by Keya Jay
Chapter twenty-nine: Ryder Ferris
Ryder stood against the farthest wall that had no writing—for now—and watched Skylar work. He provided her with some information on as much as he knew about Aaron and she was able to fill out a few things on Brooke. There was one wall to her right that was covered with a map of Coconut Grove Ryder didn’t know what for but she had barely paid it any attention so he decided to go take a look at it. Everyone’s house was labeled on there even Hank’s which Ryder was pretty sure was probably a fake, she even had their child hood tree that him, Sidney and Nate used to hang out at and apparently where Nate had spent his latest hours. Ryder also noted that there wasn’t a thing about him on it which was probably eating her up inside but she has yet to say anything about it.
“Do you think I should add something about that Richard Masterson guy who had gone missing?” she asked rousing Ryder out of his mental thoughts.
“Yea, I’d say go for it.”
“Do you know anything about him, you know from like when you worked with him?” she asked.
“Well we never really worked with him he was just there to help sometimes but his son used to train with us so I figured that was why he was there.”
“Ok so he had a son, his son didn’t miss his father at all?” she asked curiously.
“Well Richard’s son Eric had died during one of the annual battles.”
“Ok and so I can only imagine that that had upset Richard and that may have been a reason for him wanting to take Aaron’s tittle,” she said more to herself. She began to add things to her wall as she mumbled to herself. “Something’s not right,” she said out loud.
“What do you mean?” Ryder asked as he watched her turn and leave the room. When she came back she had a couple of papers in her hands. She sat the papers down on the ground and sat around them.
“Come look at this,” she said as she held her hand up for him to grab. Ryder grabbed her hand and she pulled him down to the ground rather roughly.
“What is this?” he asked as he righted himself.
“This is the obituary that I had shown Sidney. It’s Hank’s obituary and not the Hank we know, this belonged to the real Hank Paul Henderson.”
“Oook,” Ryder said slowly as he glanced at the papers and tried to read them as she began frantically flipping through papers. “Could you stop so I could read them?” he asked frustrated.
“No because none of this is important but this is,” she said pulling out a single sheet of paper. “Tell me something,” she said as she cleared the rest of the papers out of the way so that they could see only that one. “How old is Sidney?”
“19,” he answered without having to think about it.
“Ok and Brooke is 20,” she stated.
“What are you getting at?”
“What if the kid that was found with Hanks body and he kid that was at the funeral wasn’t Sidney but it was Brooke?”
“How are you possibly going to determine that?”
“Dates, this article is filled with dates we know that Sidney is 19 and Brooke is 20 but the kid that was found at the scene of the crime was 2.”
“Ok,” Ryder said following along with her.
“When Hank’s body was found and he was announced dead that was of the year…” she said before searching through the articles to find out, “1996,” she said after finding it. “So if Hank was found dead in 1996, or so let’s start with Sidney. 19 minus 2 is 17, now 17 plus 1996 is…” she said talking more to herself then to Ryder, “2013 which means Sidney would have been 1 at the time and not 2 so she couldn’t have been the little girl at the scene of the crime. Now let’s do the same with Brooke,” she announced.
“It’s 2014 so Brooke had to have been the girl,” Ryder said.
“Unless he has another daughter we don’t know about,” Skylar said only half joking.
“Let’s hope not,” Ryder mumbled as Skylar went back to shifting through the article papers that surrounded them.
“Look at this article; this was when the mother and daughter had gone to Hank’s funeral 3 years ago. Its say’s here that the girl was 4 which—”
“Which means that had to be Sidney because Brooke would have been 5 at the time,” Ryder cut in.
“Exactly, so both girls had been talked about in the article as being described as Hanks daughter.”
“Damn,” Ryder said.
“I know right,” Skylar agreed. “How does Richard Masterson fit into all of this, his son’s dead he’s missing and no one really knows anything about him besides the fact that he fought and killed Aaron over his title but was nowhere around to collect on that.”
“Why don’t you search him?” Ryder suggested. “Maybe you’ll find more on him.” Skylar didn’t even pretend to think about it she immediately hoped up and left the room, she came back 5 minutes later with a lap top in hand.
“Shit, I really hope this helps I can’t handle any more surprises,” she whispered as she brought up the search engine and typed in Richard Lee Masterson. “Is this him?” she asked as a picture of Richard and all of his birth information popped up.
“Yup,” Ryder answered.
“Damn it I was hoping you’d say no,” she said.
“Why?” Ryder asked confused.
“Because this side information shows that Richard was only 13 years old correct me if I’m wrong but he doesn’t look 13 years old in this picture and he wasn’t 14 years old when he went missing,” she said letting out a giant sigh.
“So what does this mean?” Ryder asked confused.
“It means that Richard Masterson probably wasn’t really Richard Masterson, and the reason I know this is because there are over a million pages and not all of them are about the missing Richard but is about the construction worker Richard who died in a freak accident, are you starting to see the pattern here?’ she asked as she looked over at Ryder.
“Do you think it could have been Hank, or whoever he is?” he asked.
“Do I think? No Ryder I know it is and here’s why,” she said coping Richard’s photo and pasting it into Photoshop. “Ok so if we changed his hair from blonde to black, from a tad curly to straight and a bit longer, and then change his eyes from a golden green color, to brown, shave his beard and just give him a mustache who does he look like?” she asked after she was done making the changes.
“Hank,” Ryder said a bit surprised. “Damn,” he said obviously realizing the connection
“My words exactly,” she said.
“What’s his point in doing all of this?” he asked.
“I don’t know but we need to find out who the hell he is really.”
“Ok and how exactly are we to do that?”
“Well he has to have stayed in contact with at least one person, only one that’s all we need and the rest should fall into place.”
“How are you supposed to find that out?” he asked confused.
“The same way I found out that he wasn’t Hank in the first place, but that means that I have to be allowed back into D.E.A.N Inc. Or…” she said eyeing him.
“Or what?”
“Or you could have more to add to that witness sheet,” she suggested.
“What could I have to add that wouldn’t be a lie, I’m pretty sure as a witness you’re not allowed to lie.”
“You won’t lie, I’m pretty sure there’s some things you know about Richard that you,” she said putting the emphasis on you, “thought was important to share.”
“But it wouldn’t be correct,” he said not really phrasing it as a question already knowing that that was her intentions. “And what will you be doing?” he asked almost hesitantly.
“I will be spending a girl’s day with Brooke, and then we’ll both meet up here,” she said.
“Do you think we can take some kind of break tomorrow?” he asked.
“Why?” she asked as she collected the papers off of the ground. He didn’t even bother to help her as she did it.
“Because I’m visiting my mother tomorrow and you said you’d come with me.”
“Shit, I almost forgot about that, I guess we can take a break,” she said as she got up with all of the papers nice and ordered once again.
“Do you think you’ll be ok with this?” he asked curiously.
“With what, seeing your mother because I already told you that—”
“No not that I mean going out at night?”
“Oh,” she said seeming as though just now realizing her problem. “Well I think I’ll be ok I mean if I’m not then I’ll try to come back early or try to call you,” she said before realizing her mistake.
Ryder really didn’t know what to tell her so he settled on, “alright we’ll see,” before walking away.
