Killing Ruby Rose (The Ruby Rose Series)

by Jessie Humphries

  “Come.” He motioned for me to join him in a strange sitting room full of skulls and serpents. “May I offer you something to drink?”

  Yeah, so he could drug me and make me more compliant. “I don’t think so.”

  All the windows were covered in black curtains, blocking out any late-afternoon light. I had to get this over with—and get out of here as soon as possible.

  “Listen, I need your help,” I said, hating the taste of the words on my tongue. “And you need mine.”

  “Oh…kay,” he said, awkwardly sitting down on a claw-like couch—the back rose up in four sharp talons, so it seemed like any minute he could be crushed within his own living room. “Help with what, exactly?”

  I took a long breath, searching for the best way to answer. “Your life in is danger, and I want to protect you.”

  “Right.” He released a stifled laugh that was tinged with nervousness. He was scared of me. And the poorly concealed pistol in his track pants didn’t seem to make him feel any better.

  I paused, seeking the line between telling him as little as possible (to prevent him from going to the police with any information), and as much as possible (to prevent Silver from pulling off the fifth kill by my hand).

  “Has anyone contacted you lately about ‘product’ you may be interested in?” I asked.

  “Listen, Ruby—may I call you Ruby?”

  “That’s fine,” I lied. “But you didn’t answer my question.”

  “OK, Ruby, I know who you are.” He pulled at the hem of his thin V-neck to expose scar tissue on his shoulder. “After all, it was your sharpshooting dad who gave me this.”

  He stared at me like I owed him an apology.

  “You deserved it,” I assured him.

  “So is that why you’re here? To give me what I deserve?”

  “I told you, I’m here to help you. I swear.”

  “Help me like you helped that LeMarq fellow? With a bullet between the eyes?” He placed a pale forefinger to his oily brow, as if I needed a visual.

  I clenched my jaw and decided to respond in kind. “OK, Mr. Violet, here’s the truth, plain and simple: Someone has been setting me up to take out killers.” I watched his eyes flinch. “I don’t know who’s doing this to me, and I’m not even sure why. But I do know that you’re next.”

  I took a few steps toward him to make sure he understood me with perfect clarity. “He is going to try to make me kill you, and I don’t want to do that.”

  A twisting silence slithered between us while he absorbed the truth. He stared through me with the eyes of a racked soul.

  My head swiveled around just in case someone else was here. I put my hand inside my hoodie to grip my gun.

  “Yes, someone has contacted me,” he finally admitted.

  “OK, then,” I said, relieved he might actually cooperate. “I have a plan.”

  I flung my backpack off my shoulder and reached inside to grab my dad’s vest.

  “This is an Ultralight Concealed Goldflex/Kevlar Level IIIA Bulletproof Vest.” I held it out to him. “Wear this day and night. I don’t know when you’ll need it.”

  He sat forward on the heel of the claw-couch and took the offering, inspecting the impossibly thin design.

  “Wear it with sweatshirts to maximize the concealment,” I said, channeling my father. “And you need to start thinking about other methods of protection. Hire more security, stay armed, and above all, resist any kind of bait he lays for you.”

  “Slow down, sweetheart, slow down—”

  “Don’t call me sweetheart, and don’t you dare treat this lightly,” I warned him.

  “But I don’t understand. You aren’t making any sense.” He held up his hands. “Why would—”

  “You don’t have to understand.” I cut him off again. “Look, I don’t have all the answers. I just know at some point he’ll come for you. And as much as I don’t give a damn about you, the only chance of this working is if you try to protect yourself. Any slight wrench in his plans might be the difference between you living and me killing you. If you value your life, you’ll fight however you can.”

  Doubts fought against my hopes as he sunk in reaction to the word “fight.” This small man was no fighter. He was scrawny and despicable. But he was my only chance.

  I turned to go. I couldn’t bear to be in his presence one second longer.

  Before leaving, I said, “Regardless of what I think of you and the truly evil things you’ve done, I don’t want to kill you. Please don’t make me.”

