Theater: NovelMaster | Language: English | NEW
Synopsis
On the very first day the Vance family brought me back, their fake heiress threw herself down the grand staircase.
She lay sprawled at the bottom, her forehead dripping with blood.
Conveniently, the house’s security cameras had just stopped working.
Tears welled in her eyes as she looked at me, playing the pathetic victim. "Valerie, if you hate me that much, I can just leave."
"Why did you have to push me?"
My biological mother rushed over, holding her and sobbing hysterically.
My biological father and brother glared daggers at me. "Do you have anything to say for yourself?!"
Calmly, I pulled a pair of nitrile gloves from my pocket, snapped them onto my hands, and crouched down in front of Chloe.
"If an adult tumbles down eighteen hardwood steps, the bony prominences—shoulders, elbows, hips, and knees—will show significant blunt-force contusions."
"Yet you only have a single, clean-edged, superficial cut across your forehead."
I dabbed a bit of the blood from her cheek onto my fingertip and rubbed it.
"The hue is far too bright. The coagulation rate doesn't match the timeline of the alleged fall. And it carries the distinct odor of poultry blood."
"This is chicken blood."
The color drained from everyone's faces.
My expression didn't shift an inch.
"I'm top of my class in Forensic Science and Criminalistics at the Police Academy. Any more questions?"
My name is Valerie Vance.
Twenty-two years ago, I was born in the maternity ward of Central Hospital.
Someone stole me from my bassinet and dumped me near the long-distance bus terminal.
The people who found me were a couple driving home from an active police call.
My adoptive father was a homicide detective; my adoptive mother was a forensic pathologist.
While other kids listened to fairy tales before bed, I fell asleep to cold case files my dad had closed.
When I was five, he taught me to always locate the emergency exits first whenever I entered a room.
When I was seven, he taught me never to touch trace evidence at a crime scene.
When I was nine, my mom taught me that wounds preserve the shape of the weapon, blood spatter records the angle of force, and while humans lie, physical evidence never has a personal agenda.
When I was sixteen, I ran into a mugger with a switchblade on my walk home from school.
I blocked the first slash with my backpack, kicked the knife out of his grip, chased him down two blocks, and cornered him right inside the local precinct.
My dad picked me up and gave me the silent treatment the entire night.
The next morning, he signed me up for private mixed martial arts classes.
"I know I can’t stop you from playing hero," he told me bluntly.
"So the least you can do is learn how to come back in one piece."
Years later, the Vance family’s butler tracked me down and handed me an embossed business card:
"Miss Valerie, Mrs. Vance wants you to come home."
"You were switched at birth. Mr. Vance passed away years ago, but Mrs. Vance has been searching for you ever since."
My adoptive dad handed me his old tactical watch from his field days.
The strap was worn raw, but inside, he had secretly installed a real-time GPS tracker and an emergency distress beacon.
"You can go," he said quietly.
"But if they disrespect you, you don't take it lying down."
"Your mother has a weak heart. She can't handle waiting until tomorrow to find out someone gave you hell."
My mom glared at him.
"Whose heart is weak?"
My dad ignored her and straightened my collar with a steady hand.
"You're not going there to beg for their love. You're going to find out what really happened twenty-two years ago."
"The second you feel uncomfortable, you walk out and come straight home."
Three hours later, the town car pulled up in front of the Vance estate.
No one was outside to greet me.
The butler nervously explained that Chloe had suddenly felt faint and chest pain, so the entire family was upstairs keeping her company.
I didn't care.
The first thing I did when I stepped out of the car was map the perimeter.
One front entrance, two side doors.
A blind spot on the west side of the garden wall. The second-floor terrace offered a direct, unobstructed line of sight into the backyard.
The security camera at the landing of the main staircase had its indicator light off. Fresh scratch marks ringed the cable port—it had been violently unplugged just minutes ago.
I said nothing. I quietly clicked the digital voice recorder in my pocket to ON.
As I reached the second floor, a faint scent of blood hit my nose.
It wasn't human. It was thicker, muskier. Avian.
The master bedroom door stood wide open.
Chloe was sitting by the edge of the king-sized bed in an ethereal white dress, looking pale and fragile, her eyes red-rimmed.
My biological mother held both of her hands tightly.
Sitting beside them was my biological older brother, Ethan Vance.
The three of them looked like a flawless, heartwarming family portrait.
Standing in the doorway, I looked like an unwanted stranger who had accidentally photobombed their shot.
Eleanor Vance was the first to notice me. She froze for a few seconds. "You're... Valerie?"
"Yes."
Her eyes dropped to my worn sneakers and practical utility jacket. Her expression hardened with subtle distaste.
No hug. No questions about how I had survived.
The first words out of her mouth were: "Chloe has a delicate condition. Now that you're back, do not upset her."
I looked straight at Chloe.
Her breathing was completely steady. Her lip color was healthy and pink. There was no cyanosis around her fingernails from oxygen deprivation, nor was she reflexively clutching her chest the way people actually experiencing cardiac discomfort do.
Chloe stood up and took a frail step toward me.
"Valerie, are you mad at me?"
