Jessie Humphries - Killing Ruby Rose

“You see, Megan, there are just too many questions, and not enough answers,” Brandon charmingly explained to the attractive news anchor, like he was at a bar and she was the lucky girl he’d take home tonight. “District Attorney Jane Rose is a rogue pirate captain on a sinking ship. There is not enough transparency. There is not enough justice. Too many violent offenders still roam the streets while she dines in the private chambers of her lobbyist supporters. Orange County needs a new captain. One who will right the ship. I have the experience as a former police officer—and the proven determination as a successful victims’ rights attorney—to make it happen.”

What a joke! Captain Jane Rose the Rogue Pirate versus Bill “Peter Pan” Brandon the Scallywag Hero. This guy couldn’t be any more ridiculous.

“So tell us, Bill”—the reporter, and her implants, faced him—“where do you get your passion? Does this have anything to do with your family history?”

Talk about lobbing a softball question.

“Yes, I’m glad you asked.” The Scallywag folded his hands and turned somber. “I get my passion from my daughter, Whitney. She’s why I’m here. She was fourteen years old when she was taken from her bed in the dead of night by a multiple offender. As the police captain in our small community, I thought I was protecting her. I thought something like that could never happen to me. We didn’t find her body until a year later. That’s when I changed my thinking. I wasn’t doing enough.”

The smirk fell off my face. I felt stupid for not having known about his daughter. Had I only been selectively listening to information about him, and vilifying him because of my mom? There was more to this guy than I’d realized.

“The man who brutally tortured and killed my Whitney was still walking the streets. He wasn’t convicted. His attorney persuaded the jury that my department had tampered with evidence because they wanted justice for me. Honestly, Megan, every day I considered finding him and…” He paused, lowering his gaze. When he looked back up at the camera, his eyes were alive with fire—instead of the tears I expected to see. He continued: “I considered finding him and killing him. Showing him the same respect he’d shown my daughter.” He blinked and regained some of his composure, but I had lost some of mine.

“Of course, I came to my senses. I couldn’t do that to my wife and two other children. Instead, I went to law school and helped create the program we now call Whitney Watch, which is a series of protocols that communities and police departments use to find missing children, prevent travesties, and obtain justice against offenders. I am resolved to get these multiple offenders off the street. No plea deals, no sloppy prosecutions, only justice. For our children, for our communities, for Whitney.”

I couldn’t believe it—this bully seemed sincere. He’d lost his daughter. He wanted revenge. He was just like me.

Before, I thought seeing him elected would be a bad thing, mostly because it meant my mom would be fired. Now, I wasn’t so sure. Except that maybe I was one of those “multiple offenders” he vowed to put away.

I turned off the TV—everything was going hazy. Not just my eyesight from overwhelming fatigue, but my shoreline. That line Dad had tried so hard to show me—the divide between right and wrong—wasn’t so clear anymore.

The shaggy green carpet tickled my cheek. I rolled around on the floor, giggling like crazy. Someone was tickling me, chasing me in circles. I laughed and fell, laughed and fell. I couldn’t get away—I wasn’t really trying. I looked up to the oversized smile above me and squinted through the belly laughs. I couldn’t talk. I didn’t have the words yet, but she did. “I’m going to get the little monster.” Her long blonde hair was pulled into a high bun, so I could see her bright-blue eyes perfectly. I stared at soft, pink lips stretched out in a wide grin, making the dimple in her left cheek even deeper. She looked like the girl in the sketch at the art fair. It felt like I knew her.

Wait, was she me? She was my age. She looked exactly like me, except for the eyes. Like Baby Ruby was playing with Teenage Ruby, or the version of me that didn’t include shades of gray and darkness—

All of a sudden the room went black, like the lights of the world had just turned off. I couldn’t find her. I crawled around blindly, searching for her touch. Instead, I felt bars in every direction. Everywhere I turned the bars locked me in. The ground was sharp and hard.

“Ruby.” My mom’s cold voice entered my dream. If I didn’t know this was a nightmare before, I knew it now. “I need to talk to you.”

The darkness started slipping away to a fog, deep and heavy.

“Honey, wake up.” Her impatient voice doused me like ice water, the silly pet name as annoying as always.

And yet, part of me was still glad to see her. There was always a seed of hope inside me that she’d surprise me, maybe whisk me off to Paris for fall shoes and chocolate crepes, like she did lifetimes ago. Pre-D. A. Jane used to be quite spontaneous. Post-D. A. Jane, not so much.

“I have to go,” she said. Of course, she woke me up just to say good-bye. I never got used to her MO: offering me something I wanted, just to say I couldn’t have it. Here, Ruby, put these cookies in the cookie jar. And don’t you dare eat them, they’re for decoration . And shouldn’t you be cutting back on the sweets? That metabolism of yours won’t last forever.

“It’s fine,” I said. Though it wasn’t.

“You must’ve had one hell of a night,” she said, eyebrows raised. Maybe it was all a dream. I let myself hope for only a second before I looked down to my wrists and saw the bruising.

“Yeah, you know Alana and me.” I pulled up my towel and the covers to make sure none of me was exposed. “Party to the break of dawn.” I faked a smile, but it probably looked more like a grimace.

“I know it’s Sunday, but I have to go to the office for a little while, OK?” she said. Even though that “OK” with the inflection at the end indicated a question, which normally required a response, I knew better. She didn’t need my permission. And even if I said no, what was she going to do—listen? Ha! Would she stay home and make me breakfast in bed like Dad used to do? The only recipe she knew was burned toast. Would she curl up and have a quiet Sunday in, watching episodes of Law & Order and talking about life? Come on, she was the star of her own real-life crime show.

And now with the whole affair thing hanging in the air between us, I wasn’t sure I even wanted her around. I thought about what Dr. T had said—letting my mom in, us needing each other now more than ever.

“Call Alana,” she suggested. “Do something fun today. I heard they’re having a sale at Nordstrom.”

“OK, fine. See you later, then.” I wanted to grab my cell phone off the nightstand and check for messages, but I couldn’t because of my bruised wrists.

“Don’t be like that, Rue.” She reached over to shift my hair out of my face, and I let her. Like a puppy starved for attention, I even leaned into her touch, hoping it would last longer. This was it—my opportunity to let her in. She was trying. I would try, too. My heart ached for Dad. And she had hurt me with her mistakes and selfishness. But I still needed her help. And for a second, I thought maybe I could tell her everything and she’d understand. Maybe it would all be OK. Maybe she’d believe me if I said, Yes, I was stalking LeMarq, but no, I never meant to kill him. And I was also following this other dude, Rick “The Stick,” someone I also killed last night. And, oh yeah, I killed his friend, too—