Captain Stone smoked cigarette after cigarette, saying nothing.

He was waiting.

Waiting for me to give him an explanation.

"Impossible." I spoke, my voice a bit dry. "My intuition can't be wrong. That chill, and the vision—it was all too real."

"A vision?" Captain Stone caught the key point.

"A woman's face, her eyes wide open, mouth agape, as if trying to scream something. Her face was covered in water, bloated and pale."

I spoke slowly, trying to recall that fleeting hallucination.

Captain Stone's brow knit together into a knot.

"Submerged in water..."

He seemed to have thought of something.

Just then, his phone rang.

It was the background investigation team.

Captain Stone put it on speaker.

"Boss, we've got Fiona’s background. Her resume is impressive—graduated from a top university, married a wealthy overseas businessman, and immigrated five years ago. She returns home once or twice a year to visit her parents."

"Sounds normal enough."

"Yes, it looks normal on the surface. But we checked her family relationships and found a suspicious point."

The voice on the other end paused.

"She had a younger sister named Snow. A year ago, she went missing."

Captain Stone and I exchanged a look.

"Missing?"

"Right, it was reported as a missing person case. Her family claimed at the time that Snow suffered from depression and might have run away on her own. The police investigated for a long time, couldn't find her, and eventually processed it as a missing person file."

"Snow... where was she before she went missing?" Captain Stone asked.

"Right here in the city. She lived with her husband. Oh, by the way, her husband’s name is Sean."

"Among the people Fiona met during this return, was this Sean included?"

"Yes. We checked her entry itinerary, and the domestic contact she declared is this Sean."

The call ended.

The ominous premonition in my heart grew heavier.

Older sister, younger sister, missing person, brother-in-law.

These words linked together already sounded like a soap opera.

"Captain Stone," I said. "Have the interrogation room ask Fiona about her sister, Snow."

"They’re already asking," Stone said. "She’s very guarded, claiming ignorance, just saying her sister got lost due to depression and that she’s heartbroken."

"She’s lying."

"I know."

Just then, Leo from the technical department rushed in again, even more agitated than before.

"Captain Stone! New discovery!"

He held a transparent evidence bag containing the foam padding used to wrap the stones.

"We performed a deep scan and residue analysis on the foam."

Leo panted, slamming an analysis report onto the table.

"We detected trace amounts of... human adipose tissue and hemoglobin."

Captain Stone and I jumped to our feet.

"Confirmed to be human?"

"Confirmed! The DNA sequence was also extracted; although incomplete, it’s enough for a match. We’ve already uploaded it to the missing persons genetic database."

Leo's phone rang.

He answered and listened for a few seconds, his face instantly turning pale.

He looked at us, his lips trembling.

"Captain Stone... the database match result is in."

"Whose is it?"

"Snow. The missing Snow."

Chapter 4

The air seemed to freeze.

Captain Stone's gaze and mine were locked onto Leo's pale face.

Snow.

Snow, who had been missing for a year.

Her DNA had appeared on the foam padding that wrapped the stones.

The nature of the case had changed entirely in that second.

This was no longer a suspicious customs smuggling case.

This was a murder investigation.

Captain Stone reacted faster than I did.

He picked up his radio, his voice chillingly calm.

"Attention all units, the target suspect Fiona is now a Class-A major case suspect."

"Immediately transfer her to the city bureau’s major crimes interrogation room."

"Seal all evidence, including those two stones; classify them as top-level physical evidence."

"Notify the city bureau to send forensic investigators and a coroner; they are taking over from here."

He issued orders one by one, clear and decisive.

That was Captain Stone.

Even if Mount Tai collapsed before him, his expression would not change.

I took a deep breath, suppressing the surge in my heart.

"Let's go," Stone said, looking at me. "Time to meet her."

The new interrogation room was on the second basement level of the airport police center.

It had all-metal walls and no windows, with a single incandescent bulb hanging from the ceiling, casting a cold, blinding light.

Fiona sat in the interrogation chair, having changed out of her elegant beige suit.

She was wearing the grey uniform of the detention center, her hair disheveled.

