She lowered her eyebrows. I opened my mouth, not even sure what I was going to ask her—but a beeping electronic device interrupted me.
Our eyes bulged as we recognized my text-message alert. I thought I’d lost my cell phone! The sound came from somewhere right between us.
I flung open the center console to find all three of our cell phones neatly placed next to each other. We each grabbed for our own, desperate to discover the fallout.
I had only one unread text message, from another stupid unknown number.
Check your mom’s text log. All is well.
I scrambled to the history of text messages between my mom and me.
At 11:36 last night a text from my phone read: Staying at Alana’s tonight. See you tomorrow.
At 11:38 Mom replied: OK. Be safe.
At 11:40 my phone replied: OK.
I looked up at Alana in disbelief.
“My mom thinks I stayed at your house last night,” she said, looking at her own messages. “Someone texted her and told her so. Someone pretending to be me.”
I watched her eyes and saw comprehension dawning. Like maybe she finally understood this had nothing to do with the football players, and everything to do with someone far more sinister.
“Let me see that,” I said, taking the phone from her. It was true. Someone sent her the same text to check her mom’s log. We were in the clear. All was well. At least in regards to not being busted yet. I knew it was only a small victory. Soon there would be a long list of other consequences such as the bodies being found, Liam turning on me, a very public trial, the inevitable destruction of my mother’s life and career, and ultimately getting shanked in prison by a gang of “big girls” who didn’t like my attitude. And to think that just a few months ago I was only worried I wouldn’t make it to Stanford because of poor attendance.
“Same for me,” Liam said from the backseat. “My mom thinks I’m at my buddy Chase’s house.”
A long and uncomfortable pause took over the car. I didn’t know what to say or even what to think. I only knew that if Alana remembered something and wasn’t saying anything to my face—it could be a problem. I could tell she didn’t want to be in the car with me for one more second.
“I’ll call you later,” she said, not even bothering to meet my eyes before flipping the lock and practically sprinting into her house.
I wondered if I’d ever have a best friend again.
Not that it would matter if I didn’t find out who had done this to us, and soon.
CHAPTER 11
As I slunk down in my tub, I wondered why I’d never thought to combine two of my favorite escapes before—a steaming bath and hot chocolate. If there was ever a time I needed them, it was now. I doubted prison would offer a massaging jet bath or carry this particular brand of imported French chocolat chaud à la noisette.
Not that I had done anything wrong—The Stick’s murder was legally justified—but I wasn’t naive enough to hope that everyone would see it as cut-and-dried. Not with my mom’s enemies. And not with the psycho still out there attempting to destroy me.
Now that I found myself alone, it all started to sink in. I was on a collision course with disaster. No matter what I did, life as I knew it was over. Either I would be caught, exposed, and ruined, or I would have to live with the knowledge that I had betrayed everyone and everything I’d ever held dear by keeping my secrets and “obstructing justice.”
Or, of course, there was always the third option: death.
No, not suicide. I’m not that girl. I’m talking a slow, tortuous death by Mr. D. S.-hole. By now, I knew this guy was in control. He was smart and capable enough of taking my life any moment he wanted. Shoot, he could very well come drown me in this bath right this second. Except that was obviously not what he wanted. So what did he want?
A wave of fatigue weighed me down. I needed to drag myself into bed before I accidentally drowned. Must’ve been the killer combo of the hot bath and having been drugged twice within the last twelve hours.
I grabbed a towel and wrapped it around myself, not even bothering to get dressed before I slid under my covers and turned on the TV to check the news. I had to know if they’d found the warehouse and the bodies yet. I flipped through the channels until I found Bill Brandon and his shiny white campaign teeth. That smile alone was enough to win over several thousand “cosmetic” voters who knew nothing of the candidates or issues, who admitted to voting based on good looks. “Cheap votes” my mom called them. In the last election she was the one collecting them against an old man with a bright-red bulbous nose. In Brandon she’d met her match—with his chiseled jaw and salt-and-pepper hair, he oozed masculine smolder.
