Chapter Nine: The One With Brand New Speculations

"Pregnant? How could you possibly hide a pregnancy? I mean, I know you can, but to the point that nobody knew? That'd be the neighborhood gossip if it got out! They're tight knit around here. From all I heard, you went to school, - lived your life. Once Mew's classmate mentioned to me you had perfect attendance. Really had to brag about you. Through all that, you had admirers." I scoffed, veering the conversation off to the side to catch a breather, for the sake of nobody but myself. "How many months were you then? How did you hide it? Did you have the baby? When? Was it a boy or a girl? Where is it? What was the name? Do you still get to see him or her?"

"Jeez girl, one at a time." Rachel laughed, having no trouble with the topic whatsoever. In fact, once she saw that I wasn't yelling at her, she didn't seem to mind the subject at all. Mostly, for what the moment was. She answered every little bit without hesitating, about as fast as I asked them. "I was three months, almost four. I didn't really show much, so it wasn't super hard. Our school uniform top wasn't tight, and pretty loose fitting unless you styled it otherwise, so that helped. I had hell of a lot of morning sickness, but there's lots of excuses to cover that. I did have the baby, February 28th 2021, a month before the due date. She's a girl. A family in the US adopted her and they named her Ingrid Miracle Omosura Tenlyn. Miracle is there to signify what she means to them, because they're unable to have children, which they plan not to tell her about until they have that 'adoptive' talk when she gets older and explain why Omosura is part of her middle name. Maybe the 'Miracle' part will make it easier. Yes, I still talk to her. Her parents want her to be immersed in our culture and speak our language to also make that future talk more simple, so I call whenever I have a chance as her tutor; well, a tutor for a one, almost two year old if I can even call it that."

She thought over everything she was saying, before she could confirm to herself that she summarized every piece. She added one more bit of information. "Oh, and before you ask this too, my dad was very supportive in this process. He accepted I messed up, but waited to scold me until we got that whole pregnancy, birth and adoption thing over with. My mom wouldn't have done that, but I guess they show their love in different ways. It is what it is. Did I miss any of your questions?"

"I guess not." I shrugged, just to mask how flabbergasted I was that she zoomed through that without a stutter.

"Okay great. So enough about me then. I have something to propose." Rachel clapped her hands once, curling her fingers over one another. The one sound it made was loud enough to make me flinch. She didn't want to act embarrassed, but when the girl who was convinced the world revolves around her wanted to change the topic that focused on her. it couldn't be more obvious. It was getting to her suddenly, everything she said. "While you were busy listing me as a suspect for Camille's murder, I was also busy doing my own little background check, or more like the power of stalker mode that us girls have in our blood, and I found out some interesting information about that Gianni Jules guy."

"Rachel! You've been suspecting Gianni?" I exclaimed. If I was angry, irritated, or experiencing basic astonishment, I don't know, but I didn't like how proud she was of doing it. Acting on my doubts about her was a given, but her and Gianni's fight was straight up immature, and the situation was different. Or then again, this could just be me justifying for myself. I decided to face it head on and listen to what it is she had to say with an open mind. I tried to, at least, and I like to say that's what counts.

"Now, I wouldn't say suspecting. It's not necessary to get all exaggerative like you like to do, Shang." She picked up her phone, typing in a few phrases before she pulled up an Instagram and a Facebook account. Exiting back and forth out of each, I couldn't get good enough of a glance at the name or the face, and she enjoyed her time too much over picking which one would be best to 'propose' her findings. She decided on the Instagram account, holding up her phone too close to my face. "Gianni was pissing me off. There's nothing wrong with digging some dirt up on him then, is there? You shouldn't even be shook up about it. You know how I am about people who dare to mess with me. I just wanted to find out if anything embarrassing has happened to him before or if he has dumb childhood photos up on his socials, but I got more than I bargained for. It ended up coming in handy for Mew's sake."

It's true, that's how she is, but having an open mind was more difficult than I thought. It made my head heavy, and I found myself laying into her bed. If she hadn't just admitted a big part of herself to me, then I wouldn't feel like I owe her a listening ear. I settled on a complaining, yet listening approach; the most I was willing to do. A strategy that basically showed how idiotic I thought she was being, but that still gave her the opportunity to build on what she started, which of course, she was going to use to her advantage. "How could this have possibly came in handy?" I questioned.

