If Only She Knew

17. The Lighthouse

Present time, London...

"Cigarette?" Jacob asked gently showing her the packet.

He couldn't possibly be allowed to be smoking here... Ariana knew someone had to come in and not let that go through.

Ariana was so tempted though to take a cigarette.

She needed the relief so much after the nightmare she went through.

She narrowed her eyes at him.

Nobody came in, no guard.

He was trying to fool her, wasn't he?

"I know what you're trying to do..." She crossed her arms as she pressed her back against the chair.

"You're trying to get me comfortable and get me in that friend zone we shared... So I will talk, right?"

Jacob smiled pathetically, his packet still hanging in the air.

Maybe Ariana is the real deal detective, he was thinking.

Had he just failed in his mission?

He waited, constipated, for that door to open. But it didn't, yet.

They were all watching this from behind the other wall.

They were waiting to see what would happen.

"Even so, don't you still want a cigarette? You mustn't have had one in days."

He should've known she would be trouble.

"No thanks, Jacob." Ariana nodded. "Do you still want to know about my childhood?"

"It'd be my honor."

"If it's for a good cause, I'll tell you." Ariana looked down at her lap.

"I tend to think everything you'd do would be for a good cause... Even this investigation."

Jacob smiled. She was good, he reassured himself. She meant everything she said.

"Start taking notes. So as I told you I was rich. I had everything I wanted. I was a lively child who loved people, as far as I remember. Still I've had trouble in school with shyness and somehow I became an outcast which is strange I know, because rich people have it well socially."

"Wow, Ariana... An outcast?"

"Yes. Very tacky stuff... some classmates scorned me for my riches. I've never bragged or showed off but it was hard to hide the fact that I had everything... The best clothes, the best gadgets, a lot of money on me." Ariana grabbed Jacob's pen and started drumming with it on the table in a little annoying continuous manner.

"Have you ever been bullied?" Jacob leaned forward.

He remembered being bullied himself because he was poor.

He worked a lot to get the situation he has now.

"Yes," Ariana admitted. She knew she had to avoid mentioning Alexander Arseniev Jr., the third victim of the Big B. Murders, whose corpse they'd found in a lighthouse by the sea...

That guy had been the head bully she's had to deal with in middle school.

Mentioning him would only make her really look suspect because they'd take that for good motivation to commit murder.

And she knew, they'd buy everything to just call the Big B. Murders cases closed, finally, after two years.

*