Eclipse {Ravi Singh}

04

Disclaimer: i dont own agggtm i do however own a shit ton of stuffed animals

pip had told amaris about how she interview elliot ward yesterday when she went over after the incident with ravi at the store, and now the sat in their scorching room pip was rereading some letter she needed to send to the police while amaris was painting.
"pips, mars, front door for you."
"pip can you go see who it is? ill be down in a minute." amaris asks and pip nods walking downstairs while amaris finishes her painting after shes down she heads downstairs.
"So... are we ok?" amaris hears pip ask
"We’re ok. um, is amaris here?" amaris hadnt expected to see ravi singh at her door.
"im here."  amaris says walking up to the door, ravi smile broadens some at the sight of her.
"hi." he breaths out. "hey." "um im sorry i- you-you were right about me blowing up." "yea i know."
"mari!" pip exclaims whereas ravi just laughs, nodding his head.
"and us, are we good?" he asks sratching the back of his head. amaris nods and smiles, "we're good."
"you hear that me and your humans are good." ravi says to barney and pip smirks an idea coming to mind.
"actually barney was due for a walk why dont you and mari take him?"
amaris glances over at her sister before shrugging at ravi who was looking at her for confirmation, "if you want to." she says to him and he smiles, looking back down at barney.
"who could say no that handsome face?"
"okay great heres the leash go." pip urges pushing amaris causing her to stumble forward and directly into ravi who chuckles and places his hands on her arms to steady her.
"pip, i dont even have my shoes." amaris glares at her sister who nods and goes into the kitchen grabbing a pair of converse that were actually pips and gives them to amaris, before closing the door.
"sorry, shes really weird sometimes." amaris apoligizing slipping her shoes on.
"well thats not your fault, moon."
she smiles and clips barneys leash on before starting to walk ravi next to her.
"ive always wanted a dog, sal was allergic thats why we never......"
"your always welcome to come over and hang out with barney." amaris says as the cross the road to the woods opposite of them, and amaris leans down to unclip barneys leash letting him run free. he woukd come back when she called.
"thank you. you paint?" ravi asks taking noticed of the dried paint that littered her hands and thighs.
"mhm, i used to want to get a degree in it but now my plans to get a BA in photography and go from there."
"i didnt know i was in the presence of a woman with many talents."
amaris smiles and scrunches her nose, "i wouldnt say talents but i do enjoy them."
"and shes modest." ravi says with a smiles as the two walk along the edge of the woods.
amaris laughs and shakes her head, "enough about me. what did you want to do when you were younger."
"i wanted to be a lawyer." ravi answers a small smile on his face.
"you could still do it." amaris encourages and ravi looks down at her, she shrugs. "i think youd be great at it."
"not when the grades i got spelt out, DUUUDEE." ravi says jokingly even though they both knew that it held truth.
amaris knew that after everything with sal the kids at school decided to take their resentment out of ravi, as if his life wasnt hard enough losing his brother.
amaris felt the blood drain from her face when she realized where they stood, "i- im sorry. i d-didnt even realize that these were the woods where-"
"its fine" ravi cuts her off knowing where she was going with this, "really. you can’t help it that these happen to be the woods outside your house. plus, there’s nowhere in this town that doesn’t remind me of him"
the two fell into a comfortable silence as barney drops a stick at ravis feet. ravi bends down, picking it up before throwing it for barney.
"i was wary of you guys when you knocked on my door," Ravi said breaking the silence, "but you really don’t think sal did it, do you?"
"it just- it doesnt make sense. i mean sal was smart but he was still just a seventeen year old boy, it doesnt seem probable that sal killed andie and hid her body so wel that it hasnt been found just to turn around and kill himself. the case has alwasys been in the back of my mind but i didnt- i never thought to do what me and pip are doing now, i mean it was all pips idea. really shows wgo the smarter twin is, huh?"
"i tried to do it three years ago, what you guys are doing. my parents told me to leave it alone, that i was only going to make things harder for myself, but i just couldn’t accept it."
"you investigated it?"
