Page 8 of Buried Treasure
Ryan looked at the duffel bag on the other chair as if he was seeing it for the first time.
"What did you bring from my place?"
"Just some sweatpants and clean shirts, and I think your iPad's in there."
"You were digging through my condo?" he asked.
"Uh, no," the trainer said. "I actually had Sydney let me in. You told me to knock on her door and see if she had a key for me."
"Sydney!" His whole face lit up with happiness. "She rocks. Did she take Gretzky home with her?"
Andy gave him a sideways glance. "Sure?"
"Really? Because he died yesterday."
"Right. Yeah, that's what I meant. She was going to take him home, but he wasn't in the bowl."
"I had to flush him," he explained.
Andy shook his head trying to stifle the laughter that was threatening to come out. He didn't mean to laugh, he knew this was just the painkillers that the doctors were giving the rookie after his surgery, but there was something so sweet about the young rookie not really being Ryan right now. Perhaps that's what made him feel emboldened to keep talking.
"So Sydney? She seemed concerned about you."
"I don't know what I would do without her," Ryan explained. "She let me sleep on her couch after I locked myself out a few times, and she's always smiling."
Andy furrowed his brow. That didn't sound like the Sydney he met. "She seemed pretty upset tonight."
Ryan turned with a concerned look on his face. "Did she say why?"
"No, just seemed like she had a bad day."
Ryan leaned back on his pillows and stared at the television again, his mind once again quieting down. Perhaps he wondered the same thing Andy did. What exactly happened to Sydney today that was so bad? Of course, Andy was also wondering about other things.
"So are you sure there's not something going on between you two? She seemed really worried about you even though you're only friends."
"She's…." His smile faded and for the first time since the surgery, Andy could see some clarity in his eyes as he stared at the wall.
"She's what?" Andy asked.
"What?" Ryan turned to look at him, his eyes sharp and focused.
"You started to say something about Sydney," he said. "You said 'she's' something."
Ryan stared back at the local news on TV with the headline "Financier steals millions from Detroit investors" on the bottom of the screen. A man in handcuffs was being led out of a downtown building with a bunch of guys in government-issued jackets shoving him into the back seat of an unmarked car. That didn't look good.
"Did you invest with that guy?"
"Not directly with him," Ryan muttered.
Andy kept watching, confused about why Ryan was so enthralled with this story. They watched as video from earlier in the day started playing with the local reporter running up to a brown-haired woman who seemed familiar to Andy
"Miss? Miss!" The reporter shoved her microphone towards the woman with a box in her hand. "Do you have any comment about your boss' arrest?"
Andy watched as the brown-haired woman looked up, her piercing green eyes staring at the reporter as she just shook her head and walked away.
"That's Sydney," Ryan said in awe. "She's on TV."
Andy stared at the screen, at the same woman he had met earlier with the same defeated look in her eyes.
