If Only She Knew

4. The Moonlight Disappearance

Present time, London...

"We can start, if you're alright," Jacob said, opening up a portfolio. Ariana didn't know what to expect.

What questions was he going to ask her? What did they think she had done?

She didn't know why she had been arrested.

"Do these handcuffs really have to stay on?" Ariana inquired. She was pretty much a claustrophobic person.

"I'm sorry Ariana, but it's just protocol, right? You're a detective, you know it."

"Don't patronize me, Jacob," Ariana said. She had never felt as powerless as she did then.

"Just ask away, you already know me."

Ariana watched Jacob smile mystically and she knew there was something he had thought just then but refrained from saying.

"You might find these questions weird but just bear with them please." Jacob flipped a page and scanned it with his eyes.

He licked the corner of his mouth before launching his first question:

"What was your childhood like?"

*

Two years earlier, Big Bucharest...

Ariana walked inside the headquarters, at 8:20 A.M.

She had come to learn that everyone there seemed to be always halfway sleepy, and swarming around the desks like zombies.

Mike was at the front talking, and when she entered, he narrowed his eyes.

"Late, too, Miss Johnson? What have you been up to last night?"

A few of the other teammates laughed.

Ariana was certain that he'd notice she was wearing the same outfit today as yesterday. She ignored everyone and only stopped when she had dropped her bag on her desk.

"I apologize for the fact that I'm late what... twenty minutes? But there's no need for you to know what I've been doing last night." There, again, the entire room buzzed with laughter.

Honestly, they were more like a middle school class than an investigation team.

Lily and a few others gave her lazy good mornings.

Mike was withering on the inside.

"Hm, anyway," he cleared his voice.

"Today we're back on the disappearances but we'll add, alongside, the pet shop store burglary where all those dogs were lost. And focus, because if you can't solve anything this month, what good is the lot of you?" Mike yelled and then sipped his coffee.

Afterwards, the end of his riding crop hit the white board table.

"-Kay," he started.

"So we have 6 missing persons, all within the last month. Three women and three men. There's a common radius where they disappeared, not very far away from here. The radius starts at its southernmost point on the street behind the old city center, and grows north-wise until at its northernmost point, The People's supermarket.

The radius' innermost point we have at no more than 2.5 kilometers away from here, the Queens Park. There, apparently, half of our missing persons just vanished, including the latest case. A 22 year old girl, a NUBB student, that went missing last night. That's where we'll be going today to investigate. Who will be on my squad, hmm let me think."

Mike threw his prying eyes around the room. A curly blonde, Carla, was the only one to throw up her hand.

"Miss Carla Worth, Jacob, and for the first time on field, Miss Ariana." Mike nodded his head once to her.