“You see, Megan, there are just too many questions, and not enough answers,” Brandon charmingly explained to the attractive news anchor, like he was at a bar and she was the lucky girl he’d take home tonight. “District Attorney Jane Rose is a rogue pirate captain on a sinking ship. There is not enough transparency. There is not enough justice. Too many violent offenders still roam the streets while she dines in the private chambers of her lobbyist supporters. Orange County needs a new captain. One who will right the ship. I have the experience as a former police officer—and the proven determination as a successful victims’ rights attorney—to make it happen.”
What a joke! Captain Jane Rose the Rogue Pirate versus Bill “Peter Pan” Brandon the Scallywag Hero. This guy couldn’t be any more ridiculous.
“So tell us, Bill”—the reporter, and her implants, faced him—“where do you get your passion? Does this have anything to do with your family history?”
Talk about lobbing a softball question.
“Yes, I’m glad you asked.” The Scallywag folded his hands and turned somber. “I get my passion from my daughter, Whitney. She’s why I’m here. She was fourteen years old when she was taken from her bed in the dead of night by a multiple offender. As the police captain in our small community, I thought I was protecting her. I thought something like that could never happen to me. We didn’t find her body until a year later. That’s when I changed my thinking. I wasn’t doing enough.”
The smirk fell off my face. I felt stupid for not having known about his daughter. Had I only been selectively listening to information about him, and vilifying him because of my mom? There was more to this guy than I’d realized.
“The man who brutally tortured and killed my Whitney was still walking the streets. He wasn’t convicted. His attorney persuaded the jury that my department had tampered with evidence because they wanted justice for me. Honestly, Megan, every day I considered finding him and…” He paused, lowering his gaze. When he looked back up at the camera, his eyes were alive with fire—instead of the tears I expected to see. He continued: “I considered finding him and killing him. Showing him the same respect he’d shown my daughter.” He blinked and regained some of his composure, but I had lost some of mine.
“Of course, I came to my senses. I couldn’t do that to my wife and two other children. Instead, I went to law school and helped create the program we now call Whitney Watch, which is a series of protocols that communities and police departments use to find missing children, prevent travesties, and obtain justice against offenders. I am resolved to get these multiple offenders off the street. No plea deals, no sloppy prosecutions, only justice. For our children, for our communities, for Whitney.”
I couldn’t believe it—this bully seemed sincere. He’d lost his daughter. He wanted revenge. He was just like me.
Before, I thought seeing him elected would be a bad thing, mostly because it meant my mom would be fired. Now, I wasn’t so sure. Except that maybe I was one of those “multiple offenders” he vowed to put away.
I turned off the TV—everything was going hazy. Not just my eyesight from overwhelming fatigue, but my shoreline. That line Dad had tried so hard to show me—the divide between right and wrong—wasn’t so clear anymore.
The shaggy green carpet tickled m
y cheek. I rolled around on the floor, giggling like crazy. Someone was tickling me, chasing me in circles. I laughed and fell, laughed and fell. I couldn’t get away—I wasn’t really trying. I looked up to the oversized smile above me and squinted through the belly laughs. I couldn’t talk. I didn’t have the words yet, but she did. “I’m going to get the little monster.” Her long blonde hair was pulled into a high bun, so I could see her bright-blue eyes perfectly. I stared at soft, pink lips stretched out in a wide grin, making the dimple in her left cheek even deeper. She looked like the girl in the sketch at the art fair. It felt like I knew her.
Wait, was she me? She was my age. She looked exactly like me, except for the eyes. Like Baby Ruby was playing with Teenage Ruby, or the version of me that didn’t include shades of gray and darkness—
All of a sudden the room went black, like the lights of the world had just turned off. I couldn’t find her. I crawled around blindly, searching for her touch. Instead, I felt bars in every direction. Everywhere I turned the bars locked me in. The ground was sharp and hard.
“Ruby.” My mom’s cold voice entered my dream. If I didn’t know this was a nightmare before, I knew it now. “I need to talk to you.”
