The Dead Girl’s Face

The Dead Girl’s Face
“I'm getting sick of searching…. what's wrong with all this!!!!”

Miriam screamed the words at the empty room. Her voice was hoarse, scratching against her throat like sandpaper. She grabbed a heavy crystal paperweight from her desk and hurled it across the room. It hit the wall with a deafening thud, leaving a dent in the expensive silk wallpaper before falling onto the plush carpet.

She didn't care about the wallpaper. She didn't care about the mess.

For three days, Miriam had been a prisoner in her own bedroom. She hadn't showered. She hadn't changed her clothes. The silk robe she wore was wrinkled and stained with coffee. Her hair, usually a glossy curtain of perfection, was a tangled bird's nest on top of her head. Dark circles, like bruises, sat heavy under her eyes.

She sat cross-legged on her bed, surrounded by chaos. Her laptop was burning hot against her thighs. Beside her were notebooks filled with scribbles, empty energy drink cans, and a plate of untouched food that the maid had left hours ago.

The name Vanessa gave her—Aria Delaney—had been burning a hole in her brain for seventy-two hours.

Forty thousand dollars. She had paid forty thousand dollars for two words. And for three days, those two words had given her nothing but a headache.

Miriam leaned closer to the screen, her eyes burning from the blue light. She typed the name again. Aria Delaney.

"Search," she whispered, hitting the enter key with a violent jab of her finger.

The internet mocked her. The results were garbage.

Aria Delaney - High School Track Meet Results, 2014. Aria Delaney - Local Art Contest Winner, Grade 5. Aria Delaney - Obituary (Age 82).

It was useless. It was noisy. There were hundreds of Arias. None of them were connected with the woman who was sleeping in Ethan Malcovich’s bed. None of them were connected with the woman who had slapped Miriam in the restaurant.

"It doesn't make sense," Miriam groaned, running her hands through her messy hair and pulling at the roots. "She has to be there. People don't just vanish. People don't just appear."

She clicked on a link for a high school in a small town three hours away. A list of graduates. Aria Delaney. No picture. Just a name in a list of hundreds.

Miriam scrolled down. Nothing.

She went back to the search bar. She typed Aria Delaneys.

The results changed. They were darker. More serious.

Delaney Tech files for bankruptcy. Nathan Delaney, CEO, facing embezzlement charges. Delaney Estate liquidated.

"Folded," Miriam read out loud, her voice trembling with rage. "The company folded till further notice. Great. Another dead end. A bankrupt nobody."

She was wasting her time. Vanessa had scammed her. The waitress had taken her money and given her a random name just to watch her spin in circles. Norah wasn't connected to Aria Delaney. Norah was just a clever gold digger with a fake background that was too good to crack.

Miriam felt the heat rise in her chest. It was a physical pain, a pressure behind her eyes that signaled a migraine coming on. She hated this. She hated doing the work. She was Miriam Dubois; she hired people to do this. But Freddie was dead, and she was alone.

She looked at the laptop screen. It was mocking her. The little cursor blinked, waiting for her to type something else, but she had run out of ideas.

"I hate you," she hissed at the machine. "I hate you!"

She lifted her leg. She wanted to kick the laptop off the bed. She wanted to smash the screen and watch the glass shatter, just like she had smashed the whiskey bottle on the street. She wanted to destroy something because she felt destroyed.

She drew her leg back, ready to strike.

But just as her foot was about to connect with the silver metal, something caught her attention.

Her eyes caught Aria's picture.

It wasn't on the main page. It was in the sidebar, under "Related Images." It was a small, grainy thumbnail from an archived article about a high school science fair from years ago.

Miriam froze. Her foot hovered in the air, then slowly lowered to the mattress.

She squinted. Her heart skipped a beat, then started to race.

She moved the cursor. Her hand was shaking so bad the little arrow jumped across the screen. She clicked on the image.

The picture expanded.

It was a group photo. Four teenagers standing in front of a science project. But Miriam didn't look at the others. She looked at the girl in the middle.

She was young. Maybe sixteen or seventeen. She was wearing a baggy school uniform. She wasn't wearing makeup. She looked innocent.

But the face.

Miriam leaned in until her nose almost touched the screen. She stopped breathing.

The girl in the photo had short hair. It was a dark bob with a heavy fringe that covered her forehead, shadowing her eyes. It was completely different from Norah’s sleek, long, expensive hairstyle. Norah never wore a fringe. Norah’s forehead was always exposed, her face open.

But the eyes.

Miriam traced the eyes on the screen with her fingernail. They were distinct. A piercing, unusual shade of blue. The shape was almond, slightly upturned at the corners.

