Detective Liu's words hit me and Jake like a ton of bricks, sending a cold, sickening jolt straight to our bones.
We knew now—Li Xiumei was the mummified woman we'd pulled from that wall. But never in our worst nightmares could we have guessed her past. She wasn't some poor, innocent victim who'd met a brutal end. She was a murderer. A suspect in a mass homicide.
A woman—a killer who'd wiped out an entire family?
"That case made headlines fifteen years ago," Detective Liu said, swirling his whiskey in his glass, his eyes darkening as he stared at us. "The Westbrook Manor Massacre. Ever heard of it?"
Jake and I exchanged a stunned look, both shaking our heads. We'd been eleven back then—kids too busy skateboarding and playing arcade games to care about the news. Besides, social media hadn't blown up yet. Stories like that didn't go viral overnight; they faded into the back pages of newspapers, forgotten by all but the cops and the victims' families.
"Oddly enough, it all started with a stupid argument between tenants and a landlord," Detective Liu went on, his voice low, like he was sharing a ghost story instead of a real-life nightmare. "The tenants were a young couple—transplants from upstate, fresh off the bus, broke as hell. They didn't pay a single cent of rent from the day they moved into that tiny cottage on Westbrook's outskirts, claiming they were waiting on a big work payout, that the money was 'any day now.'"
He took a sip of his drink, the ice clinking against the glass. "Hardly anyone would've cut them slack. But that landlord? Arthur Hale—he was a soft touch. Retired teacher, widower, had a heart bigger than his whole damn house. Felt sorry for the pair of them, let them stay rent-free, even slipped them groceries sometimes when they said they couldn't afford to eat."
"A month passed, and Hale went to collect what he was owed. The couple said they'd sent all their cash home to cover a sibling's surgery, begged for another month's grace. Foolishly, Hale agreed."
"This went on for six months. Six months of empty promises, of lies and excuses. Even the kindest soul would've snapped eventually—and snap he did. He finally lost his temper, yelled at the couple, told them to pack their bags and pay up by sundown or he'd call the cops and have them evicted."
"That's when the couple showed their true colors. They weren't just deadbeats—they were monsters. They'd planned something unspeakable that very night."
Detective Liu paused, his face grim, like he was forcing himself to relive the horror of the story.
"The next day, Hale had a doctor's appointment, so he sent his teenage daughter to collect the rent instead. No one heard from her again. When she didn't come home by dinner, Hale sent his son to check on her. He vanished, too."
Jake's jaw tightened. I felt my stomach churn, a sour taste rising in my throat.
"By then, Hale should've known something was horribly wrong. But he was desperate—desperate to find his kids. So he drove out to that cottage himself. One by one, like lambs to the slaughter, the whole family walked right into a trap."
"Within hours, three of them were tied up in the basement. But the couple wasn't done. They drove back to Hale's house, tricked his five-year-old granddaughter into coming with them—said they had a puppy for her, a 'surprise' for her mom and uncle."
Detective Liu's voice dropped to a whisper, so quiet we had to lean in to hear him over the diner's distant clatter.
"They robbed Hale blind—took every penny from his safe, every piece of jewelry, his late wife's wedding ring, even the kid's piggy bank. Then they did the unthinkable. They killed Hale, his daughter, his son. All three of them, strangled and left to rot in that basement."
"The police found the bodies three days later, after a neighbor reported the cottage reeking of something foul. But the little girl? She was gone. Vanished without a trace. To this day, no one knows what happened to her. Some say she's dead, buried in the woods behind the cottage. Others say the couple kidnapped her, crossed the border into Canada, changed her name, raised her as their own. She's still on the missing persons list—a ghost of a case, lingering after all these years."
"You can look it up online, if you want. The case files were declassified a few years back. A reminder of how cruel people can be when they've got nothing left to lose."
Jake and I sat there, stunned, our fried rice forgotten, our whiskey untouched. The horror of the story hung heavy in the air, thick and suffocating. Hale had been too kind—too trusting—and it had cost him everything. Kindness, it seemed, was a fatal flaw in a world full of monsters.
"So that mummy—Li Xiumei—she was one of the two killers?" Jake finally managed to stammer, his voice cracking.
Detective Liu nodded. "Her real name was Li Yujiao back then. After the massacre, she and her boyfriend vanished off the face of the earth. Changed their names, dyed their hair, laid low in cheap motels across the country. The feds chased them for fifteen years. Never got close. Turns out, they didn't need to. She was already dead. Buried in that wall at Maplewood Estates, rotting away while the whole country searched for her."
A chill ran down my spine, cold and sharp. I'd pitied her once—pitied the woman who'd been stuffed into a wall, left to rot, her spirit trapped in that condo. But now? Pity turned to fear. She was a monster in life. What was she now, in death?
I thought of the knocking, of the red stiletto, of the old photo on my doormat. She wasn't haunting us because she was innocent. She was haunting us because she was unfinished.
I leaned forward, my hands shaking, my voice urgent. "Detective—whose condo was that? The one at Maplewood? Did the original owner know about her? Could he have been the one who killed her?"
Detective Liu sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose. "We're still digging into that. We've questioned all three owners. The last one was Mr. Hu—you know him. He's got an airtight alibi; he bought the place three years ago, never even met Li Xiumei. The second owner? A guy from Chicago who flipped it for a quick profit. Clean record, no connection to the Westbrook case. Zero motive."
His eyes narrowed, his tone serious. "The first owner, though? He's our prime suspect. We brought him in for questioning a few hours ago. He lived in that condo for ten years—right after the massacre. But we don't have any solid evidence linking him to the murder—not yet, anyway."
Who'd killed Li Xiumei shouldn't have mattered to me and Jake. We were just two schmucks who'd sold a cursed condo. But her ghost was haunting us—knocking on our doors, leaving us gifts of red stilettos and old photos. We needed answers. Every single detail.
"Who is he?" I asked, my heart hammering in my chest. "The first owner. What's his name?"
Detective Liu frowned, thinking for a second, flipping through a crumpled notebook in his pocket. "Funny thing—he shares your dad's last name. Let me think… Guowen Cole. Yeah, that's it. Guowen Cole."
The world stopped.
The blood drained from my face so fast I thought I'd pass out. My hands went numb. The glass in my hand slipped from my fingers, clattering against the table, whiskey splashing all over the checkered tablecloth.
Jake froze, too. His eyes went wide, his face turning ashen. He stared at me, his mouth hanging open, like he couldn't believe what he'd just heard.
Guowen Cole.
I knew that name.
We both knew that name.
It was the name of my father.