Frostbite (Mindgames #1)

Chapter Sixteen - Sweet Treats

I was alone with Detective Langley, I had never heard about the DSO before, which intrigued me. "So you mentioned men in white taking your friends?" Aaron said, taking note of my words on a notepad. So many people have had to write my words on a notepad, it honestly made me feel like I was a celebrity. A celebrity trapped in a constant loop of pain and suffering.

"Yeah, there were three men in white dragging my friends out. Felix was with Stephanie and Indi, is there a reason they were recovered and not the future duke?" I asked Aaron.The question seemed to make him ponder for a moment, his brows furrowing as he brought his hand to his chin, rubbing the ocean mask covering his mouth. "If I remember correctly, the recovery team had found Stephanie and Lady Merino in the estate's gardens, the future duke was nowhere in sight."

I thought for a moment, if Indi and Stephanie were next to Felix during the attack, perhaps when they were gassed they took all three of them, knocked out the girls, then ran with Felix."Did the Duke anger some powerful people?" I asked Aaron after a while of processing our current situation. "Not to my knowledge, what makes you think that?" Aaron asked. "I'm curious about your mindset, you are Rivera's kid, so you must have his brainpower."

"I'm my own person," I said quickly, for some odd reason I felt insulted being compared to my father. There was tension in the air as there was a moment of silence. "I'm sorry." I apologized quietly.

"Don't sweat the small stuff, I get it," Aaron replied, waving to me gently. "You want to make your own way, your own legacy. It's my fault, I apologize sincerely." Aaron said gently, bringing the hand he used to wave to me, to his chest.

"Tell me what *you* have come up with." Aaron corrected his vocabulary, making me react with an appreciative smile.

"My friends and I are in the law and research class branch for the academy in Tawrion, so we research a lot of cases and learn new ways of investigation," I said to Aaron, gently taking the notepad and pen from him, turning open a fresh page, so I could write down the thoughts I couldn't formulate properly.

"This chaos started when Stephanie and I decided to investigate the currently active VMP case," I said, writing it down for Aaron to look up. "Which on Tawrion is our current active unsolved serial killer case."

"However, any time we investigate, or interview someone, an incident happens-" I began, noticing Aaron's head tilt confused. "I will give an example, we wanted to ask our professor after one of our classes with them, for permission to visit the Tawrion special forces headquarters to interview some officers," I said.

"Though, when our professor left to go to the restroom briefly, the school went into lockdown, because an intruder was on campus, and that intruder came directly to our classroom," I explained, seeing Aaron adjust his posture as he listened to me and watched me write down my statement."This intruder attacked our classmate, Julia Nash, who I suspect was mistaken for Indi Merino," I said.

"Does Julia look like Miss Merino?" Aaron asked me. "They somewhat do, but the difference is that Julia is ginger, and Indi is blonde. Something obvious being missed like that implies that the person who hired the man is not a person of detail. This person just wants the job to get done."

Aaron tapped his fingernails on the counter next to him. "How is that relevant?" He asked me, he didn't seem bored, he was intrigued.