•1954 words•

Pathetic. If she thinks that this ring isn't going to be a real game-changer in this investigation, she's wrong. Last night, Myliey and I gave it to the police. We're currently waiting on it, but I'm 100% sure that this is going to help us. I guess Brooke did have a point: random pieces of jewellery and other things do end up on beaches, but I have a gut feeling about the ring. I swear I've seen it before.

It was a rough night last night, so I'm a bit tired. We're just arriving back at the house and Kyron and Ash look like they enjoyed helping out with the investigation too.

"Hey, Kyron!" I shout as I enter through the grand, modern doors that the beach house has to offer.
"Jamie! Had a good night last night?"
"Yeah... and looks like you did too," I whisper under my breath as I look down awkwardly and walk away.

"So what'd you two do?" I heard Brooke ask Ashlyn, who are both standing on the other side of the living room. It seems so weird, Ashlyn in a wheelchair- she looks so small compared to the rest of us. She even looks small compared to Myliey, and Myliey's tiny. It's a faint voice, but I hear Ashlyn say something back to her- "Haha, I love Kyron."

She then wheels away from Brooklyn, smiling, and comes straight towards me.

"Wait!" Brooke shouts, but Ash doesn't look back and continues to wheel herself to me.

"Hi there Jamie, you okay?"
"Hi Ash, uh-um, yeah," I stutter.

She goes past me and doesn't say another word. Why is she so arrogant? She blatantly just stormed off away from her best friend! I don't know what it is with Ash, but what I do know is that her and Brooke are becoming closer as best friends, and I like it. I may not be Brooke's boyfriend anymore but that doesn't mean I don't respect her- or her best friend.

Myliey, Brooke and I are going back to the police station later to see how tests have gone with the ring that I found last night. I'm starting to doubt myself that that stupid thing even meant anything, but we never know. Kyron and Ash have to stay here because of their injuries, but they're both steadily recovering. The two of them get to watch satellite cameras from space of the surrounding area, and see if there's any evidence that could help us with the case. They then alert Berkley's and the police, which means that we can help them. Pretty cool, huh? I'm a little bit jealous, actually- those two get to stay at home all day whilst the rest of us have to go around and look for evidence on foot.

The three of us and Lisha get in the car, and drive to the police station. We're now sat on comfortable, blue chairs which spin around. They're really fun to play with, but I'm sweating profusely. This waiting room reminds me a little bit of the waiting room outside of Rufus' office back at home. Oh- this is home.

We walk in and a police officer greets us who says his name is PC John Talware.

"You can call me Talware," he says, shaking Lisha's hand as he sits down in his chair. It's black and also spins, except that his chair is bigger and looks more luxurious that the little blue ones that we have to sit on. "Take a seat," he adds, and we all sit down on chairs that are the same as the ones outside of his office. This is so irrelevant to the situation, but they're so comfortable. I'm starting to doubt myself even more now, as I'm so worried that I brought everyone here for no good reason. What if I had never actually seen this ring before, or what if it's nothing to do with the case? I'll be so embarrassed- that's why I'm so worried about what PC Talware has to say.

'Where have I seen that ring before?' I think to myself before screaming out in an extremely silent room, "THAT'S IT!"

My heart stops as everyone stares up and glances deep into my soul. As I shouted, I rose from my seat, so now that I'm stood here looking over everyone else, my breathing is increasing rapidly. Maybe it's my low iron, but I can see little black dots in the air and I'm so dizzy. I want to sit down but I'm way too embarrassed to do so. My heart starts to pound as I look down to my left, and then my right, where Myliey and Brooke are sat either side, helplessly looking up at me as if to say, 'Sit down, this is embarrassing.'

If that's what they're thinking, they aren't wrong. This is embarrassing. Lisha is sat across the room from me, next to Talware's desk. I'm not a mind reader, but I can tell that she is thinking the same as the girls. I wish I could sit down and just forget about this whole situation, but I can't: my legs are jelly. I'm becoming dizzier and dizzier by the minute, and my heart is pounding faster than ever before. I never thought I'd say this, but I feel like I'm going to die. I'm stuck in a parallel universe- at least, that's what it feels like. Suddenly, my vision is becoming blurry and I really do feel like I'm going to collapse any minute. I look down, nervously, and stare deeply into Myliey's caramel-brown eyes. If these are the last moments of my life, I at least want to spend them looking at my best friend.

