Two years ago, London...
Sammy, a girl in the queue at the BTS concert in London, a part of their world tour, giggled at the phone of a friend next to her, and then turned her head to look for their boyfriends, who were supposed to come around.
Disappointed, she sighed, though she was the only one to hear it in the dark, noisy mess of phone lights, of Armies who wouldn't take no for an answer and who would only scream louder if they were asked to shut up.
"Do you see Mike and David? I keep worrying about them!" Sammy shouted to her companion.
The other girl waved her hands as she swayed.
"Oh, boyfriends will be like that... Leave us hanging, you know. But of course you wouldn't know since Dave's your first. They're all right. Why do you worry like that, we're at THE BTS CONCERT! We're supposed to be, like, the happiest girls alive yo!" the girl started screaming, woo-ing and whistling.
Sammy, though, couldn't help being slightly disturbed.
Sammy wasn't exactly from London; she lived with her family in Big Bucharest and she has heard, no doubt as every town homie, about the cases of the missing person, and that was quite challenging her tendency to worry.
Her friend, however, lived in London.
"I don't know, I can't quite help but be worried." The girl tried to breathe in; she was clasping her phone tightly, and her palms were clammy.
She checked her phone. There were no calls, no messages.
She tried to breathe.
Anyone could die at any time...
She shook her head then gave her friend, who was laughing with another girl about something BTS related, a squeeze.
"Hey, Ann, I'll go find a restroom. Please look for the boys for me and call me if they show up. Tell Dave to call me." Sammy hurried.
Ann blinked at her.
"Okay, now you're giving me the willies. You're alright gal?"
Sammy nodded desperately.
"I'll be back in five."
She left in such a rush, though walking quickly wasn't really an option in the crowded throng, but she managed to snuggle herself to the other side.
She found the restrooms in a secluded part, rather empty. She breathed as she stretched out an arm to push the restroom door, and when she was inside, she texted her boyfriend David:
"Where are you? Haven't heard from you in two hours, and you don't even answer."
Sammy had heard a theory from a guy from her high school, a guy who was a local policeman's son, who was spreading gossip that there was a murderer on the loose.
She couldn't rest, she couldn't sleep right ever since, and she had always been a person full of phobias.
She pulled out a water bottle and drained a quarter of it, gazing, afterwards, at herself in the mirror.
Another person was, just at that moment, freeing a toilette.
A blonde, long-haired woman dressed in very desirable brands, even to Sammy, came out, appearing in the mirror behind.
She was wearing Balenciaga cut-out boots and a long evening dress with a black leather jacket.
Her perfume scent screamed affluence, and Sammy was mesmerized.
As she was washing her hands, she was thinking, surely this young woman wouldn't be refused by Taehyung himself if she asked him out tonight.
"Hello, you here for the concert too?" The blonde gave her a smile, coming to her side to check the state of her lipstick, in the mirror. "How old are you?"
"18, you?" Sammy answered with a bewildered gaze. Why was this rich gorgeous woman talking to her?
"24. You from London?" The woman asked her, again. Sammy was even more stunned now, and her heart slightly trembled. The blonde woman saw that, threw her London branded lipstick in her bag, then smiled reassuringly.
"I'm a detective, so don't worry about the questions. It's in my nature. There's been a lot of disappearances, so a girl like you should take care of yourself. That's why I was asking where you're from." The woman smiled.
"Oh, I'm from Big Bucharest. So you're a detective and so young?" Sammy told her.
Ariana chuckled.
"Yes. It's a cinch, really. Well, have fun at the concert, and take care of yourself. You ain't here alone, right?"
Sammy shook her head.
"No, I'm with a few friends. And don't you worry, Miss Detective!" Sammy waved eagerly.
Ariana Johnson gave her one cheerful smile then left the bathroom, closing the door behind, softly.
After she was done using the bathroom, Sammy checked her phone to see if any of the boys had called her, but there was nothing.
The fact that she met a detective gave her some courage, as if Ariana's aura had enveloped the entire concert arena, and no crime could happen tonight.
She wasn't aware how wrong she would be about that.
She tried to man up as she left the restroom, walking along a hallway where there was no one, but the buzzing of life and people protruded through the walls from the outside.
