The Unswallowed Truth

The autopsy report crinkled beneath my whiteknuckled grip. The blackandwhite ink declared an impossible reality: my little sister, Cleo, died of severe dehydration.

It made no sense. Three days after she vanished into the darkness of an abandoned mine shaft, search and rescue finally pulled her out.

Sitting right beside her body was her canteen. Full to the brim. Not a single drop missing. The gruesome reality of her death shattered my family.

The grief hit like a freight train, leaving one of my parents in a coffin and the other locked away in a psych ward. Our perfect life, ground into dust.

Ten years later, I walked across a stage to accept a toptier PhD in criminal psychology. I didn't do it for the title.

I did it for one reason only: to drag the bastard who destroyed my family straight down to hell with my own bare hands.

Now, standing at the crumbling edge of that very same mine shaft, the cold wind bit into my skin. I ran the crime scene through my head, piece by piece, over and over.

Until I finally hit the jagged edge of a truth so horrifying, it ripped my entire reality to shreds. Chapter 1 Saturday, April 12, 2016. Cleo's twelfth birthday.

Where we came from, hitting twelve was a massive deal. It meant you'd survived childhood, officially planting your feet in the real world and kicking off your teenage years.

But the exact day my sister was supposed to become a teenager was the day everything went wrong.

I was going to college right there in the city, so I drove back specifically for her party.

It just so happened that her sixthgrade class was taking a field trip to Lion Mountain that same day.

Mom tried to talk her out of it, but Cleo had been dying to hike Lion Mountain for months. So, we pushed the actual birthday dinner to the evening.

Mom packed her a windbreaker, a sun hat, water, and snacks, nagging her to be home early. "Don't you guys dare touch the cake while I'm gone." Cleo pointed a warning finger at me and Mom. "Save the candles for me!" "Fallon," she added, stealing a cautious glance at me. "I heard there's this really pretty type of rock daisy on Lion Mountain.

How about I bring some back to make you a bookmark?" She was laying it on thick, trying to get back in my good graces.

The night before, she'd been messing around on my laptop and accidentally wiped out my entire Biochemistry term paper. Biochemistry was the bane of my existence.

I was currently forcing myself through a massive rewrite, staring blindly at the screen. Annoyed, I shot back without looking up, "You said it.

Don't bother coming home if you don't find them!" I didn't even care about the daisy bookmark. I was just pissed off and wanted to make her sweat a little.

None of us knew then that the rock daisies of Lion Mountain were famous for their beauty, but notorious for where they grew.

You could look, but you couldn't touch. "She fell off a cliff trying to pick those flowers for me.

I didn't find out until after she died that they only bloom on the sheerest, most dangerous dropoffs." Ten years later, I sat across from Maxwell, my PhD advisor in criminal psychology.

I dug my fingernails so hard into my palms the skin tore.

A violent tremor racked my chest as the air hitched in my throat, acid burning the back of my mouth. "For years," I forced the words out, my breathing ragged. "I've replayed that day.

If I hadn't snapped at her… if I hadn't told her not to come back without them… would she still be alive?" Maxwell pulled a tissue from the box and slid it across the desk. "When did they find Cleo?" "Three days later." I took the tissue, pressing it hard against my stinging eyes. "I remember it perfectly.

It was early morning. The sunlight hit her sunken, driedout face. It looked so warm." "Mom passed out on the spot. Dad went into cardiac arrest." "I was the only one left.

Just standing there next to her." The coffee maker in the corner gave a soft gurgle, the sound cutting sharply through the dead silence of the office. "Honestly, finding a body on a mountain that size is rare.

It's a tragic miracle they found her at all." Maxwell stood and poured a cup.

He nudged the warm porcelain mug across the desk toward me. "Hundreds of people combed that mountain." I stared at the dark liquid. "The police, my parents, relatives, friends." "Dad's students—current and alumni—came running the second they heard.

Even the locals from the nearby villages formed their own search parties." "The cops pulled security footage in a massive radius around the spot she went missing.

They canvassed and cleared every single town within a tenmile radius." Chapter 2 The second they found the body, Mom lunged at me.

Her fingernails dug into my shirt, tearing the fabric. "You knew it was her birthday! You cursed her!

How could you be so evil?!" My dad—a man who prided himself on his respectable image—snapped.

Right in front of the entire police force and the search crew, he shoved me hard to the ground.

I hit the dirt, rocks scraping my palms. "How did I raise such a coldblooded, selfish monster?" he roared, the sound tearing from his chest like a dying animal. "Why wasn't it you?!" Right then and there, he declared I was dead to him.