  CHAPTER 26

  The sound of the garage door cut through my thoughts. Mom was finally home. I shook off the memory of Violet’s tentacles touching me, reassuring myself that my scalding shower had washed away all his filth. Man, my loofah was getting a lot of use lately.

  I ran downstairs to meet her. I had to know what was going on with Liam.

  “Hey, Mom,” I said softly, trying not to scare her. It was well after 11:00 p.m., and most of the lights were off.

  “Ruby!” She jumped like a skittish cat. “What are you trying to do, kill me?”

  Was that a Freudian slip?

  “Why are you home so late?” I asked, going for a gentle approach. “I’ve been waiting to talk to you.”

  “Yeah, well it’s going to have to wait,” she said curtly as she scrambled to pick up the files she’d dropped.

  “What’s wrong with you?” I asked, sensing something in her frantic movements.

  She brushed past me and started hiking the stairs.

  “Are you just going to ignore me forever?” I called after her. “You know, it was only a week ago that you asked me to meet at Dr. Teresa’s to talk. Did you suddenly forget what you had to say?”

  “Rue, it’s almost midnight. It’s been a long day, and I’m tired.” She stopped and took off her heels—like that would give her more getaway speed.

  “You told me you’d help him,” I said, not even close to giving up. “You promised.”

  She turned and looked down at me.

  “He’s been in there forever. Why haven’t you gotten him out?”

  “It’s more complicated than I realized at first. Do you know how it would look if I pulled strings to get my daughter’s high school fling out of jail after he killed a veteran police officer?”

  Whoa. I could not have heard that “he killed” part right.

  “He didn’t do it. I told you that. I was there!” I stalked up the stairs after her. “If you’d let me talk to the police, I would tell them that! They have no right to detain him. They have no evidence, no motive. He should have been released by now.”

  “Ruby, honestly, just stop. You have no idea what you are talking about. His bail was set too high, and his mom can’t afford it. She’s a bartender,” she said condescendingly. My anger flared and the springs in my muscles tightened up, waiting for the release.

  “What bail—what are you talking about?” I asked, staring her down.

  “Arraignment was several days ago. The judge set bail at a million dollars.” She turned to go, but I grabbed her wrist. This was escalating too fast.

  “A million dollars? That’s ridiculous. Why didn’t you tell me?” I narrowed my eyes at her, knowing exactly why she hadn’t told me. She saw this fight coming, and that’s why she’d been avoiding me. I wanted to slap myself for believing in her and not finding out about Liam’s situation myself. “Why haven’t you told me anything? I trusted you, and yet you’re the one allowing the charges to be brought!”

  She pulled her wrist away. “My hands are tied. I can’t go easy on him because you have a crush on him, Ruby. He had Martinez’s blood on his hands—”

  “So did I. I told you that Martinez had been shot. We both had blood on our hands because we were trying to save Martinez’s life. And even so, that’s not enough evidence for an arrest.”

  “I’m afraid it is,” she said, her tone hot with impatience. “It may be circumstantial, but combined with other fact
ors, it’s evidence nonetheless. The boy has a record, Ruby. He almost killed someone before.”

  “What? He was only protecting his little brothers and mother from his drunk dad,” I argued. “And how is that relevant?”

  “Protecting yourself would be calling the police, not taking a baseball bat and putting your own father in a coma for seven days.”

  “You don’t know all the facts,” I said, a little thrown by the baseball-bat thing. Liam hadn’t mentioned that detail, and I flinched at the image of him beating his father.

  “Neither do you,” she said flatly. “No matter what his father did, he didn’t deserve to be nearly beaten to death. Contrary to what you might currently believe, violence is not the answer. The boy is a danger to society.”

  “I should’ve known you would pick sides with the abusive parent,” I sputtered. “You know Liam didn’t do this.”

