Jessie Humphries - Killing Ruby Rose

OK, so maybe I didn’t believe the justice system always worked. But I still needed to call 911. I forced my boots back on and pulled my jacket over me for warmth.

As I stood, a new light caught my eye—there was a car up on the street. No, a van.

A black van—pulling into a parking spot. It stopped in mid-turn as the beams of light landed on me like I was the star performer in his sick show. I couldn’t see him, but he could most certainly see me.

I grabbed my gun and phone and sprinted up the rickety dock to the street. When the van’s tires squealed and it roared away, I changed course to get back to Big Black.

My nerves and icy fingers had me shaking so badly that I could barely get Big Black’s door open. Silver was getting away. Finally, I was in and I screeched out onto the street. I knew the general direction he was going: south. If I could get close enough, I could shoot out his tires and stop him.

I pushed the engine down the empty street until it opened up into a busier area. I barely blinked, waiting and watching for something to show me where the van had gone. Suddenly, about two stoplights away, I saw a black vehicle turn left and disappear behind a building. I blew through two yellow lights and turned in after it down a narrow street, which became a claustrophobically thin alley with nowhere to hide. It seemed like I was on the butt-end of a strip mall, where workers came to throw out the trash and sit on milk crates to smoke. Except no one was around—and probably hadn’t been for a while.

Big Black’s headlights finally lit up the gate at the end of the alley. The sign on it said: “Dead End.”

He must have somehow gotten through this gate and relocked it. I flashed Big Black’s brights on the sliding gate. Either I was delirious or that heavyweight padlock was still swinging.

I thought about doubling back and finding out where the end of the alleyway led, but that was ridiculous. Silver was long gone. A thousand steps ahead of me—a million miles away. He’d outsmarted me again and lured me away from the crime scene. I could just see myself on the witness stand trying to convince everyone that I wasn’t the stupidest girl in the world. Not that my defense team would ever let me testify.

I had to go back to the marina and use the Security Guard of the Year’s phone to call it all in.

“S-s-say what?” the guard stammered as he slammed down his remote control. What was he so irritated about? His stupid, inconsequential, non-life-threatening football game was over.

“I said, can I please use your phone? There’s been a terrible accident.” I looked a mess—soaked and matted hair, smudged eye makeup I couldn’t wipe off, still-sopping clothes, and my poor, innocent, formerly light-brown Diesel ankle boots crusted with salt water and debris.

“What kind of accident?” he asked, grabbing his walkie-talkie.

“A man drowned out there,” I said, trying to sound calm. “I tried to save him, but he was tied up. I need to call the police right away. Please, where’s your phone?”

“Hold on there a minute,” he said with his hand up, suddenly alarmed. “What man? Where?”

“We don’t have time for this.” I didn’t want to explain anything to this guy. He was drunk, and my words could be twisted. “Can we just call the police?”

“Look here, young lady,” he said. “There ain’t no phone around here. This here radio’s all I got. Budget cuts. So you’d better tell me the location so I can report it.”

“Fine,” I said. “B-16.”

He started jabbering into his walkie-talkie, waving me to follow him to the dock and describing me to whoever was on the other end as a juvenile delinquent and possible meth head. Through the static noise and unintelligible war codes they were using, I presumed the police had been notified. The guard was surprisingly sprightly and nimble through the darkness, and we were back to the Ruby Belle in no time. Maybe he would have been able to help me save Father Michael after all.

“Where?” he demanded.

“Right there,” I said, pointing to the rope leading over the stern of the boat.

He climbed aboard, and I followed him up to the edge of no return. We stood there looking down into the dark water. In just a few moments, he would pull on the rope and make the most ghastly discovery of his life. Inch by inch, he pulled at the dead weight. The rope made a sickening grinding noise against the metal of the boat. Either this guy was shockingly strong or Father Michael had already lost most of his blood and limbs to the bottom feeders.

Finally, the end of the rope came into sight. My knees buckled, and my lungs locked up.

Where was the body?

I stared at the rope, incapable of forming a logical thought. All that was left of Father Michael was his shirt.

“Better call off the fuzz, Jimmy. We got a false alarm here,” the crotchety old guard complained into the radio, staring at me with what looked like a mixture of sympathy and disgust. “Just a dumb Halloween prank.”

A prank? That’s what he thought this was?

“Somebody put an old shirt in the water.” He held the shirt in the air to demonstrate what a stupid blonde I was. “Girlie, you need some new friends.”

My legs felt like overcooked spaghetti noodles. My brain was telling me to sprint out of this haunted harbor, but I couldn’t make my feet move. I felt trapped, watched, manipulated. So much for standardized testing and its assessment of my “elite” intelligence—I was an elite idiot to have come here without Liam. His presence might have prevented this. Or at a minimum, he’d be here holding me now.

“Are you OK?” the guard asked.

“Of course,” I lied.

“You’re trembling. Are you cold or somethin’?”

“Yeah, cold,” I said.

“Well, c’mon back to the hut with me and I’ll fetch you a blanket.”

“No, I’m fine,” I said, because I still couldn’t move. But I suddenly noticed the stink of bleach.

Somehow, Silver had managed to come back and destroy all the evidence that Father Michael had ever been here. But that was impossible. How would Silver have had enough time?

“What did you say you were doing out here?” the guard asked, staring at me.

“I didn’t say,” I responded flatly. And I walked away.

As I drove, I kept shoving all the harbor images out of my mind. I tried to think about Liam instead.

The closer I got to home, the heavier my guilt became. I should’ve called 911 and reported what I’d done. Yet, how could I do that with no body? Not even a shred of evidence that anything at all had occurred? Only a discarded wet shirt. Just like with the warehouse killings, I had nothing to back up my story.

I had to get home, to get warm. Maybe then my brain would start working. My ice block of a foot lay heavy on the gas.

I peeled onto my street, anxious to escape the darkness of the worst Halloween night of my life. Luckily, my neighborhood was too snooty to participate in trick-or-treating, so I didn’t have to worry about running over any little witches or wizards. But Big Black—and my heart—skidded to a halt when I neared my house and a dark shadow materialized next to a parked vehicle outside the gate, exactly where the paparazzi usually lined up. Except, the car wasn’t Sammy’s old Pinto.

No, it was Liam Slater’s red canvas-topped Jeep.

I jumped out of Big Black without even bothering to shut the door behind me. Running to Liam, I buried my face in his chest and let his arms encase me. I breathed him in and instantly felt safer.

After a second, he pulled away from me—probably because he’d realized my hair and clothes were wet, not to mention I smelled like blood and fish guts. With his hands on my arms, he scanned my disheveled state with eyes as dark as the night.