Arabella

Chapter 7

 Arabella cleared her throat and Jake slowly lifted his eyes off his plate. She stared at him and slowly started to smile.

            “So, did you just break into my house to feed me breakfast or is there some other point to this to this visit?” She smiled coolly, and Jake knew he wasn’t out of the woods yet. She was toying with him.

            “Uhhh, well… I need your help. Badly. Ok, look, I normally don’t ask for help” he rushed, “and I don’t like owing anybody, but this time I am in deep, deep trouble.” Jake took a breath and looked directly at Arabella.

            She took a long drink of coffee, never taking her eyes off Jake, taking in what he just told her. Jake was a big entity in the supernatural world. He probably had contacts many could only dream of having. If he was coming to her for help, either the situation was too bad for anyone to be of help, he was desperate, or this was a set-up to get to her.

            “How do I know this isn’t a setup for me?”

            Jake looked baffled for a moment and then laughed. “If it was a setup for you, I can think of better ways to go about it than me asking for your help.  After what happened, I decided the office may not be the best place for this conversation and I didn’t get to finish talking to you about it yesterday.”

            Arabella forgot that he had called her in yesterday to discuss a job. After the fiasco with Mr. Blue, it had slipped her mind. She gave a shake of her head and sighed. “Fine. What do you need help with?”

            Jake gave a nervous smile, looking relieved.  He took a deep breath and started slowly. “I called you in yesterday to do some… checking… on someone. I believe this person is into some serious dark magic. This person has a lot of political influence and the situation can be very dangerous.” He swallowed nervously and looked at Arabella before he continued. “The problem is, this person is now very dead and they think I did it.” Jake waited, holding his breath for Arabella’s reaction.

            “Hahaha!” Coffee spurted out of her mouth as she tried to keep the laughter down. Between bouts of laughter, she said, “You…expect…me to… believe… you kil---killed someone!” She let out a squeal of laughter, spilling the rest of her drink onto the table as she tried to catch her breath. Jake looked like a mobster and could probably have someone do a dirty job for him, but there would never be any evidence to tie back to him. He was too good for that. 

            The look on Jake’s face stopped the laughter building inside of her.  She shifted uncomfortably in her seat and stared at her coffee. “Who?” she finally whispered.

“Mr. Blue.”