I’d trade the powerful-attorney thing any day for a mom who would look at me the way Liam’s mom looked at him. With obvious love—like he was the most wonderful thing in the world.
“What is it, then?” Liam said. “Did Tug put something slimy in your pocket when I wasn’t looking? He does that—”
“No, Tug is hilarious, and Christian is a little heartthrob. Really,” I assured him. “Your family is great.”
“Then why’d you just go all brooding brow on me?” he asked, not paying nearly enough attention to the road.
I rubbed my forehead. “Look, I’d never forgive myself if anything ever happened to you because of me. Your family needs you.”
“Well, I need you, Ruby,” he said flatly. “You make me crazy, and constantly worried, but…I need you.”
“Yeah, you need me like you need a hole in the head,” I said, realizing immediately what a distasteful joke that was. I wasn’t sure I’d ever been told that I was needed before. “Sorry, I didn’t mean that.”
He wrinkled his nose for a second, then reached out and touched my hand. “Let’s make a deal, OK? Let’s play pretend.”
“Like pretend we have supernatural powers and can actually defeat the evil villain?” I shook my head. As if.
“Even better, let’s pretend we’re normal seventeen-year-olds, and we’re going to a high school dance. Curfew is two hours later than normal, and nothing else matters tonight. You’re just a girl—an insanely sexy, kick-ass girl, obviously. And I’m just a guy—a totally hot yet sensitive guy, of course.” He smiled. “And we’re going to rock this Sadie Hawkins dance tonight! That kind of deal.”
I laughed. “OK, deal.”
“Sweet.” He turned up the stereo and started moving to the music. I laughed even harder. “I promise, tonight will be epic!”
As we pulled into the school parking lot filled with matching teen couples, I shooed away the creepy-crawly thoughts of Silver showing up to ruin my night. Just as I started imagining some terrible incident involving blood and punch bowls, Liam opened my door and reached for my hand.
As if he could sense my nervousness, he leaned in and kissed me, forcing the worries away. I tensed up at first, then gradually relaxed, my mind going blank as his fingertips threaded through my hair. Tasting him, breathing him, feeling him, wanting him, were the only ping-ponging thoughts I could find in the corners of my mind right now. Nothing and no one else mattered.
A tingling sensation of desire formed deep within me. I wanted to pull him back inside the Jeep and go someplace else where we could be alone.
He pulled away sooner than I wanted.
“If I have to do that every time I catch you brooding,” he said breathlessly, “I will.”
“Is that a threat?”
“It’s a promise.” He pressed his lips together in a way that made me want to kiss him again. Then, taking my hand, he led me through the parking lot and into the gym full of handmade posters, dangling streamers, and so many strobe lights a girl could have seizures.
The first person I saw as we walked through the balloon archway was Alana. She saw me, too, but instead of brightening with a flash of excitement like the one I felt at seeing her, she looked away in a flash of something else. Anger? Hurt? Fear?
I wanted to run and talk to her, find out who her date was. Maybe slap her on the butt and say “good game” in a husky voice to make her laugh. That’s what we did and who we were before. I wanted that back. Maybe Liam was wrong, and I couldn’t be normal ever again.
“Why are you tempting me?” The sensation of Liam’s breath on my ear made my knees come dangerously close to wobbling. “A promise is a promise, and I am a man of my word. Shall we dance?”
“Uh, don’t you want to go see some of your buddies?” I looked over to his Amazon-birds entourage in brightly colored shirts—and did a double take. Four guys. Four girls. Four sets of T-shirts in solid colors. His best friend, Chase, and his girlfriend, Meg, in purple. His other friend Jett, with his date, in yellow. And the fourth couple, in red, Jace the Ass Face with none other than One-Up Taylor.
“Is this a group date?” I asked Liam, horrified.
They were all looking at us now, some of them waving us over.
“Not exactly,” he said, holding his finger up to his friends, asking for a minute. “Traditionally, in high school, teenagers attend dances as a group. But…” He paused, looking at me. “We can do whatever you want.”
