Jessie Humphries - Killing Ruby Rose

In the meantime, I had to find a way to convince her not to accuse the football players. That would just cause a chain reaction of problems I didn’t need right now.

Even if they never found the bodies or other physical evidence (because of Mr. D. S.’s meticulous planning), Detective Martinez and my mom’s campaign opponent, Bill Brandon, would tag-team up like a pair of brute wrestlers to take my mom and me down if they heard about this.

The butterfly effect would be disastrous. Not that killing three men was even remotely close to the ripple of a butterfly’s wing. But whatever.

As I turned into Alana’s neighborhood, Liam leaned over the center console and put his hand on Alana’s arm. She quickly pulled away.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to…” Liam stuttered. “I just have an idea. Let’s tell our parents that we had a bonfire at Newport, someone stole our phones, and we were stranded at the beach. Let’s not tell them about being tied up, or about the cove. They’ll freak.”

“Why?” She turned to face him in the backseat. “You don’t want to get your buddies in trouble?”

“If this was one of the football guys, I promise I will find out,” he assured her. “I just don’t think they would be capable…” He trailed off.

“Oh, really? And who would be capable ?”

“Alana,” I cut in, “you can’t go around accusing people.”

“Whose side are you on, Ruby?” she snapped.

“Nobody’s. I mean—yours?” I didn’t understand the question. Liam and I exchanged a worried glance in the rearview mirror.

“I don’t know what you guys are trying to hide, but I am 100 percent not cool with being drugged, kidnapped, and dumped by anyone .” Alana rubbed at her wrists like all of a sudden they scorched with pain. “All I know is that if you pull around this corner, and there are police outside my house because my parents called me in missing, I’m not telling any bogus lies.”

I drew a last breath before rounding the corner to discover our fate. Alana’s parents weren’t normally the kind to worry, but I knew I had little chance of keeping up the ruse if they suspected anything. I kept looking through my sunroof for any circling helicopters, or other signs of the whole LA cavalry out looking for our dead bodies after discovering the remains of four men at the warehouse.

Time skidded into slow motion as we turned onto Alana’s street. The sun was up. Sprinklers cast rainbows over manicured grass, newspapers dotted the drives, and a yawning cat stared at us as we came into view—but there were no sirens. No black-and-white vehicles. No frantic mothers in Hawaiian muumuus on the drive. Nothing out of the ordinary.

We all exhaled. “Thank God,” Alana said, dropping her head like she was really praying.

I looked in the rearview mirror. Liam’s expression said Now! Convince her now!

“Look, Alana.” I slowed my approach to her curb. “Will you just do one thing for me?”

She lowered her eyebrows. I opened my mouth, not even sure what I was going to ask her—but a beeping electronic device interrupted me.

Our eyes bulged as we recognized my text-message alert. I thought I’d lost my cell phone! The sound came from somewhere right between us.

I flung open the center console to find all three of our cell phones neatly placed next to each other. We each grabbed for our own, desperate to discover the fallout.

I had only one unread text message, from another stupid unknown number.

Check your mom’s text log. All is well.

I scrambled to the history of text messages between my mom and me.

At 11:36 last night a text from my phone read: Staying at Alana’s tonight. See you tomorrow.

At 11:38 Mom replied: OK. Be safe.

At 11:40 my phone replied: OK.

I looked up at Alana in disbelief.

“My mom thinks I stayed at your house last night,” she said, looking at her own messages. “Someone texted her and told her so. Someone pretending to be me.”

I watched her eyes and saw comprehension dawning. Like maybe she finally understood this had nothing to do with the football players, and everything to do with someone far more sinister.

“Let me see that,” I said, taking the phone from her. It was true. Someone sent her the same text to check her mom’s log. We were in the clear. All was well. At least in regards to not being busted yet. I knew it was only a small victory. Soon there would be a long list of other consequences such as the bodies being found, Liam turning on me, a very public trial, the inevitable destruction of my mother’s life and career, and ultimately getting shanked in prison by a gang of “big girls” who didn’t like my attitude. And to think that just a few months ago I was only worried I wouldn’t make it to Stanford because of poor attendance.

“Same for me,” Liam said from the backseat. “My mom thinks I’m at my buddy Chase’s house.”

A long and uncomfortable pause took over the car. I didn’t know what to say or even what to think. I only knew that if Alana remembered something and wasn’t saying anything to my face—it could be a problem. I could tell she didn’t want to be in the car with me for one more second.

“I’ll call you later,” she said, not even bothering to meet my eyes before flipping the lock and practically sprinting into her house.

I wondered if I’d ever have a best friend again.

Not that it would matter if I didn’t find out who had done this to us, and soon.

As I slunk down in my tub, I wondered why I’d never thought to combine two of my favorite escapes before—a steaming bath and hot chocolate. If there was ever a time I needed them, it was now. I doubted prison would offer a massaging jet bath or carry this particular brand of imported French chocolat chaud à la noisette .

Not that I had done anything wrong—The Stick’s murder was legally justified—but I wasn’t naive enough to hope that everyone would see it as cut-and-dried. Not with my mom’s enemies. And not with the psycho still out there attempting to destroy me.

Now that I found myself alone, it all started to sink in. I was on a collision course with disaster. No matter what I did, life as I knew it was over. Either I would be caught, exposed, and ruined, or I would have to live with the knowledge that I had betrayed everyone and everything I’d ever held dear by keeping my secrets and “obstructing justice.”

Or, of course, there was always the third option: death.

No, not suicide. I’m not that girl. I’m talking a slow, tortuous death by Mr. D. S.-hole. By now, I knew this guy was in control. He was smart and capable enough of taking my life any moment he wanted. Shoot, he could very well come drown me in this bath right this second. Except that was obviously not what he wanted. So what did he want?

A wave of fatigue weighed me down. I needed to drag myself into bed before I accidentally drowned. Must’ve been the killer combo of the hot bath and having been drugged twice within the last twelve hours.

I grabbed a towel and wrapped it around myself, not even bothering to get dressed before I slid under my covers and turned on the TV to check the news. I had to know if they’d found the warehouse and the bodies yet. I flipped through the channels until I found Bill Brandon and his shiny white campaign teeth. That smile alone was enough to win over several thousand “cosmetic” voters who knew nothing of the candidates or issues, who admitted to voting based on good looks. “Cheap votes” my mom called them. In the last election she was the one collecting them against an old man with a bright-red bulbous nose. In Brandon she’d met her match—with his chiseled jaw and salt-and-pepper hair, he oozed masculine smolder.