WhiteKnight31: Leave it to Reid to be the logical one. Whatever. It looks like the photo evidence backs you up this time.
Armchair_Detective: He could have still hired someone to take her.
ReidingRainbow: That seems farfetched. 10 years ago, this guy crashed his car trying to do donuts in an abandoned Kmart parking lot. (ATT: mugshot picture) You really think he masterminded this whole plan, so brilliantly that the police haven’t figured anything out all these years later?
Armchair_Detective: Fine, you have a point. Let’s move onto other theories. Like the fact that he claimed she was cheating on him and the police never looked further into that.
ReidingRainbow: Exactly. They thought they had their guy (kindof like you’re trying to do now) so they didn’t investigate anything he had to say.
“Reid?”
The faint sound of my name barely filtered through the giant noise-cancelling headphones engulfing my ears.
“Reid?”
Louder this time. I shot off a quick“got to run”to my group. I pulled off my headphones and nestled them around my neck before spinning around in my office chair.
My sister stood there, arms folded, leaning against the wooden door frame.
“Ruby.” Exasperation seeped into my voice. I hated being snuck up on. “I told you, that key is for emergencies only.”
She rolled her eyes and dangled her fuzzy, hot-pink, rabbit-foot keychain in front of her. “And I’d leave it for emergencies if you ever answered your phone. I texted you that I was here and called you, like, three times.”
“Oh.” Frowning, I pulled out my phone to see that she had, in fact, called. “My bad. I got caught up in something.”
“I’m used to it.” She pushed off the doorframe of my office and disappeared down my hallway.
My stiff back protested as I stood. The hours I’d spent holed up in the office, hunched over my computer, had taken their toll.
“Are you almost ready?” Ruby called from somewhere in my house.
“Just let me grab a sweater,” I called back, veering to the right out of my office and walking the short distance to my bedroom at the end of the hall. It was late October, and I knew I’d regret leaving the house in just my t-shirt. After I’d thrown on my favorite gray crewneck, I assessed myself in the mirror, then patted down my short golden-brown hair that was sticking up haphazardly from wearing headphones all day.
Ruby said something else that was muffled by the hallway and multiple square feet between us.
“What?” I asked, padding out of my bedroom and down the hall that led to my very open-concept living, kitchen, and dining room. The high ceilings were what had sold me on the place when I’d first walked into this townhouse. For someone who spent most of his days in a dark room in front of a computer, I appreciated the haven of sunlight.
“I said, what do I need to grab?” My sister was parked in front of my fridge, door open. She assessed its contents, carefully arranged by category. “You know your refrigerator looks like a serial killer’s, right?”
“Are serial killers the only people allowed to be organized?” I asked, walking behind her and pointing to the top shelf. “That container.”
“No, but there is a certain obsessiveness to not having a single item out of place. It’s food, Reid. It doesn’t have to be this compulsively arranged.” Ruby plucked out the covered glass bowl and closed the door with her hip.
“What is it?” she asked, peeling the lid open.
“Mediterranean orzo salad.”
She sighed. “Why must you always be so impressive?”
“It took five minutes,” I said with just a touch of defensiveness. Ruby saw me as the type of person who constantly put too much effort into things. Organizing a room so that it was just so. Color-coding my closet. Learning the science behind baking a soufflé. These traits apparently meant I lacked a certain…cool-guy essence. It didn’t matter that being organized came naturally to me. It didn’t matter that Ienjoyeddoing these things.
“It makes me look bad. All I’m contributing are the warm two liters of soda in my trunk.”
“So, the usual,” I said, which was met with a swift elbow to the side.
“Hey, I baked cookies literally last week.”
“Cookies that bore a striking resemblance to the ones found in the bakery section of Meijer.”
