Page 16 of Moros

The father, Morrisey Larwick had no record and from all we could find, he was a good man. He worked hard at a local factory that made lightbulbs and it seemed he took that job when he married his wife. Before that he was some kind of science mind, working at a university hospital trying to find the cure for cancer.

That was a red flag.

The history we were reading felt concocted. There was an aspect of forgery about it that sat on my head, heavy and weighing me down.

Maybe it was because I was used to stories and fake identities for work that I immediately saw something wrong with this past—the holes were glaring.

But just because I was trained to see monsters, didn’t mean they were monsters there.

I cleared my throat.

Her mother, Anne Larwick was different.

There was very little information on her. The biggest red flag was that her social security number only began popping four years before her marriage to Morrisey. I didn’t tell that bit to Ryanne. There were a few reasons why there were no signs of it before then.

Most of them bad.

Everything was under Morrisey’s name—deed for their small house, the car, the bank account—was Morrisey Larwick an abusive husband? Why was nothing in his wife’s name?

There wasn’t anything to show why Ryanne was in danger. But during the search, Boswell and developed more questions than answers.

We couldn’t find any other family members for her—her grandparents, the father’s parents, had moved to England before she was born. And according to one of my friends at INTERPOL, they passed away around the same time about fifteen years later.

“I could have told you I had no family.” Ryanne offered me a shrug while biting into her burger. “I’ve been in the system my entire life. It would suck to think I had family, and they didn’t come get me—let me live through all that shit.”

“I had to look.” I replied.

“I know. So, what now?”

“I’m not sure.” I replied. “It doesn’t seem weird to you that there is no one? I mean, I get why I can’t find siblings for your mother or your father—they might be an only child. But an uncle, or a distant aunt?”

“Moros is right.” Boswell spoke up. “There’s always a distant aunt’s cousin’s brother twice removed. But in your case, it’s like everyone in your family was an only child and now the bloodline is just gone.”

She sighed as she chewed thoughtfully.

“I stopped thinking about that years ago.” Ryanne replied. “If I’d dwell on it, I wouldn’t have made it.”

“What about friends?” Boswell wanted to know. “Even our ray of sunshine here has friends.”

Ryanne smiled. “Well, the kids at the group homes didn’t want to associate with the bad luck girl. At school, I don’t think they knew I was a foster kid, they just knew I was poor and figured it was something to be shunned. As an adult, I just—it feels better sometimes being by myself.”

I said nothing as the two of them continued speaking.

While we hadn’t found any glaring red flags, something in my gut told me to keep looking.

I borrowed Boswell’s truck to take her home and as we left, I noticed she was looking over her shoulder toward the bar.

“Something wrong?” I asked.

“The bar is usually open by now.” She spoke, turning in her seat and adjusting her seatbelt that fell between her prefect breasts. “Did Boss close it down just to do this for me?”

“Um—don’t worry about it.”

“But—”

I pressed my lips into a thin line and gritted my jawline.

“So, I guess since you didn’t really find anything, this is it.” She sounded sad.