by HELEN HARDT
He was still my hero—my true brother in all ways—and he always would be.
* * *
I was exhausted by the time I got to the hotel. I inserted the keycard and opened the door. Everything was dark. Ruby must have already gone to bed. As much as I would have loved a romp with her, I was also fatigued, so it was just as well she was already asleep. I wouldn’t wake her.
I poured myself half a glass of wine to unwind and sat down in the living area for a few minutes, reflecting on the conversation I’d had with my brothers. One thing was clear. We had to locate our father. That was the only way we’d get the answers we needed.
I sighed and downed the wine. Snuggling up to Ruby was the prescription I needed.
I set down the goblet and opened the door to the bedroom. It was dark. I undressed quickly and got into bed.
She wasn’t there.
Chapter Forty-One
Ruby
Come with me if you want answers.
I knew better than to trust my father. Unfortunately, I had already taken my gun out of my ankle holster and set my phone down when he came through my hotel room door uninvited. But I desperately wanted answers, and even though leaving with him might turn out to be the stupidest thing I’d ever done, my curiosity won out. I didn’t stop to think how he’d gotten a key to my room, how he’d come into the hotel unnoticed.
While I didn’t trust him—not even a little bit—I didn’t think he’d hurt me. It seemed to be a game with him. He’d stay just out of my reach, and he’d also leave me alone.
For once, he wasn’t wearing a ski mask or the blue contacts. But he was wearing a Colorado Rockies skullcap, which covered his black hair, and black pants and a hoodie. I guessed he was going for gangsta hood.
We didn’t go far. Just to another room in the same hotel. The top floor. I sat, uneasy, on one of the chairs in the room.
“Wine?” he asked.
“No, thanks.” No way was I going to risk getting even slightly inebriated.
“Mind if I have some?”
“Suit yourself.”
He poured himself a glass and then sat down across from me. “You look good.”
“Am I supposed to say thanks?”
“That’s up to you. You were always a beautiful girl, Ruby. Why you’ve been hiding it behind those masculine clothes all these years is beyond me.”
Maybe because you tried to rape me and instilled an irrational fear of men in your teenage daughter.
I stayed silent. Then, “You said you had answers.”
“I do. But first I need you to guarantee me passage out of the country.”
“No can do,” I said. “Are you forgetting I’m an officer of the law? I could arrest you right now.”
“Without a gun? I don’t think so.” He unzipped his hoodie to expose a shoulder holster and Glock.
Though my stomach lurched, as it always did when I encountered someone who was armed, I wasn’t shocked. “If you wanted to hurt me, you’d have done it long ago.” Still, I began devising ways in my mind to disarm him.
“Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe I’ve been amusing myself watching you try to catch me all these years.”
“Seems you’ve found other ways to amuse yourself, Pops. You know…raping and torturing people? Kids? Then selling them into slavery? Must be really amusing for you or you wouldn’t do it.”
He laughed. Actually laughed! “I do it for the money, kid.”
“Don’t give me that bullshit. Maybe you sell them for the money. The raping and torturing is just for fun. Admit it, you shit-eating psychopath.”
“Is that any way to talk to your father?”
“It is when he’s a shit-eating psychopath.”
He didn’t respond. And then I saw it. On the ring finger of his right hand. The ring, identical to Tom Simpson’s. I couldn’t help staring. Was the symbol the same? I couldn’t get a good look from the angle where I was.
“You promised me answers,” I said again.
“Would you believe anything a shit-eating psychopath told you?” he asked.
As much as I hated to admit it, he had a good point. My heart was beating like a bass drum, but I couldn’t show my nervousness. I needed him to see that I was maintaining control, that I didn’t fear him.
“Your ring,” I said. “May I see it?”
“Of course.” He removed it and handed it to me. “It will belong to you someday. You’re my only child.”
“Thank God. You certainly shouldn’t be allowed to reproduce.”
“Believe it or not, Ruby, I never meant to reproduce. I told you a long time ago that your mother was a one-night stand gone wrong.”
I ignored his heinous remark and fingered the ring. It was identical to Simpson’s, right down to the enigmatic symbol. “What does this symbol mean?”
“It represents an old club I belonged to a long time ago.”
“Yes, the future lawmakers club in high school. I know all about that.”
“You’re a good investigator. A good cop, Ruby. I’m proud of you.”
Say what? “I haven’t brought you down yet.”
“True. But I’m uncatchable. I’m careful, very cautious.”
Delusions of grandeur. I’d have to ask Melanie if that was a symptom of psychopathy. If I ever got out of here, that was.
“Back to the ring,” I said. “What does the symbol mean?”
“It symbolizes our commitment to each other and to the club, among other things.”
“What was the club about?”
“What do you think? We were future lawmakers.”
“And what laws would those be? All you’ve done is break the law.”
“Think about it. You’re smart. You’re my daughter, for God’s sake. Oh, and if you’re thinking that maybe you’re not, that maybe the whole thing is a hellacious mistake, give it up. I had your DNA tested when your mother flew the coop. I figured the whore might have been lying on your birth certificate.”
