Finding the serial killer

Chapter 14

Chapter 14

Jake’s POV,

“When we read something horrible in the news, all we ever think is that this couldn’t happen to us. This don’t happen to people like us.” Smith said. I sat with her as she cried on my shoulder fidgeting with her fingers, snorting. I tried to give her the comfort she needed but it is just one day of those 1095 days of immense suffering and pain that she’s been carrying with her. When a single mother decides to keep the baby, the world turns ten times as challenging for her. Life is already hard enough to provide for a child all alone, what’s harder is to lose her with the most brutality ever known to human with no explanation or punishment to the assailant. No closure only suffering, endless suffering. It’s hard to witness it, let alone suffer.

How frustrating it is to lose a part of yourself, you keep going over and over on that day, to think what went wrong, to question what she did wrong is beyond exhausting. It’s torture. And she looks tortured, she looks withered, unbranched, dried. Like there is no light left, only darkness.

Sitting across us, Emily passes me the tissue box. I passed Mrs. Smith more tissues just as swiftly as she was running out of them, the tears were actually a part of the flood she’s been keeping inside those dams of her mind. She picks up a picture frame from the side table. “I thought I know everything about my daughter, I thought that I did. I thought I made her strong, we did everything—” She gazes her fingers through the picture. “She died just like that… and I couldn’t even see her for the last time, I couldn’t tell her my last goodbye. I couldn’t see her before she was torn into pieces.”

I don’t know why I feel her tears depressing, like I can relate to her on a deeper level. I shouldn’t, but I do. I cry when people cry around me. maybe I'm sad because she is, I need a tissue for myself now, tissues. A box of them.

“Wait!” Emily and I both looked at each other. “They didn’t let you see Ari?”

“No. I only saw her in the funeral. They didn’t let me see her.”

“Ms. Smith,” Emily added and she raised her eyes to look at Emily, “do you think Nick really murdered your daughter?” I shouldn’t ask her this so directly. She has had no one but Nick to blame all those years, Emily is taking the only comfort away from her. How will she question her belief, her comfort? “I mean, you’ve known him and his family for many years. He was dating your daughter and you were aware of that, you even said they were inseparable. You must've known the kid.”

She thinks about the question like her life depends on it. “I don’t know why he did that to her. They were best friends before anything. I never thought he can do something so—so—bad to Ari. I even felt she was safe with him. The police said he kidnapped and r***d my daughter, she had his DNA on her. He took her to that warehouse and when she persisted on leaving, he killed her and himself.”

“Mrs. Smith,” I said fetching a tissue for myself, “there are new witnesses in the case.”

“New witness?”

“Yes, a British couple. They’ve shared some picture evidence with the police of being in the same club with them that day.” I explain. Those pictures are the only reason for this case to resurface. I know Captain is using this case to literally telling us to get lost in this maze. He knew there won't be enough evidences to prove anything, or witness. He obviously knows who is behind this coverup. Then those pictures surfaces with a simple search on the internet giving us all hope.

“What does that have to do with my daughter?”

“In that picture, she wasn’t with Nick.” I show her the photo in my phone, “and she looks drunk. She was actually with someone else who was never mentioned before. she left with this mysterious guy.” I tell her, but she grew just more and more concerned.

The only clue on this guy is that he has a skull tattoo peaking of out of her brown leather jacket around the wrist.

“Are you saying Nick did nothing? That he didn’t do it to my daughter.” Her tone got more and more aggressive as she roughly wipes her cheeks off those tears. I know we were taking away her hope, but what else can we do?

“Mrs. Smith we know it is hard for you to listen to all this right now but there is something we want you to tell us, without thinking about what cops said the kind of a person Nick was. Do you really think that kid can do something as horrifying as he was blamed of?”

She looked at us like we’re talking Greek. Her eyes red, lips sealed and fingers pulsating, she just broke out of her world.

“No.” her voice low, her eyes honest but also regretful, maybe because she was saying the words she shouldn’t say. “I don’t think he could’ve done that.” I knew she is saying what she really believes, I know Emily believes her. “It was hard for me to really believe. Nick was a great child, he was funny, he took care of Ari when I couldn’t. Never got angry, never fought with her. I shouldn’t say this knowing that he was the one accused of killing my daughter but it took me a long time to believe he could’ve done something so horrible.” She cries harder. “You can't tell what a person is until they do something bad.”