2.
~ Five Years Ago ~
~ Rachel and Elizabeth were quick to dispose of the tacky truck in a seedy part of the city. Johnny Marks never got over his high school glory days. The proof was his graduation tassel still hanging onto the rear-view mirror as Lizzie left the engine running and hurried beck to the Honda.
Ariadne sat crouched, rabbit like, in the back.
'This can't be real.' she thought as Rachel drove slowly back to their side of town.
"Ariadne?" Rachel asked. A hint of kindness in her voice. "Are you sure you're going to be okay?"
"Yes." Ariadne said and tried to breath.
~ That night, until dawn, the girls cleaned. Rachel and Ariadne were on their knees cleaning the kitchen floor with bleach. Every trace of blood was gone and Lizzie made sure there was no evidence of footprints in the muddy walkway to the house, or tire prints from his truck.
"The garden hose took care of it." Elizabeth sighed as she walked into the clean kitchen with her muddy shoes.
"Lizzy! I just cleaned that!" Rachel shouted and glared at her roommate.
"It's fine, Ray!" Elisabeth said bitterly. "We can't have it be too clean! It smells too much like bleach anyway."
"This is so typical of you." Rachel grumbled as Ariadne poured a bucket pink water down the sink; washing away the rest of the blood.
The kitchen looked clean, but she couldn't stand to be in this room anymore. The memory was too close. Too real and raw.
"Typical of me?" Elizabeth said. "Why do you say that?"
"I try and do something and you sabotage me." Rachel said.
"I do not."
"Do to." Rachel insisted.
"Guys, please." Ariadne whispered.
She had sunk to the floor and was breathing hard.
"What's wrong?" Rachel asked.
"We... we just killed a man." Ariadne said.
"No we didn't." Rachel said sharply. "We don't know what happened to Johnny, remember?"
"That's right." Elizabeth added. "The last time you saw him was a few days ago, you don't know exactly, when he accused you of scratching his truck."
Ariadne nodded.
"Say it!" Rachel insisted.
"I'm not sure what's going on with Johnny." Ariadne said coldly. "I saw him a few days ago. He said I hit his truck, or something like that. I don't know which truck is his. I haven't seen him since then." she finished.
"Right." Rachel said. "Remember, keep it simple."
"It was self defense." Ariadne whispered.
"No it wasn't, Ariadne." Elizabeth said and the two girls looked at the future architect sitting on the floor.
She felt tears swim in her eyes as she looked up at her friends. Elizabeth shook her head as Ariadne started to cry.
~ Present Day ~
~ Arthur walked Ariadne back to her apartment that evening.
"How was class?" he asked as his hand caught hers and they kept the same stride.
She grinned at him as they passed a bakery and he bought her the pastry she loved.
"Good, I think I might take another art class when this is done." she said.
"I thought you weren't going to be a professional student." he teased as she munched on the glazed donut.
"I'm not a professional student." Ariadne smiles sweetly.
"We were planning a trip to Greece this spring." he told her. "I was thinking we would bump it up a few months, go a little early."
"Why?" she asked curiously as she licked the cake frosting off her fingers.
Arthur was filled with a sudden urge to kiss her.
"Ariadne, is there anything you need me to know?" he asked instead. The Point Man always winning out in the end.
"About what?" she asked.
"Things from you past?" he asked. "Things you never told me before."
She laughed.
"Volumes. But what specifically?" she asked.
"Ariadne," he sighed and pulled her to a secluded part of the market.
She looked at him with her large brown eyes and he was again reminded that a girl like her could never do what the detective was accusing.
"A detective Harpool came to see us today. He was asking a lot of questions about you. Back when you went to college in Seattle." he said.
Ariadne looked thunder struck.
"What did you tell him?" she demanded.
"What did we tell him?" Arthur repeated. The correct response from her, if she were innocent, was: What kind of questions? Arthur felt his image of Ariadne become tainted a little.
"Apparently the body of a man was found in a lake. The police identified him as Johnny Marks." Arthur said and watched her face carefully.
Ariadne pulled away from him slightly.
"I went to school with him. We were Freshmen at the local university before I moved to Paris." she explained in careful, even tones that sounded rehearsed.
"How well did you know him?" Arthur asked when she fell silent and wouldn't tell him anything more.
"I didn't." she said with a shrug. "We ran in different crowds. I didn't know much about him till he disappeared."
"He was murdered, Ariadne." Arthur said. "His arms and legs bound with a zip tie and he was dumped in the lake."
Ariadne nodded and didn't look at him.
"Is that what happened?" she asked. Her voice indifferent.
"Why is this detective coming all the way from Seattle to talk to you about Johnny Marks?" Arthur asked.
She sighed.
"Because Johnny had apparently made threats about me to his buddies one night. Or, so I'm told." Ariadne sighed and wrapped her coat around her body tighter. "I don't know what about. I don't know why, really. I understand he was a loose cannon and he had been drinking."
She walked away from him and he followed.
"After he disappeared, the cops asked me and my roommates about it. We hadn't seen him in days anyway. We didn't know what was going on." she said mildly.
"They questioned you twice, Ariadne." Arthur told her as he kept pace with her quick movements.
"Arthur, do you think I honestly had anything to do with this?" she asked and turned her bewitching eyes on him.
He was caught in her spell.
"No." he breathed. His heart wanting to believe, but his head telling him she was lying.
"You want me to tell you that I don't know what happened to some guy I hardly knew five years ago?" she demanded. "I'll tell you what I've told the police. I hardly knew him, it's sad what happened to him, sure, but I had nothing to do with it." she said and walked away.
Arthur watched her go before he went after her.
'She's lying.' he thought.