Near Miss

Chapter Twenty-Three: Corollary

"Have you called Lucia yet?"

"It's Lucia," Rhiannon corrected. "With a ch sound. Loo-chi-uh." Before Theodore could ask again, she added, "And no, I haven't."

"Well, why not?" Theodore wondered. "I thought you were going to call her this morning."

"I'm getting to it!" Rhiannon protested. "Just... I'm still trying to figure out this thing about the engagement ring."

"Well, what about it?"

Theodore was staring out the window with his back to her, watching something in the parking lot with avid interest. His foot tapped against the ground, slightly out of sync with their upstairs neighbors' continuing bass. As far as Rhiannon could tell, Theodore had picked up that mannerism from his sister- or perhaps the other way around.

Rhiannon slumped over and turned on the light. "No one said he was dating," she reminded him. "Even Clive didn't know. Come to think of it, though, I don't think Clive was a very good friend- I mean, he wasn't even that sad when Malachi died. So it wasn't him, probably."

"Well, who else did he know?"

"Sonia... Yvette..." Rhiannon trailed off. "Yvette would never take that. She wouldn't get involved with an employee, that would be against policy. And I think if he was that close to Sonia, she wouldn't have stolen something from him and then lied about it."

"It could be Fiona," Theodore pointed out. "Didn't she say they were friends in high school?"

"Yeah, that's true..." Rhiannon admitted. Then she cleared her throat. "Anyway, why are we assuming it's someone we're aware of? He could have had a secret girlfriend, or something."

"Do we have any evidence of a secret girlfriend?" Theodore asked, his tone indicating that he was, in fact, in earnest.

"Well... no..." Rhiannon sighed. "In fact, there's no evidence of anything, besides the ring. And the ring might not even have been his."

"Sonia found it important enough to mention to the police," Theodore reminded her. "Even though she chose to steal it, she still thought it would be an important part of the investigation. Maybe she actually saw him drop it, or something."

"That's a hard maybe," Rhiannon reminded him. "We still have no idea whether she's lying about that or anything else. Besides, who would want to date Malachi?"

"What do you mean?" Theodore snorted.

"Well, he clearly has no close friends," Rhiannon pointed out. "He has exactly one unit of family, who he seems to rely on for everything. He works in a restaurant and lives in an RV. I'm not saying that makes him undesirable, but I will point out that it's rather strange for him to have bought an engagement ring. It must have been someone he really cared about. So why didn't they come forward?"

"That's why I'm saying that it's probably someone you've already interviewed."

"But none of those people came forward," Rhiannon protested. "If it was for Sonia, why didn't she just say it was hers, instead of trying to apparently steal it? If it was Fiona, why didn't she contact the police earlier and let them know everything she found out about Malachi?" Rhiannon shook her head. "I don't know who it is, and I don't like that. Someone we haven't talked to."

"Maybe it was Dorian," Theodore said unexpectedly.

Rhiannon scoffed. "Dorian? Are you kidding? He's Malachi's brother, that makes no sense at all!"

"No, I mean, maybe Malachi was hiding the ring for Dorian or something. I mean, we know Dorian has a girlfriend."

Rhiannon's eyes widened. "That's a good point! Do you think it's for Lucia, then?"