murder in the parking lot

WARNING: mention of guns, drugs, murder.

The man had her in his sights, eyes locked on her like a hunter chasing an innocent deer.

She was blissfully unaware of how he closely followed her everywhere she went, school, her favorite local supermarket, Joe's house, her house, he tailgated her when she drove around the city streets, the boldest move he made however, was following her to Kansas City and tempering with her drink.

It was never his intention that she would wake up from the GHB induced coma, but then again, math was never Arthur's strong suit, and he miscalculated the amount of drug needed to reach a lethal dose.

He also enjoyed toying with his food, like a cat torturing a mouse before striking the final blow. He made sure she was somewhat aware of his presence, even if she couldn't quite prove anything, or have any concrete evidence of his stalking, she felt uneasy being alone in the lab after she caught a glimpse of his mysterious figure lurking in the dark of the empty hallways of a building where no one was supposed to be in. He took pictures of her from the distance and mailed them to her house.

He tried to kill her, and just in case that didn't work out, he left just the right amount of evidence behind so that she could figure out that those incidents were most likely related, everything had been carefully planned, and even more carefully executed, by a mastermind who managed to create a narrative of interwoven fragments of a puzzle, if anyone could put the pieces together it was her. Or it would've been had she not been so preoccupied chasing her new boyfriend around the country, moving in with him and balancing his crazy schedule from the last few months with her own life.

Arthur was well aware of all of this. He knew that it wouldn't be long before she put two and two together and figured out that he was very openly spying on her, by parking his van outside of her house. He also suspected that she would want to handle everything on her own, and wouldn't alert the police or Joe. In fact he was counting on it. He was his godfather after all, he knew her all too well. Victoria was a creature of habit, predictable and with well established routines she would very rarely break.

And just as every great scheme in history, this one also had one specific endgame: Victoria needed to be taken down.

She stayed up all night with Joe, pacing around their bedroom, calling Officer Philips to no avail, pondering their options: calling the Cincinnati police department or waiting for KCPD to reply.

"What could this even mean? Your father?" Joe kept staring at the envelope, as if it would make it come alive and scream the answer he was looking for.

Victoria nervously bit her lip. She knew the answer, but she didn't know if she was ready to tell Joe everything about her toxic family secrets.

She took a deep breath and began talking, ready to get this weight off her chest.

"I think I know what it can be about" She finally mustered. 

"What?" Joe looked at her, confused.

"I'm gonna tell you something I am in no way proud about. But it's part of my story and if you're really in this for the long run you have to know" she briefly paused to take a sip of water. "My dad hasn't always been uhm... the most honest man in the world. We've always had more than enough money to make ends meet, I attended private schools my whole life, I went to UBC with no scholarships and had a trust fund that payed for it. I guess I never really questioned anything about it. I enjoyed my privileged life and that was that"

It was the first time Joe heard this information, he suspected Victoria grew up rich from her posh way of speaking, her excellent wine taste, and just the fact that she had reached graduate education, but he never confirmed his suspicions and she never delved further into the subject.

"Until a few years ago, when I was a junior in college. One day my bank account got frozen, and my dad called to tell me that it was a precautionary measure because the government had found irregularities within the law firm... they ended up finning him 500,000 dollars for embezzlement and sentencing him to one year probation"

Victoria felt incredibly ashamed of sharing this information with anyone. It wasn't her father's proudest moment, and it was such a rough moment for their family, only second to Sophie's death.

A feeling of relief overwhelmed Joe, he could finally make sense of the latest events on his girlfriend's life. This newfound relief only lasted around 30 seconds before the daunting realization that Victoria might be on someone's hit list because something her father did kicked in.

"So your dad is like a mafia boss?" Joe asked, shakily.

"He's not a bad guy. He told us that the firm was going through some rough patch and he didn't want to burden us, so he took a loan from the other partners. An unauthorized and illegal loan albeit" She confessed, getting teary eyed.

"And you think that that's what the message was about?" Joe inquired.

"I truly don't know, Joe. It's just the first thing that came to mind when I read the note. I had never told anyone about that either"

"Is that why you've been so reluctant about going to the police about it?"

"Partly because of that, and partly because I wanted to ignore what was going on. Ignorance is bliss you know?" Victoria leaned into Joe, and he lovingly stroke her hair.