And then, suddenly, she heard a piercing sound, and in a few seconds there were hands covering her mouth.
She was quickly pulled into darkness, physically and mentally, as she lost her consciousness.
Her phone fell from her hand and connected with the ground painfully, and a song started playing suddenly as if on cue with the connection.
In reality, it was just Sammy's boyfriend David finally calling back.
*
Ariana woke up because of her buzzing alarm, and even though she'd wanted to snooze it, the hour was 7:00 A.M and she had to go to the job she was being paid for.
The date was 6th of June.
She yawned and thought of things to look forward to, but she found with distaste that Joseph wasn't one of them today, anymore.
It has been more than a week since she last heard from him.
She had been calling him, but he never picked up.
She had wished to go to the BTS concert with him, but she couldn't reach him so she went there with her best male friend, Simon Tatman Taylor, instead, because she had reserved two tickets.
Simon was gay and he was really curious to see the BTS guys up close anyway.
She rolled around the bed and swiped up her lock screen to see her notifications.
Her heart stopped for a second when she saw that Joseph had actually called her, after days of being MIA, and even sent two messages:
"Hi, I've been kind of busy hunting parts and objects for my Masters Degree Project. Sorry I've been dumping your calls, since I couldn't mix you with business."
"Call me when you wake up. MUAHH."
Ariana groaned wide-eyed.
Was that supposed to be a kiss?
She didn't know whether she should just delete his contact just then.
She paced the room, went to pick clothes from her wardrobe for the day, and after she had showered, combed her hair, dressed up and applied lipstick, she dialed Joseph.
He picked up rather quickly.
"Hi, how are you, are you well? Heard you went to the BTS concert last week. Heard messed stuff about the case, too." His voice boomed through the phone.
"Yeah? Who told you all that? Also, where've you been, I almost thought you've been kidnapped too." Ariana rolled her blue eyes.
"Ooh, I didn't have to learn it from anyone since you've posted on Instagram about being 10 feet away from those Korean guys you girls find so sexy. And the kidnapping case, damn, practically happened under your eyes..."
"Oh God, let's not talk about stuff from my work. Sa- the girl might still be alive. You've practically ghosted me, but why do I bother?"
"I'm doing my Master's project... I'm building the project, and need to gather all the pieces. Since they aren't all centered in London as I want them, I had to comb the entire island, and was, for two days, in two different countries," he kept on explaining, with a calm that was unnerving to Ariana.
"Aha...And I comprehend you couldn't call not even once?" she stamped her foot.
She didn't really know exactly why she was stressed about it, since a big part of her mind was jumbled in with that girl from her town who went missing right under her eyes.
At work, she didn't even have the courage to face her coworkers and own up that she had met that exact girl at the restroom.
"Ariana, please understand, I don't mix good wine with work. I'd be too drunk to even focus-"
"Am I good wine? Bourbon? Well, whatever, duty calls, have a nice day." Ariana hang up.
She rolled her eyes, threw her phone in the bag and swerved on her soles causing a friction on the luscious floorboards.
Ariana lived in one of those golden homes, in a neighborhood with a reputation like Bel Air, though English. She owned a two stories villa with a pool in the backyard.
She lived alone, just like Joseph, with the difference that since she had visited his musky flat almost a week ago, she started to feel her house was too big for her.
Empty. Hollow. Sad.
The occasional girls' nights she had with her friends could only fill it for the said night, returning it to its original state after they ended and her friends left, like it happens with a tensile object.
A thought had crossed her mind to get a Persian tomcat, to match Joseph, but somehow she knew she wouldn't be doing it whole-heartedly and the poor, fluffy animal would end up lonely and neglected.
After she had descended from the upper floor, she passed by the row of paintings, all copies of famous works from artists she liked: two prints of Escher, a copy of Gustave Doré 's Paradise Lost, some of Van Gogh's, Alfred Sisley's Flooding at Port Marly, and a big portrait of her wearing an attire and a pear earring like The Girl with the Pearl Earring, surrounded by a gilded frame with a few real rubies on the upper shoulder, in the center.
