In the freezing room, there was a young doctor whom Anne knew.
"My friend came to identify her twin sister!" she confidently informed him. "Her sister was brought in this morning and has no identification yet."
The man stared at Marie-Rose and Anne with a strange look in his eyes.
"Is this official?" he inquired.
"No, not yet!" Her ease was tempered by an aura of rejection emanating from the man. "I was hoping that you could help her! She's in a state of shock, imagine, it's her sister," she pointed to Marie-Rose, who had a stern face. Anne focused her mind on him, mentally reciting the phrase: 'Let us see the body,' like a mantra to persuade him to allow them to see the corpse without asking any questions regarding their identities or other formalities.
"Alright!" he finally let down his walls and agreed.
Marie-Rose eyed the drawer where her body was kept. Seeing her own body with signs of violence on it, she couldn't suppress a faint cry followed by a burst of tears. The man didn't seem convinced by her grief, even though it appeared as if she was mourning for her own sister.
The distress impeded Marie-Rose from thinking clearly, yet she fought to preserve her logic and inspected the body with her eyes for any signs of intrusion. Last night, she managed to act in time, and in the end, Emilian arranged for the body to be in a normal position. But she had no idea what happened after she left him alone.
"Has it been altered?" Anne asked.
"No, the autopsy is scheduled for tonight." The disclosure made a muscle twitch on Marie-Rose's face. She didn't notice any obvious signs that the body had been touched since it was brought, which made her happy. Her concern was the autopsy, but since it was programmed for later, she hoped Jayden's dad would have enough time to prevent it.
"Let's hope they will find out what happened to me...m...my sister." Marie-Rose almost revealed the true owner of the corpse. "Who did this to her." Her tears were still falling on her cheeks. She could not break away from the board, her eyes glued to the image of her own body.
Anne entangled arms with her and led the way out while Marie-Rose was still looking at the doctor closing her body back into the freezer.
"Thank you, doc. See you around!" Anne fulfilled the required formalities since Marie-Rose was still too distressed to pay any attention to her surroundings.
In the hallway, Marie-Rose stopped for a few seconds to catch her breath.
"What do we do now, Anne?"
Her friend comforted her with slight pats on her arms. She inhaled and exhaled deeply a few times to achieve a normal pulse rhythm, aware that she could attract unwanted attention if she didn't regain her composure soon.
They needed to be low-key, so she headed towards the service stairs, keeping her chin to her chest. It was not safe to be in this place; she needed to get out of this building as soon as possible, she thought as she gasped for air. Something about the hospital was getting on her nerves.
Anne followed her rushed steps, still clinging to her arms. When they turned around the corner, Marie-Rose was embraced by the arms of a man in a sudden collision.
In their rise, her eyes met Jayden's gaze, and she lost whatever composure had returned to her in the previous moments. She hadn't seen him in two months since she bid him farewell. At the unplanned encounter, which left her with no time to prepare to see him again, she found herself at a loss for words.
"Hey, Marie!" he said in a barely heard, low voice, equally surprised by sighting her. He had missed her terribly, too, but he quickly remembered what he and his dad had discussed on the phone. He regained the volume in his voice:
"Hey, nice to see... you. What does this all mean? Did you all call me here just to play a prank on me?" he scolded her aloud with a bitter tone in his voice. "I don't have time for pranks!"
"Jayden, no one is making fun of you." His eyes traced the shape of her lips as he fought the urge to press his onto hers in a welcome back kiss.
The feeling was mutual. Marie-Rose's eyes revealed the same thirst for his lips. However, it was dangerous to be seen kissing him, as she was now Zoe, Daniel's soon-to-be wife. She had to stop herself from throwing herself at him. Besides, she had no idea what his feelings for her were anymore. Was he hurt? Did he still have feelings for her? Was he still single? Was he with someone else?
She was visibly shaken by the sudden encounter.
"Marie, Jayden, we'll talk later. I'll leave you two alone."
Anne was disappearing at the end of the hallway when their hands met midair, in the space between their chests.
"Jayden, I know you won't believe this, but it's true. Unfortunately."
"Come on, what's the purpose of this?"
"Jayden, listen to me, I need your help now more than ever."
Since her face was serious and Marie-Rose had not started to laugh yet, he began to loosen his conviction. What if it was true?
"But… Marie… Your looks are exactly the same… How can you be here if they say you're dead? This is you…"
He started to wonder if anything had happened to his mental sanity. Did he lose it? The war scenes were overwhelming, indeed.
He was now enrolled in the army again. There was a dire need for transportation of medical aid and supplies through the air. Since he had been a pilot before, since the moment he had broken up with her, he had enrolled again.
Perhaps she was too overwhelmed by the actions of her insane stalker. They were not able to trace him down yet, and perhaps he threatened her. Maybe that's why she had to put up an act.
However, since Anne's actions did not show any suspicion, and she fully trusted leaving Marie-Rose by herself, there must be truth in her words.
But her mind sat somewhere else because she reproached:
"You didn't come last night." He could see her doubt in the way she was looking at him, as if she tried to catch him in a lie.
"Marie, I am in the middle of a war zone in the middle of a mission. I couldn't obtain leave just like that, on such a short notice." Her eyes widened in shock. This was the last thing she expected to hear. Nevertheless, at the same time, she had spoken with his friend, who had told her nothing about him being enrolled in the army.
"When did you enroll?"