I stood, fear raging through my veins, but I was not going to let him speak badly about my mother. Flew the coop? The woman had died. “Don’t ever mention my mother again.”
“Fine by me. But you should know this. Your mother gave you to me. She’s the reason you were sent to me.”
Keep calm, Ruby. He’s just trying to distract you from the ring. I breathed in deeply and let the air out slowly. I said nothing.
He continued trying to bait me. “She phoned me and told me she could no longer afford you, and that it was my turn.”
“She died. That’s why I was sent to you.”
“Your mother didn’t die, Ruby. When I refused to take you, she abandoned you and you became a ward of the state. When officials called me, I had no choice but to take you. But rest assured, I made sure you were truly mine.”
No. My mother loved me. She did the best she could. Grief overwhelmed me. My father’s face blurred, and I blinked. Had to stay cool. Had to. “You’re lying, you son of a bitch.”
“I’m not.”
“Oh? Where is my mother then?”
“I have no idea. Do you think I give a shit where she is?”
“I do. Where is she, you asshole!”
“She didn’t want you. It’s no use trying to find her.”
“You’re lying! My mother loved me. She loved me.” I choked back tears. “I’m out of here.” I stood and turned toward the door, but he yanked me back.
“You’re not going anywhere.”
Chapter Forty-Two
Ryan
My heart pounded. Where the hell was Ruby? I flipped on the lights and looked around. Her purse lay on the night table. I quickly unzipped it and dumped the contents on the bed. Her wallet. And her phone. She wouldn’t have left without either.
I turned my gaze toward the dresser.
And a cannonball hit my stomach.
Her gun sat on top of the wooden surface.
Wherever she was, she was unarmed.
I quickly called
9-1-1, but they told me what I already knew. They couldn’t do anything until an adult was missing more than twenty-four hours.
I couldn’t just sit here. She wouldn’t have left willingly without her phone and her gun. So I’d search. I’d begin at her apartment. The number from the text she’d received warning her not to go home hadn’t been traceable. Big shock there.
God, I was exhausted, but I had to go after Ruby.
I couldn’t imagine a world without her in it.
I traipsed downstairs and drove to Ruby’s apartment. Of course, it was locked. I called a locksmith and paid him a shit ton of green to open the door without any evidence that I lived there. Money still talked.
I entered the small apartment that consisted only of a tiny living room, a galley kitchen, and a small bedroom and bathroom. I turned on all the lights and started looking for something. I wasn’t sure what, but I’d know it when I found it.
I ransacked the tiny alcove, pulling up her sheets and stripping the bed. Then I went through her dresser drawers. Nothing except lots of plain cotton underwear. Her closet held more of her sensible clothes and shoes. Time to try the living room.
On one side of the wall stood a large bookshelf. I was determined to leave no stone unturned, so I pulled out each book and leafed through it, looking for anything that might be hidden inside.
Nothing.
I pulled out her sofa cushions and plunged my hands inside the crevices, searching. Some loose change, but that was it.
I looked under her sofa. Nothing except another book. I pulled it out. It was an old copy of Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. I’d heard of it. The author was the mother of Mary Shelley, who had penned the original Frankenstein. Written in the eighteenth century, it was an early treatise on feminism. I turned it over and let the pages open.
A small piece of paper fluttered to the ground.
I picked it up.
It was a pale pink, almost like the old-fashioned stationery my mother—or the woman I’d thought was my mother at the time—kept on hand for letters and notes. On one side were several drawings. I gulped as I recognized them. One was the female symbol. One was the symbol on Simpson’s ring. The others were variations.
On the other side, some words were written—a quote from the classical playwright Euripides.
There is no worse evil than a bad woman.
* * *
After going through her kitchen and finding nothing, I cleaned up as best I could and took the Wollstonecraft book and the paper I’d found in it back to the hotel. I texted Ruby, thinking if she was back she’d have her phone, but I didn’t expect a response.
I didn’t get one.
The book puzzled me. Ruby might well read early feminist literature, but the paper with the image and the quote was an enigma.
Someone had planted it. Perhaps the whole book, but certainly at least the paper hiding within its pages. Someone had been in Ruby’s apartment, and someone had warned her not to go there.
The quote rang in my ears.
There is no worse evil than a bad woman.
Why Euripides? Did he have something against women? I wasn’t well versed in the classic Greek philosophers. I’d have to do some research. And why the ring design?
And then it hit me like a ton of cement pouring over me and dragging me down.
The quote.
The symbol on the ring.
They both referred to one woman.
My mother.
Chapter Forty-Three
Ruby
“The hell I’m not. You can’t keep me here. I don’t care what you’re carrying. I’m out of here.” I stood and headed toward the door.
He didn’t come after me and try to yank me back. No, he was too cool for that. He knew what would get me.
“I know where Brad Steel is.”
I stopped and could move no farther, as though my feet were mired in quicksand. “Where?” I asked without turning back to face him.
“He’s safe. He’s in hiding.”
“Why?” I still didn’t turn around.
