New Year's Angel (R5 Fan Fiction -Rydellington)

The Mystery Begins

April 2014

Ross

                The last few months have been hard. For a while everyone kind of sulked around trying to avoid thinking about that night. That is up until Riker decided he was going to spend countless hours staring at the police files from the accident. He seemed determined to find some piece of evidence that would lead us to an answer. Rocky had flown back to New York to put up missing posters. Other than Ellington and my parents of course, Rocky had probably taken Rydels disappearance the hardest. He could have taken Rydel to the hospital for god sakes! Riker had been drinking at the party as he was legal age but Rocky had just been too tired to drive. Who knows if it would have made much difference, but the point is he could have been the one protecting Rydel. As her brother’s it is our job to be there for her and he wasn’t when he could have been. Ryland and I hadn’t returned from the party until after the accident so in terms of guilt we are alright. Ryland still wishes he could have offered to drive as well but I just see it as a pointless thought. Do I miss my sister? More than anything! But I seriously doubt that my presence would have changed the outcome. We cannot live out our lives thinking “what if”. Those are the type of thoughts that drive a person crazy.

Ratliff hasn’t come around our house in a long time and I am pretty sure it is because of the way everyone has been treating him. No one has blamed him for what happened to Rydel; at least not to his face. It’s been hard to not place all of the blame on him. It is human nature to want to rationalize what can’t be explained. Ratliff was the one with her before Rydel had hurt herself. He was the one who had heard the glass smash. He was the one who had been driving when the car accident happened. He is literally the last person to have seen Rydel alive. How can anyone prove that he wasn’t to blame? Well I was in that hospital room when Ellington awoke. He had no idea what had happened. When the police showed up to ask him some questions, the poor guy was still trying to process the situation. If the guys could have seen the shocked look on his face when I had told him Rydel had not been in the car, they may have acted differently towards him. Trust me he really was hearing this information for the first time. I should know I am an actor. It is literally my job to put on a show.

Honestly though, it had not looked good for him during the interview process. The police just kept coming back to the fact that he had been undoubtedly involved the entire time. If they would have found any form of evidence remotely close to framing Ellington, I bet they would have arrested him. My parents never pressed the matter but you could tell that my Dad was seriously considering it as a possibility. When the police officers had finished collecting their evidence, my Dad had begged the officer to give him his honest opinion of whether Ratliff was innocent or guilty. The officer had asked me the same question before he had left and I had told him that I believed in Ratliff. The guy was heartbroken. I mean let’s not forget that Rydel and Ellington had just shared their first kiss only hours before. If he had in fact mastermind this huge plan, than I should be taken to jail for being a gullible dweeb with terrible acting skills!

So here I sit, watching my family drive themselves crazy trying to put the broken pieces of this puzzle back together. Every night I spend a few hours with Ellington talking about what the group has been working on. No one else would come with me. They were not outwardly rude to him but they definitely had some unintentional hostility towards him. I couldn’t help but feel bad for the guy. Even Rocky, his brother from another mother, couldn’t hang around Ellington for long. Ellington begged them to let him help. But Riker had become the self-proclaimed head of the detective club and he was not having anyone in the group who could “tamper” with the evidence. So instead I take pictures of his work and bring it with me to the Ratliff household. Together we were going to discover the truth!

 When we finally did, I was over the moon about it. On the glorious day of April 21st, our hard work finally paid off. I had only been at Ellingtons’ for about an hour looking over Riker’s compiled evidence when Ellington suddenly stood up with an excited look on his face. “Ross! Look at this picture!” Ellington was holding a picture that we had seen numerous times. What he could have found in this picture after all this time was beyond me.