Jessie Humphries - Killing Ruby Rose

Hey, it’s Liam. Hope u dont mind Alana gave me your #. Just wanted to make sure ur ok. & I wanted to tell u something. Call me.

I didn’t mind. Actually, I couldn’t stop the rising feeling of totally not minding. If a girl could shoot and kill someone, then pass out on the cafeteria floor like a lunatic, and this guy still wanted to talk to her, he couldn’t be so bad. His abs didn’t hurt his case, either.

The phone vibrated a third time.

I scrolled down to the rest of the texts, all from the same number. There were six of them, and I opened the first:

Check the Channel 3 news. You didn’t listen, and you didn’t save her.

The second and third and fourth—all said the same thing.

My heart palpitated. I switched on the news. Across the bottom, the scroll read:

Unnamed Teen Girl Found Dead Near Ninth Street.

All the warm and gooey feelings I’d had thinking of Liam and his ocean-blue eyes evaporated. A girl was dead. And it was my fault.

Something hardened in my chest. Like a cocoon had wrapped itself around my heart. And the darkness I’d worked so hard to dispel after losing Dad filled my mind. Guilt, sadness, anger, and despair all swarmed inside.

A normal person would cry at a time like this. Go running to Momma, to my dad’s “trusted” friends at SWAT, and plead for mercy and help. But I was never normal, and definitely not in the mood for pleading. I was in the mood to find out who was doing this to me. And why.

I replied to the message:

Who are you?

Ten seconds later, the message came back undelivered.

I chucked off my comforter and slid to my knees beside my bed. No, not to pray. To reach underneath my box spring. I felt for the handles of my locked chest, pulled it out, and lined up the numbers of the combination until it clicked open. I hadn’t opened the chest in weeks, foolishly trying to forget that it existed.

I rummaged through the case files I’d copied off my mom’s desk until I found my notebook. I preferred paper notes just in case—I knew from my mom’s trials that nothing digital ever disappears. And I wasn’t going to be one of those defendants dumb enough to Google “how to catch a killer.” No, I could easily burn these notes if I had to. And I always used my dad’s computer for hacking into official criminal databases and evidence logs. I even had his access codes to get into higher-level police files. They were all neatly written on a laminated card he kept “safe” in his safe. Stupid bureaucracy hadn’t even managed to shut down his accounts yet.

Thumbing through pages of comments, charts, and surveillance logs, I ran my finger over the name of each predator I’d been secretly following. All five of them—aka my Filthy Five. LeMarq was the first one I’d set my sights on.

The wind howled outside my window, and the branches of the orange tree scratched at the glass. I checked to make sure no one was there. Of course not—the creepy scraping noise was just part of a normal SoCal morning storm, not someone messing with my mind. Definitely not the spirit of the girl I should have saved.

The condensation from the night’s rain on the windowpane distorted the world outside. And the images on the television next to the window distorted my world inside.

Television crews lined the Ninth Street crime scene. For some morbid reason, they kept replaying the coroner wheeling out the black body bag. I had never hated my high-def flat screen so much. At the moment, I didn’t exactly want to “feel like I was there.”

The police hadn’t released the girl’s identity yet, so the news team resorted to zooming in on the moment when the wind picked up and an unzipped portion of the body bag rose, revealing a blonde head. As the reporter went wild with excited speculation on who the victim might be, I couldn’t help but wonder why they had to look like me, and what this guy was trying to tell me.

I felt like going on TV myself and warning every blonde-haired, gray-eyed girl in California to stay inside until I figured this out. But surely Detective Martinez or one of his chest-beating cohorts would see a pattern, and the public would be alerted to the profile of the victims. Or maybe the zombie media would figure it out on their own.

I could only hope the police didn’t disclose my involvement. If they found out, the press’s cycle of harassment would start all over again. A slimy paparazzo named Sammy tirelessly followed me around after Dad’s death—he liked to call me the number-one victim of that senseless murder. More like I was the number-one victim of Sammy’s invasion of privacy and national-exploitation tour.

I heard Mom stirring downstairs. Most likely making herself a pot of coffee, working on her usual three hours of sleep a night. I couldn’t afford her barging in, and I certainly didn’t want to talk to her about another death. I had to get out of here and find a safe place to gather my thoughts—alone.

The Pier.

I grabbed what I needed, and restashed all the evidence against me. After stuffing my notebook in my backpack and kicking my pirate’s chest back under the bed, I headed to my bathroom to brush my hair and teeth.

I tried not to pay too much attention to that sickly looking girl in the mirror. Instead, I tried to look past her, to the open window, where I knew my spot under the Pier and its fresh after-rain breeze waited to wash away the dark lines and puffy skin around my eyes. But just the thought of puffy eyes made me think of my mom (not because we look anything alike, because we don’t) and her admission of guilt in her office yesterday.

As I began to make progress on the rat’s nest I sometimes called hair, I also wondered why she hadn’t come up to see me last night. She said she would get dinner and we’d “talk some more.” Typical Jane Rose. All promises—no follow-through.

Maybe, so she would start to care more about me than her career, I should start campaigning for Bill Brandon and leaking information to his campaign muckety-mucks on her inability to keep promises. The days of family breakfasts in bed and picnics at the beach had ceased well before we lost Dad. Right about the same time that she formally declared her ambition to run for District Attorney the first time, she unofficially stopped being a wife and mother.

I slammed down my brush a little harder than I intended to and frowned at the state I was in. Hardly my finest hour in the looks department. Even after a little mascara and blush, I still didn’t want to see the girl in the mirror. Not even my mom’s old pageant tricks of making myself “look better in order to feel better” were working. I needed a few moments with my oldest and dearest friend: Gladys—aka my shoe closet.

I rounded the corner of my bathroom and opened the door to the other “wing” of my bedroom. Clicking the light switch on, I watched the heavenly fluorescent light shine luminously on her walls. Happy to see me, too, Gladys and all her Pips stood at attention for my entry—except for my tan Dolce & Gabbana Catwoman boots, which had to be neatly hung to avoid damage or creases. I had to take care of my Sleeping Beauties.

“Gladys, I need help.” My words echoed into the space. Sometimes it really paid to be an only child. This room had been meant for my sister or brother, but when they never happened, Dad knocked down a wall to give me a playroom. I was never really into toys—just shoes. I know. Weird. Dr. T told my mom I would likely grow out of it. No such luck. Dad thought it was funny. Mom thought it was expensive—but better than guns. And how could she blame me? She’s the one who’d taught me everything I knew about high-fashion footwear. Shoes were “our” thing. Or at least they used to be.