Ophelia did go see Vallie's family, but it did not quench any of her longing or help in her grieving. In fact, the visit had placed a new beast before her, filling her with a fear that she wasn't sure she would be able to utter aloud. Something was off. Something was very off in the Wright household. And she needed her friends to help her work through it.

Ophelia had texted the group chat (they had used the old one with Vallie still in it for months, until her number was disconnected) the second she got back to Pittsburgh, telling them that they needed to start planning a trip for their winter break. After Christmas, they would spend New Years together. She said no one was allowed to decline, because it was imperative that she share her thoughts in person. Amory even offered to fly anyone out who couldn't afford it.

Everyone had more or less agreed, because they knew that there was no turning down Ophelia. A few weeks went by before she told them where they would be meeting; Flagstaff, Arizona. No one knew why, and Ophelia was reluctant to explain without actually seeing them. Still, they agreed. Their New Year's Eve plans were decided for them.

✩✰✩

On December 30, after varying hours of travel and different arrival times, the group was finally pulled back together. They were all in Amory's hotel room, some yawning from jet lag and some wary to just be near each other again. Still, upon seeing each other, they had all hugged, and smiled, and forgotten momentarily what it was that had pulled them so far apart in the first place. The lapse in memory did not last long for any of them.

Lou was particularly nervous, a feeling she could only describe as guilt filling her chest when she first saw Caspar's face.

Caspar felt like he could breathe for the first time in months, having Lou close enough to know that she was alive and (somewhat) well.

Nadia was weary, though she did not let it show. Her leg was fully healed, and she flitted around the room and chatted like the once-popular college athlete she had been in another life.

Amory was smiling, and it was genuine. The Lions had a shit season and didn't make it to the playoffs, which surprised no one, and the room was filled with some of his favorite people.

Marc no longer looked exhausted, and he couldn't help himself but gush to the others about finishing up his cooking classes, and the opportunity he had been presented to work under a chef in New Orleans. Even if he didn't take it, which he didn't think he would, he couldn't help but slip back into the bragging boy he had once been.

Ophelia was faking, taking a page out of Lou's book. She talked and smiled and laughed, granting herself a few moments of reprieve before she shattered it all with her news.

They chatted idly, each of them tip-toeing around the elephant in the room; why they were there. Ophelia made no move to have some grand announcement, she didn't clap her hands or direct orders. It seemed she wanted to allow herself a few selfish moments of just being with her friends before she did any of that.

Once they fell into a bit of awkward silence, all sitting around and eyeing one another, waiting for someone to ask the question, Ophelia finally sighed and garnered the rooms attention.

"Okay, so, I'm sure you're all wondering why we're all here, though I don't think I should need an excuse to see my best friends." Ophelia smiled, still faking it at all. "Right, well, there is a reason of course. A few months back, I went and visited Vallie's family."

Everyone straightened up at that, shooting each other confused and concerned looks. Marc in particular was shocked, because after Ophelia came to his graduation, they had spent much more time together, at least once a week. Caspar even came sometimes, too. He wondered when she had found the time to visit the Wrights, and why she had never mentioned it.

"Are there any new leads on her case?" Amory sat forward, immediately reeled in. He rubbed his hands up and down his thighs, feeling the palms begin to sweat at just the mention of her name.

"Well, no, not exactly." Ophelia responded wearily, avoiding eye contact with the others. "Or, I mean, no official leads."

"Are you suggesting there are some unofficial leads?" Lou raised her eyebrows. She wasn't even sure what that meant.

"I... Well, yes." Ophelia stuttered, finally setting her gaze on Lou. "I'm going to tell you all some things, and you're all going to think I'm crazy, but I need you to hear me out, okay? Just, let me get it all out before you say anything."

Ophelia waited for them all to agree. There was more silence, more nervous glances, before they all began to nod, just a bit. Ophelia breathed in a deep breath and let her eyes squeeze shut.

"The Wrights are not grieving, or at least, Mrs. Wright isn't. And I don't mean in a 'I'm in denial' sort of way, I mean not at all. She cleared out Vallie's old room entirely, said she gave everything away or sold it. There's no shrines, or pictures, or anything. I mean, she didn't even really seem sad, more just like, shocked and confused that I was there. Her brother was a mess, I guess he took the semester away from school, and I didn't see her father, but Mrs. Wright just seemed... Off."