"yea, moon, but i didn’t get anywhere, I couldn’t. i called naomi
ward when she was at university, but she just cried and said she couldn’t
talk about it with me. max hastings and jake lawrence never replied to
my messages. i tried contacting andie’s best friends, but they hung up as soon as i said who i was. murderer’s brother isn’t the best intro. and, of course, andie’s family were out of the question. I was too close to the case, I knew it. I looked too much like my brother, too much like the“murderer”. and I didn’t have the excuse of a school project to fall back on."
"im sorry." amaris mumbles before her face scrunches, "sorry your probably sick of hearing that."
"its fine, moon. it’s good to not be alone in this, for once. go on, I want to hear your theories"
"well, they're not my theories they're pips." amaris says fiddling wuth the clip on barneys leash, "again, im not the smart twin."
ravi notices a small frown on her face, nudging her he whispers, "hey, you got your own thing, itd be boring you were the same as pip."
amaris smiles up at him, "thank you." she mumbles.
"go on, the theories."
"ok she has four working theories. obviously the path of least resistance isthe accepted narrative of what happened: that Sal killed her and his guilt or fear of being caught led him to take his own life. the police would argue that the only reasons there are gaps in the case are because Andie’s
body hasn’t been recovered and Sal isn’t alive to tell us how it happened.
But her first theory, is that a third party killed andie bell, but sal
was somehow involved or implicated, such as an accessory after the fact.
again his guilt leads him to suicide and the evidence found on him
implicates him as the perpetrator, even though he isn’t the one who killed her. the actual killer is still at large."
"i thought that too. still dont like it."
"i dont like it either, but pip says we have to 'explore all possiblities' or some shit." amaris pitches her voice slightly higher as she immitates pip.
ravi laughs, "im not sure sarge would like that comment very much."
"probably not. theory number two, one that i think makes some since. third party killed Andie, and Sal
had no involvement or awareness at all. his suicide days later wasn’t
motivated by a murderer’s guilt, but maybe a multitude of factors, including the stress of his girlfriend’s disappearance. the evidence found
on him – the blood and the phone – have an entirely innocent
explanation and are unrelated to her murder."
"i still dont think sal would do that but ok. theory three."
amaris gulps, "theory three, andie is murdered by a third party on the Friday. the killer knows that sal, as andie’s boyfriend, would make for the perfect suspect. especially as sal seems to have no alibi for over two hours that night. the killer murders sal and makes it look like a suicide. they plant the blood and the phone on his body to make him look guilty. It works just as they planned it."
ravi stops walking, "you think its possible sal was murdered." hope in his voice, ravi didnt want to beilieve sal killed himself.
amaris finds herself nervously scratching her palm, "theoretically." she murmers her gaze focussed anywhere but his, "theory number four, is so far featched i dont really beleive it at all, no one killed andie bell, because she isn’t dead. she faked her disappearance and then lured Sal out into the woods, murdered him and dressed it up as a suicide. She planted her own phone and blood on him so that everyone believed she was dead. Why would she do this? Maybe she needed to disappear for some reason. Maybe she feared for life and needed to make it look like she was already dead. Maybe she had an accomplice."
silence fell ober them again and amaris realized they were back across the street from her house, adter calling barney over and clipping his leash. she and ravi walk back to her porch, where the silence becomes awkward making amaris want to crawl into herself and hide.
"so, the reason i came over -- other than to say im sorry -- was because i want to make a deal with you guys."
"a deal?"
"yeah, i want in on this. i never
had a chance, but you guys actually might. You’re an outsider to the case, you guys have this school project excuse to open doors. People might actually talk to yall. you might be my chance to find out what really happened. I’ve waited so long for a chance." ravi's voice was shakey.
"i think thats a good idea and i know pip would agree to your deal. so yea." amaris sticks out her hand and ravi takes it murmering, "deal. ok i got something for you." ravi pulls out an iphone and amaris brows furrow.
"its sals phone."