Without her disguise, she looked much more haggard.

But the resentment in her eyes had not diminished in the slightest.

Captain Stone and I walked in and sat opposite her.

A single table separated us.

"Ms. Fiona." Captain Stone placed the DNA report on the table and pushed it toward her.

"Recognize this?"

Fiona glanced at it, her pupils shrinking.

But she quickly regained her composure.

"I don't understand it."

"I'll explain it to you." Captain Stone leaned forward, interlacing his fingers. "We detected human tissue on the foam padding that wrapped the stones."

"According to the DNA match, it belongs to your sister, Snow."

Fiona's body stiffened visibly.

"You're lying!" she shrieked. "My sister just went missing! You’re slandering me!"

"Is that so?" Captain Stone's tone remained unchanged. "Then explain why she’s been missing for a year, yet her DNA appeared in the luggage you were trying to take out of the country."

"I don't know!" Fiona shook her head vigorously. "I don't know anything! This foam... right, this foam was given to me by my sister before she went missing! She said it was wrapped around something very important and told me to keep it safe! I didn't know it was stones, and I certainly didn't know it had... those things on it!"

She had found a seemingly perfect excuse.

Pushing everything onto a missing, dead person.

Dead men tell no tales.

Captain Stone laughed.

"Keep spinning your story."

"I'm not spinning anything!" Fiona’s emotions were high. "My sister had depression! Her mental state was very unstable before she disappeared! Heaven knows what she did! You should be looking for her, not interrogating me!"

She began to cry.

The tears came easily, acted out as if they were real.

I hadn't spoken, just watching her.

Watching her eyes.

I slowly spoke up.

"Your sister, she must have been very cold when she died."

My voice wasn't loud, but in the enclosed interrogation room, it was exceptionally clear.

Fiona’s sobbing stopped abruptly.

She looked as if she were being choked, glaring at me.

"What did you say?"

"I touched that stone," I continued. "I felt it. The bone-chilling cold that seeped from the marrow. That wasn't the temperature of stone; it was her temperature."

"You... you lunatic!" Fiona’s voice trembled.

"I also saw her face."

I stared into her eyes, enunciating each word.

"Bloated and pale in the water. Her eyes wide open, as if asking why."

"Ah—!"

Fiona suddenly let out a shrill scream.

She lunged up from the chair, wanting to pounce on me.

But she was firmly locked by the handcuffs.

Her psychological defense had collapsed completely at this moment.

"It wasn't me! I didn't kill her!"

She roared in a state of madness.

"It was Sean! It was that beast! He killed Snow! It was him!"

Sean.

Snow’s husband.

Captain Stone and I exchanged a look.

We knew the real breakthrough had arrived.

Chapter 5  

Outside the interrogation room.  

The hallway lights were dim.  

Captain Stone handed me a cigarette and lit one for himself.  

Smoke curled into the air.  

“What’s your take?” he asked.  

“She’s lying,” I said. “Or, at the very least, telling a half-truth.”  

“Sean is definitely suspicious, but she isn’t clean either.”  

“Why do you say that?”  

“When she heard me say ‘your sister died very cold,’ her first reaction wasn’t sorrow; it was terror.”  

I recalled Fiona’s expression at that moment.  

“A normal sister, upon hearing news of her sister’s death—even if they were enemies—should show some emotional volatility. But she didn’t. What she feared was the very fact that ‘how could I possibly know that.’”  

Captain Stone nodded, deeply agreeing.  

“I felt it too. She threw Sean out there too quickly, too eagerly. It’s like a scapegoat that was prepared long ago.”  

“What now?”  

“Split into two teams,” Stone said, stubbing out his cigarette. “I’ll have Officer Wang and the others keep interrogating her, digging deep into her relationship with Sean and the reason she took the stones.”  

“As for us, we’re going to pay this Sean a visit right now.”  

It was dark by the time we left the airport.  

City neon lights streaked rapidly past the car windows.  

Colleagues from the city bureau were already waiting at Sean’s residence.  

It was an upscale residential complex, quiet and serene.  

Snow and Sean had lived here.