Chapter 191: “Disappearance”: [25W Nutrient Solution Bonus Chapter]

Chapter 191: "Disappeared": [Bonus for 25W Nutrient Solution]

Everly knew that the Bianca Doreen was talking about was most likely some unknown creature disguised as Bianca, not the real Bianca herself.

Even so, her investigation had only just begun, and the fake Bianca, riddled with inconsistencies, suddenly going offline was an unexpected development that still left Everly feeling at a loss.

She even started to entertain a conspiracy theory—could the fake Bianca have noticed that she and Natalie were watching her and deliberately faked her death to slip away?

No matter what, personal safety always came first. So, with the situation unclear, Everly didn't rashly head to the drama club where Bianca had died to investigate. Instead, she stuffed a wad of cash into Doreen's hand and sent Doreen to "check things out" for her.

"Um... that, Bianca's death—you didn't have anything to do with it, did you?" Doreen clutched the money, which was more than she'd expected, hesitated for a long moment, and then a look of grim resolve mixed with suspicion and fear crept across her face.

"..."

She just asked that outright? That was way too blunt. If Everly really were the killer, wouldn't Doreen be walking right into the lion's den? No wonder American horror movies loved using college students as protagonists—so naive and innocent, they were perfect cannon fodder for horror movies...

Doreen still needed to serve as Everly's "eyes" and gather information for her, so Everly immediately denied Doreen's suspicion: "No, of course I didn't kill her. It's just that my boyfriend cheated on me—no big deal. If this guy doesn't work out, I'll just find another. Besides, I've been right here the whole time—I haven't even had a chance to do anything."

"That's true..." Hearing this, the suspicion on Doreen's face melted away, replaced by embarrassment. "Sorry, it's just that Bianca's death came so suddenly that I couldn't help but let my imagination run wild."

"It's fine, I understand."

"My friend at the scene told me the police need me to come in and answer some questions..."

Everly read between the lines and nodded: "After all, she was your roommate—the police definitely need to ask you some questions. Go ahead. We'll catch up later."

"Yeah, thank you."

Doreen thanked her, turned, and got out of the car, then hurried over to the school drama club's activity room.

Just then, her phone buzzed in her pocket. Everly pulled it out and found she had a direct message on Twitter from someone on her "close friends" list—@Cursed Witch.

Everly's heart lurched violently at the notification, thinking Natalie was about to tell her the deal was off since Bianca was dead.

But when she opened it, Natalie was talking about something completely different:

[Cursed Witch: The client showed up—but only as a corpse. The soul's gone... Mission changed. Investigate for me. Find out what really happened.]

Everly: "!!!"

She typed back quickly: [Is there a deadline?]

[Cursed Witch: Of course. The sooner, the better. I don't want any new clients getting into accidents (smiley face) (smiley face)]

Everly sighed regretfully.

Looks like West wouldn't be getting a commission from her after all.

...

University club activity rooms were generally assigned on a rotating basis—where they met depended on which classrooms were free. However, as one of the university's oldest, most established clubs, the drama club got some special treatment.

The school had set aside a dedicated room for them in the student activity center for gatherings, rehearsals, and equipment storage. It was pretty spacious and sat right next to the permanent spaces reserved for fraternities and sororities.

By the time Doreen arrived, the entrance to the drama club's activity room was already packed with onlookers, three rows deep.

She pushed through the crowd and finally found the friend who'd texted her.

As soon as her friend spotted Doreen, she pulled her aside. While the police were still busy working the scene and hadn't called Doreen over yet, she lowered her voice and started rapidly dishing the gossip to Doreen.

Doreen's friend was in the drama club too. From her friend's account, Doreen slowly pieced together what had happened.

Bianca didn't have any classes that afternoon. After lunch, she got to the activity room early, sat down in a corner, and started sewing costumes for the next performance.

In the middle of that, Sara, Kevin, and two others came into the activity room.

This little clique of theirs had a history of bullying Bianca. Normally, when she saw them, Bianca would keep her head down and try to make herself invisible. But for some reason, this time she walked straight over and got into an argument with them.

"I didn't hear exactly what they said, but Kevin and Sara both looked pretty angry. Mid-argument, Bianca suddenly shoved Sara to the ground, then flipped them off and ran out the door. Kevin and the others were livid—they helped Sara up and went after her."

Where they went after that and what happened, Doreen's friend had no idea, because she was busy memorizing her lines and hadn't followed them.

Anyway, about ten minutes later, she saw Bianca come back to the activity room, all her earlier swagger gone, looking totally deflated. Behind her came Sara and the others, strutting around all smug.

"Bianca must have gotten beaten pretty badly. After coming back to the activity room, she seemed totally off. She sat in the corner without moving, head hanging low, not talking or working. The costume in her hands was for Robert to wear on stage next week. Seeing Bianca not doing anything, Robert walked over and gave her shoulder a push, trying to get her to stop slacking off. But to everyone's shock, with just that light push, Bianca's body tilted and she fell straight over."