"I have some friends at the neighboring city's school. More like acquaintances than friends, but to-mae-to, to-mah-to, same difference, and I arranged for some calls to ask about this Gianni Jules. Guess what I got out of it? Okay? Guess!" Rachel nudged me, at first, but with seconds passing, she had gripped both of my arms and was shaking my body until I'd give her a response. I didn't know what to say, and I wasn't up for her games. Fortunately for me she didn't have it in her to wait long enough for me to respond. "There's no Gianni Jules attending their school, or living in that city for the matter. The only person of that name in Bohol, according to internet resources, lives in Talibon. It's about two hours from here. If he's that far out, that means he doesn't attend the school Mew was going to for her dance practice, and would have no way of knowing her. Plus, the name of her dance partner was Kade Gamoza. There's no way to get that name and his mixed up. So Gianni is obviously bluffing, and it's super sus."

"Okay hold up. Let's not get ahead of ourselves here. First of all, why would a guy from two hours away murder a girl he doesn't have any connection to? He wouldn't have a motive, and would be killing people solely because he's bored and doesn't have anything to do. Second of all, if Gianni really had anything to do with Mew's murder, why would he want to involve himself in it now? He should be trying to keep as far away from it as possible, so he wouldn't be caught." I retaliated her theory. After all, that's all it was. With the evidence she had, she could construct something, but we didn't know what for sure. Putting trust in her opinion could be the wrong way to go about it and I wasn't ready to put my faith in anything yet.

"First of all, Shang, I don't know, but crappy stuff happens in this crappy world we happen to be breathing on. The world is upside down and something's just can't be fixed. You don't absolutely need to have a motive to do anything. That happens all the time, and not only with murder." Rachel copied my approach with her use of transitions. Usually this would mean that she was making fun of me for being far from logical, but this time it wasn't like that. It's as if she turned into much more serious of a woman, and it made me want to listen to her, not out of pity, but out of interest and longing. I did want to know where she was coming from.

"Second of all, he could've found out somehow that you wanted to try opening the case back up and wanted to do whatever he could to keep your eye in the opposite direction; supervise you so that you wouldn't think anything of him. Maybe he even stalked you until he saw you leave for the hospital after two years. Just think about it. He said from the the start that he thought Mew didn't have a sister, to point you to thinking he couldn't possibly already know who you are from I don't know - seeing you through your own bedroom window. I'm hearing he introduced himself as Mew's boyfriend, but neither of us knew she ever had one, which getting by one of us is one thing, but both of us? Fishy. Everyone knows she's shy, but he says she isn't. It doesn't seem like he knows her at all. Why is it shocking to believe that he has nothing to do with her but has a cold heart and is messing around with you? With us?"

She handed me her phone, wrapping my fingers around it when I refused to do it myself. I got a closer look at Gianni's social media accounts. They were definitely his, I have to admit. Based on his backgrounds, and the tropical climates or sceneries, I wouldn't doubt that he was in Bohol in his pictures. In fact, according to his check-in's he was on this island, and if he's really the only one by that name to exist here, then I guess Rachel has to be right. I pushed her evidence away despite that. If it was accurate, I didn't want to say so.

"Let's say that Gianni was actually the man behind the murder of Mew." I choked on my own breath, a chill going up my spine. I couldn't see him doing something like it in my head, but my blood still froze from saying what I said out loud. If Rachel wasn't speaking complete gibberish, that would mean I was talking to Mew's killer face to face, and not despising his company or hating on him. I'd feel sick to have any kind of bond with a killer, period, but with the one who killed my sister -? How bad can it get? "What could we do about it, Rach? What could we do about it if he was actually the one who would do such a thing? We need proof. We can't just say he's the killer and expect people to believe us, and right now, I don't believe you yet either. It's too much to accept. It's a bit of a reach, don't you think? What could you do from here? Me, what am I supposed to do?"

"At this second? You stay over, and get some rest until tomorrow morning." She skimmed my arm, reassuringly, but I could only stare at her blankly. Me being puzzled made her more determined to go through with whatever she had in mind. "And from there? When the sun is up and alive we do some stalking. Not online, but in person this time. He has some patterned visits on his statuses if you pay close attention, and we'd be doing nothing but using the information we know. It's called research. You up for it?"