  “That’s not true. He won’t even talk to me. He gave his statement to the police and now he is relying on his two-bit public defender,” she said, rubbing her eyes and smudging her makeup even more. “The whole thing…it just doesn’t look good.”

  “It doesn’t look good?” I repeated. Of course, I should’ve seen this coming. “Looks have always been more important to you than the truth, Miss Botox California. Miss Sham Marriage, Miss Closet Alcoholic. I wonder how it would look if I decided to go see my paparazzo friend Sammy and gave him an exclusive interview on the real life of Jane Rose. Or call up our Bill Brandon and give him—”

  “I’m going to bed,” she cut me off, pinching her eyes shut and blowing out a dramatic breath of exhaustion. She was bluffing, and I was calling.

  “Drop the charges, Jane, or I’ll drop a bomb on your campaign you’ll never recover from. Bill Brandon will have a whole new set of names to call you,” I said, knowing I’d just crossed the line. But asking nicely wasn’t working. Liam’s life was on the line. “There is no evidence that can’t be explained away. He’s innocent, and you know it. I won’t let you use him as a scapegoat.”

  She glared at me, and I almost lost my nerve, but instead of succumbing to her intimidation, I turned it up. “I will not be ignored by you anymore. I will not be neglected and abused because of your career. I will not let you scoff at what I have with Liam. It’s not a fling or a crush. He’s been there for me in a way you never have.” It was all true, but instead of feeling relieved for finally communicating what Liam meant to me, I felt awful for the mean way it came out.

  “I don’t respond well to threats, young lady,” she said. “Not from the criminals off the street, and not from the criminals in my own home.”

  I flinched, and for a second I thought she did, too. Her words stung worse than a slap to the face. Yes, I’d trailed the men I killed, I’d withheld information from the police, and I’d even “borrowed” a motorcycle from a neighbor without permission. But every life I took was taken either in self-defense or in the defense of others. None of what I’d done looked good—in fact, much of it looked horrendously stupid in hindsight.

  But I thought I’d explained it to her, all very clearly. Yet here she was, calling me a criminal. Mothers aren’t supposed to say things like that. They’re supposed to love unconditionally, aren’t they?

  “You would do well to remember that I’m the one who’s kept you out of the courtroom. I’ve kept you out of prison.” Her red-wine breath made me back up. “So you don’t care for who I am, I get it. Well, guess what, honey—I don’t much care for who you are.” The look of disgust on her face was enough for my soul to scurry back into the hole it had come from. “Or not, at least, what you’ve become.”

  She turned her back and closed her double doors on me with deliberate force. Then she locked them. She was scared of me. Maybe even repulsed by me. And, until further notice, she was done with me.

  I was officially alone in the world. Not that I didn’t already feel it, but now I knew it. I had Alana again, but for now, the less contact I had with her the better.

  I bit my lip trying to fight the sting of my tears. In the darkness, I felt the pain, the rejection, and the guilt roll down my cheeks. Maybe if I hadn’t followed my Filthy Five in the first place, none of this would have happened and she’d still love me.

  Never in my whole life had she so deliberately rejected me. Through all my failures to live up to her expectations, through all our differences of opinion, and even through the death of my dad, I had never seen her so cold.

  If Silver was trying to demolish me, mission accomplished.

  Everything I’d ever valued was gone.

  I tried not to imagine my mom’s gloating face as they took me away forever. She’d be happy to be rid of me, and my inheritance would only be a bonus. She’d get all five million dollars of life insurance funds held in trust for me.

  Wait, the money! Why hadn’t I thought of this before? I wiped salty tears from my cheeks.

  Liam needed a million dollars, and I had it. Maybe I could call the estate-planning attorney and get the money wired by noon—Liam could be here by nightfall. The thought of his arms around me and the warmth of his breath on my neck made me lightheaded. Like a balloon expanding with air, I allowed myself to fill up with hope.