Recalling that scene, Doreen's friend couldn't help but shudder.

To leave more space for rehearsals, the drama club's activity room deliberately had no tables or chairs. When doing odd jobs, people would just sit on the floor.

Bianca had been sitting on the ground with her back against the wall.

The floor was perfectly flat and covered with a thin layer of soft padding. Given the height from Bianca's head to the floor, even if she fell without any protection, she'd at most get a bump on her head.

Yet, in full view of everyone, Bianca's head hit the ground and—like a rotten watermelon—split open with a wet crack, splattering a large amount of dark red blood outward.

She lay there motionless on the floor, her shriveled eyes covered in a cloudy film, wide open, filled with unwillingness, staring straight at everyone before her. In an instant, she went from a living human being to a stiff, cold corpse...

"Do you smell that in the air? Like dead fish left out for days in summer—rancid and foul. That smell is coming from Bianca's blood... ugh, seriously, the visual combined with that stench is absolutely disgusting!"

Just as her friend had said, Doreen took a hard sniff and indeed caught a faint, rotting, fishy odor. That smell triggered a recent memory—yesterday, coming out of the bathroom and getting dressed, she seemed to have smelled something similar on Bianca...

"Doreen, is Doreen here? The police have some questions for you."

A call came from inside the activity room, interrupting Doreen's thoughts.

"I'm here."

She raised a hand in the crowd. The surrounding students, seeing her, instinctively parted to make a path, letting Doreen walk to the front of the crowd.

Stepping past the caution tape, Doreen saw police bustling about investigating the scene. In one corner of the room, a black cloth was draped over something, with several people who appeared to be forensic examiners gathered behind it. In a spot the cloth didn't cover, she could faintly make out a thin leg sticking out.

From the pants and shoes on that leg, she could tell its owner was her roommate, Bianca.

Only then did it hit Doreen, a beat late, that she was in the same room as a corpse. Even if that corpse belonged to her roommate, the overwhelming fear and discomfort still gripped her heart like a giant hand, making her distracted and unable to focus throughout the police questioning.

"...Thank you for your cooperation. Please sign this statement."

With the questions done, the police signaled for Doreen to leave.

The friend who had called Doreen over, as a witness to the death scene, still needed to stay and wait for police questioning. Doreen walked alone down the bustling road, taking a long time to shake off her daze.

"Hey, Doreen, over here!"

As she passed an intersection, a familiar big Jeep pulled up beside her. At the driver's seat, a pretty blonde girl rolled down the window and waved at Doreen.

Seeing Everly, Doreen remembered that before leaving, she'd promised to tell Everly what she'd learned at the scene. And since she was still a bit scared from just having seen a corpse, she jogged over and got into Everly's car.

The door closed, sealing out the cold wind outside. Warm air blew from the air conditioner, carrying a faint citrus fragrance, like soft, warm hands soothing Doreen's anxious emotions.

"So, did Bianca have some kind of accident? How did she die so suddenly?"

Seeing the girl's tense back finally relax, Everly asked at the right moment.

"It wasn't an accident. I think those bullies hurt her somewhere—otherwise, how could a healthy person just drop dead like that..." Doreen, like a dam had burst, started rambling about what she'd just been through.

Everly listened quietly, throwing in an occasional "mm-hmm" or "yeah" to keep her going. When something caught her interest, Everly pressed for more: "You said the cops asked if Bianca had been eating or drinking lately?"

Doreen nodded, not seeming to catch anything weird about the cops' questions.

"Besides that, what else did they ask you?" Everly filed that oddity away and kept digging.

"They asked what Bianca had been up to from Feb 16th to today, and if I'd noticed anything off about her."

"And what did you say?"

"I told them I wasn't watching Bianca 24/7, so I couldn't remember a lot of details. I could only give them the gist. They said that was fine, so I went on..."

Half an hour later.

After dropping Doreen off by the girls' dorm and watching her get out, Everly hit the gas and headed to a nearby hotel.

Something was off about Bianca's cause of death!

According to Doreen's friend's description, Bianca's death should have been caused by a fall, a collision, or some mechanical injury from being beaten. M.E.s saw that kind of injury all the time—with enough experience, they could nail down the time, the weapon, the force, and the angle.

If Bianca's fatal injury were any of those, the cops would just need to find whoever had physical contact with her—like Sara and her bully crew who supposedly beat her, or Robert, who unluckily shoved her. Witness statements should've been about what those people did, what Bianca's relationship with them was, stuff like that.

But nope.

The cops hadn't asked Doreen if Bianca got bullied a lot or anything like that. Instead, they zeroed in on Bianca's daily life—they asked Doreen what Bianca had said, done, eaten, and drunk over the past four days, and even, like Everly, asked whether Doreen had noticed anything unusual about Bianca.

That hinted Bianca's death wasn't just a simple mechanical injury, but something tied to her past.

Everly decided to get her hands on Bianca's autopsy report and dig in.

...