"Soon after we broke up." He admitted with a guilty expression. At that time, he was courting death under the influence of depression. "I did my best to come last night, but I didn't make it on time."
"So what are you doing there? Dropping bombs on the innocents?" another of her bars escaped her mouth unwillingly.
"Humanitarian aid, babe," he defended himself.
So he was in charge of transporting aid to a war zone. Jayden and his suicide missions.
Yesterday, some hours before she was killed, she managed to call Jayden to ask him to meet her.
"Hi! Jayden?" Her voice trembled due to anxiety. She didn't know what to expect from him.
"Hey babe!" his voice was surprised. Instead of acting cold and distant after what she did to him a couple of months ago, the warmth of his joy transpired through his voice: "Long time no hear. Is something the matter?" he asked soothingly with tenderness in his voice.
She was so impatient to give him the news that she was pregnant. However, for some awkward reason, she couldn't do it over the phone. Call her paranoid, but she didn't feel like sharing her life achievements with Daniel and the like.
"I was wondering if you would be willing to meet me..." she paused, waiting for his reaction; she was sure that he would reject her. He might have remade his life with another woman, who knows.
Yet, seeing that she didn't continue, he encouraged her:
"Go on, babe." He felt there was something else pending, but left unsaid.
"I have something to tell you." she then made sure to make him understand it was not a trivial matter. "It's something important." she emphasized. "By the way, my colleague at work, Matthieu, with his new girlfriend, will also be there." Ever since Jayden stepped into her life, her friendship with Matthieu had grown stronger, shielding her from the everyday torture at work.
Jayden couldn't make it to the meeting; in the end, it was only the three of them celebrating. They celebrated Matthieu's new relationship with the beautiful blonde girl. Marie-Rose didn't reveal to the latter the motive of her own celebration. Since Jayden was not there, it was not a happy celebration.
Jayden called her just minutes before being killed. But he failed to tell her that he had been on a mission. He promised to meet her today instead.
Too late. Or not so?
"So what happened here because I don't understand anything anymore." His voice snapped her out of her own memories. "It gives me headaches."
"Oh, let me explain." By the sad look in her eyes, he knew he had to brace himself for impact.
"Jayden. I'm dead!" she couldn't fight the urge anymore to say it aloud.
"How come you're dead? You're talking to me!"
"No, Jayden, I really am dead!"
"Did someone threaten you, babe? Is this why you called me yesterday?" He thought he understood why she called him yesterday. Her words started to shed light inside his mind. So, this was the reason she separated from him, and the little fool thought she would be able to make it on her own without his help.
"No, Jayden. I'm dead as in dead. I died last night. For real." She shrugged at the horror of her own words and found it hard to explain. Her words were absent, so she picked up where she left off:
"Baby," calling him that again, she found joy in it, even if she found it difficult to utter the word again, "my body is at the morgue; go to see for yourself. I need you to make sure it is left under your dad's supervision." It was a tough task, but he was going over there right now anyway. Better no shocks without prior warning.
She had no idea how things would turn out, whether it was better for the corpse to have her ID or Zoe's ID. Either way, his dad must have had a shock when he saw the body. He surely recognized it. Marie-Rose needed him to preserve it in a cryogenic state, regardless of the tag, without anyone touching it. She wasn't sure if the hospital had the technology for it.
She was in the middle of her explanations when suddenly his phone rang.
"It's my father; I have to take the call." he excused himself.
What his father told him the next second left him breathless since he didn't know how he is going to explain the real situation to him:
"Jayden… Jayden, my dear… I don't know how to tell you, but the murder case brought in this morning… The body was identified..." His father didn't know how to present the victim. But he finally found the guts to tell him who she was: "The person is… She is… your girlfriend, Marie-Rose, I'm sorry…"
His father remained in a state of shock after confirming the person under the sheet was indeed Marie-Rose Champlieu. He checked the tag twice, and her name was written clearly in black and white. There was no room for doubt anymore. This was the reality, and he had no reason not to believe her. The hairs on his arms stood on end, as if electricity were flowing through his skin.
Struggling to come to terms with the revelation, Jayden replied, "Wait for me, Dad. I'm on my way there." He turned back to Marie-Rose, and before he could express his thoughts, she reiterated her plea, "Jayden, make sure your dad keeps my body under constant surveillance." Given his past work on secret army projects, Jayden's access to murder cases was not restricted, even though he was not a doctor. He had previously served as a pilot in the army before opting for the procurement department.
"See you later, Marie!" He embraced her. "Wait for me in Anne's office."
His father didn't need to know yet that she was alive, in a manner of speaking.
Marie-Rose didn't dare to look back as Jayden left, so she continued on her way back to her friend's office.
Just meters away from the office, her steps were halted.
"Zoe, why are you in the hallway? You have a birth to assist. Go to the ward immediately," a certain Dr. Thierry, according to his badge, instructed her.
'What? I have no idea how to assist with a baby delivery!' she thought, while telling him, "I'll go change first!" under her breath, she murmured, 'I thought Anne's spell worked.'
Marie-Rose worked as a public servant in the town hall of Constance and naturally had no knowledge of how to assist with a birth. She was no doctor.
She entered Anne's office, closed the door, and leaned against it with a troubled look on her face.
"What? Anne, I have no knowledge of how to attend to a newborn baby!" she repeated once more. "We don't attend to newborns at the Child Protection Department."