Her father was the CEO of Johnson's Electronics, a company which held shares even in Norway and Sweden and which both produced and sold Johnson electronics and promoted renewable energy; he sometimes visited her empty haven and always studied this portrait of her, always commending her how beautiful she is and suggesting and kind of pleading her to come occupy the position of Director, the third in rank after his and her brother's.
She always declined, telling him bluntly that she doesn't want to deal with business.
She had different goals.
She left her house, locked the front door and jumped in the car, ignoring all the time the call ringing from her bag, knowing it's Joseph.
Well, it was the time he suffered.
*
At work, she kept being bugged by the cases of the missing persons, which were now seven.
She kept hearing that girl's name, Samantha aka Sammy, whom, by looking at her photo, was no doubt the girl she had met before going to the queue.
Sammy's photo seemed to be haunting her; smiling from Mike's evidence posting board, it made Ariana carry the responsibility of having been so close to the abduction, only minutes away, on her shoulders.
"God, I'd like to see the BTS boys once too, before I'm thirty," Ioana exclaimed while centering some data on her PC, in the proximity of Ariana and Lily.
Lily, put her cup of coffee down.
"Well, if you'd told Ariana, you girls could have gone together. As for me, BTS isn't my cup of tea." Lily laughed.
"Oh, if you want to know, I really am not a fan," Ariana laughed. "I went mostly out of curiosity."
"You listen to their music or you just like the boys?" She then poked Ioana. The Romanian girl had finished reading an Excel document and looked up.
"I listen to their music, too!" The girl chirped, then shook her head laughing.
"Well, ladies, we got to head out to work now. I think I might get to save Mike's ass today as we go to London to investigate." Ariana smiled, showing off her extremely white teeth.
"Big words, Ariana, those're some big words. I might just sooner save you and you'll owe me," Mike, appearing out of God knows where, said as he walked leisurely through the room.
The creep.
He was wearing slacks that belonged to the nineties' London fashion, a short sleeved baby blue shirt, tight, projecting his rectus abdominis, and a long brown leather coat.
He had some sunglasses which he held between his index and thumb.
Ariana took her bag from the desk and looked at him.
"Well, who's car is it today?" Ariana asked.
"We'll take the police van. This is an official ongoing investigation, Ariana. Did you really go to Harvard?"
Ariana rolled her eyes at his irony and joined his side. Another coworker, Adrian, followed, sporting an IQOS.
The others who joined them were, again, Carla, and the antipathetic Jacob Holmes.
Okay, guys, but I want a spot by the window!" Ariana shouted, calling the dibs on the passenger window seat.
"That's fine by me," Adrian, with his black hair ruffled said.
"You're still looking slutty," Jacob Holmes winked at her in a very gay manner, and jumped in the front. "Wanna join me? I'm leaving you the window."
At that time, Mike joined Jacob on the right side as he got behind the wheel, and Ariana wasn't sure whether to get in the back with Adrian and Carla, or sit next to Jacob.
"Fine," She said darkly and jumped near Jacob, who was regarding her the whole time as she sat and then pulled at her skirt, from under her, in order to get cozy and decent.
"You'd better look at the road. The leader, as I know him, drinks sometimes."
"Ariana, watch that tongue," Mike warned her while driving.
She chuckled and pulled out her big phone.
Jacob only sighed and returned to a small book he was reading prior.
Ariana opened up her notifications bar, and looked, expectantly, for messages and calls.
One was from her good friend, Simon, checking up on her, having heard about the case and not having seen her since the concert night, two calls from Dominique, one of her girls, but what caught her attention were the 5 messages from Joseph; that was all she cared about at that moment.
And the fact that she did, she was aware, was bad news. She opened them up:
"Hey, what's up?"
"You all right? Didn't get the moment to wish you an easy work day."
"You guys working on Sammy's vanishing case?"
Joseph sent a photo of the not so crowded inside of a café local in town.
Ariana blinked her eyelashes and recognized it immediately as the local on the ground floor of Joseph's house building.
And the last message was this corny text :
"I think I like you. Let me get to know you."
So she closed her phone, threw it up in the bag, winning strange looks from the men beside her.
She waved her hand and asked:
"What?"
They both said nothing so she crossed her hands, waited four minutes, the longest she could in order not to seem like she cared too much, and then grabbed her phone.
"I'll be up in London today."