Privilege 1 - Privilege by Kate Brian

out what she assumed would be the bathroom through the door opposite the bed. Instead she found a sitting room with two couches, a plasma-screen TV, and a well- stocked library of books and DVDs. She giggled in glee and turned back to the bedroom. There were two doors on either side of the four-poster bed. One led to a walk-in closet stuffed to the seams with clothing--from skinny jeans to colorful gauzy tops to overly sequined dresses. Most of it offended Ariana's simple sense of style, but considering the sheer abundance, there was probably something she could work with. She closed the door and opened the second door. A grin lit her entire face. The bathroom was modern and state-of-the-art, with a glass-encased stall shower and a separate Jacuzzi tub.

    A tub. Ariana tingled at the very sight of it, picking up the Kiehl's products that were set up along the shelf. She hadn't had a tub in forever, and she could almost feel the warm bubbles tickling her skin. But that would have to wait for later.

    Ariana headed back into the bedroom and crossed over to the desk, her heart starting to pound with trepidation. She took a deep breath and opened the laptop. It powered itself on instantly. Ariana stared at

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    the blue-and-white backdrop on the screen, feeling sick with fear and anticipation.

    "Just get it over with," she whispered to herself. "You have to know."

    She pulled the chair out and sat down. Her fingers itched as she brought up the Google search screen, and she mistyped her own name three times.

    "Dammit," Ariana said quietly. She held her own fingers and breathed.

    In, one... two... three...

    Out, one... two... three...

    The breaths calmed her. The trembling stopped. Focused, she typed her name and hit search.

    Instantly, dozens of articles from myriad magazines, newspapers, and gossip sites popped up. Ariana clicked on the first, a New York Times piece, and read slowly and carefully.

    Following the evidence Ariana had planted for them--the footprints she had left in the soft earth leading to the dock from which she had launched the skiff--the FBI had dredged Lake Page for her body. They had, of course, found nothing. None of this was a surprise. But the following paragraph left Ariana's mouth dry.

    "I don't care how long it takes. We are going to keep searching this lake until we find my daughter, "Arthur Osgood said. "I don't care if I have to personally pay to have this lake dredged a hundred times. My daughter will have a proper Christian burial. "

    "Crap, Daddy," Ariana said, her accent sounding more pronounced than usual in the silence. She covered her mouth with her hand and

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    leaned her elbow on the desk. Why couldn't her father just let it go? It wasn't as if he'd cared to see her when she was "alive." She knew that her father loved her in his own way--he had, after all, paid all that money to ensure she was placed at the Brenda T. rather than at some maximum security prison, and he had bought off all those people just so she could wear her fleur-de-lis--but he hadn't been up to visit her once since her incarceration. Why the doting father act now?

    The rest of the article contained information about her childhood, her conviction, her sentence. A little bit about that awful mess with her sister last year at Easton and an editorial aside about how insanity obviously ran in the family, which made her want to call the newspaper and complain. Reporters were supposed to report, not make diagnoses.

    Then Ariana came to a quote that stopped her blood cold.

    "She was my baby, "Lillian Osgood said via phone, through anguished sobs. "My one and only child. I don't care what you all think she did. She did not deserve to die this way. "

    A follow-up call was fielded by Mrs. Osgood's psychiatrist, who told this reporter that her patient would be making no further comment.

    Ariana's heart expanded in her chest as tears welled in her eyes. One hand flew to the fleur-de-lis necklace as the other