Jessie Humphries - Killing Ruby Rose

I froze, allowing my mind to conjure all the fatal possibilities.

Just as I managed to gather myself to search the kitchen for some kind of weapon, the air pressure in the house changed, opening the front door with a gust.

I was out of time.

Clutching the steak knife I’d grabbed and listening for any indication that Mom was in danger and I needed to act. Why would she have opened the door if she was scared? Maybe she wasn’t the one who’d opened the door at all.

“Hello, Jane.” A deep Spanish-flavored voice boomed through our grand entryway. I knew that voice.

“Detective Martinez, is there some reason you didn’t call my office?” my mother said in her trademark passive-aggressive tone.

My fingers uncurled from my weapon as I realized I no longer needed one—and that brandishing a blade wouldn’t win me any points with the man investigating me as a murderer. I dropped the knife and cringed when it clattered into the stainless steel sink.

“I apologize,” Martinez muttered, sounding entirely unapologetic. “But I did call your office. Several times, in fact.”

“So you show up unannounced at my home?” my mother seethed. “This is hardly appropriate, Detective.” She may have been irritated at his unexpected drop-in, but I was terrified. Even though he wasn’t the first dangerous person who’d come to my mind when my mom gasped, he was dangerous nonetheless. Perhaps he’d found evidence to contradict my sworn statement. Maybe he was here to catch me in my lie—that I’d never heard of Charlie LeMarq before the night I killed him—and take me in with hands cuffed behind my back. Or maybe he really was at the art show, and he knew a lot more about the investigation than he’d been letting on.

“Have I interrupted something?” Martinez asked.

“No,” she said, as if she’d completely forgotten that we were just in the middle of a rare moment of her opening up to me about my father. I tried not to let her lie sting.

“Good, because we need to talk.”

“About what?”

“About the investigation, of course,” he said, inviting himself in. “Is Ruby around?”

I tiptoed across the acoustic tile and peeked around the corner.

“Yes, but I would prefer it if we talked privately,” she said, trying to corral him into her office. Instead, he walked around the foyer as if looking for something. He stopped in front of the framed family portrait, his face scrunching up in a weird way as he stared at my father’s image. His goatee, his thick gold chain necklace, and unnecessary black leather jacket made him seem more like an actor playing a part on Law & Order: LA than a real cop. He was more good-looking than I remembered—and probably less good-looking than he remembered. Arrogant ass.

“Detective, please, my bureau if you would,” she ordered, more aggressive than passive at this point, gesturing with her hands for him to move away from the picture and behind the closed doors of her bureau . Like using the French word made her office fancier, or more official.

He reluctantly followed her command, muttering something in Spanglish that I didn’t understand. I knew she was only trying to protect me—my rights, my emotional stability. But I didn’t like being kept in the dark. And I didn’t think I could wait one second to hear what update he had on the investigation.

“Hi, Detective Martinez.” I popped out right before the office door shut. His head swung around at my voice, and I saw a hint of excitement on his face before he narrowed his eyes into a stern-cop look.

“Hey, Ruby,” he said. “Your mother and I were about to have a chat. But you’re welcome to join us if you’d like.”

I glanced at my mom. Her jawbone was about to break. “No, Detective, I already told you I would prefer if we speak alone.”

“She’s a big girl. She can decide for herself.” He wasn’t intimidated by my mom or her D. A. attitude. Huh—that was rare.

“Yeah, Mom,” I said, walking past them into the bureau . “Don’t you think I deserve to know what’s going on?”

She followed me and whispered in my ear, “Listen to me. Don’t speak, even if he asks you direct questions. Let me answer for you. Do you understand?”

“Mom, he’s here to tell me what’s going on, not to interrogate me,” I whispered back, not believing my own words.

“Don’t be so naive, Rue.”

She sat me next to her on the couch, and motioned for Martinez to sit across from us in an armchair.

“So tell us, Detective, what news do you have to report?” she asked, firmly in command again. “What has the quick-as-snails Homicide Unit discovered?”

He gave her a look of disgust before focusing on me. “Well, it looks like your story has been corroborated by the forensics,” he said, leaning forward, elbows braced over knees, practically oozing testosterone. If he was trying to establish some kind of male dominance here—good luck. “We dumped LeMarq’s cell phone and found several texts and calls from an untraceable disposable cell. We know now that an unknown suspect promising a ‘blonde delivery’ lured LeMarq there. We assume it was this same unknown suspect who texted Ruby that night.”

I exhaled a little.

“This theory is also substantiated by the fact that LeMarq did not transport the young girl in his van. There were no hairs or fibers found in his vehicle, which leads us to believe that the unknown suspect, who lured both LeMarq and Ruby to the warehouse, also kidnapped the victim and used her as some sort of bait for both of them.”

I felt my mom tense up. “Excuse me, Detective— bait ?”

“That’s right…bait.” Martinez continued staring me down, not even bothering to look at my mom. “Why do you think someone would want to lure you there?”

“Detective, she is not going to answer that.” Mom slung a hand over my lap like we were in a car and she’d slammed on the brakes.

He knew I was hiding something. He wasn’t as dumb as his muscles made him look.

“Detective,” my mother said, “I want to know who sent that text . I need that man caught.”

The heat from her laser glare must have gotten to him, because he finally took off his stupid leather jacket. As he draped it over his leg, I noticed a tattoo on his right forearm. It looked like the Eagle, Globe, and Anchor Marine Corps symbol. Dad had that same exact tattoo, in the same exact place. I knew they’d been partners sometime before I was born, but matching tattoos? Maybe it was a common Marine thing—

“I’m working on that, Jane,” he said, finally directing his focus to her. There was a venomous quality to his voice now. And he looked at her in a way that felt—inappropriate. Like he knew her better than I thought, and this wasn’t the first time they were having a fight.

“Are you working on it with the same intensity as the department is working on finding my husband’s killer?” she said in a raptor-like pitch. It startled me. Something strange was happening to my mom. “Sergeant Mathews tells me that Jack’s case has gone nowhere. It’s unacceptable—”

“Jane, relax.” He cut her off and stood with his hand up to her, as if he was blocking out her deathly atomic waves. “You know the department is committed to finding out what happened to Jack.”

She rose to face him. She wasn’t going to let him have the upper hand in anything, and certainly not in elevation—not with those heels.

I was wondering if he was going to bring up anything about the art show (since I wasn’t going to)—or if I was legitimately delusional and waiting in vain—when my phone vibrated in my back pocket. My mom was standing in front of me, blocking me from Martinez’s view, so I risked taking a quick look.