Now Talware's staring at me. And everything suddenly... stops. I feel like I was seeing those stars that cartoon characters from the 90s saw when they bumped their heads. Except, it is far worse than that. I don't know what happened, but I still feel a little uneasy and faint.

"HAHAHAHA!" Talware shouts. His voice is about 6ft away from me, but it feels like it is spiralling down my eardrum, trying to drain out my brain. He spits out his coffee that he gently sipped beforehand, and continues to laugh.

"You said 'that's it,' what's it?" He adds, seeing rather confused but simultaneously hysterical with laughter.

"Sorr-"
"Sorry,"
We both whisper at the same time. Talware stands up, says he's sorry and then sits back down again. I'm still panicking a little- probably out of sheer embarrassment- but I think that I'm out of trouble now. I have no idea what just happened, but I apologise to everyone too. After all, the three girls who I've came with all look extremely ashamed. I slowly lower myself back into my seat and cross my legs, glaring at Talware.

"Oh, yes," he says, "About the ring. That's why we're here."
He pauses, then adds, "So, we still don't know if the ring has anything to do with this case, and it probably doesn't, but we've found 3 possible people that the ring could belong to- thanks to fingerprints."
He looks at Lisha and then at me, before saying, "Do you want to know who they are then?"
"Uh, um- yeah," I reply, nodding.
"One possible owner is you," he leans forward demandingly and gazes at Lisha, emphasising the word 'you' as he says it.
"Me?" Lisha asks, confused. "It can't be... me? I- I have never seen that ring in my life."

Hmm, what did I say? I knew I had seen that ring before, and I bet that it is Lisha's. But why was it on the beach? In the middle of a cave? I've never seen Lisha go there before, so I'm relatively confused.
"Yes, " Talware says, "And the other 2 are 2 girls we found with similar fingerprints to yours. They both live in London, apparently."
"London?"
"Yes, Lisha- London. We're not going to go to London and track these people down- who are both women- but we're going to research a little further and get this ring back to its rightful owner, even if it doesn't have anything to do with Carli Subbons' case. If we do more research and we figure that the ring is irrelevant to this entire situation, finding its owner will have to be delayed."

Now I feel bad. If this ring isn't going to help us solve this investigation, there was no point of mr finding it and handing it into the police. Yeah, Brooke was right. There really wasn't any point.

"Told you," Brooke says, nudging me as we walk out of Talware's office.
"Alright, alright. It was more than you found anyway, Brooke," I reply, slightly hesitant to talk to her, but I think that it's for the best.

Our next round of solving this case is studying evidence that others have found at the beach. Other volunteers have helped to look for clues there, and some stuff was actually found. We're going to start studying it tomorrow, and the best thing is- we get to do it at home! I'm so excited- hopefully it will sort of be like what Kyron and Ash have been doing these last couple of days. I lean in to take Myliey's hand as we walk to the car, but she refuses and walks towards Lisha. How dare sh-

We walk through the front doors which lead into the living room, screaming, "We're home!" Kyron runs over to us, with Ashlyn following behind him with her wheelchair. There's only about 4 more weeks before she can get out of that stupid thing. It will be quite good when they're both recovered, as we can all go and fight crime together, and actually have some fun again. I say that, but things are pretty awkward between all of us at the moment. This is our house, our home. We have to stay here for who-knows how many years. We have to stay here with each other. For years.

It's only been a few months and we're already becoming more and more awkward with each other. I think that it's just all of these relationships. Myliey and I, Kyron and Ash, formerly Brooke and I- it's just all so... complicated. Not to mention the friendships and hatred between us all; things are pretty rough. I'm quite surprised that no one has dropped out of here by now and gone to live somewhere else. I don't really know where any of us would go though- Ashlyn, Brooke and Kyron are all foster kids whose old foster parents have lost custody of them, Myliey's parents are in another country and don't want legal guardianship of her anymore, and my parents? Well, they're both in prison. As I've said before, I never particularly loved them, but I didn't hate them either. They were just... my parents, I guess.

We go upstairs, unpack our backpacks, and decide to tell Kyron and Ash everything about this ring and about what's happening.

"Lisha's ring?... on the beach?" Kyron says. He sounds confused and the look on his face is priceless.
"Erm, possibly. I mean, supposedly. I mean, we don't know yet," I reply, and we leave it at that. It's late now, so we decide to go and get ready for bed. Myliey and I are sleeping in separate rooms tonight as I figured I would try and give her a little bit of space. I can't believe that she refused to hold my hand before; maybe her and I are slowly falling apart. I guess only time will tell.

•Jamie•