I tried not to feel trapped. “Did you not hear my objection to the awkward group-date thing?” I asked, just a little too snarkily. “Liam, Jace and Taylor both hate me!”
“Whoa.” He let go of my hand so he could cup my face. “I had no idea they were even coming. It’s not like they asked my permission,” he said, snarking right back. “But honestly, tonight we don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do. We can keep our distance.”
“It’s not like I want to be the jerk girlfriend, but…” I didn’t know what to say without sounding exactly like a jerk.
“Hang on, did you just call yourself my girlfriend?”
Oh, double snap. Liam’s eyes crinkled with amusement.
“I didn’t mean to infer—”
“Wait.” He put one finger over my lips, looking like a retriever who’d just heard one of those silent dog whistles. “This is my song. Come on!”
As we slow danced to the cheesy remix of an ’80s love song, he drew me in tight and I laid my head on his chest. How many times had I dreamed of being this close to him? All I knew was that it was better than I’d dared to imagine. It was the way his hips moved against mine. The way his lips brushed my neck as he sang the ridiculous chorus lyrics. The way he assured me with every movement that he wasn’t letting go.
He knew me for exactly what I was, and he was still here.
I was disarmed, in every way.
In order to avoid spontaneous combustion, I had to distract myself, so I peered around the dark gym watching the lights trickling over the crowd.
Suddenly, a movement caught my eye—the outline of a man with broad shoulders in the dark corner of the gym.
“Oh no,” I whispered. “Not here. Not tonight.”
I stopped dancing—and breathing.
“What’s wrong?” Liam asked.
The figure couldn’t have been more than thirty feet away, but in the darkness my eyes strained to see him clearly. A jock couple in atrocious lime-colored TapouT UFC shirts moved directly into my line of sight. I wanted to tap them out.
“Follow me.” I untangled myself from Liam and pulled him through the crowd.
If it was Silver, what was he going to do? How would we stop him?
As we weaved around the dancing couples, my vision finally adjusted to the dim light. And there he was, plain as day—Mr. Holsum, our Calculus teacher, with his unmistakable floppy comb-over, pouring himself a drink.
I felt like a moron. Not to mention paranoid. “I thought I saw…” I trailed off, feeling suddenly shaky.
“Ruby,” Liam shushed me with his voice and touch. “You don’t need to explain. I get it.”
I looked into his understanding eyes.
“Maybe we should just go,” I said. “I suck at normal.”
“What, before my song is over?” His eyebrows pinched together in dismay. “I don’t think so.”
Just as he drew me back in close, the song ended and I pulled away, thinking I’d ruined the moment and probably the night. But then the DJ announced another slow track.
I exhaled. “I’ll try not to run away this time.”
Liam held on to me for the next three songs. In fact, he barely let go of me for the next three hours as we danced, whispered, and touched.
But the fear never left me. The fear that one of the dark shadows I kept seeing out of the corner of my eye would materialize—and Silver would come back.
In fact, I knew he would.
CHAPTER 21
I’d really outdone myself this time
. Not only were Alana and my mom still giving me the cold shoulder, but Dr. T was, too. She’d been distracted and distant in our appointments. I wondered if the fight with my mom was the cause. I didn’t doubt Jane was vindictive enough to have done something to compromise my relationship with Dr. T because of my comment about my twice-a-week therapist being a better mom. Maybe she’d told her that it was unprofessional to get so emotionally close to a patient, or something like that. Maybe she was hoping I’d feel like I couldn’t lean on Dr. T after all, and would break off the relationship altogether.
My suspicions spiked even higher when I got a text from Jane:
Meet me at Dr. Teresa’s office after school today. 4:00 sharp.
She had never (as in ever) come with me to an appointment before. Something must have changed. I worried about what she could possibly want to say to me that she couldn’t just say alone. Maybe she was going to tell us that she wasn’t going to let us keep having our appointments or something.