"I know... I took the life that belonged to you."
"If you don't want me here, I can pack my bags and move out right now."Eleanor instantly grabbed her arm, pulling her back.
"Don't talk nonsense, sweetie!"
"I've raised you for twenty-two years. You are my daughter. No one is kicking you out."
Ethan's gaze locked onto me.
It was cold, defensive, and dripping with thinly veiled disgust.
"Chloe isn't going anywhere," he warned.
"You'd better not think you can just waltz in here and take things that don't belong to you."
I studied him for three seconds.
"Does your family not believe in basic factual verification before a reunion?"
"What is that supposed to mean?" he snapped.
"From the second I walked through that door, I haven't mentioned a single word about bedrooms, assets, or status."
"She fabricated a hypothetical scenario where I throw her out, and you immediately issued a hostile threat based on her unproven assumption."
"From an investigative standpoint, you just executed a classic guilty-until-proven-innocent projection with zero factual foundation."
All three of them stared at me, dumbfounded.
After an awkward silence, Chloe spoke up in a trembling, gentle voice. "How about... I show Valerie around the house?"
Eleanor sighed with relief. "See? Chloe is always the sensible one."
Ethan shot me a stern look. "You behave yourself."
Chloe stood up, flashing me a sweet, practiced smile. "Come on, Valerie."
I kept a measured distance behind her, tilting my body slightly to maintain a clear line of sight.
Chloe walked ahead, giving a breezy introduction to the Vance estate.
The moment she reached the top of the grand staircase, she stopped. She darted a quick look left and right.
Then, with dramatic flair, she threw herself backward.
"Valerie! Don't push me!" she screamed.
I stood rooted in place, watching with a clinical eye as her body rolled down the flight of stairs.
She came to a halt on the third step from the bottom, her forehead covered in crimson.
Eleanor bolted down the stairs, screaming in horror as she scooped Chloe into her arms.
"Valerie! What have you done?!"
Chloe wept softly, playing the broken angel. "Valerie... if you resent me, I’ll leave... why did you have to push me?"
Ethan charged up the landing, his palm swinging toward my face.
I sidestepped smoothly, locked his wrist with my left hand, levered his elbow just shy of its joint limit, and slammed his chest flat against the wooden banister.
"Let go of me!" he roared.
"You initiated an unprovoked physical assault. What I am performing right now is a lawful restraining maneuver," I replied evenly.
His face went purple with pain.
"Chloe is bleeding on the floor, and you're still making excuses?!"
"Whether she fell and whether I pushed her are two completely separate evidentiary questions."
Eleanor shrieked from below, "Let go of your brother right now!"
I released Ethan, pulled on my gloves, and walked down the stairs to inspect Chloe's condition.
"A body tumbling down eighteen wooden steps undergoes multiple high-impact rotations."
"Common trauma sites cluster around the shoulders, elbows, pelvis, knees, and shins."
"She has zero fresh contusions on any of those impact zones. Even her white dress doesn't have a single tear or friction burn."
"She didn't fall from the top. She slid down the last three steps onto a thick wool runner."
Chloe opened her tear-filled eyes and weakly gripped Eleanor's hand.
"Mom, please don't blame Valerie... she's just angry with me..."
"It's all my fault..."
I crouched right down in front of her.
"Don't rush to confess on my behalf."
I pulled a sterile swab from my kit and swiped a smear from her forehead.
"The color saturation is abnormally high. The viscosity doesn't match a laceration of this size."
"Human blood coagulates rapidly outside the body. This blood has supposedly been pooling on your skin for several minutes, yet the margins show zero baseline clotting."
"Preliminary finding: the cut is microscopic. The bulk of this fluid was applied topically."
"It's chicken blood."
"If I check the kitchen trash right now, will I find a freshly butchered bird?"The last drop of color vanished from Chloe's face.
I pulled out my digital recorder and held it up.
"Contradictory witness statements, fabricated physical evidence, staged injuries, and deliberate sabotage of the surveillance system."
"This is no longer a petty domestic dispute."
"This is criminal framing and filing a false police report."
I pulled out my phone and dialed 911.
Eleanor lunged forward and grabbed my wrist.
"Valerie, stop! Don't call the police! Chloe was just being impulsive!"
I looked down at her gripping fingers.
She flinched and let go.
"She was twenty-two years old when she staged this frame job, not two," I said coldly.
"B-but you didn't actually get hurt!" Eleanor pleaded.
Ethan stepped in, his face dark and sullen. "Everything is cleared up now."
"You're not going to jail, and your reputation is intact. Don't blow this up into a scandal we can't control."
I didn't waste another breath on them.
Disgust washed over me. I turned toward the front door, ready to walk out of the Vance family for good.
The butler hurried over and stopped me.
"Miss Valerie, your grandfather just underwent major surgery."
"The old master was the one who personally uncovered the anomalies in the hospital records from twenty-two years ago. He is the only reason the family looked for you."
"He begs to see you."
"He kept saying the Vance family owes you an explanation."
I paused, and eventually agreed to stay.
