If Only She Knew

18. A Different Game

Present time, London...

"Go on please... What was your relationship with your mother like?" Jacob spoke carefully.

He was penning down everything she said.

Even though she'd spent last night in a holding cell, she still looked gorgeous as she was leaning against the chair peacefully.

Unlike in her childhood, she had nothing right now...

Her father was dead; her older brother took what was left of Johnson's Electronics and didn't care about her.

She could lose her freedom.

Would the people who loved her still be there for her?

He knew he would, anyway...

"My mother was a smart woman. She worked a lot and contributed all her work to dad's growing company. She was a scientists and made discoveries, and working so much I always saw her only in the evenings, but I understood."

Ariana gesticulated professionally.

Jacob then did something she didn't expect.

He pulled out of his clipboard a color photograph of her mother, palm-sized and gave it to her.

She gave him a frown.

"Why?"

"Maybe it'll help you remember her..." Jacob reasoned.

He was starting to get it. Ariana had wounds from her childhood that she hadn't dealt with. She had repressed them.

She stared at her mother. The woman in the photo must've been her age when it was taken, or younger. She had golden hair, just like Ariana and a beautiful countenance with blue eyes and big lips. The only difference between Ariana and her seemed to be the fact that her mother was wearing glasses.

Ariana smiled.

"She was my role model... I wanted to be like her."

"And you are," Jacob went on. "Not only you look exactly like her but you're a cool detective."

"You've been trying to flatter me so much, Jacob..." Ariana looked at him, holding her head in her hands.

"But I mean it," He said.

"She's the reason why I became a detective. Her killer was never caught," Ariana said.

That's what Jacob waited for.

So she really didn't remember, huh?

*

Two years ago...

The team was staring at the body, hanging there like a pinata.

It was the second time Ariana was watching a former classmate in a creepy hypostasis like that, and she bit her lip.

Who would be next? Herself?

Including Mr. Tomlinson that was found immediately after he was killed in his house, there were five victims confirmed dead, out of ten.

Out of all, she noticed thoughtful, Haron Ride's body was in the worst condition.

He had been mutilated and his body was painful to watch. He had had a close casket funeral.

Ann McGuiver had been drowned to death but her body looked very well, without injury.

Megan Keene's cause of death was determined to be, actually, poison. She died with no pain.