"Off?" Nadia raised her eyebrows before crossing her arms over her chest. "Ophelia, I don't know that it's your place to say what the right way for a mother to grieve her child is. A child that was never found, at that. I'm sure she did seem off, wouldn't you?"

"No, no, that's the thing! That's what I tried telling myself at first too. But, she just seemed so shifty and like... Nervous? I even asked where Vallie's cat was at one point, you know, assuming that they took it in after everything, and she got all nervous and weird and said something about taking it to a shelter? And it was like, clear, that she was coming up with a lie on the spot. Like, why wouldn't they take the cat in, you know? That's a piece of Vallie, something she cared about. It doesn't make any sense."

Ophelia was rambling at that point, which had caused the others to grow nervous. They worried that she was finding faults where there were none, reading into things just to find answers. It scared them that she had called this meeting, just to tell them Mrs. Wright was off. So, Marc moved to stand with her, placing a gentle hand on her back, and Ophelia abruptly stopped talking. She looked up at him with wide eyes, and the hurt settled in, because she realized he didn't believe her.

"It's not a crime to be off, Ophelia. If it were, I'd have been locked up years ago." Marc spoke softly to her, smiling lightly and joking in a way that he hoped would get her to calm down.

It did the opposite. Ophelia moved away from him quickly, a harsh anger rising in her core. She set her face in a scowl as she looked around at the others. They weren't there. They didn't understand.

"Ophelia, come on, don't be like that." Amory pleaded, looking from Marc's hurt expression to Ophelia's angry one. "I mean, what are you even suggesting? Mrs. Wright had a role in Vallie's disappearance?" When she didn't immediately say 'no,' he gawked at her. The other's eyes widened.

"Mrs. Wright." Lou repeated slowly. "The same Mrs. Wright who Vallie talked to on the phone every day, who drove across the state whenever Vallie had a cold, who welcomed us into her vacation home like family. That Mrs. Wright, you think she had something to do with it, just because she was off?"

"Well, there's more, of course." Ophelia was breathing through her nose now, practically seething.

Caspar didn't like this. He didn't like any of it. He didn't want to be pulled back into a mystery that he had never asked to be apart of. 5 months earlier, they had all been left to look for clues and only found that they were several steps behind the entire time. He wasn't sure he would ever be able to pick up an Agatha Christie novel again.

"I... I hired a private investigator, to look into Mrs. Wright." Ophelia revealed, some of her anger dissipating as she let the words sink in. "Well, really, Amory did. It was his money."

"You said you needed a loan for your Spring tuition!" Amory gawked, flying up to a standing position. "Ophelia, you know I would do anything for you, I really, really would, but this isn't right. I never would have agreed if I knew..."

"And if it helps us find Vallie, would you still say that?" Ophelia cut him off. She did feel bad, truly, but she couldn't think about that right now. Not when she felt so close. "Because he found out a lot. Maybe we could finally be at peace, okay?"

That shut everyone in the room up. The idea of peace had seemed elusive to them for months now, some fleeting, abstract thought that they would never actually know. They didn't think a PI looking into the Wright family was the answer to their problems, but they also were somewhat desperate for closure.

"Like, for starters, all that money we gave to the Wrights from the gofundme? They keep taking it out in these huge cash increment. And, Vallie had put her mom as the benefactor to her life insurance, which she isn't able to claim until Vallie's body is found, or until 7 years have passed, or a court uses the evidence to pronounce her deceased. That's weird, isn't it? The spouse is always the benefactor, but Vallie had specifically changed it just a few months before she went missing."

No one spoke, because everything she was saying was quite odd. It wasn't damning, of course, but odd all the same. Still, no one was convinced. They glanced around at one another, gauging each other's expressions. Ophelia waited anxiously, eyebrows raised, waiting for someone to tell her that she wasn't crazy. It was Caspar who finally broke the silence.

"Why are we here, Ophelia?" Caspar questioned softly, staring at her with big, sad, brown eyes. He didn't like where any of this was going.