I felt the disgust radiating from the crowd pressing in around us. I didn't flinch. I didn't defend myself. I just sat in the dirt, numb, letting the verbal blows rain down.

Because I believed them. I pushed my own flesh and blood to her death. I deserved every ounce of this hell.

I swallowed hard, forcing the burning sensation out of my throat, bringing myself back to the present. "At first, everyone wrote it off as a tragic accident.

Then the autopsy report came back. The cause of death defied logic." "She didn't freeze. She wasn't attacked by wildlife.

The fall didn't kill her." Maxwell's spoon stopped clinking against his mug. "Then what did?" "Dehydration." He tapped the side of his cup. "Dying of thirst in the wilderness isn't exactly a medical anomaly." "It is when her canteen is completely full." I locked eyes with him. "Someone could have taken the water before she fell." Maxwell leaned forward. "Then, panicked about the liability, snuck back and planted it." I shook my head. "The three people who found her were my dad, one of his grad students, and a searchandrescue tech." "Crime scene investigators swept the area.

Aside from their prints, the ground was undisturbed. No fourth set of footprints." "What about classmates? Teachers? Did she have bad blood with anyone at school?" "Straight A's.

Easygoing.

The police canvassed the entire school." "No beefs, no bullies, no victims." I sifted through the decadeold memories. "And I'm guessing the water in the canteen was tested and came back clean?" I nodded.

Maxwell's expression darkened. "Did they open her up?" "Yes. I was a sophomore taking forensic anatomy at the time. I petitioned to observe the entire autopsy.

The pathology was textbook severe dehydration." Maxwell let out a heavy breath, his hand resting briefly on my shoulder. "That's a hell of a thing to carry." No one knows what it's like to watch a scalpel slice through your own sister.

Every incision mirrored on my own skin. The phantom pain was so blinding it shortcircuited my nervous system.

I couldn't even force out a single tear. "Which is why you transferred out of forensics into clinical medicine." Maxwell flipped open my file, a flash of pity in his eyes. "Yes.

I developed a severe mental block.

The second I stepped into a morgue, my throat closed up." "I physically couldn't hold a scalpel anymore." I kept my voice flat, stating facts. "So I pivoted.

I spent years obsessing over human stress responses and dehydration mechanisms." "And then, I jumped tracks again and applied for your doctoral program." "Wait." Maxwell stared at me, disbelief washing over his face. "You clawed your way into my criminal psychology PhD program just so you could use me to coldcase your sister's death?" In academia, getting accepted by Dr.

Maxwell was known as an absolute bloodbath. Clearly, it was the first time anyone had ever handed him a motive like that. Chapter 3 "Yes.

Getting into your program was the only way to get in the same room as you.

To earn the right to speak to you." "You're the top criminal investigator in the country, the ultimate authority on criminal psychology.

You've cracked countless cold cases." "I need you to teach me how to find the truth.

I have to know if my sister's death was a tragic accident… or murder." "I need to know why she died of thirst when she had a full bottle of water sitting right next to her." "If it was some sick twist of fate, then I'll let her rest.

But if someone did this to her, I will spend every breathing second I have left making sure they pay for it." I bit the inside of my cheek until I tasted copper, but those last few words still ripped out of my throat like a scream.

After Cleo died, the grief ate Mom alive. Dad lost his mind and ended up in a psych ward. Our home was wiped off the map.

For ten years, I woke up gasping for air, grabbing at phantom limbs in my sleep. I just wanted to grab my little sister's shoulders and shake her. Why didn't you drink the water?

I wanted to tell her I didn't care about the stupid Biochemistry paper. I didn't care about the damn daisies. I just wanted her to walk through the front door.

If she came back, we'd be a family again. But she was never walking through that door.

Maxwell let the silence stretch for a long beat. "Walk me through the autopsy pathology." "Extreme desiccation.

The skin was completely dried out and wrinkled, taking on a leathery texture. Her eyes were partially open, the globes sunken from fluid loss.

The livor mortis was unusually dark and oddly distributed due to extreme hemoconcentration." "The blood inside her heart and major vessels had turned into thick, dark red sludge.

Minimal fluid left in any of the body cavities." I fired off the clinical facts without missing a beat. The report was branded into the back of my eyelids.

The image of her on that stainless steel table flashed behind my eyes, sharp as a razor. Maxwell's spoon froze in his mug. "It's April on Lion Mountain.

The temperature at the bottom of an abandoned mine shaft drops below fifty degrees at night.

A twelveyearold girl trapped down there for three days should have frozen to death." I dragged in a ragged breath. "Which is exactly what makes the autopsy so deeply screwed up." "When a human body goes through severe hypothermia, the gastric mucosa goes into shock.