The darkness started slipping away to a fog, deep and heavy.
“Honey, wake up.” Her impatient voice doused me like ice water, the silly pet name as annoying as always.
And yet, part of me was still glad to see her. There was always a seed of hope inside me that she’d surprise me, maybe whisk me off to Paris for fall shoes and chocolate crepes, like she did lifetimes ago. Pre-D. A. Jane used to be quite spontaneous. Post-D. A. Jane, not so much.
“I have to go,” she said. Of course, she woke me up just to say good-bye. I never got used to her MO: offering me something I wanted, just to say I couldn’t have it. Here, Ruby, put these cookies in the cookie jar. And don’t you dare eat them, they’re for decoration. And shouldn’t you be cutting back on the sweets? That metabolism of yours won’t last forever.
“It’s fine,” I said. Though it wasn’t.
“You must’ve had one hell of a night,” she said, eyebrows raised. Maybe it was all a dream. I let myself hope for only a second before I looked down to my wrists and saw the bruising.
“Yeah, you know Alana and me.” I pulled up my towel and the covers to make sure none of me was exposed. “Party to the break of dawn.” I faked a smile, but it probably looked more like a grimace.
“I know it’s Sunday, but I have to go to the office for a little while, OK?” she said. Even though that “OK” with the inflection at the end indicated a question, which normally required a response, I knew better. She didn’t need my permission. And even if I said no, what was she going to do—listen? Ha! Would she stay home and make me breakfast in bed like Dad used to do? The only recipe she knew was burned toast. Would she curl up and have a quiet Sunday in, watching episodes of Law & Order and talking about life? Come on, she was the star of her own real-life crime show.
And now with the whole affair thing hanging in the air between us, I wasn’t sure I even wanted her around. I thought about what Dr. T had said—letting my mom in, us needing each other now more than ever.
“Call Alana,” she suggested. “Do something fun today. I heard they’re having a sale at Nordstrom.”
“OK, fine. See you later, then.” I wanted to grab my cell phone off the nightstand and check for messages, but I couldn’t because of my bruised wrists.
“Don’t be like that, Rue.” She reached over to shift my hair out of my face, and I let her. Like a puppy starved for attention, I even leaned into her touch, hoping it would last longer. This was it—my opportunity to let her in. She was trying. I would try, too. My heart ached for Dad. And she had hurt me with her mistakes and selfishness. But I still needed her help. And for a second, I thought maybe I could tell her everything and she’d understand. Maybe it would all be OK. Maybe she’d believe me if I said, Yes, I was stalking LeMarq, but no, I never meant to kill him. And I was also following this other dude, Rick “The Stick,” someone I also killed last night. And, oh yeah, I killed his friend, too—
“Why are you looking at me like that?” She pulled her hand away from my cheek.
“Like what?”
She blew out an exasperated breath and pinched her eyes shut. “Like you don’t understand the stress I’m under or what’s at stake for me.”
I rolled my eyes. So typical—always thinking of Jane.
“I have a lot of important people relying on me, and I can’t let them down now,” she continued. “The governor wants to see me, and…” That’s when I stopped listening. I was tired of wishing she’d consider me one of those important people.
“It’s fine,” I said quietly. I wasn’t trying to guilt-trip her. I just knew I couldn’t win this one. White flag raised.
“I promise I’ll be back in time for dinner. We’ll talk,” she said, starting to get up. There was that teasing word again—“talk.” I wouldn’t hold my breath. “What do you want me to bring home? Chinese? Italian? A nice prime rib?”
“I don’t care,” I said, watching her speed walk out of the room. “It’s your world,” I muttered to myself, knowing she couldn’t hear me. It was more likely she’d forget to call, and I would end up making myself mac and cheese.
“I’ll surprise you, then,” she hollered from the staircase. She must’ve been taking two at a time, even in heels. And I thought I’d inherited my agility from Dad.
