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

Tale of a Criminal

May 1st 2014

Mark

Trial Continues:

                “It was Christmas Eve back in Colorado. We were visiting your cousins up at the cabin,” and the damn police officer cut me off. Seriously, how would these people like me to explain anything if they will not allow me to speak. “Mr. Lynch what does this have to do with the accident?” That was my cue to give the boys a signal. Whenever I didn’t like something that they were doing on stage I would sweep my hand across my forehead. To outsiders it looked like I was just sweating and wiping it off. But Riker knew what it meant. Think! I could see the gears in his brain start to turn as he stood up and asked the officer to let me talk. “I apologize Mr. Lynch please continue.”

Alright, so I had the boys’ attention; now to get their trust. “Thank you. So we had just finished singing Christmas carols when there was a knock on the door. I believe Rocky had answered it.” Lie. Stormie had answered it. I put my hand on the desk telling the boys to listen before confronting me about it. “It ended up being some RANDOM people who had been having car trouble just up the road.” Lie again. They had been college buddies of mine from way back. The boys new that. “We invited them in to our home for a cup of coffee while we waited for the tow truck. We spent time getting to know each other talking about our kids and such when Ross walked into the kitchen. One of the guys became excited. It turned out that one of his daughters loved R5 and he begged Ross to give him an autograph.”

All of the kids, but Ratliff of course, were paying close attention to my story now. I knew that meant they had been picking up on my changes and hopefully putting them together. These guys that had visited had pretended to have no idea who my kids were. When Ross had come into the kitchen they seemed to not know he had existed let alone his name, even though I know they had met my kids once before. Okay time to put up a good story for the courts and get to the point before they shut me up again.

“So anyway, these guys spent time with the family before the tow truck came. They fixed the car and these men were able to get back on the road. As I was sending them off, one of the men gave me his number to his home in New York in case we were ever there. The rest of the holiday season passed as usual. Then I found out that the band had been invited to perform at the New Years bash in New York. I was so proud of them! We packed up and headed for our New York vacation on the 27th of December. We had been there for a day or two when I decided to call up those random people and see if they would be interested in coffee. Oddly enough I couldn’t get a hold of the guy so I never did get to go have coffee with them. New Years Eve came and just before R5 went on stage I was tapped on the shoulder. When I turned around I was shocked to see the guy that I couldn’t get a hold of. He was working security and was double checking that we had everyone ready.”

Suddenly I was interrupted again! I was about to get frustrated when I realized Riker had been the one to do it. “Your honour can we take a recess?” Officer Nichols looked at Riker with a confused frown. The judge looked at Officer Nichols for approval, who in turn nodded and went back to his table. Riker spoke to the Officer for a minute and then grabbed Rocky and Ryland before running out of the room. As they were leaving photographers snapped pictures and reporters called their names hoping for one of them to stop and talk to their camera. Honestly some people just have no class. Just then an officer came up to the podium asking me to go with him for a moment. He lead me out of the court to a small room where sitting inside was my wife. She looked so worried. The officer told me I had 5 minutes to talk and then we would need to get back to the hearing. Sitting down across from my wife I held her hand to reassure her.

“Mark, please tell me you have not given anything away! If the court finds out, they will ruin everything.” I squeezed her hand a little bit “Darling, I have not told them anything of value, at least not the public. Riker is figuring things out slowly. He is the reason why the court has stopped for a moment.” Stormie sighed letting out a big breath. “Oh thank goodness. I hope he does understand. Rydel doesn’t have much longer and we were so close to getting her exact location!” I put my hand over her mouth. “Darling, do not talk about it here. They have nothing to hold you to this case unless they hear you say something like that. I promised you before; we will get our little girl back. But no one else can know that she is alive yet, except our son. He will figure out my secret messages and I have faith that he will know what to do.”

The officer came back and escorted me out of the little room. As I was walking back up to the podium I looked into the court audience and noticed something that frightened me quite a bit. Ryland was not there! I shot a glance at Riker and Rocky who were over in a corner talking frantically. They were up to something. What had they done? The judge banged the gavel down, and I was asked to continue giving my explanation. As I began speaking again something was eating away at my insides. Ryland had not come back from break!