However, I flatly refused the guest room Eleanor had prepared. Instead, I picked an unused study on the top floor.
I personally replaced the deadbolt, set up a motion-activated wide-angle camera, and placed tamper-evident forensic tape along the doorframe and drawer seams.
At 11:40 PM that exact night, the silent alarm on my phone buzzed.
Through the live feed, I saw someone in a long white nightgown, wearing latex gloves, working a thin metal shim into my deadbolt.
She tried for two minutes and seventeen seconds.
When the lock failed to turn, she knelt down and probed the gap under the door.
I didn't open the door.
I simply recorded the footage, backed it up to two cloud servers, and logged the precise timestamps.
At breakfast the next morning, Chloe sat beside Eleanor, her eyes puffy from crying.
The moment I walked into the dining room, she shot up from her chair.
"Valerie, I am so sorry about yesterday."
"I swear I didn't mean to hurt you. I was just terrified of losing my family."
Eleanor couldn't help chiming in. "Valerie, Chloe stayed up crying all night."
"She's sincerely apologizing. Just give her another chance."
I unlocked my phone, placed it in the center of the marble table, and pressed play.
The crystal-clear footage of Chloe picking my lock filled the screen.
"At 11:40 PM last night, she wasn't reflecting on her actions," I stated calmly.
"She was attempting an unlawful breaking and entering into my room."
Eleanor turned ghost-white.
Chloe panicked, flailing her hands. "I—I just wanted to talk to you in private!"
"Do standard family conversations require professional lock-picking shims?"
"I knocked! You didn't answer!"
"So your instinct was to break in? Your family's communication style is remarkably invasive."
Ethan cut in defensively, his voice deep and tense. "Maybe she was worried you were going to hurt yourself in there!"
I turned my gaze slowly onto him.
"When she approached my door, she first used her sleeve to obscure the overhead hall sensor, and she wore gloves."
"That is textbook counter-surveillance behavior."
"Anyone genuinely concerned about another person's safety calls 911 or alerts the household staff immediately upon failure to gain entry."
"She did neither."
"Her sole objective was to enter without leaving trace evidence."
Ethan’s jaw clenched tight. "Do you really have to paint her as some kind of monster?!""I haven't offered an opinion on her character. I merely described her physical behavior."
"Ethan, the cardinal sin of any professional investigation is deciding whether someone is an angel or a demon beforehand, and then selectively bending the evidence to fit your bias."
"You have made that exact rookie mistake from the moment I arrived."
He slammed his silver fork onto the table with a loud clatter.
"Enough!"
"This is a home, not an interrogation room!"
I took a measured sip of my milk.
"Normal homes don't witness staged falls and midnight lock-picking within a forty-eight-hour window."
Chloe hung her head, her manicured fingers clawing into the fabric of her designer skirt.
In that split second, I saw no remorse in her downcast eyes—only pure, venomous hatred at being publicly dismantled over and over again.
Two days later, the Vance family hosted an elite welcome gala.
Grandfather Arthur Vance was still recuperating in the hospital, but Eleanor had insisted on holding the party anyway.
She claimed that since her biological daughter had returned, my status needed to be introduced to high society.
I had zero interest in attending.
However, Grandfather Arthur had sent a courier to deliver a file containing the hospital records from twenty-two years ago.
One specific page—the maternity ward shift-log—had several staff names heavily redacted with black industrial ink.
The old man sent a private message asking me to use the gala to observe every Vance relative and associate.
*“The baby swap back then was too seamless to be an accident,”* his note read. *“Someone inside this house helped pull the strings.”*
I agreed.
Investigating is my specialty, and my passion.
Especially when the crime in question was committed against me.
When the gala was in full swing, Eleanor stepped onto the stage to introduce me to the room full of billionaires and socialites.
Before she could finish her speech, the high-end sound system let out a sharp buzz, and a recording began playing through the ballroom speakers.
It was unmistakably my voice.
*"I only came back to take everything the Vance family owns."*
*"Chloe better know her place."*
*"If she doesn't, I have plenty of ways to make her disappear permanently."*
The room erupted into shocked whispers.
Hundreds of mocking, judgmental eyes locked onto me like searchlights.
"Valerie!"
Chloe stood in the middle of the crowd, looking like a shattered porcelain doll, trembling as if on the verge of fainting.
"Why do you hate me so much?"
"If you want the Vance family all to yourself, just tell me... I’ll walk away right now..."
Pity rippled through the guests; looks of absolute disgust were hurled at me.
Ethan sprinted over to the AV control booth and yanked the master audio cable.
He stormed back, glaring at me with raw, bitter disappointment.
"The audio is right there! Cold, hard evidence!"
"Are you going to claim someone framed you this time too?!"
I didn't even look at him. I glanced at Chloe, quietly marveling at her stubborn stupidity.
She genuinely believed these amateur parlor tricks could take me down.
"Speak!" Ethan barked, his voice dripping with venom.
I looked at him coolly. "The recording [PAID CHAPTER BREAK] definitely used my voice."
Ethan let out a triumphant sneer.
"You finally admit it!"
Chapters (4)
Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Watch & Promotions
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