It felt like an ambush, and I didn’t like it.
The tension between my mom and me was at an all-time high. I felt like I was still sitting at the breakfast table, holding on to the edge with white knuckles, waiting for her wrath. Like I had been sitting at that table my whole life.
When she finally showed up in Dr. T’s waiting room, she was late, of course. Gucci purse in one hand and a Venti Starbucks in the other, she came storming in like a celebrity.
“Hello, Ruby,” she said with the aloof formality of a stranger.
“Hello, Mother,” I responded with the sass of a neglected teen.
“Is Dr. Teresa not here yet?” she asked as she sat down next to me and started digging through her purse.
“I don’t think so,” I said. “I knocked a minute ago and no one answered.”
“Is she usually late?”
“No, not really,” I said, thinking back. Actually, I couldn’t remember the last time she’d been late.
“Well, I don’t have time for this,” my mother said, standing and power walking over to the door to knock again.
Shocker: Jane Rose didn’t have time for this.
“What’s going on, Mom?” I asked. “Why are you even here?”
“Dr. Teresa?” she called through the door, ignoring me. “It’s Ruby and Jane. Are you in there? Please open the door.”
I rolled my eyes. If she were in there, she would open up. What if she was with a client and didn’t want to be disturbed yet?
“Mom, are you even going to answer me?”
Apparently not. She pressed her ear against the door, listening for a sign of life, I assumed. “She should get a receptionist, for crying out loud.”
“Mom?”
“What, Ruby?” she answered harshly, looking at me like I was a petulant two-year-old.
“Why are you here?”
“I’m here because we need to talk.”
How many times was she going to give me that “we need to talk” crap?
“Then talk,” I challenged. “Why do you need Dr. Teresa present to talk to me?”
She rattled the door handle. “I just do.”
I was about to admonish her for being so evasive (something she loved to do to me) when the door swung open. It was unlocked and no one was inside, that much I could see.
I stood, surprised that her door was unlocked if she wasn’t there.
“This is highly unusual,” my mom said disapprovingly.
“Which part?” I answered, walking past her into Dr. T’s room. “The District Attorney breaking and entering or someone standing you up?”
“All I did was check the door. It swung open on its own,” she said defensively.
I’d never been in Dr. T’s office without her being there. Curious, I wandered around the space. I’d always wanted to know more about Dr. T: her family situation, her failed marriage, her miscarriages, her history. Despite how hard she worked on me to open up, she never really returned the favor. All I knew about her came from my mother.
“What are you doing?” my mom asked, sounding suddenly uncomfortable.
“Nothing,” I said, looking through some papers on Dr. T’s desk. “Just checking to see if she left us a note or something.”
“If she left a note, it would have been on the door,” she argued. “Or she’d have sent me an e-mail.”
True. This was so unlike her. Then again, after ten years of intermittent therapy, I wasn’t confident I really knew what she was “like” anyway. I continued to search her desk for a family picture or keepsake that held some trace of who she really was. Instead, it was scattered with self-help books, medical journals, candles, and an assortment of coffee mugs.
“Come on, let’s wait outside and I’ll call her to see where she is,” Mom said, digging through her bag for her cell.
I was about to leave the room when I looked at Dr. T’s chair. My breath caught, and time jerked to a halt—like the moment I shot LeMarq, like the moment the blade went into Father Michael’s chest.
A large, old-fashioned brass key sat in Dr. T’s place.
I felt sick as I reached to pick it up. The panic rising in my chest threatened to consume me as I realized the key could only mean one thing—he’d taken her. The Key Killer, the fourth man on my list.
Attached to the rusty key was a red string and a small note. I pinched it up with my fingertips like it was a poisonous spider. The note read:
Find me.
The handwriting was Dr. T’s—I’d seen it so many times before. Another one of the Key Killer’s signature moves—forcing the victims to leave one last plea for help to their family.
My vision went starry. Air wasn’t making it to my lungs.
