If Only She Knew

19. The Memory Thief

Ariana was coddled up in the motel room she shared with Joseph.

She drew aside the curtains to look out of the window at the night and at the wild sea where the moon spilled itself onto the water like paint...

Their room was drowned in darkness as Joseph was sleeping, snoring, and she was standing there wearing only an oversized white shirt, bathed in moonlight.

Ariana couldn't sleep...

The ghost of Alexander Arseniev Jr. haunted her.

*

Two days later...

"So, we got reports back from the forensics lab and the autopsy medics." Michael walked in that morning energetically.

Archie Carolan had returned to London two days ago and things returned back to normal.

Ariana knew. She wasn't going to miss that blond, tattoo guy, despite how hot he was.

He touched her every opportunity he got...

She realized then how much she had missed the team leader, Mike the B.

"The death cause was determined to be an asphyxia, most likely by being directly suffocated. No water was found in his lungs so he wasn't drowned. Also, no evidence could be found on him."

"So we focus now solely on saving the five victims," Adrian mused.

"Yeah, albeit it would be highly strange if the culprit hadn't lied and they're indeed alive... They'd be loaded with information." Michael rubbed his chin.

"In any case, we have to locate them as soon as possible. There's that chance the murderer wasn't lying and if so, he left the victims tied up somewhere without food or water. We have to rush, team leader." Ariana jumped up.

She was excited. If they were alive she would've saved someone.

Of course, she tried very hard not to see it as a benevolence of the murderer but egos didn't matter now. Those lives did.

"Wow, you just called me team leader?" Michael approached her with his hands on his hips and a deep frown.

"Guys, you sure you brought the real Ariana back?"

"Should I call you idiot instead?" Ariana sneered.

"Nope, idi-I mean team leader would do."

Jacob burst out laughing.

"Last night I couldn't sleep so I re-read a copy of our criminal's letter, over and over again and I took some notes." Ariana came forward with a confident smirk, while Michael drew back as though she was the plague, but in a playful way.

"Fine. Go ahead."

"So, I believe his letter has hidden hints in it. I've outlined them here." She showed Michael.

The phrases that Ariana had outlined were: "take it to a whole lot different level", "As I'm writing this the five remaining victims are all behind me", "all five of them, alive", "they might just die...of dehydration".

Michael was very much confused.

"However in hell are those hints?" he inquired.

As she suspected, he was again, hard-headed.

"If you look at it deeply enough and think of the actions the criminal took beforehand, you'll see just how these snippets of the letter give out the location."

Soon, a few other members joined them to look at Ariana's theory. Ariana thought of how she stood up last night being haunted by the message the criminal left in the letter about Sammy: "Even little Sammy, albeit she's very scared."