If Only She Knew

30. Killer 0

Present time, London...

Ariana woke up sweaty, panting, breathless, her hand buried in her chest, freed from a nightmare. Her mouth was wide open like her eyes, and she was gasping for air.

She tried to calm down and looked around. She was still in her dim-lighted cell, in the small cot, behind bars. She was still a traitor and a criminal, scorned and forgotten. She wanted to call for help but she lost her voice...

She needed to tell someone the truth...She realized that it wasn't a dream or a nightmare.

She remembered her mother's death vividly now, including everyone that was there...including the killer. It was like that part of her mind was unlocked and it provoked powerful, burning pain inside of her chest...

Her mother's killer was her father. Bernard Johnson. She had to tell someone soon...

Right now, though, Ariana didn't know that her father was already dead. 

She had forgotten that, while she remembered her father's crime, after all of these years.

And she wanted to let everyone know about what her father had done.

He wasn't her father anymore and deserved to die. Her father had to be arrested. She was now, officially, the daughter of a murderer who killed his own wife. Why?

She gripped the sheets of her bed angrily, as she was crying. Later that day she knew she would either be released or moved to a real prison, so she had to tell everyone the truth as soon as she could. It was a shame she couldn't prove it and her only weapon was her word. And nobody seemed to believe her now, more than ever.

She remembered that day wholly now...

She arrived home from school, driven by her personal driver, Nicholas. She was fourteen then.
Her family had a huge estate, more like a palace, in which she grew up, and even despite her family's name and renown, she was still a socially awkward child. Her parents never knew about the bullying she went through at school because she was easy to pick on, and her background drew envy.

She thought it was entirely her fault and hated that she was too shy to stand up for herself. Her mother and father were busy with their already huge business after all, and she would only be a burden if she even told them.
That day was a sunny day in late spring, and no one could predict that a crime could happen. Ariana's parents were arguing in the living room when she entered, a part that she had forgotten about for all these years.

She could clearly remember her mother standing tall on heels and wearing her office suit, her blonde hair bouncing:

"Ariana!" she'd exclaimed with a worried face as her daughter came in. She noticed her father's red, clammy face that scared her. "Eloise, take Ariana to her room please."

Eloise or Mrs. Keene the housekeeper who was her caretaker when her parents were away, came around after Ariana.

"M-mom, papa, why are you arguing?" Ariana had naively called out. Her dad, heartlessly, shut the door in her nose.

"An accident happened at your parent's company. Don't worry, it'll be alright," Eloise tried to calm Ariana down. Her parents had argued in the past but she had never seen her dad like that. She was afraid...

Eloise Keene had witnessed the murder with her that day and, at her father's threats of destroying her entire family and bribery, she was forced to cover up the crime scene, clean and "completely forget about it." Despite her having been so close with her kind mother, Eloise was bought. She either accepted the money and forgot about it, either died.

Even though alive, Eloise Keene's life was never the same ever since. Megan Keene, the second victim of the Big. B murderer, was her daughter.

*

A few months ago
Simon Taylor...

Simon was in his tattoo studio in central London, a small former garage which still somehow looked like a garage, except for the fact that Simon didn't keep his car there.

He had all his tattoo utensils there and the entire equipment and the place could well accommodate his clients. Just then he was working on the naked back of a petit woman, working on a wings tattoo that extended from the shoulders to just where the ribcage ended.

Simon was shirtless, exposing his completely covered in tattoos torso and arms. He was thinking of Ariana just then, and how he'd once drew a small tattoo on the back of her Achilles tendon.

"All done " he licked his lip as he addressed the petit woman who now had wings. "Make sure to take care of it well," the woman stood up and he did as well, rotating the body sized mirror towards her so she can admire her new tattoo, while he was giving her aftercare instructions.

"Oh my God, that's so sexy," she said excitedly while glancing over at Simon. "Thank you."

After he was done with work he jumped in his blue car and started driving. Ariana crossed his mind again. What was she up to now, he wondered. He thought of visiting her tomorrow, up in Scotland.

He always watched the news and was well informed on the mystery seriall killer's strike, and he had heard about Johnson's Electronics too. Ariana herself had made some claims against the conglomerate that was her own father's empire and he knew she was avidly digging into her father's deeds.

Would she trample over what her father had done to her mother? He wondered... He knew they were running out of time now. It was high time she learned too.

He knew. He had known for a few years now that Bernard Johnson had killed Ariana's dear mother whom Simon used to adore.

Bernard Johnson might as well be the serial killer... Simon slightly smirked at that.

He could, couldn't he?

He could be on a killing spree of everyone who was aware of his filthy murder of his wife and occupied a position of importance back then, eleven years ago.

But then again, Simon knew, he wouldn't kill his own VELLA dogs, now would he?

Could there be two serial killers then? Simon wondered. Bernard Johnson himself and the person opposing him, who was trying to make things right.

Maybe there was a way to make Bernard Johnson take the fall for everything... Simon smiled. He then dialed Ariana and she picked up rather hardly.

"Ciao, ciao," he saluted as he sometimes does, in mock Italian.

"Simon, what's up?" her voice sounded rather stressed and she seemed to be working as she spoke to him on the phone.

"You don't have me on speaker right now, do you?" Simon inquired warmly while he swerved right on another street.

"Uhm yeah, well we're not talking any secrets now do we?" Ariana's voice came through the phone muffled.

Never mind then, Simon thought.

"How are you faring with Scotland ?" He asked then, while he could already glimpse her villa in the small Bell air.

"I'm about to leave my house. I'm paying my father's empire a visit, in London." Her voice came through now, definitive, determinate.

And she was determinated to bring her father's empire down.