I Was a Jane Doe on My Father's Autopsy Table

A body lies on the Michigan lakefront pier, face beaten beyond recognition.

My detective mother Rebecca and medical examiner father Marcus respond to the call.

"What sick bastard did this?" Mom curses, pulling on her gloves.

They find my adopted sister Madison's bracelet at the scene. Everyone assumes she was the target.

"Damn threat. The killer's sending us a message!"

And me, their "troublemaker daughter who never comes home"? No one wonders where I am.

My parents rush to protect sweet Madison while professionally hunting clues for the unidentified corpse.

They don't know they're examining their own daughter.

Until the DNA results come in—

I watch the city's finest investigators—and worst parents—confront the truth of my death.

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1

My body turned up at an abandoned pier on Lake Michigan.

A couple of homeless guys caught the stench and called it in.

My parents, Marcus Celine, the medical examiner, and Rebecca Thompson, the detective, were on their way to my sister Madison’s varsity basketball finals. The call came in, and they rerouted.

“God, that smell,” Rebecca muttered, grabbing two N95 masks from the car and tossing one to Marcus.

My dad was known as the steadiest M.E. in Cook County, and my mom the toughest detective in the Chicago P.D. But when they got close and peered under the tarp, even my mom let out a curse.

“Fuck, who the hell did this?”

In the damp lake wind, my body was already starting to rot. My face was smashed in, unrecognizable. I was covered in wounds, and my neck was broken, my head lolling at a sickening angle. The air was a thick mix of blood and the fishy tang of the lake.

My dad pulled on his gloves and crouched down to get to work. His eyes held the cold professionalism of a medical examiner, not the warmth of a father.

Then again, he’d never looked at me any other way when I was alive.

I watched him examine the body, my own mind elsewhere.

The killer had left a calling card: Madison’s bracelet, the one with her initials engraved on it.

So, naturally, they assumed the killer’s target was Madison. And I was just some unlucky girl who got in the way.

“A goddamn warning,” I heard my mom spit into her radio. “The target was obviously Madison!”

“Stay calm, Rebecca,” my dad’s voice was flat. “Have forensics bag the bracelet.”

They thought Madison, perfect and flawless, was the one who would attract a monster.

In their minds, I, their biological daughter, didn’t even qualify as a proper victim.

My brother, Tyler Celine, once told me that Mom and Dad had adopted Madison because they couldn’t find me after I was kidnapped. He said I would always be their most precious daughter.

But when I came home, covered in scars, their perfect family had already been built around Madison. I was just a virus invading their clean, orderly life.

“What’s the situation with the body?” my mom demanded, striding over.

Dad stood up, peeling off his gloves. “COD is a broken neck, but she was tortured for a long time before that. Victim is around twenty.”

“This is brutal. The media will eat this up. We need to solve this before those bastards start sniffing around,” my mom said, lighting a cigarette and taking a harsh drag.

Even dead, I was still a problem for them.

A young officer ran over. “Detective Thompson, we contacted Ms. Brooks. She’s safe and on her way to the gym.”

My mom’s tone softened instantly. “Tell her not to worry. Just focus on her game. And let her know Lainey didn’t come home again, so she shouldn't bother looking for her.”

Lainey. That’s me.

My dad rubbed his temples, his migraine probably kicking in. I remember I bought him some herbal balm for it once. I wonder if he ever used it.

He just stared at the unrecognizable body.

The daughter they wrote off as rebellious had always just wanted to come home.

Dad, Mom, it’s not that I didn’t want to come home.

I just… couldn’t anymore.

The troublemaker you were talking about was already dead on the day of Madison’s big game.

And I was lying right in front of you.