The Flower You Didn't See | Mystery

Chapter 9

"You should ask them if you want to know more about Ruby's whereabouts. Not us," added Maya.

"Also sir," Hannah said, her voice full of concern, that John found fake, "Please ask Ruby to take care of herself. I'm sure she is a nice person on the inside. She probably just... got a bit lost."

Instead of returning to his hometown, John decided to stay in a local hotel for the night. Meeting the girls had left him quite drained of all his energy.

To save money he had chosen a shabby hotel. As he walked in he noticed the dirty walls. The glasses on the side table were dirty. The sheets had not been changed, or were used so much that no amount of washing could clean it anymore. The bathroom mirror was broken. The curtains had some weird stain on them that he didn't even want to investigate.

He regretted his decision, about the hotel and about venturing into Ruby's past.

He had just wanted to find where Ruby was the night of the accident. But what he found was not something he could believe. It was something he never thought he would have to hear about Ruby. Her 'best friends' were not her friends at all anymore, and according to what they said, Ruby hid a lot of information about her life in college from John.

From being a studious, cheerful, happy girl who never said no to her Pa, who always made her Pa happy, he had come across a girl who didn't score well, who had an immense craving for popularity and even had a boyfriend!

Was she with her boyfriend or new friends the night it happened? Were those girls right about contacting these kids to know more about Ruby?

And then a thought occurred inside his brain, that he wished it had not.

What if it was those kids who gave her the drugs that are damaging her body and costing her, her life? That was certainly what Hannah and Maya were suggesting.

He had to find those kids. Sara, Laksh and Lee.

Day 3

John couldn't sleep well that night, not with everything that was going on. The constant siren of the ambulance throughout the night was another reason. John worried that at this rate, he might die of lack of sleep or a disease that was yet to be identified. The city was certainly not a place where he could consider spending his life.

His purpose was to find what had happened that night to Ruby and to find who had drugged her. But finding where she had been just that one day, no just merely a few hours before her accident itself, had proven to be so difficult. He wondered whether he should give it all up and return to be by her side at the hospital.

Maybe he should just wait for Ruby to gain consciousness. But what if she never wakes up? He shook his head, pushing aside the thought. He had already lost his Rose, he did not want to lose his Ruby.

He thought he had raised a good girl who'd stay away from trouble. But what if she was indeed like...

He didn't want to complete that thought. Those were the gray areas that he'd rather forget.

Maya being the only person whose number he had, he contacted her again the next day. His intention was just one. To get to Sara, Lee or Laksh. To get any one of their contact numbers. Though Maya initially had shown reluctance, she gave him Laksh's number. As Laksh was the student council president, it was mandatory for all students to have her number.

Wasting no time, John called the ten digit code. A pleasant female voice picked the call after it rang three times.