Behind the face

5-Winter Is Coming

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She stood in her office and recalling all the facts again. What was she missing? Walking to her desk, she gathered all the pictures from the crime scene. She already had them tattooed in her brain but she needed to look at them again. Laura picked a picture of Aria few weeks before she died. It was a picture of her with her colleagues. She picked another picture of her which she got from her album. She was laughing and didn't know when the picture was taken of her. She was beautiful and gracious. Her beauty was natural without any trace of makeup on her. She had this naive look on her face too making her even more appealing and attractive.

Wait! A thought crept into her head. She dialed Chloe immediately.

"Chloe, bring every picture you have of Aria Jordan." She said before she hung up.

Maybe it was just a tiny little detail but it was still worth checking. A minute later Chloe came into her office with a file.

"She didn't take pictures much but I managed to get a few."

Chloe passed it to Laura. Laura opened the folder studying all the pictures. Her hunch was right. She felt her heart skip with excitement.

"Chloe look at these pictures and tell me what you see." She said passing the pictures to Chloe.

She looked confused but looked at them. "I see a beautiful woman who was later killed mercilessly?" She said unsure of her answer.

"Wrong answer. Now look at those pictures again. Aria was a beautiful woman and she knew it. They was not a hint of makeup on her face." She pointed to one picture. "She was given an international award here and she didn't even apply as much as a lipstick. And here-" She pointed to another one. "Her birthday, still she was plain."

"I still don't understand where you are go-"

She raised she finger silencing her. "Now look at this picture." She pointed to the one taking when she was dead. "Red lips contrast to her pale pink lips. Contoured face. A full face makeup she had here. It makes me wonder why."

"Maybe she just felt like doing it. She was feeling down and maybe felt like a change would be welcome."

"A good theory but not what happened. Aria was a person of routine. Go to work, go to the grocery shop, go for yoga every weekend, go to the church, go for her monthly check ups. She never went out of these except on very few occasions. People like that are hardly impulsive. They don't just wake up on day and feel like doing something then do it."

"So what do you think happened? You think she was going to see someone?"

"Bingo." She said.

"So maybe she was going to see a guy she liked and really wanted to impress?"

"Or a woman."

"I doubt it. Why would I waste my time or go out of my way to see a woman I'm not involved with?"

"Who is talking about anything romantic? She may have dressed up for other reasons. To show the other person how fine her life was? To look confident and perfect? Women do that a lot. It may not be someone she loved or admired. It may be someone she always felt a silent competition with. We have many options."