Page 11
Morrison nodded. “We can get more than this, but hunting social media is always a good way to see what people are up to. It might lead us to a connection for Don.”
“Right. People post the darndest things.” She shrugged. “I mean, when you think about it, if you don’t have someone out there trying to do you harm, why not?” she murmured. “At least that’s how most people feel about it.”
He studied her face for a moment. “Do you post?”
“I have in the past, but not recently, not since my mother passed away,” she clarified.
“I didn’t have anything happy to share. I usually told people what was going on in my world, so, other than that, nobody really expected me to post.” He didn’t say anything, and she immediately took that to mean something was wrong.
“So, because I haven’t been posting, that’s wrong? ” she asked, staring at him.
“No, not at all. Not wrong. It’s interesting what you consider to be totally okay to post on social media.”
“I’ve never really been big on it. I would rather meet friends in real life,” she pointed out. “And spending as much time as I did nursing my mother, it wasn’t something I kept up with.”
“Boyfriends?”
She nodded. “When I had a serious relationship, I certainly posted about it, but I had more girlfriends back then too. Everybody was doing it. I just didn’t find the need to keep it up. What about you?” she suddenly asked him.
“I don’t post at all,” he murmured. “Social media’s got some serious issues, and, being in the line of work I’m in, it’s a hell no for me. I’m very private that way, and I don’t particularly want anybody knowing what I’m doing.”
That didn’t surprise her at all, and neither did the fact that he didn’t use social media.
Several of her friends had gotten away from it over the years, but that also meant losing track of people if you didn’t make the effort to keep in touch.
It was far too easy to lose them along the way.
“I think it’s just become an easy way to let people know you’re still on the planet,” she added.
At her phrase, he smiled. “I agree with you on that, but it lets everybody else know that you’re on the planet too,” he stated. “Not something I’m too keen on sharing.”
She burst out laughing. “I guess in your business that’s not exactly a plus, is it?”
“No, it sure isn’t,” he agreed, with a grin. He clicked on a few of the social media screens, looking at the Friends list. “I was hoping your brother might be here.”
“I looked,” she confirmed, “but I couldn’t see him.”
“And that also tells us that he wasn’t in her usual group, just somehow they crossed paths.”
“Lots of guys don’t want their personal life on social media,” she noted. “So, it’s not as if you’re very different.”
“No, but still, lots of them do share online,” Morrison pointed out.
“A lot of them don’t care. In my line of work, we always track people through social media.
” He shrugged. “I haven’t heard from anybody about this, but I’m pretty sure people have been checking out her links and all the rest. So nothing pertinent to Don was found, or I would have been notified. ”
“ Right ,” she muttered, with a growing awareness that just because she was checking social media didn’t mean a dozen other people weren’t as well. “I never really thought about it. Guess it was dumb of me to think that maybe it was something nobody else had thought of.’
“I would certainly hope so. It’s an amazing part of our world, when you think about it.” Then he went back to the paperwork in front of him. As she sat here pondering what to do next, he suggested, “Feel free to go to sleep if you’re tired.”
“And if I’m not?”
He looked over at her and added, “Turn on the TV or do whatever you would normally do right now.” He wasn’t even looking at her now, focused on whatever he was working on. “Don’t let my being here stop you from your normal routine.”
She snorted. “How can it not stop me? It’s not as if I can just ignore your presence.”
“Yeah,… I guess that’s a valid point. I wasn’t really expecting you to feel obliged to stay up or to change your routine because of me. That’s not what I would want.”
“No, maybe not,” she said, “but I still can’t just ignore that you’re here or that my twin brother is in trouble. Maybe I have potentially more family out there I don’t even know about.”
“Potentially family who may not want to know about you,” he reminded her.
She winced. “Thanks for putting it in perspective.”
“Look. I’m not trying to be difficult,” he added, “but, until we have more facts, you need to consider all options, not just the happily ever after ones.”
“You’re right. I get it,” she grumbled, throwing up her hands. “Maybe I’ll grab a book and just go to bed.”
“That sounds like a good idea,” he agreed. “Something to help calm you down and to take you out of this funk for a bit.”
“If that’s even possible,” she muttered and then gave a headshake. “Sorry, there I go again.”
He laughed. “It’s all right. You’re allowed to be confused, disoriented, upset.
I mean, all this is new to you, and, even when it’s not, when it’s personal, it’s still new to you because you don’t have any experience with it on that level,” he revealed, totally understanding.