"It's okay baby, your secret is safe with me. And you will be too" He softly kissed her face.

"I need to go to the police now, do I?" Victoria asked.

"Yes you do. But for now we can lay in bed all you want. Well, for around an hour before you need to get up and go to the university. I'll drive you and pick you up until I get you security" Joe told her, using his particular I'm-not-negotiating-this voice.

"You aren't getting me security Joe, that has to cost a fortune, and you shouldn't have to pay for my father's mistakes"

"I don't care how much it costs, if it kept you safe I would pay for presidential level bodyguards"

Victoria chuckled, as she laid down next to Joe in their bed. He brought her a unique sense of comfort, it reminded her of the feeling she got when she was a little girl and she came running to her mom after waking up from a nightmare. Joe felt like home.

"I can't begin to thank you for all of your support. You're always there for me Joe" Victoria buried her face in his chest.

"We have each other and that's all that matters" Joe kissed her forehead.

"Do you think that this could be one of your dad's former partners?" Joe asked as he stroked her arm with his fingertips.

"I don't think so. There's only Jeff and Arthur. The last thing I heard about Jeff was that he moved to Wales. I highly doubt he's hunting me down all the way from Europe. And Arthur is my godfather, I grew up very close to him and his family, his daughter Melissa was like a sister to me. We aren't that close anymore but they'll always hold a special place in my heart" Victoria couldn't imagine Arthur ever hurting her.

"There's gotta be something else then" Joe whispered, the exhaustion of the craziness of the last few days was catching up to him, and he could feel himself losing the battle to his desire to sleep.

"There's only one way to find out. I'll call my father as soon as it dawns in Vancouver" Victoria was convinced that her father would tell her the truth if she asked him upfront.

"I'll take care of you. Always" Joe whispered in her ear.

"And I'll take care of you. Always and forever" Victoria promised, her oath was sealed by a kiss in the middle of the bedroom, covered by the darkness, laying in bed after not sleeping for the entire night.

It was astonishing the way they found peace in each other, even at their darkest moments, when they were together, no challenge seemed too great to be overcome.

Joe kept his promise, like he always did, even though it took everything in him to stay awake on the drive to the university, but in light of the recent events, he would never allow Victoria to go on her own.

He dropped her off, reminding her to let him know when her day was done so that he could pick her up, and firmly warned her against leaving the building if it wasn't with him. Joe passed out in his bed immediately after getting home, so much that he lost track of time. And he forgot to charge his phone.

Victoria entered the facility, also feeling the effects of pulling an all nighter, but unlike Joe, she was used to the sleep deprivation, and knew the exact amount of coffee she would need to wake up from her drowsy haze.

"So how was the big game?" Paige asked Victoria, as they shared a cup of coffee before starting the experiments of the day.

"It was amazing. The atmosphere, the energy in the Stadium, the crowds went wild, a once in a lifetime experience" Victoria smiled, remembering the feeling.

"Ah, if I only liked football. Or understood it at the very least" Paige let out a big sigh.

"You should get into it. I'd take you to the games and then Lexie can die of jealousy that you get to hang around with Joe Burrow" Victoria joked.

Lexie was so focused on her RNA extraction protocol that she didn't pay any mind to her friend's comments.

"We should get to work now" Victoria muffled, dragging her feet into the main table of the lab, to prepare her protein samples for an electrophoresis. It cost her a great deal to stay awake long enough to correctly load her sample mix into each invisible well of her acrylamide gel.

Such was her exhaustion that she forgot to call her dad, until later in the afternoon.

She used her dinner break to call the man. The start of their conversation began with their usual casual chitchat about life and the weather in their cities. Victoria cut the shit and went straight to the point after a few redundant questions.

"Dad... I need to ask you something... Lately I've been getting weird messages about an unknown person, I feel like I'm being followed, I think it might be connected to the thing in Kansas. They left a note asking if I knew what you did.. please tell me what happened" Victoria pleaded.

She couldn't tell over the phone, but on the other side of the line, her father's face lost all color, he gulped, riddled with guilt.

"Oh baby, Victoria, I need you to get somewhere safe now, don't talk to anyone, stay with Joe, please please don't go anywhere"

"Dad I need to call the police" Victoria whispered, her voice cracked.

