No Ordinary Girl

Chapter Twenty-Four

My head down, I trudged slowly toward her door, but as soon as I stepped into her office and saw him, my spirits rocketed. Leo was sitting in front of her, smiling at me; that same old familiar delicious grin. If he was there, and he was so happy, I couldn't possibly be in trouble, could I? Ace was also there.

I eagerly took a seat in the chair next to Leo's, wondering what was up. We were all facing her, eager to know.

"You're probably all wondering why I called you into my office," she started. "Well, first off, I wanted to congratulate you all on a job well done. You've managed to unearth some very valuable information."

"Thank you," Leo said.

I was speechless. And also sitting on cloud nine. Her praise meant so much to me. Leo and I gazed quickly at each other with shy grins.

Look at us, I wanted to say. Teacher's pets.

"Detectives Miller and Brice have been humoring us," Simone went on. "They've been looking for the mysterious redhead. Apparently, there are no redheads to be found in the family's list of acquaintances. That includes family, friends, and work colleagues, as well as caretakers."

"I definitely saw red hair," I broke in. I was starting to second-guess myself. Could I have only seen the red hair because of Leo's story; his parents' love triangle. He hadn't seen the red hair. "...I think. I don't know."

"Now, as you mentioned, it wasn't auburn hair, or strawberry blonde?"

"No... it was definitely very red," I tried to explain. "Like Pipi Longstocking, or ..." I tried to think of actresses with red hair, "or Julianne Moore."

"Yes, it's what they've been looking for."

I'd never doubted my abilities before, but I'd also never been so dazed and preoccupied. So much was going in my life; new school, new classes, new state, new friends. And there was also my crazy crush on Leo. Could I have wanted to impress him so much, that my mind fabricated something that wasn't there? Could I have been trying too hard?

"I'd like the four of us to go back to Michigan on Sunday, just for the day," Simone said, all business. "We'd fly out in the morning and be back by dinnertime."

"Sure," Ace said not too enthusiastically. He seemed bummed about having to work on the weekend.

I looked over at Leo and thought about our Sunday 'date'. It would obviously need to be rescheduled. Anything to find Haley.

"I would like us to speak with Mrs. Henderson again," she explained. "See if we can trigger anything about the redhead. Mason Henderson refuses to cooperate, but his wife is willing to speak to us again," she went on. "To be honest, I don't think the detectives looked very hard. Again, they're not taking this very seriously."

It made sense. Why would they? According to Brianna, many thought that Simone Adler was an eccentric billionaire quack, and that her school was full of moody delinquents. And that's in spite of quite a few articles in the media about RAMS' past collaborations with various police departments, and the many successes in solving quite a number of cases. People just don't want to believe. They don't believe in God anymore, and they certainly don't believe in the mythical realm either.

"Can you all clear your schedules on Sunday?"

Leo and I looked at each other again. We didn't exactly have busy weekends, the three of us exiled in the middle of nowhere in Maine. There was never much going on around RAMS. We all spent most weekends hanging around campus, catching up on homework. A few students had part-time jobs in town, but none of us three did, as far as I knew.