“That’s a question with many possible answers. I can only give you mine, and it’s speculation.”
This time I turned. Usually I could spot a liar a mile away, but my father was good. I’d bet good money he could pass a lie detector test as if he had ice in his veins.
“First, tell me where he is,” I said.
“In a compound off the coast of Jamaica.”
Jamaica? We’d just been to Jamaica. Juliet and Lisa were taken from a resort in Jamaica. Nausea permeated my throat.
“What kind of compound? Is that where you run your trafficking through? Is that why you don’t want me talking to Shayna?”
“Shayna’s a lucky girl. And a smart one.”
“I know that. She got away from your goons, thank God. But her friends weren’t so lucky.”
“Her friends are safe.”
“Safe meaning what? That they’re not dead? That hardly constitutes safe in your world.”
“They’re victims of their own stupidity.”
I couldn’t deny the truth of his words. “So what? A moment of stupidity shouldn’t condemn you to a life of slavery and humiliation. Those girls had futures.”
“Did they? Aspiring actresses in LA are a dime a dozen. We find women there all the time. They’re willing to do almost anything for that one big chance.” His voice oozed with sleaziness.
Rage coursed through me. “Goddamnit, they are people! What gives you the right to play God with their lives?”
I didn’t expect an answer, and I didn’t get one. I had to calm down and get a grip. My father had successfully derailed me from the subject at hand. Brad Steel.
“What’s Brad Steel doing at a compound somewhere near Jamaica?”
“He’s there of his own free will.”
“Wendy told Ryan that he was being held captive.”
“That’s between her and Steel. I don’t know what he’s doing there, whether he’s in captivity or not. I can only tell you no one forced him to go there.”
“Is that where Juliet and Lisa are?”
No response.
“What about Gina? Is that where Gina is?”
Again, no response.
My father was difficult to read, but if Gina was truly dead, he would have said so. I was sure of it.
My cousin was alive.
“She didn’t kill herself, did she? You forged a death certificate for her and convinced your sister she had committed suicide. There was never any body, was there? You convinced Erica that she’d seen a body, had her tell Rodney. God, no wonder the woman is crazy!”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Don’t I? I think I’m getting pretty fucking close to the truth, Pops. Is Gina there too? At the compound, being trained for slavery? Or has she already been sold?”
“You’re a smart girl. You figure it out.”
“I have figured it out. If it takes me my entire life, I will expose you and bring you down.”
“Maybe you will, and maybe you won’t,” he said, his brown eyes slitted. “But I can assure you it won’t be tonight.”
A blast of sound permeated the room.
The fire alarm.
My father had arranged to have the building evacuated so he could make his getaway. And here I was, unarmed, unable to hold him.
I wouldn’t even try.
He walked past me, brushing my arm slightly. “Don’t take the elevators, Ruby. In case of fire, always take the stairs.” He walked out of the room.
I ran after him, but the hallways were already crowding with hotel guests. It was late, and most of them were in bathrobes or pajamas. I watched the purple Rockies skullcap float above the heads until it disappeared in the stairwell.
I’d failed once again.
Chapter Forty-Four
Ryan
Damn! A fire alarm at this time of night? I was still up, of
course, concerned about Ruby. Where was she? I opened the door to our room. People were congregating in the halls, trying to get to the stairwells. It was a giant clusterfuck.
I sniffed. No smoke. It had to be a hoax. Some kid probably thought it was funny to pull the alarm. High school bullshit. I went back into the room and shut the door. I wasn’t leaving.
Quickly I checked my phone. Nothing. I paced the living area, most likely leaving a trail on the thin hotel carpeting. Her apartment hadn’t yielded any clues other than the book and the paper, but neither of those gave me any idea where she might be.
I couldn’t lose her. Not now. Not ever.
I thought back to our first walk on the beach in Jamaica in the moonlight.
* * *
Her eyes were the clearest blue. Amazing I could see them in the dark, but they were mesmerizing.
Was this truly the mousy woman I’d sat next to on the plane? God, what would she look like when she was really dressed up for the wedding?
Wow. Just wow.
I grinned. Enter Ryan Steel ultra-flirt mode. “Maybe I wanted to walk with you.”
She rolled her blue eyes. “Please,” she said sardonically.
“Please walk with me?” I widened my grin.
“Thanks. I’d love to.”
I touched her arm again.
Again, she pulled away. “Grabby, aren’t you? And you know that’s not what I meant.”
Man, this wasn’t going to be easy. Her lips were still dark, though the meal had probably taken care of most of her red lipstick. This was Ruby’s natural lip color, darker than I remembered from the plane, and God, it was a turn-on.
I hadn’t dared to think it before, but this woman was beautiful.
Stunning.
“We’re both here, and it’s an amazing night.” I looked up at the night sky aglow with the moon and stars. “What would a walk hurt?” Though I longed to, I didn’t touch her again. She obviously didn’t appreciate it, though I wasn’t sure why. I hadn’t done anything to her that I wouldn’t do to anyone else. Just touched her forearm pretty innocently. Man, she was jumpy.