A few months ago...
After the night she broke into her father's house, Ariana had a new task. To get murderous information and evidence of her father's company⎯ Johnson's Electronics ⎯on the radio, and push it into a lawsuit. That would be, destroying her own father's empire lawfully. It really was murky with all the deeds her father had probably done.
Michael was against her idea, originally. "Why'd you do that to your own father? You're his daughter. Besides, are you even sure it's true information? Do you trust what a psychopath killer who should be behind bars has to say?" He reasoned with her as they were back in their homely quarters, in small little Big Bucharest. She'd been through so much and, somehow, she'd become the lead investigator of the Big Bucharest murders and the VELLA cases. She believed, more than anyone, that they were all related.
Ariana pondered for a bit on what he said, but she was very inclined to go with the killer's forceful but somewhat truly convincing wish. She was willing to destroy her father's empire. Somehow, she wouldn't feel no remorse and when she thought about it, she didn't feel guilty. She felt an eerily neutral feeling. She'd destroy her own father.
"I'd rather my father go down than have all these innocent people get killed, indirectly. I'd share the guilt if I didn't stop it, and my father...", she trailed off, biting her lower lip, worry in her blue eyes. "My father's truly done some horrible things." Ariana said as she looked inside her bag. She rummaged it until she found the dirty, heinous evidence the killer's given her. It was filled with stuff that her father did, not the killer, and she kept alive in mind the story the killer had revealed to her about himself and his childhood, although it was very hard for her to believe it, still.
"I knew you'd ask of course... No. I'm not killing you. But I don't think you can stand it if others continue to die because you didn't do as I said... Let's face it Ariana... You can't catch me. There's no way you can stop this bloody chain of murders the way you're going. I don't blame you for trying but the only way I'll stop is if I see the company brought down. After that, no more people need to die."
She still shivered when she thought about those words.
She watched Michael forsake the edge of his desk and his tonified ass go towards the door. She watched him close it, and turn up the key. There were only the two of them. She watched him turn around and walk towards her, silent and very grave.
"This is confidential information, but lately there's been an investigation of you and your background, Ariana." He paced around the room, and made eye-contact with the floor. "They wanted to check if they could find the killer, if he truly was connected with your father and your family, and they took the easiest lead. You." He stood now, before her. Ariana blinked her eyes.
"Why was it so confidential that you hid it from me?" Ariana asked it in a pitchy tone, and she was very upset.
"Because we were forced to - and still are, even though they didn't find anything on you, Ariana. We were forced to keep it secret mainly because you were, if the memory-erasing-shit is true although it doesn't seem plausible and it's not researched, a victim of this person- if his story is true. We- I mean, the team who investigated your background, couldn't find anything pointing to his identity and we've checked all your close friends, and Joseph as well. We also researched, and that's the cherry on the cake if I may say, Johnson's Electronics and your father - Mr. Bernard Johnson."
Ariana blinked her eyes. They did? Michael nodded his head as if he also heard her thoughts.
"And, this will surprise you, a team will be sent this afternoon to visit your father, at his company. I really do hope he doesn't cause problems and leave, I mean." Michael looked into her eyes and spoke carefully. She really seemed to care more about the investigation than her father.
"The problem is, although you gave some information to the reporters and the police, there's not much evidence - actually nothing we could warrant an arrest by." Michael shrugged and smiled. "But you said you had some evidence from the killer and I wanted to ask if you'd let me verify it, here and now, before we hand it over-"
"The murderer told me to get it out on the news though," Ariana said as she flourished her hands, her face flustered. "What I mean is, I just don't want anyone else to die-"
"It's alright. No one will die. Isn't getting your father and the company down what the killer wanted?" Michael inquired, trying to reason with Ariana.
"Yes." Ariana said.
"So then, if we find your father guilty and we arrest him, but that only if he is truly guilty, won't the criminal stop killing people, without you having to go on the news Ariana?", Michael's eyes shone, he looked at her and through her, hoping she would understand. "I just don't want you to be in trouble Ariana and I don't want you to be involved in all this anymore." Michael's words actually shocked her. Did he truly care about her that much?
On the other hand, she wondered, when was it that she become that fearless?
"Ok, let's watch the so-called evidence." Ariana winked at him and looked at the two sticks in her hand, tied to each other by a thread of scotch. She wondered, eerily, if the killer could somehow hear and see them in that moment, if he already knew she decided to disobey and do this Michael's way.
