Jessie Humphries - Killing Ruby Rose

“I’m going to the beach—and then to sucky school—but I need to be able to move,” I said as if Gladys might talk back.

I walked around the shelves Dad had handcrafted just for me and the Pips, until I found them. My Juicy Couture Platino Metallic Gladiator Sandals named Hermes. I plucked them off the shelf and took them back to my room to get dressed, throwing on some yellow leggings, a Roxy hoodie, and my Spy sunglasses. I knew there was no sun, but like my shoes, they provided emotional support.

I slung my backpack over my shoulder and took a deep breath. A Courage Breath for the day—I didn’t ignore everything Dr. T taught me.

Now I just had to sneak out without Hawkeye Jane catching me. I slithered down the stairs, into the garage, and into Big Black. For the quickest escape, I hit the garage-door opener at the same time as the ignition. It was already 6:00 a.m., and I only had eighty minutes before school started.

After sitting in the dry sand under the Pier for fifteen minutes, no effective thinking had taken place. Instead, I watched the light shift over the pink-and-purple horizon. Surfers lined up for their turns on the larger than usual sets rolling in. I hadn’t surfed since Dad had died. It was our thing. And I missed it.

We’d sit out past the break waiting for the waves, and he’d tell me stories about combat as a Marine. About how hard it was to come back from the atrocities he’d witnessed as a soldier abroad. About the dangers still looming at home. About the line between right and wrong.

He’d called this beach his shoreline. He wanted to believe that—whatever he did—he’d always make it home, back to what was sure . His sure things included his integrity, his country, his freedom. His very own shoreline.

He was a broken record about me finding my own shoreline, about preparing myself for the moments in life when I’d be tested. There were times when his training and instruction felt like he was dragging me out into the deep waters of what my mom not-so-affectionately called his Post-Traumatic Stress Paranoia. Both in his time as a Marine and a police officer, he witnessed violence that most people can’t even stand to watch on TV. So her words had merit, especially in the year leading up to his death. But now—his warnings and preparations didn’t seem so crazy. In fact, it seemed like he might have known something (or someone ) was coming.

Which made me wonder where my shoreline was anymore.

I grabbed my notebook and began OCD-organizing what was on my mind.

Problem 1: A girl is dead because I didn’t respect the warning. I let her die.

Dilemma 2: Whoever lured me to LeMarq is still toying with me. Trying to torment me. Or kill me.

Predicament 3: I lied to the police about following LeMarq, and somehow Detective Martinez knows it. If he finds proof of my strange stalking habits, he’ll argue that the LeMarq shooting was not, in fact, “legally justified.” He’ll claim that I had malice aforethought, intent, and motive—and that it was murder in the first degree.

Disaster 4: My mom cheated on my dad—with the one man in a position to take me down!

Mess 5: Mom’s campaign opponent, Bill Brandon, is on a witch hunt to destroy the whole Rose family, and he doesn’t mind using me to do it.

Catastrophe 6: I am a killer.

“Ruby!” A voice jerked my nose out of my notebook. “Hey, Ruby.”

I looked up to find a half-naked Liam Slater jogging toward me through the sand with a surfboard under his arm.

This had to be some kind of psychotic delusion. Like my subconscious desires had fought to the surface. Or maybe I’d watched one too many episodes of vampire shows with shirtless immortals.

“I was hoping I’d see you here today,” Liam said, a little out of breath. His unzipped wet suit hung dangerously low on his waist, exposing the muscular V-line in his hips that most girls would pay good money to see. His shaggy hair dripped salt water over his bronzed and chiseled eight-pack. Suddenly, I had a new problem—

Crisis 7: Acting like a total idiot in front of Liam Slater.

“I never heard back from you,” he said as he sat down next to me. “Are you OK?”

“You hoped to see me? What made you think I’d be here?” I asked, semiviolently shutting my notebook like it contained national secrets.

“I’ve seen you out here before,” he clarified. “My boys and I hit this spot before school occasionally for a session, and I’ve seen you here a few times deep in thought . I just never got the guts to actually come over and talk before.”

“Really?”

“Really what ?” he asked with a half smile.

“Really, you surf here? Really, you’ve seen me here? Really, you didn’t have the guts to talk to me ?” I was shocked by all three implications. Sure, I could be shortsighted and socially unplugged sometimes, but I couldn’t have missed him.

He laughed, and I couldn’t help but notice his perfectly straight white teeth against his sun-kissed face.

“I know we’ve goofed around in class, and said ‘hey’ in the halls and stuff, but you’re sort of intimidating,” he said. I could have sworn the sun came out just to do that shiny, sparkly thing off his teeth.

“I don’t think intimidating is the right word,” I said. “Maybe unrelatable …my therapist says I’m unrelatable.” Why was I telling him I had a therapist?

“Oh…kay, unrelatable, unreachable, unattainable, sure.” He looked over at me with raised eyebrows and a suppressed laugh. Seriously, dudes shouldn’t have such long eyelashes. “You hit your head pretty hard yesterday. I hope you’re OK.”

“Did I?” I asked. I honestly didn’t remember. Physical pain hardly ever bothered me. I’d gotten good at ignoring bumps and bruises.

“Right here,” he said, reaching up to stroke my hair where my head had hit the floor. Now that he was touching it, that spot felt tender. But in this moment, I thanked the injury for giving me a rare moment of physical contact. Mom hadn’t hugged me in years, and Dad’s physical expressions of love (since I’d become a teen) consisted of sparring matches and pats on the head. In general, I’d always been pretty successful at keeping people within carefully controlled parameters. Even Alana had to hammer past my aversion to touch—what Dr. T said was part of my autophobia , or fear of abandonment. Which of course got ten times worse when my father was murdered.

But this uninvited touch from Liam? I didn’t hate it.

“It doesn’t hurt,” I said, eyes down, blood pressure up.

“That’s good.” It took him a few strung-out beats before he lowered his hand. “Listen, I wanted to tell you something.”

“OK, shoot,” I said awkwardly. Not my best choice of words.

“Well, I don’t want to come across as a creepy stalker kind of guy.” He played with the damp sand in his hands. “But yesterday at the art fair…I noticed this guy. Well, a man. He was watching you.”

“What?” I sat up taller. “What kind of man? A teacher?”

“No, I don’t think he was a teacher. I would’ve seen him around school before. He was definitely out of place. He was watching you in an intense sort of way, and it was weird. I didn’t like it.”

Had he seen Martinez, too? Maybe I wasn’t going crazy.

“What did he look like?” I asked, heart racing in a new way now.

“He was wearing a dark suit. No tie or anything, but a sort of athletic build, good-looking—like an older George Clooney kind of look.” He grabbed a piece of kelp and crushed a bulb between his fingers.

“Was he Latino?” I asked.