"Well..." Ophelia trailed off, breathing in a deep breath before biting down on her lip and revealing the last bits of her information. "Mrs. Wright took out a large bit of cash, like I'm talking, $10,000 worth, and flew here, to Flagstaff, the next day. She did this like, a month after everything happened, so the PI couldn't determine exactly what she did here, but then she did it again. Just a few weeks after I visited her, she took out more cash, flew to Flagstaff, and the PI trailed her. He gave me an address, about two hours north of here. I want to go."

"No." Amory replied firmly, almost immediately. "We're not doing this, Ophelia. For all we know, that could be the address of some sick relative, or something. No."

Ophelia looked almost wounded by his refusal, rearing back just slightly. Lou looked like she was going to be sick. Caspar held his head in his hands. Nadia was wide-eyed and shocked, looking at Ophelia and seeing the girl who had blown up on their entire dorm hall. Marc couldn't focus on anything aside from his worry for the girl.

Ophelia turned to Marc, casting her big eyes on him. She was the one who was always there, believing in him, and now she needed him to return the favor. Even if she had no one else on her side, she'd be fine with just him. So, she waited.

"What would we even do when we get there?" He questioned softly, timidly. He didn't want her to explode again.

"I don't..." Ophelia's shoulders slumped, realizing she was losing all of them. "I don't know. I just feel like we need to, okay? I just have this feeling that I need to go there. And even if none of you agree, I still will. You can use the rest of this trip to catch up and have the trip we should have had over the Summer, but I'm going."

Marc thought of all the things he had been made to do that he never wanted. A true step in the right direction would be turning her down, choosing his own mental wellbeing and saying no to this ridiculous plan. But Ophelia was not his parents, nor his grandfather. Ophelia was the one who helped him get the interview for the New Orleans' position, and the one of the only ones (along with Caspar) who had come to his graduation. Even now, Ophelia was not pushing him to say yes, but rather giving him an option. So, he knew he needed to say yes.

Amory was exasperated, to say the least. This was a foolish, foolish plan, and in anyone else's hands, it would have made him angry. But it was Ophelia, and Vallie had been her best friend, and she didn't like leaving things unfinished or giving up. He couldn't fault her for that, because he was the same way. He wanted to say no, desperately, but he also couldn't just let her go to some random address alone. He had to go with her, and he had to be there to hold her when it was another dead end.

Caspar was not budging on this. Even if Lou agreed to go, he would have to say no. He had felt sick for months, and he didn't think chasing down clues would make him feel any better. They were not detectives, they were barely even adults. The weight of the situation should not be left on their shoulders, he felt. So, he had to bow out.

Lou had no desire to throw herself into potential danger for some vague tip from a PI. The address could lead them to anything, or anyone, and it wasn't safe. The most likely option, Lou thought, was that Mrs. Wright was just giving money to some family member they weren't aware of. Though it was odd to do so in such large amounts of cash, it also wasn't illegal, or unheard of. She would not let herself crumble with hope of anything more, not when she was only pieced together with glue and tape at the moment.

Nadia also was not going to buy into any of this. She looked at Ophelia, and she was frightened for her. None of the others had seen Ophelia's meltdown during freshman year, not the way Nadia had. Back then, Nadia wasn't close enough with her to see the signs, to peel her away from the edge before it was too late. Now, it seemed, she was too late again. There was no talking Ophelia down, but Nadia could not go down with her.

"I'll go." Marc spoke quietly, tentatively taking one of Ophelia's hands. She made him strong, so he needed to be strong for her now.

"I want to go on the record saying I don't buy into any of this," Amory sighed, then took a step closer to Ophelia and placed a hand on her shoulder. "But I'm not letting you do this alone, either. We'll rent a car in the morning, the three of us, and check things out. Then, we'll come back, and we'll enjoy the rest of this trip like normal, okay?"

Ophelia bit the inside of her cheek, but nodded. She knew deep in her bones that nothing would be normal, that everything was about to change. She didn't try to argue, though, because she was just grateful she wouldn't have to go alone.

As always, even if they weren't all going, they would only sink together.

---

Ophelia-centric chapter bc she's a little sleuth and its what she deserves !!

things are heattinggg up again, all the answers to your burning questions may soon be revealed.

Also, 22 is a doozy, and one of my personal favorites. 23 is a big one, of course, but 22. 22 is good. prepare :)