My Own Mother Didn't Recognize Me Until I Was Dead

Bradley closed his eyes, ignoring her completely, and started whistling in the courtroom.

"I asked you where you got it!"

Bernice was livid. The words tore out of her like a command.

She forced herself to calm down, then almost immediately sent a text to Carina:

"That twenty thousand I told you to transfer to that disgrace every month—did she take the money?"

Carina replied quickly:

"Of course she took it, Mom! You know how greedy she is, there's no way she wouldn't~ I've been checking her social media, she's been traveling all over the place these past few years, living it up!"

Attached were screenshots of the transfers, twenty thousand dollars at a time.

A moment later, she sent another screenshot. This one was from my social media.

In the photo, I was dressed in something revealing, surrounded by tan, shirtless men in the Maldives, my expression hazy and indulgent.

The date was yesterday.

That's not true, Mom!

The photo was fake! It was AI-generated!

I never received a single dollar. For the first three months after she cut me off, I slept on the streets every night.

I survived by leaning against dumpsters and fighting stray dogs for scraps. That was how I stayed alive!

Bernice shut off her phone in disgust and let out a cold laugh:

"She sent you to pull this sympathy stunt, didn't she!"

Bradley looked at her with something close to pity.

News traveled fast online. Within minutes, a trending topic appeared: #RosemaryDelgado — Disgraced Actress Conspiring with a Serial Killer!

Viewers flooded the livestream to attack me:

"Rosemary Delgado is still as stupid as ever! Teaming up with a murderer to frame our precious Carina!"

"Stupid AND evil. Poor Carina, who knows how much she's suffered all these years!"

Bradley glanced at the live comments and burst out laughing:

"Carina Delgado, kind? Ha! You're the stupid ones! Can't tell good from evil! That woman has every last one of you wrapped around her finger!"

"When I killed Rosemary, she was in her dorm at the village where she'd been volunteer teaching. You want to know what she begged me for? She begged me to kill her quietly. So I wouldn't scare the children."

"I've killed so many people. Every single one of them screamed for help. She was the only one who asked me not to frighten the kids."

"Even I felt something. I was going to make it quick for her. But your saint, your precious Carina Delgado, she paid me to make it hurt. Peeled the skin off her while she was still alive." He clicked his tongue. "How's that for cruel?"

Bernice leaned back into the couch and studied him through narrowed eyes:

"Is this another story the two of you cooked up together? She went through all that trouble to find you just so she could frame Carina?"

Bradley leaned forward, his grin wild and unhinged:

"You don't know? You really don't know that the body you cut apart with your own hands that night was your own daughter? Now that's interesting!"

He laughed again, pitying her:

"Tell you what. If you don't believe me, go to the nearest mountain village and see for yourself. She taught there."

"Inside her memorial grave, there's still one last bone that wasn't fed to the dogs. Along with proof that you dismembered her."

"Mrs. Norris, I can't wait to see your reaction."

After Carina spread lies about me everywhere, I had nowhere left to go. I collapsed near a remote village in the mountains.

The village children were kind. They shared their food with me and gave me a room to sleep in.

I survived by volunteer teaching in the village. Life was hard, but it was better than being hunted at every turn by Carina's schemes.

Spring planting, summer growing. I let the seasons mend me, nurtured myself back from withered to alive.

I never got to see autumn or winter there.

Bradley had spoken with such conviction that the detective squad assembled on-site and began their search.

The moment they entered the village, Bernice grabbed a child at random and asked offhandedly:

"Do you know Rosemary Delgado?"

She didn't believe for a second that I, the "monster" who'd supposedly tormented her younger sister, would have the heart to teach in a place like this.

She didn't expect the child's lip to tremble before the tears came flooding out:

"Mama Rosemary... are you here to get justice for Mama Rosemary?"

"I miss Mama Rosemary so much. She was the best, the very best teacher. Please, officer, please catch the bad people."