  Unfortunately, my thin piece of ruby-colored rubber popped when I remembered who the trustee was: Wicked Witch of the West Coast Jane Rose. She controlled my trust fund, and there was no way I’d be getting my hands on any of it. At least not until I was twenty-one. And even then, it had been explained to me that I would only receive one-third increments—presumably to prevent my spending it all on shoes in one year. Which, to be honest, was a bigger possibility than I cared to admit.

  I gave my pillow a pile driver to the gut and threw it across the room. Not knowing what else to do with myself, I grabbed the remote. Part of me wanted to throw it like a Chinese star at the flat screen, but instead I pressed power. My TV had never done anything to me.

  The only thing on was Real Housewives of Orange County, and—oh yeah, the late-night reruns of the talking heads speculating on the sanity of Ruby Rose. How would I ever get a fair trial with these bottle blondes spouting off about “mounting evidence yet to be released?” Not that I didn’t like free speech—or getting a few highlights now and then—but please, these girls didn’t know the difference between the day spa and a defamation charge. I doubted either of them would have called me a “disturbed and traumatized child” to my face. But it was cool to say it in front of the entire free world.

  I listened to them hypothesize how Liam and I were like a teen version of Bonnie and Clyde. That perhaps the motive behind Martinez’s murder was Liam protecting me from being investigated. That young love sparked his intent to kill.

  Did these women smoke crack before going on air? How much more outrageous could they get?

  The tolling of the grandfather clock downstairs brought me back to cold reality. It was 12:15 a.m., and I was no closer to sleeping. No closer to finding any answers that could save me from this nightmare called my life. I turned off the TV and sat there brooding until around 1:00, finally falling asleep in Gladys, my trusty shoe closet and most loyal friend.

  CHAPTER 27

  I woke up with a start. Gasping for air, I rolled over wondering who’d taken my pillow and why my comforter was tangled around me. It was 4:00 a.m.

  “Oh jeez.” I sat up to get my bearings. Light trickled in from my bathroom across the way. “No rest for the wicked.”

  Sore didn’t cover the way my back felt. Even my mind felt stiff. Dreams of blonde-headed zombies chasing me with pitchforks hadn’t been exactly restful. I looked around Gladys’s dark walls for some comfort, but for perhaps the first time in my life, my shoes had none to give. They all just sat there, listless and inanimate. I must have hit rock bottom if I felt alone even among my shoes.

  I finally scraped myself off the floor and headed to the kitchen for something to eat. As I hobbled down the stairs, I noticed my mom’s doors were open. Maybe she could
n’t sleep, either.

  I perked up my ears for signs of her presence, but all I heard was the howling wind seeping in from outside. No TV coming from her room, no dishes clinking in the kitchen, no tapping of the keyboard in her office.

  I couldn’t help myself. I mounted the stairs again and peeked into her room. It would be so like her to lure me in there just to punish me for it. Maybe she was the mastermind after all. Or had employed Silver to make me into the assassin she couldn’t be. If she couldn’t put those killers away, she would have her psychopath child do it for her.

  Now my speculation was getting out of control.

  “Mom?” I called out. I hadn’t been in her room for months. “Are you in here?”

  The wind whistled back like it was trying to tell me something. The hair on my arms stood on end.

  Her bed was unmade; the light in her walk-in closet was on. Curious.

  Her briefcase and car keys were on the dresser. Suspicious.

  I rounded the corner into the hallway leading to her bathroom but was stopped by papers scattered all over the floor. Straight-up alarming.

  “Mom!” I called out again, this time with a tremor of panic. To be sure, I doubled back into her room to look under the crumpled bedcover, in the closet, and even on her balcony.

  I ran downstairs and then back up, checking each room to make sure she wasn’t hiding somewhere.

  She wasn’t here.

  Silver had gotten her. I was sure of it. Somehow, he’d slipped in past security and taken her. Despite the anger I’d felt toward her last night, all I felt now was sick. I went back to her bed and put my head in my hands. She was my mom, and I still loved her. I needed her, even if she’d never need me back. She was all I had left.