Not Dr. T. Not the only person in the world who knew me best and loved me anyway.
I couldn’t comprehend what kind of an evil person would crush minds and souls like this. How would I find her? None of his victims had ever been found. Not one of them. Twelve keys. Twelve missing persons behind twelve locked doors.
This had gone too far, become too personal. If the Key Killer or Silver were here right now, I would tear them to shreds. I looked back at the note, but it was turned the wrong way now—and there was a message on the other side, written in someone else’s hand:
If you want the Doctor to live, do not involve Jane.
“She’s not answering.” My mom’s voice sliced through my spinning frenzy. Why couldn’t I involve her? “I’ll leave a message.”
As she waited to leave a voicemail on a phone that would probably never be found, my mind raced.
Wait, Dr. T’s phone wasn’t off. It rang before it went to voicemail. That meant it could be tracked. If I called the phone, the nearby towers would ping her location—and we might find her before he turned it off and demolished it. I had to act fast.
If there was ever a time I needed my mom, it was now. She had the resources to track the phone, and she cared about Dr. T, too. Surely, she’d pull out all the stops to find her. But a flashback of the blonde girl on Ninth Street stung my mind. Silver didn’t bluff. I couldn’t risk Dr. T’s life by involving Jane. I’d have to find another way.
Suddenly, I knew where I needed to go. To the only person I trusted.
As my mom left Dr. T a voicemail, I escaped. Even when she yelled after me to come back, I kept running to Big Black.
“Slow down,” Liam said, grabbing me by the wrists after I told him about the key. “Ruby, everything is going to be OK.”
“No, it’s not,” I argued. “You don’t understand. This can’t happen to her. Not Dr. T.”
Looking over his shoulder at half the football team and most of the cheer squad staring at us, he pulled me deeper under the bleachers for privacy. Even though Alana’s back was firmly facing me, I wondered if it hurt her that I’d come running to Liam and not her.
“Ruby, just breathe for a second.” Liam still wore his pads with his helmet pulled back on his head. He looked so normal, so All-American. And here I wa
s, drawing him into my dark world, trying to fight a serial killer.
“So, what do you want to do?” he asked quietly
“I need someone with access to cell phone tower information,” I said, knowing it was a ridiculous game plan. A Hail Mary.
“Well, who would have that kind of access?”
“A detective, I guess.” I thought out loud. “Someone who could get a quick warrant.”
“Well, how many detectives do you know who could help with that?” he asked, as if he already knew the answer.
I knew it, too, and the answer was “one”: Detective “I’m Gonna Take You Down” Martinez. I put my face in my hands. I couldn’t believe it had finally come to this. But if it meant Dr. T might live, I would willingly place myself at the mercy of a man I wasn’t sure I could trust.
“It looks to me like you don’t have a choice,” he said, pulling my hands away from my face and nudging my chin so I’d look up at him. “Do you still have his card?”
“I think so,” I said, fumbling through my backpack. “Yeah, here it is.”
“Good. Let me just tell Coach I gotta go. I’ll be right back, OK?”
I wanted to stop him. Tell him I could do this on my own. Tell him I’d go to Detective Martinez first and then call him. But the truth was, I needed him. Or maybe I just wanted him so badly that it felt like need at this point.
Maybe if Liam had been with me when Father Michael died, I wouldn’t have fled the scene and lost the body. Maybe it would have prevented the whole thing. And maybe if Liam came with me now it would throw off some part of Silver’s plan, and we could get the upper hand.
I gripped the rusty key until it left marks in my skin. I would never let go of it until I found her. How many other loved ones had the same thought about their key before the police took it away as evidence? The thought made a bad taste come to my mouth, as if the key was firmly lodged in my throat.
“I just have to go change,” Liam said, suddenly in front of me again. “I’ll meet you at your car, and we’ll call Martinez together, OK?”
Killing Ruby Rose (The Ruby Rose Series) Page 19