It triggers massive darkbrown hemorrhaging spots—Wischnewski spots. But Cleo's autopsy showed a perfectly intact stomach lining.

Zero signs of cold exposure." Maxwell’s gaze sharpened into a razor. "No hypothermia… she exhibited hyperthermic symptoms instead?" I nodded, the tremor in my chest traveling all the way up my throat. "Right.

The ME ruled her official cause of death as multiorgan failure induced by severe dehydration.

She died of thirst." "But the terrifying part is that her organs showed massive signs of 'dehydration fever.' When a body is drained of water, it stops sweating.

The internal cooling system shuts down." "She was basically locked inside an invisible oven, slowroasted alive by her own core temperature." "As for why she didn't freeze…" I reached down and ripped open my bag. "I went back to that site.

I spent an entire night down in that hole." I pulled out a yellowed geological survey map and slammed it flat onto the desk. "I pulled the geological records for Lion Mountain.

That shaft is only a few dozen yards deep, but the bottom sits directly on top of an active geothermal fault." "That fault keeps the bottom at a constant seventyseven degrees.

There's zero wind down there. It's essentially a giant, natural incubator." Maxwell’s eyes locked onto his black coffee.

He tapped a single knuckle against the mahogany wood, the gears in his head already grinding. Chapter 4 The only sound left in the office was the steady ticking of the wall clock.

After a long beat, Maxwell broke the silence. "What about tox and the exclusionary screens?" "Blood and vitreous humor panels showed blood sodium and oxygen levels off the charts.

The fluid loss was so severe she would have gone blind at least twentyfour hours before she died." I fired the words out in a single, suffocating breath. "Zero biological or mineral toxins.

The only marks on her skin were superficial scrapes. The ME ruled out blunt force or external trauma." "Any signs of sexual assault?" I shook my head. "None.

But… there's one detail that makes absolutely no sense." Maxwell tipped his chin, signaling me to keep going. "Based on the autopsy and scene markers, Cleo took her last breath sometime between the afternoon and night of the third day.

The search team found her the very next morning at dawn. The timing is too perfect. It's like…" "Like someone was standing by, watching it happen.

Waiting until they were sure she was dead before letting you find her." Maxwell didn't even blink. "Exactly.

It was way too 'convenient'." I gave a slow, rigid nod. "For three days, she was roasted alive by dehydration fever.

The absolute limit for an adult going without water is three days.

Cleo was twelve." "Whoever did this calculated the exact window to ensure she wouldn't walk out of that hole." "How did the police officially close it out?" "Because they couldn't explain the cause of death, they rubberstamped it as a tragic accident.

Detective Carter, the lead investigator on the case, refused to sign off on it." "He said there were way too many red flags to just write it off as an accident.

Later on, a rumor started circulating that she did it to herself. That she starved and dehydrated herself to death on purpose." "But that's impossible.

She had food in her mouth…" "Wait." Maxwell cut me off. "You're telling me she had food in her mouth when they found her?" "Yes." I swallowed hard against the burning behind my eyes. "Her mouth was stuffed.

With the snacks Mom packed for her that morning." The muscles in Maxwell's jaw tightened. "What about her stomach?" I shook my head. "Empty." Maxwell's grip on his porcelain mug tightened so hard his knuckles turned white. "Did the walls of the shaft show signs of climbing?

Was there dirt ground into her clothes and shoes?" "Yes. All ten fingertips were scraped raw to the bone.

The nails on her left middle finger and right index finger were completely torn off…" Heat flooded my eyes.

I dug my teeth into my lip to ground myself against the blunt force trauma hitting my chest. "…And her hand… she was still clutching a few driedup rock daisies… The ones she promised me." Maxwell stared right through me.

When he spoke, each word dropped like an anvil. "No hypothermia. Abnormal dehydration fever.

A full canteen of water, and a mouth stuffed with unswallowed food." "Fallon, your sister was murdered." My heart violently seized.

The coffee mug slipped from my fingers, slamming against the saucer. "Why… why do you say that?" I already knew the answer deep down, but I physically couldn't stop the violent tremor racking my voice.

Who targets a twelveyearold girl? What kind of sick, twisted hatred drives someone to torture a child to death like that? "Dirt packed under the nails. Climbing markers.

Torn fingernails.

Every single one of those is a primal, desperate attempt to survive." Maxwell leaned in, his voice dead serious. "And someone fighting that hard to live doesn't commit suicide." He paused, letting the silence suffocate the room before dropping the final blow. "Have you ever considered that she didn't refuse to drink the water… but that she physically couldn't?" Chapter 5