(31) I am what I am

~ Quinn ~

“What do you mean gone?” I asked Bonnie.

“As in gone, not there any more. She’s left.”

“This doesn’t look good for her I’m afraid.” I took out my note pad and pen. “I need to know everything you know about her, what she looks like, her age. You said she worked for you, so she had to have filled out tax forms right? Do you have them on file?”

“Of course, at the diner. I… If you need to see them now we can go get them I guess.”

“We’ll do that, but first tell me about her.”

Bonnie nodded. “She’s about five eight I’d say, blonde hair, gray eyes, thin as a rail, or at least in my opinion.” She smiled a bit at that. “I kept trying to fatten her up but it never seemed to work.”

I barely heard past ‘gray eyes’. “Hold on a second,” I growled. “Blair Ryley has gray eyes?”

“Yes, very definitely gray, like storm cloud gray if you know what I mean.”

“I do.” That came out as a whisper before I said, “This is going to sound like a very strange question but I’m not crazy I swear. Are you certain Blair is a…is female?”

“Well of course I am. Good heavens, she’s been, she lived here for the last month or more. I think I’d have known if she wasn’t.” But even as she said that she looked puzzled; as if something has occurred to her. “I mean, well yes I’m sure.”

“What is it?”

She shook her head. “She was a very private person, or maybe shy is a better way to put it. I don’t know if you know how women are but we tend to be…we’ll walk around the house in a bra and panties and not be bothered if our roommate sees us like that, if you understand what I’m getting at.”

“I have three sisters. I know exactly what you mean. And she never did that?”

“Never. She always came out of her room fully dressed or in that robe she had that covered her from her chin down.”

That brought up another question. “Did she ever wear low cut blouses? Well not necessarily low cut but open at the throat? You know what I mean.”

Bonnie thought about that and shook her head. “No she didn’t, why? Oh.” I saw the realization in her eyes as she glanced at my throat and nodded.

I scrubbed a hand over my face as it hit me full force who the Blair Ryley that Bonnie knew really was. “I need to see those tax forms and anything else you have on file about her. Or him.”

“You really think that Blair is a man? That’s…that’s unbelievable.”

“I’m afraid he is. Why he masqueraded as a woman I have no idea, but unless I’m totally off base he's been doing that since the day you met him, and probably even before then.”