After the garage door shut, I wondered if it would’ve been a blessing to her if I’d died last night. She wouldn’t have to bother anymore with any of this mothering mumbo jumbo. She wouldn’t have to come home ever. My death would probably give her a boost in the polls, and best of all, she wouldn’t have to share the five million dollars of life insurance money my dad had left for me in trust.
So why did I still want her love and attention? If only Dad were here. He knew exactly how to buffer the tension between Mom and me. He’d make me some of his famous French toast with extra powdered sugar on top. He’d throw the wet suits and boards in the back of his truck and drive me down to our surf spot. He’d take me to the SWAT obstacle course and gun range to sweat and shoot my worries away.
I remembered now what it had felt like to hold my dad’s gun for the first time when I was twelve. It was exciting—exhilarating, even. But last night that gun had felt so dangerous and wrong. The minute I got back home, I’d put it back in his safe where it belonged.
Which begged the question: How did Dad’s gun even get there last night? Had someone stolen it from the crime scene? Taken it off his dead body for profit? Sold it to a pawnshop where Mr. D. S. had then tracked it down? My brain overflowed with ridiculous theories. Dad’s entire SWAT team was with him the night he died. At least that’s what I’d gathered from the few details I’d heard. So how could anyone have been able to take the gun—unless that someone belonged to SWAT? Could one of them have betrayed him? If it was possible for Martinez—his former partner—to betray him so deeply, then a wider SWAT betrayal was just as believable. Perhaps that’s why his partner, Mathews, hadn’t dared show his face around here since.
Crack. A sharp noise on the window made me jump. I looked over to see if it had shattered, but it was intact. Hugging the towel to my body, I got out of bed to make sure it was locked. Then I saw him—Liam.
He grinned up at me like I’d offered him an early birthday present: me, wearing virtually nothing. I jumped back, both relieved that he wasn’t an ax murderer and totally pissed at him for scaring me and invading my privacy.
I ran to my closet to grab a robe, and in the space of a few feet my mind changed. I wasn’t that mad. Maybe a little surprised, maybe a bit flattered, and maybe a bit curious about what it would be like to be in the same room as him wearing only a towel.
Two robes hung in my closet: a thick, purple frumpy thing I used at Christmas and the Victoria’s Secret robe I used in the privacy of my own room. I could
n’t very well go down there looking like Barney the dinosaur.
I wrapped the hot-pink robe around me and headed downstairs to talk to him like a civilized human being.
“Oy, you,” I yelled out the front door. “There’s this thing called a doorbell.”
He came running around the hedge. “I was going for the whole Romeo-and-Juliet thing.” He shoved his hands in his jeans and flashed that sparkly smile. Why did he look so happy to see me?
When was I ever going to understand this dude? Aside from Mr. D. S., he was the only person in the whole world who knew exactly what I was: a killer. And yet he wanted to play Shakespeare with me.
“You do know that Romeo and Juliet both ended up dead,” I said, trying to sound unaffected by his charm, while inside I couldn’t help feeling flattered—or maybe twitterpated. The black Hurley V-neck shirt he wore clung to his chest, revealing the muscular curves I’d daydreamed about ever since that shirtless morning at the beach. “And also, Romeo didn’t chuck rocks and nearly break Juliet’s window.”
“Uh, yeah, sorry about that.” He scratched his neck and wrinkled his nose. “Turns out throwing a rock twenty feet in the air delicately is sort of hard.”
He stood on the welcome mat, looking like he felt totally unwelcome. Avoiding his eyes, I stared down at his feet. Under his impressively clean throwback Jordans, the mat read: “Life Is a Bed of Roses.” Dad had given it to Mom a few years back. I used to think it was absurd. But after he died I started seeing it differently. Sure, we had our share of thorns, but we all loved each other.
“Have you heard from Alana?” Liam broke our uncomfortable pause.
“Not yet,” I replied, unhappy to be reminded that my best friend had finally realized I was the worst. “Have you heard anything on the news about”—I paused for a second, ashamed to say what had happened out loud—“you know, the warehouse?”
Killing Ruby Rose (The Ruby Rose Series) Page 11