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At the station, I ran John Miller’s name through the system — just on a hunch — to see if he had any personal insurance.
And I struck gold.
John Miller had purchased top-tier personal accident insurance!
I immediately checked this insurance. Very few people ever bought it, and almost no one went for the highest tier.
The main feature of this insurance was that if the insured died in an accident, the beneficiary would receive a substantial payout .
Suddenly, the entire case started to make sense.
The relationship between Emily Green and John Miller might not have been as distant as she claimed. On the contrary, the reason he dared approach Lily Johnson might’ve been because he’d once had a close relationship with both her and her mother.
And the beneficiary of John Miller's accident insurance was probably Emily Green.
Which meant John Miller’s death wasn’t an accident — it was premeditated murder.
If that was true, I had enough to open a case — and bring in Emily Green and her daughter for immediate questioning.
I couldn't wait — I went straight to the insurance company. With my badge, I accessed John Miller’s policy details.
To my surprise, the listed beneficiary wasn’t Emily Green — it was someone named Jack Miller.
The name was completely unfamiliar — as if a total stranger had been dragged into the case.
I suddenly lost my train of thought.
Just then,a colleague from the police station called me.
" Officer Lee, you need to come back quickly. There’s a new lead in the sewer body case. We just found the victim’s phone in the pipe ."
“I’m on my way,” I replied.
Fifteen minutes later, I was at the technical department of the station.
As soon as he saw me, my colleague said, “The phone was almost destroyed by water. The tech team did their best — they managed to recover part of the data. Mostly chat logs. Take a look."
I looked at the screen .There were messages between John Miller and a woman — he had her saved as "Sweet Emily".
I probably knew who this Sweet Emily was.
Scrolling through the messages confirmed my suspicion — their relationship was nothing like what Emily Green had described.
From their chat records, it seemed that John Miller had been pursuing Emily Green, and they might even have reached the stage of dating, getting married, and living together.
Mixed in with all the middle-aged sweet talk, I found something critical.
John Miller had mentioned more than once that he felt someone was following him.
But strangely, Emily’s replies were vague — almost dismissive. Eventually, she stopped responding altogether.
The timestamps were missing, but according to the chat content, Emily Green was still on a business trip, probably not long before the incident.
Right then, I had a strong feeling — John Miller’s death was somehow connected to whoever had been following him.
