What was VB even doing there?
I don't mean on that specific day, cause that's iffy, but in general. He wasn't like the next door neighbour.
And we have pretty good explanation on how Renee's & Rachel's friendship happened despite of significatn distance between their houses and age gap: cause Renee was vitsiting F's, who were her parent's friends and next door neighbours of A's.
Then - what's VB doing there? So he's TM's friend (which I'm not sure if it's even accurate, cause what I took from their stories was that they kinda knew each other before, but the actual friendship formed sometime AFTER the disappearance and VB's return from Cali).
But TM is the eldest sibling and he's significantly younger than VB, who doesn't seem to be their next door neighbour - while in the same time he was apparently a guest at Renee's, at Rachel's birthday party month prior to disappearance. Assumming that it was as TM said - that he was unaware of his interest in Renee, her interest in him, his interest in Rachel and that he didn't even knew Rachel that well. We also have Renee's dad being against VB, yet not so much against TM (which sounds odd under assumption that they were friends already).
Sounds like a big mess, but there is a way to make sense out of it without considering their statements as lies cause it's all possible if:
- TM and VB are not close friends YET,
- TM and Renee are not dating each other for long YET - and it's not like she was hiding anything from TM, instead more like she didn't have much of an occasion to tell him YET (and I don't mean confessing that she used to want to date him, I mean usual chatting about her days, when she may met him)
- VB is someone who Renee met through Rachel
Then it makes sense that Renee's dad, upon hearing that she went shopping with Rachel his first thought was that they must be somewhere together, with VB. Doesn't sound like he was thinking that VB could harm them, it sounded more like he got angry cause he didn't saw VB as an appropriate companion for his 14yo daughter.
Yet, in the same time it doesn't sound like VB and Rachel were good friends, neighbours or antyhing like that, also age difference still, so they weren't classmates.
Is this possible that he came into the picture and started hanging out with Rachel cause he was a friend or acquaintance of DA or ST? Seems like VB and ST were same age, and the first mention of VB places him at that unfortunate November's birthday party - if that happened after DA came to live with TT & Rachel, it's possible that they got introduced to each other not that long before the disappearance.
Even if so, there still had to be someone who introduced TM and VB... unless they met in High School few months earlier.