The killer was, even to her, a mystical, almost surrealistical figure - he had a superpower or so he claimed - he could erase people's memories at will and do what he wanted. Maybe that was true, since he wasn't caught all of these years. He killed a lot of people and despite that, there wasn't a trace of evidence pointing to his real identity, and if he didn't consistently come out lately- by his hints in solving the Big B. murders and finding the bodies, by his letters, and now by his messages to her from a burner - they wouldn't even know there existed someone like him.
Besides that, she also knew she was the same age as him. And that she, many years ago, had seen his face - but despite her efforts, couldn't remember it.
She looked at Michael and gave him one very decisive look, as she passed to him one of the sticks. He gave her one firm but tender nod and she felt him touch her hand and grab it, slightly. But he changed his mind and turned his attention back to his task. He opened his personal laptop, preferring to use it over his work computer, so that no one could trace the evidence he was holding inside of his hands, until je checked it first.
Ariana felt reassured that he was there and he cares about her enough to support her and tell her the truth. She hated that she entered the police's radar in a bad way, because she was an investigator after all, and she was innocent in all this. Although she seemed stoic, she was somehow scared.
Once they inserted the stick in the laptop, they opened the Explorer to find the only thing on it was a folder filled with photos. The photos were of the ten members of the VELLA organization, casual looking men and women wearing suits or lab clothes. They were captured doing things spontaneously, like, there was a picture of a group of four men and a naked man tied to a table, who looked unconscious and looked to be one of the victims who survived the VELLA cases. There was another photo of a man with glasses, wearing a white lab coat, who had a wicked smile and a syringe, and, blurry and barely recognisable in the background, you could see someone tied to an inverted cross. The photos only got more and more sinister, as if the Big B. killer had sorted them like that intentionally. Looking at them gradually gave a panic feeling as if you'd be afraid of what would be there, next.
The ten VELLA operators who were murdered did a lot of horrible things to the kidnapped victims from Norway and Sweden, all leaders of renewable energy companies and technology, all meant to intimidate them into giving intel to Johnson's Electronics. They used mental and physical torture.
And Ariana was cringed by the fact that this was all done, in the end, on her father's orders. He was the CEO. She couldn't imagine and she couldn't believe her father was like that. Her father...
"That's all just too sick," Ariana said, disgust in her voice. She'd wanted, for a second, to cry as she watched those photos, but she knew it was because of the emotional imbalance she felt sometimes.
And the killer, the Big B. killer killed those ten evil guys, not the victims. He actually saved the victims and didn't leave as much as a scratch on them. And when she thought about it more intesely, it all actually made sense. Of course the killer would kill the VELLA operators and not the victims. He had been, in his childhood, an experiment subject and tortured as well, although for different reasons and circumstances.
He wasn't a good guy, not at all, he had killed innocent victims in the Big B. murders - for revenge, because they were somehow connected to Alstromeria Johnson's death - but they were innocent. He had good intentions gone bad, and a wish for revenge, and he was a cold-blooded killer. And one of the reasons he was doing all of this for was her mother. Her mother...
She was, most frustrated of all, by the fact that she had crossed paths with this guy but couldn't remember him at all. She wished she could pull out her brains and rummage through them as though they were a drawer-full of papers. But those memories were gone and she couldn't. If only she knew.
"This material could be legit evidence to arrest your father," Michael said as he closed the folder and looked up at her, as if he waited for her opinion, approval or just to capture the emotions. She was, as always lately, neutral and thoughtful.
"Then, go ahead and arrest my father," She spoke, somehow hesitating. "He's not whom I thought he is, all my life..." She then sighed and let her head fall on her back as her hands, behind her, grabbed the edge of the desk forcefully. "I really didn't want to believe that shit they said."
Michael sighed as he pulled out the stick from the laptop and she heard it hit the table.
"At least, you'll be alright. Wait, there was a second stick too, wasn't it?"
Ariana smiled slightly. "As a matter of fact, yeah." She handed him the second stick but kept leaning against the desk with her back, not looking. She didn't want to see any more shitty stuff done by her father. Michael fumbled with the stick, and she didn't look until he spoke.
"Look here... " he said half-mindedly and she turned around to see a folder, with a title identical to the one on the other stick, and a video underneath. Michael clicked and opened the folder first - there were copies of the exact same pictures on the other stick. Then, they passed on to the video. Michael opened it and what they saw was a blue screen with something written on it, it was like a slideshow woth a creepy soundratck. And what was written on the first slide was:
"I knew you wouldn't do as I said, Ariana, and would instead end up collaborating with Michael,"
Michael's face was crumbled with curiosity. He was awed to see his name in a message from the killer.
"But it's okay, we'll do it like that, then."
The melody stopped and the video closed itself.