Mystery Loves Company

Chapter 31 - File #5.2: The Secret's Keeper

Avery

"Building Your Future?" I recited the largest sentence on the flyer Kyle just handed me. The paper was colored in monochromatic blue, with three photos of the guests lining up on the bottom part. It apparently had more than five guests, but they only put the photos of the most interesting guests to attract people.

There was Franco Lacroix, a French-American author and painter who held a book reading in Bensworth three years ago, which my mom, Alex, and I attended. He used to add his own drawings to his book, making him one of Alex's favorite authors. However, it was announced that he would no longer write a book because he wanted to focus at painting.

The second photo showed a lawyer named Wanda Pratt. She never lost at cases, and her most famous case involved a businessman who was the main suspect of two murders. That was something Rhett would be interested in.

The last guest who had the honor to get their photo featured on was a young woman with an exquisite smile. The name said Annabeth Banks, but other than her books that were always in Best Seller list in every bookstore, I didn't know anything else about her.

I gave the flyer back to him, and then continued watching Alex and his friends rehearsed for the last time before they performed for their school's anniversary tomorrow.

"You're not interested?" His lips turned upside down after excitedly showing this to me two minutes ago.

"With this brain, I can choose my own future," I replied fast.

"But not with that attitude," he sneered. "Come on. I don't want the ticket go to waste. Rhett doesn't want to come because his sister is one of the guests."

My attention was completely diverted to him. "Sister?" I tried to remember the name from his notebook. "Beth?"

"Yeah, who do you think Annabeth Banks is?" He flinched when I snagged away the flyer.

I looked at the photo closely. Beside the hair color, I couldn't find any other resemblance indicating she was Rhett's sister. "You're not messing with me, are you?" I snapped.

He just laughed, as if he knew that would be everyone's reaction when he revealed this. He took out his phone, logged in to his Facebook, and searched for Rhett's profile. He clicked one photo and showed it to me.

It was a family photo. There were five people standing on the beach, with the wide blue sea as the background. The parents were in the middle, while two young men—Rhett was one of them—stood on each side. Beth, wearing sunglasses, rested her head on their father's shoulder. The caption read 'Miami, baby!' and had over 100 likes.

"What a good-looking family," I uttered the only comment I could possibly make, "but it doesn't look like Rhett is related to any of them. Is he adopted or something?"

"I know, right?" Kyle chuckled. "That's why he doesn't want to go to this seminar and expose himself as Annabeth Banks' brother. It seems like he has some bad blood with his sister. He even wants to avoid his own birthday because he knows that she will be in town to celebrate it."

I blinked. "Rhett's birthday is coming up?"

"Yes. Next Saturday. He never tells you that?"

I was quiet as I tried to re-scan Rhett's notebook on my mind. He never wrote about his own birthday there, not even a mention of it.

"So, are you coming or not?" Kyle still didn't give up about the seminar.

Honestly, I was curious about Rhett's sister since he seemed to despise her in his notebook. He lost Beth's cat back in the day, and they blamed each other for it.