"No, don't involve the police. Just be safe. I'll handle this"

"How are you going to handle anything from another country? Are you mad? I need to call the police" she raised her voice.

"Arthur might be in Cincinnati" Her father let out in a painful final blow.

"What does that have to do with anything?" The cold reality hit her like a train. "Is Arthur the one behind this? Oh shit... he is, that's how he knew where I lived to begin with. I mentioned it to Melissa once. What the fuck did you do to Arthur?"

Loud beeps. Then silence. The call was lost.

Victoria tried reaching her father again, she tried once, twice, and once more before giving up. Then she called Joe, she received no answer, the call went straight to voicemail.

She was alone, with no way of going home, she hadn't driven her car, and Joe was nowhere to be found.

When she went back to the lab she realized that her friends had already left, they wrote a note for her to read letting her know she needed to close down.

Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit.

Panic was starting to numb her senses, she wasn't thinking straight. The only thing she could think of doing was calling for an Uber.

A phone call from an unknown number appeared at the top of her screen, before she could complete the transaction.

Loud breaths were coming from her phone speaker.

"Hello Tori, how are you?" The familiar voice asked.

"You should know pretty well, given that you've been following me around" Victoria was boldened by her tiredness of this stupid game.

"Feisty as usual, huh? Why don't you meet me at the parking lot and then we can talk some more about this... ordeal"

Every one of her instincts told her not to agree. To lock herself up in the lab and call the police. But she couldn't fight her relentless curiosity, she needed to finally know what the fuck was going on.

So she went, slowly walked down the stairs from the third floor to the main entrance of the building. There it was: the old black van, parked on a corner of the parking lot. It stood out from the nothingness that surrounded it.

She walked towards it, her legs shaking. She felt like she was walking to her death.

He appeared coming out of the van, cigarette on his mouth. He took a few steps in her way. They were a mere two feet away from each other.

"What a beautiful night don't you think?" He said.

"Cut the shit" Victoria replied, angry.

"That's how you greet your godfather after not seeing him for so long... ungrateful bitch" He spit on the ground.

"What do you want? What are you doing here?"

"Always so precocious my little girl, I'm here because of your father, didn't he tell you?"

"Whatever you think my dad did, that's between you and him. I don't get why are you doing this to me, we're supposed to be family..."

"It stopped being between me and him when I lost my entire family because of his bullshit. My wife left me. My daughter put a gun in her mouth" Tears began forming in his eyes.

Victoria was shocked, she didn't know about any of this.

"What?"

"He didn't tell you that either did he? Your dear dad started taking money from illicit activities again. He drained the firm's account, I went bankrupt. My wife left me, Melissa couldn't handle the pain of her mom's departure and the fact that we had to beg for money to eat" he stopped for a minute. "My dear child you should visit home more often. That's what you get from whoring around with your man. Where is he though? I don't see him" Arthur took another step towards her.

Victoria stood her ground, not flinching for a moment.

"And what? You've come to avenge them?"

"In a way, yes. A daughter for a daughter"

He took another step. He was now stroking her hair. Her eyes filled with tears.

Victoria clenched her fingers around the metal inside of her little purse, that went undetected by the man thanks to how dark it was already.

"All of it, it was you, wasn't it? The Kansas thing; the pictures, the hallway at night, the elevator... how did you pulled the elevator shit?"

"I payed someone"

"That's a pretty fucking elaborate plan for someone who's bankrupt"

"Your dad isn't the only man in the world that can get his hands on dirty money" He whispered to her ear, sending goosebumps down her spine.

"Don't come any closer" she warned him.

"Or what? What will you do. You're helpless, alone, and soon enough, you'll be laying cold on the ground"

"Back off" she pushed him. He violently yanked her hand, as she struggled to release from his grip. He turned around. This was her chance.

She pulled her last line of defense out of her purse.

BANG. BANG.

omg this chapter turned out really long, I really wanted to explain and connect the dots of everything that happened lately. I hope you enjoyed it ❤️Love-your favorite phantom narrator.

I'm also celebrating the part number 25 of this little book. Thank you for all of your support. If you're up to it I have so much to write still...