“I know how hard it can be. You’re not doing anything that the rest of us wouldn’t do in a similar situation. ”
She wasn’t sure how to take that but knew he was trying to help. She nodded. “I’ll go have a bath and try to relax. If anything happens, you’ll let me know, won’t you?”
“I will,” he stated, “and you’re not expecting anybody, right?”
“No, not expecting anybody, and it would surprise me if anybody showed up,” she shared. “I live a very quiet life.”
“Maybe Don does too,” Morrison noted. “Twins often share the same traits, even when raised separately. At least that’s what some studies show.”
Sadie frowned at that, considering it.
“Since when have you led this quiet life?” Morrison asked, turning to face her. “Or is it mostly because of being a caretaker for your mom?”
“Mostly, at least for the last six months of her life anyway. When you spend six months in the darkness like that, you lose an awful lot of friends because they’ve moved on.”
“Not if they’re real friends,” he replied. “They’ll probably be there when you get back to life.”
“Maybe, and maybe I just don’t want the same things anymore. I guess this whole thing has shifted the way I look at life.”
“That happens, and it’s not a bad thing,” he noted. “If you think about it, an awful lot of change can happen, and there’s no reason that some of it can’t be a good change.”
Pondering that, she headed to her bedroom, decided to forgo a bath as it just felt wrong while he was here. Instead she grabbed a book and tried to read a little bit. At least until she could fall asleep.
When she heard his phone beep and his voice rage, she immediately bolted out of bed and raced to the doorway to try and listen in. “I’ll tell her,” he muttered in an undertone. “Yeah, no, maybe I should wait for morning.”
“Screw that,” she muttered, then stepped out into the kitchen, where he was on the phone.
He looked up, saw her there, and shrugged. “She’s here now,” he said to whoever was on the phone with him. “I’ll get off here and call you back in a minute.”
As soon as he ended the call, she stated, “Just to be clear, don’t ever wait until morning to tell me something.”
He smiled, then nodded. “It’s not super important. It’s… more or less just another piece of the puzzle.”
“At this moment, any pieces of the puzzle are super important,” she declared. “So, what did you guys find?”
“They found another woman who’s connected with your brother, at least per social media. Apparently they crossed paths at the pool hall, although she claims to have not seen him in the last few weeks. Don was inconsistent about showing up.”
“Oh, that’s interesting,” she murmured. “So, did this woman know Penny?”
“No. She didn’t know about Penny or her son.”
Sadie nodded. It’s what she expected, yet it was disappointing.
She wanted her brother to be this great family man, who would have learned from all the crap that he’d been through, but just because she wanted it to be true didn’t make it so.
“Could this new woman tell you anything about where Don could be?”
“She gave us a couple more names of guys he hung out with, but they were an ugly crowd that she didn’t want anything to do with; and that’s partly why she didn’t get too friendly with Don.
She didn’t really have anything else to add.
Don’s not working, and she told our guys that was another problem with him.
Don talked about plans but never really acted on them.
She didn’t know anything about his friends other than a couple nicknames,” Morrison shared, “and we’re trying to get a handle on those.
She did confirm that he hung around that pool hall a lot.
” Morrison didn’t add that drugs were known to exchange hands in that location as well.
Sadie stared at him and then nodded slowly. “That confirms that location then,” she muttered.
“It also means that we got the information, and not just from you,” he reminded her.
“And that matters?” she asked.
“It might to you, in the sense that, if Don blames anybody. he can no longer blame only you for that.”
“I suppose,” she muttered, staring around the kitchen. “That does make a logical kind of sense. It’s just hard finding out that the blood brother you had high hopes for is turning out to be a louse.”
“Don’t know if he’s a louse or just somebody who took a wrong turn in life.
Or, in his case, was not given many opportunities to make a right turn at any point,” Morrison added.
“I’m not blaming him for anything at this point, not until we have the evidence to do otherwise. Again, we still have to talk to him.”
“Right,” she murmured, “and to not jump to any conclusions.”
Table of Contents
- Page 1
- Page 2
- Page 3
- Page 4
- Page 5
- Page 6
- Page 7
- Page 8
- Page 9
- Page 10
- Page 11 (Reading here)
- Page 12
- Page 13
- Page 14
- Page 15
- Page 16
- Page 17
- Page 18
- Page 19
- Page 20
- Page 21
- Page 22
- Page 23
- Page 24
- Page 25
- Page 26
- Page 27
- Page 28
- Page 29
- Page 30
- Page 31
- Page 32
- Page 33
- Page 34
- Page 35
- Page 36
- Page 37
- Page 38
- Page 39