dad could've afforded a whole other condo somewhere else.
"Detective Liu," I said, my voice cracking despite my best effort to keep it steady. "This Guowen Cole—how old is he? Where's he from?"
My hands were sweating under the table. I was terrified this wasn't a coincidence.
Detective Liu frowned, scratching his chin. "I don't have his exact age, but I saw him at the precinct today. Middle-aged guy, soft-spoken, wore wire-rimmed glasses. Sounded like a local, from his accent."
My eyes went wide. My blood ran cold.
Dad wore wire-rimmed glasses. He was exactly the quiet, bookish type. He'd worked as an accountant at the same firm for over a decade until it went under, then hopped to a friend's factory to do the same job. He'd spent his whole life behind a desk, no sun, no manual labor—even in his fifties, he looked like he was in his forties.
And he was born and raised right here.
Every single detail Detective Liu described matched my dad perfectly. The name, the looks, the accent. How many coincidences could there be before it stopped being a coincidence?
This was a murder investigation. A woman's mummified body had been found in a wall. How the hell was my dad tangled up in this?
And where had he gotten the money for a second condo? Did Grandpa even know about it?
I could barely hide my panic. My hands were shaking so bad I had to clench them into fists under the table.
Jake looked just as shocked, but he kept his cool. He shot me a sharp glare and said, "Dude, your hemorrhoids acting up again? If you gotta pee, go—we'll hold down the fort till you get back."
He was bailing me out.
I jumped at the chance, forcing a weak smile. "Detective Liu, let's eat before the food gets cold. Be right back—I just need to hit the restroom."
I grabbed my phone and bolted out of the private booth, slamming the door behind me. My fingers were trembling so bad I fumbled with the screen three times before I could dial Dad's number.
It went straight to voicemail. His phone was turned off.
My heart sank like a stone. The last flicker of hope died right there. Dad never turned his phone off—day or night, it was always on. Why now? Why today, of all days?
He had to be the original owner of that condo. He'd been brought in for questioning this afternoon, which meant he'd shut his phone off to avoid calls. I just prayed they'd let him go.
My mind was a mess, my thoughts racing a mile a minute. Dad was the kindest man I knew. He couldn't even bring himself to kill a chicken for Grandpa's birthday dinner. I refused to believe he could murder someone.
But if he was the first owner of that condo, and Li Xiumei's body had been hidden in the wall all those years… if the cops couldn't find the real killer, Dad would be the one left holding the bag. He wouldn't be able to explain it.
I didn't dare think about what would happen next. I fumbled with my phone again and called Grandpa instead. He picked up on the second ring, but his voice sounded off—tense, like he was holding something back.
"Ethan, what's wrong? Why are you calling so late?"
"Grandpa, where's Dad? Is he home?"
Silence on the other end of the line. A long, heavy silence that felt like an eternity.
"Your dad's home," he finally said, his voice tight. "Just got back a little while ago. Why? What's going on?"
"Where was he before he came home?" I pressed.
More silence. The line crackled with static.
"Working overtime," Grandpa said, the words forced. "He's been swamped lately, so he's been coming home late. What's this all about, Ethan?"
"Nothing," I said, my throat dry. "I'm gonna swing by the house tonight. You guys don't wait up for me."
I hung up before he could ask more questions. I didn't want to say anything over the phone—not when I wasn't sure who else might be listening. But Grandpa's tone told me everything I needed to know. He knew Dad had been at the precinct. He was covering for him.
I took a deep breath, splashed some cold water on my face in the restroom mirror, and tried to compose myself. When I walked back into the booth, Jake gave me a subtle nod, like he was checking in. Detective Liu was picking at a plate of crayfish, his expression unreadable.
I wanted to ask more questions about the case—about Dad, about Li Xiumei, about the Westbrook Manor Massacre—but Detective Liu didn't have much more to tell. He'd been in the police academy fifteen years ago, when the massacre went down. He wasn't on the case, and he wasn't on Li Xiumei's murder investigation either. Her body had only been found yesterday, after all— the detectives assigned to it were still scrambling to piece together the basics.
"Detective Liu," I said, leaning forward, my voice low. "Can you keep us in the loop on both cases? Any updates, anything at all?"
Li Xiumei's ghost wasn't just haunting me and Jake anymore. She'd dragged my dad into this mess, too. I needed to know every single detail, no matter how small.
"Whatever it takes—if you need to grease any palms, just say the word. We'll cover it."
Detective Liu grinned, a sharp, knowing smile. "No problem. What are friends for, right?"
But then his grin faded, and he fixed us with a serious stare. "You two gonna level with me, though? Why are you so hell-bent on digging into these cases? I gotta know. Last thing I need is to get tangled up in something that comes back to bite me in the ass."
Jake and I exchanged a look. We didn't have a choice—we had to tell him the truth. Even if he thought we were crazy.
"Detective Liu," I said, my voice steady now, "you're probably gonna think we've lost our minds. But… we're being haunted. By a ghost. And we're pretty sure it's Li Xiumei."
Detective Liu froze. The crayfish he'd been holding slipped from his chopsticks and clattered onto the table. He stared at us, his eyes wide, and swallowed hard.
"I believe you," he said.
Jake and I both blinked. We stared back at him, dumbfounded. "You… you do?"
Detective Liu nodded, leaning in like he was about to share a secret. "Let me tell you something. I ran into a case like this once, back when I was a rookie. A kid got murdered—stabbed to death—and his body vanished without a trace. No leads, no witnesses, nothing."
He paused, picking up another crayfish and cracking its shell slowly, like he was reliving the memory.
"You wanna know how we found his body?"