The knife clatters to the floor as Millie continues to stare at the bloody body in disbelief. "I have a dead body in my bed," she gasps, springing back. Millie is staring at the body when she notices something seems a bit odd, off…
Taking a deep breath of courage, she edges her way towards the bed. She mashes her toe on the frame. Pain radiates up her leg. Tears sting her eyes as she tries to stifle a scream. She knows any type of commotion would send the undercover running to her door. With trembling hands, Millie pokes the bloody figure. Her finger bounces back. "It's a manikin," she nervously laughs, recalling how frightened she was just moments before. I've got to get this cleaned up before the cops decide to search my house again. She starts to gather up the bedding when a metallic smell suddenly hits her, taking her back to her nursing days. The body may be fake, but the blood looks real.
Running to the dresser, she grabs a pair of gloves. Millie is notorious for bringing home numerous odds and ends after a shift. Sliding them on, she runs back to the bed again. Dipping her fingers into the red liquid, she rubs them together. It has the same consistency as blood. She brings the sample to her nose. It smells like it too, but whose is it? Millie pictures all the victims in her mind. It could be any one of them, which would give the police enough to convict.
She starts gathering everything when another thought suddenly comes to mind. Panic suddenly claws at her chest. How am I going to get rid of this with that undercover sitting on my house waiting for her to make her next move? Rushing to the window, she glances out to find he's still there. I can't let the cops find this, but how am I going to get rid of it with them watching me?
The sequence of horrid events replays in Millie's mind. Her muscles suddenly weaken as if every last bit of energy had been drained from her body. Collapsing into the gold antique chair caddy corner by the window, she begins to sob. "Why is someone doing this to me? Why? She cries.
Mille wakes up hours later to find it's nearly dark. She stiffly raises up. I've got to stop falling asleep like that, she thinks, trying to work the kinks from her neck. She's massaging the back of her neck when she recalls the mess on the bed; her horror returns again. She looks out the window to find the cop in the same spot two houses down to her right. Panic sets in. Her eyes return to the bed again. What am I going to do about that? And how did someone manage to get in without the alarm going off? Could I have forgotten to reset it? She pulls the app up on her phone, then goes to recent activity to find it was locked around 1am. The sergeant did say they locked up when they left. She glances down at the next entry to find it was disarmed an hour later and reset twenty minutes later. The app then shows her disarming the alarm when she came in and resetting it before she left for the post office. Her eyes wander back up to the second entry. So how did they manage to disable the alarm when it's on the facial recognition mode? She then recalls what her friend had said about the woman at the post office. So the killer has to look just like me, but who could that be? Aunt Martha might know. She glances towards the bed and shivers. My nightmare will only continue if I don't figure out who it is. She rationalizes, darting downstairs.
Grabbing her phone from her purse, she dials her aunt's number.
"Oh, Millie, I just heard about your arrest."
"How?"
"A couple of officers stopped by asking a lot of questions about you this morning?"
"What kind of questions?"
"If you were mentally unstable when you're off your meds."
Millie's stomach twists into a hard knot. So they know about my time in the hospital. "What else did they ask?"
"If I ever saw you using illegal drugs or doing any self-medicating. If you have or previously had any anger issues. They then asked about you and Steve's marriage and other things like that."
"They're trying to find something to build a case because as of now all they have is circumstantial evidence."
"I figured as much, so I made sure I didn't tell them anything that could hurt you."
"I know Aunt Martha. Is there anyone else in the family besides Lilly that looks like me? Someone around my age with the same approximate height and build?"
"The only two close to your age are my youngest sister Betty's twins, but neither looks a thing like you."
"You're sure there's no one else?"
"I'm positive. Why?"
Millie quickly explains the recent turn of events. She then tells her about what her friend had said about the lady at the post office.
"So you think someone who looks like you is setting you up?"
"It's the only thing that would make any sense. I just don't know who or why."
"Maybe the police will figure it out."
"The police—that's a joke. They're working so hard trying to pin it on me that they aren't even looking for someone else. That's why I have to find a way to prove it."
"How"
"I haven't figured that part out yet."
"Your uncle and I will put our heads together and see what we can come up with."
"I appreciate that." Mille recalls her latest package. "Do you remember Lilly's favorite doll, you know the one, the ragdoll with the green and white checkered dress?"
"What about it?"
"It was mailed to me today."
"The last time I saw it was when you were putting it in your box of things."
"So I did take it with me?"
"It was the first thing you grabbed, claiming it reminded you of happier times."
Millie recalls her and her sister's numerous tea parties and smiles. "Did the papers ever mention how Lilly died?"
"I believe they did say she succumbed to her injuries."
"They didn't mention the punctured lung?"
"I don't believe so. Why are you asking about that?"
"Lilly's doll has a shard of glass sticking out of her chest, which means whoever is trying to frame me has to be someone from the medical staff or somehow has access to our medical records."
"So is there someone at the hospital that looks like you?"
Millie thinks back to all of the staff. "I can't recall anyone, but then again, I don't know everyone."
"That might be a great place to start your search."
"Great idea, Aunt Martha, Thanks."
"Glad I could help, and Millie, if you ever need to get away from the house to regroup and think, you know you're always welcome here."
"I know, thanks." Millie feels a lot better after the talk, reenergized somehow. She then recalls the mess waiting for her upstairs. "I need to figure out what to do with that first."
She's headed back upstairs when she hears pounding on the door. Jumping Millie gasps. She turns to find a blue reflection in the window. "It's the cops," she thinks, more panicked than ever.