Hello lovelies! Sorry I vanished. Yay mental health plus covering a coworker's vacation. I actually was going to publish another chapter before this one, but I switched them for a couple reasons, including that it's easier to get this one out than the next one in terms of actually finishing writing it, and I just wanted to get you guys an update!
Warning, not for this chapter but for a couple in the future, this fic is going to get fairly dark, maybe worse than anything that's happened so far. I will post more warnings before those specific chapters, but please don't read those updates unless you're in a head space to handle some tough stuff (again though, I promise everybody lives!)
TrueCrimeMegaFan1989: I think she ran off with Kai Hovell.
AlwaysOnTheCase: Kai Hovell died in the stage collapse. Stop making up scandalous conspiracy theories and dragging the dead into it. ESPECIALLY when you know it's not true. Stop.
Ralph sighed. He hated the message boards. Rumor, misinformation, outright lies. But yet he kept reading them. Because maybe, somehow, he'd find out news on there. Something real. Maybe the answer was there.
Where was Meg Mitchell?
The forums had hundreds of pages of comments. There were still nightly reports on the news. But interest was fading, outside of the internet community. Fewer outside people were joining the search. The segments were getting shorter. There was still interest – especially online – but the news was getting bored, especially without a lead.
And her family was getting more desperate.
Fortunately, on the plus side, more and more people were improving from the disaster at the fundraiser. Daisy was so close to feeling normal again. She and Patty were currently in the middle of the living room, some online radio streaming from one of their laptops.
Ralph was surprised when he saw his laptop screen change to a call screen. A Facebook call from Florence? Ralph quickly accepted the call. "Florence?"
"Huh?" The screen was showing a ceiling. Florence's face appeared at a slightly odd angle. "Ralph?"
"You call me by accident?" Ralph asked.
"I guess. Sorry!"
"No worries," he said. "I was wondering if something was wrong, you know, since you don't usually…"
"Yeah, no, nothing wr…I mean, nothing's gotten worse in the last few days, anyway."
"Are the rest of them still in Montana?" Ralph asked, even though he knew they were.
"Yeah. Couple more days, probably. So uh, how's things…there?"
Florence looked okay. Tired. A bit stressed. But not as bad as Ralph thought, considering what he knew she was going through. "Good news, here," he said, wanting not to think about Meg Mitchell, "the show Daisy was cast in is going to let the understudy open, but-"
"Wonderstudy!" Daisy called. "We call them wonderstudies."
"…but once she's recovered and gets her rehearsal time in, she'll be on as scheduled."
"That's great news," Florence said.
Daisy and Patty were dancing behind Ralph, he could see them in the reflection of his screen. They weren't dancing romantically, but more like one would at a club, or a wedding. It made him smile. Florence seemed to be smiling too. "How are things with…everything?" He asked.
"With your mom?"
"Well, yeah."
"Well, we got the results of the split sample DNA test. It matches Tim. They're still processing the crime scene but…"
Ralph sighed. "Damn."
"Did you like him?"
"It was…complicated," Ralph said. "I didn't like that he was with my mom, not really. But I didn't think he was a bad person. I don't think any of us did. Even Walter, with all his envy, all the petty that went on between the two of them, I don't think he imagined that Tim would be capable of this."
"Everybody wants top market," Daisy sang along with the radio, pulling Patty in a circle, "but I'm a little bit unraveled. Everybody wants the new model, but I'm a little bit more traveled. If you got the strength I do, then sign me up…"
"I'm talking to Florence here," Ralph grumbled.
"Don't worry about it," Florence said. "I'm glad she's feeling better."
"She's pushing it a little too much right now, I think," Ralph said. "She'll be sore tomorrow."
"But it's good she's feeling well."
"Oh yeah. Of course." He bit his lip. "It will be weird. When she's gone."
"Patty going with her?"
"I don't know what the plan is anymore. But I think so."
Daisy twirled Patty. "She's gotta have patient hands, because the way to my heart is through my mind." She grinned, coming up behind Ralph and raising her voice as she and Patty danced right behind him. Ralph rolled his eyes at Florence.
"Been way too long since somebody's body kept me up all night, yeah, that good kinda keepin' me up all night."
"Wait," Patty said, stopping and staring at Daisy, whose voice trailed off to leave only the radio. "What's the bad kind of someone keeping you up all night?"
"Maybe when you kick me in the back in your sleep?"
Florence smirked, putting a hand in front of her mouth.
Patty shrugged. "Fair enough."
"Can you guys please at least do this over there?" Ralph asked.
"Sorry, Ralphie," Daisy said, reaching over to dig her knuckles into the top of his head. He swatted her. "Just because I'm sitting down doesn't mean I can't kick your butt."
"You can't kick my butt with a six inch height and hundred pound weight advantage," Daisy said.
"Eighty pound weight advantage," Ralph said. "But fair point."
"What are you planning on doing?" Florence asked, "when they…leave?"
Ralph sighed. "I don't know. I have something here. I'm established. I have work. But I can work anywhere. My life has been Daisy and Patty for…years. And I don't want to go to New York. I know I'd be near my grandma. But, I mean, people aren't supposed to know she's alive and I feel like that might endanger her, even if I only visited and lived with the girls again. But they won't want me third wheeling once they get married." He shrugged. "I don't know. You wouldn't happen to have ideas," he joked.
Florence looked serious. "I mean…you could come here."
"California?"
"Scorpion."
Ralph felt a sudden ache in his gut. Homesickness. He recognized it. But he'd been away so long. Carving out his own thing. His own life.
"Ralph," Florence said, "one thing I've learned, or rather, one thing I am learning, is it's okay to lean on people who love you."
