Never Trust a Truman

Chapter 10

The very next day when the lunch bell rang at school, Lyndsay and Ryan met Rachelle at her locker. "Hey, Ray...," greeted Lyndsay when they caught up to her.

"Hey you two, what's up?" answered Rachelle as she sat her books on the top shelf and grabbed her bag.

"Well, we just wanted to double check and see if you were still up for questioning Zack this afternoon?"

"Huh? Oh yeah...yeah, I'll be totally fine."

At first, Ryan and Lyndsay weren't quite sure if she'd be able to handle him on her own. A couple moments later when they saw her look up at them with a smile, they soon rethought their expressions. They had to toughen kup enough to trust her, but they quickly knew that she'll be fine by herself. Lyndsay knew because Rachelle's her best friend, and Ryan knew because Rachelle knows how to kick butt if she ever has to.

"Okay...but if you ever decide that you might need someone to go along with you, just let any of us three know," said Ryan. Rachelle thought it was very sweet that she has teammates that she can always count on. She quickly slung her bag over across her body and hugged Ryan as she slammed the locker shut behind her. Once she let go of Ryan, Lyndsay was sure curious about lunch: she was very hungry.

"So anyone else hungry?" she threw out there totally unexpectedly. When Rachelle and Ryan looked her down into the eyeballs, they realized that they were feeling the same thing.

"Yeah, we can go for some food," mentioned Ryan.

"Well, let's mosy on along to lunch," insisted Rachelle. Lyndsay and Rachelle linked one another's arm as they walked to the lunchroom while Ryan was on the other side of Rachelle. When they got into the cafeteria and received thier food, they went to sit down with Troy who was outside. Once they all three sat down, Lyndsay rapidly noticed Troy holding the handcuffs from Kaitlyn's crime scene.

"Troy...what are you doing with those...do they represent a clue of somehow?" she sort of snapped at him.

"I don't know, you tell me," he replied while being smart with her.

"You better watch yourself," she snapped at him another time as she snatched the cuffs from his bare hands. When she got the cuffs in her possession, she soon realized that she should've asked him what it was he was looking at. "What is it you were noticing on these things?" she questioned him as she was tossing and flipping the cuffs around. He grunted with some depression when he carefully took them out of Lyndsay's palms. As he retrieved them back, he took his two fingers to smudge off the dirt from the spot. When he saw the mysterious clue that his eyes were searching for, he immediately gave Lyndsay back the handcuffs so she could notice.

"Look, right there," he pointed out the clue to her. As soon as Lyndsay saw what he was wanting to show her, her pupils widened up really big with shock. Ryan and Rachelle stared down each other with quite some curiousity. They quickly got the emotion that they needed to know what the deal was. Rachelle, who took a bit of her apple, frantically swallowed the chunk down her esophagus in order to speak her mind.

"Huh uhm...what is it?" Rachelle hesitantly asked Troy and Lyndsay. Lyndsay with her mouth partially open, looked over into Troy's direction and back towards Rachelle. Without taking a breath, she reluctantly came out and said, "What does Z. M. stand for?"

"Z. M.?" repeated Rachelle. "Where did you hear that from?"

"We didnt' hear it from anywhere. The initials are engraved into the metal of the handcuffs," answered Lyndsay. Rachelle and Ryan were surprised while being shocked with speechlessness. They looked at each other as their eyebrows went straight upward and their jaws fell downward. To give himself a chance to talk, Ryan frantically and immediately chowed down the food in his mouth. As soon as he was able to speak, he threw his opinion out there into the open. "Maybe that's the brand of the handcuffs?" he said. Rachelle gave him a sly brow and a look like it could just be that. Lyndsay, the one having her fingertips on the pieces of metal, quickly rolled her eyes over to Troy's direction and back down to the evidence. A couple of seconds later, she raised her eyeballs upward to meet Rachelle and Ryan.