And the mouth. The way the top lip curved slightly more than the bottom one.

Miriam pulled her phone out of her pocket. She opened her gallery and found the picture of Norah she had saved—a screenshot from a society page.

She held the phone up to the laptop screen.

Side by side.

The girl in high school. The woman on the arm of the billionaire.

Miriam gasped. The air left her lungs in a rush.

"No," she whispered.

She looked deep. She looked past the hair. She looked past the makeup. She looked past the years.

The striking resemblance if you look deep was undeniable. It was the same bone structure. The same chin. The same intense stare.

"It's her," Miriam breathed. "Oh my god. It is her."

The realization was dizzying. The room seemed to spin.

How does Norah become Aria? How true was it?

The girl in the photo looked poor. She looked ordinary. Norah looked like royalty. How did a high school girl with bad hair become the project manager of VernBuilds Corps?

"A chameleon," Miriam muttered. "She changed her skin."

Miriam’s head was pounding. She was nearly having a migraine.

"How!" she screamed at the empty room. "How did she do it! You can't just change your face! You can't just become a new person!"

She needed more. She needed the connection. Why would Delaney change her name to Norah? Why would she hide?

Miriam’s hand was sweating on the trackpad. She clicked back to the article. It mentioned the father again. Nathan Delaney.

But her cursor mistakenly clicked on Delaney. It wasn't an article about the science fair. It was a different link. A link to a news archive from the same year.

The headline was black and bold.

TRAGEDY STRIKES TECH MOGUL: NATHAN DELANEY AND WIFE DEAD IN A FIRE ACCIDENT.

Miriam read the words, but they didn't make sense at first. Dead. fire accident.

She scrolled down, reading frantically.

...their only daughter, Aria Delaney, who was also in the same house, succumbed to her injuries at the hospital later that night.

Miriam stopped reading. She stared at the words.

Succumbed to her injuries.

Dead.

Aria Delaney was dead. She died years ago. She was buried. There was a funeral.

Miriam looked back at the picture of the girl with the fringe. Then she looked at her phone, at the picture of Norah.

"She's dead," Miriam whispered. "According to the internet, Aria Delaney is a corpse."

But Norah was alive. Norah was walking around Solara Heights. Norah was sleeping with Ethan.

"She faked it," Miriam said. The realization hit her like a lightning bolt. "She didn't die. She survived. She let the world think she was dead so she could disappear."

Why? Why would a teenage girl fake her own death?

Miriam scrolled further down the article. She needed to know what happened to the money. What happened to the company?

...following the tragic demise of the Delaney family, the assets of Delaney Tech, which were in a volatile state, have been acquired by the Malcovich Corporation...

Miriam gasped.

Malcovich.

...Norman Malcovich, a close friend of the deceased, stated that he would honor Nathan’s legacy by absorbing the technology into his own infrastructure. 'Nathan was a brother to me,' Mr. Malcovich said in a press statement...

That was when it started getting together piece by piece.

It was like a puzzle assembling itself in front of Miriam’s eyes. The pieces clicked into place with a terrifying, satisfying snap.

Nathan Delaney was Norman’s friend. Nathan died. Norman took his company. Norman got rich.

Aria Delaney survived. She changed her name. She changed her face. She became Norah. And she came back.

She didn't come back for a job. She didn't come back for love.

"She came back for him," Miriam whispered. "She came back for Norman."

Miriam was shocked how Aria could pull that stunt together. It was genius. It was terrifying. Aria really has a fuse with the Malcovich family. She wasn't a stranger. She was the daughter of the man Norman Malcovich had replaced.

"She is not a gold digger," Miriam said, her voice trembling with a mix of horror and admiration. "She is an avenger. She is here to burn them down."

And Ethan? Ethan was the son of the man who took her father’s company. Ethan was the heir to the stolen throne.

Does Ethan know?

"No," Miriam answered herself instantly. "He doesn't know. If he knew she was Aria Delaney, the dead girl, he would never touch her. He thinks she is Norah. He thinks she is new."

Miriam sat back on her bed. A slow, cruel smile spread across her face. The migraine vanished. The exhaustion vanished.

She held the secret. She held the bomb.

She had spent forty thousand dollars, and she had gotten the bargain of the century. She had the truth.

Norah was a fraud. Norah was a liar. Norah was a dead girl walking.

Miriam reached out and slowly lo
wered the screen of the laptop.

"How does it feel Norah… oh Aria when I humiliate you in front of Norman and Ethan that you were a chameleon hiding just to strike at the right time !”