Jessie Humphries - Killing Ruby Rose

I needed a few more specifics. Everything I did lately was jeopardizing my future. “Seriously, Mom, just tell me what you’re talking about.”

“Well, we’ve never had this conversation, and it is probably overdue…” She put her arm around my waist and led me back to the table.

Two horrible “overdue conversations” sprang to mind: Either she’d found out about the deaths piling up around me or she actually wanted to have The Conversation . Yeah, like at seventeen I didn’t already know about the birds and the bees.

I honestly couldn’t decide which discussion would be worse.

I sat down at the table with my bread and butter as my only defense against her attack, jamming in mouthfuls of food so she couldn’t expect me to speak first. She sat down across from me.

“I don’t know exactly how to say this,” she said, “but I hope you at least used protection.”

As much as I suddenly longed for her to be talking about the gun and the knife, I knew she meant something else. And I wished she did know about Father Michael. Then she wouldn’t feel the need to torture me with this awful subject.

“The last thing you need right now is to bring a child into the situation,” she said, now talking more to herself than to me. “Believe me, a mistake like that would be devastating, not just for you—but everyone involved.”

I stared at her, trying to read where this was coming from. Something in her eyes made it seem like she wasn’t talking about me anymore. Like she was alluding to someone else. Maybe even herself. But that didn’t make any sense. She was in her thirties when I was born. Right about the same time she admitted to her affair with—

“Please don’t tell me that Martinez is my real father.” I closed my eyes, unable to look her in the face.

“Ruby! Of course not. No, that’s not it at all.” She paused, speechless.

I reopened my eyes to make sure she was telling the truth.

“I’m talking about you ,” she said, straightening her posture to regain control.

“What about me?”

She hesitated. So un-Jane Rose. She was rattled, flustered. I’d never seen her thrown, so completely off her game.

“I know about you and that boy .” Those words practically spurted from her mouth, oozing with disdain. “I asked him to leave this morning. I didn’t wake you because I wanted to know if you would be honest enough to just tell me the truth. And apparently, the answer is no.”

“Really?” I asked, cocking my head. “This is so interesting coming from someone who lies for a living.” I set down my bread. I no longer needed it to defend myself. “You lie to the press, lie to the Court, lie to your only child—and you’re accusing me of lying!”

“Young lady—”

“You promise the world to everyone,” I said. “Promise the community to be tough on violent offenders and then cut them deals or allow enough incompetent mistakes to let them off.” I ripped that one straight from Bill Brandon’s talking points. I knew I should stop, but the words kept bubbling up.

“You promise your family that you’ll be there for us, and you aren’t.” Just mentioning the “us” brought flames to my heart. There was no “us” anymore. Just her and me in our glorious isolation. At least she couldn’t cheat on Dad again. But I didn’t dare mention that. “So please remind me, Jane, where I was supposed to learn honesty.”

“This discussion is not about me, Ruby, and I will not let you attack me to protect yourself. Don’t think I’ve forgotten this is how you work. Dr. Teresa has told you over and over that this is not an appropriate way to communicate.” She smoothed out her hair and narrowed her eyes. “ I am the mother. You are the daughter, and you will treat me with respect. And you will tell me whether or not you are sleeping with that boy under my roof.”

“OK, you want the truth? You want respect?” I said, narrowing my eyes right back. “No, I am not sleeping with that boy. We’ve never had sex. I’ve never had sex. He slept in my bed last night, but nothing happened. We didn’t even kiss once.” Part of me wished I had slept with him, just to throw it in her face. “And since you brought her up, Dr. Teresa is more of a mother to me than you’ve been in a long time. At least she accepts me and tries to understand me. She never bails on me.” Well, except for yesterday, but that was unheard of.

Mom deflated like I didn’t expect. I’d hurt her. She sat still, shoulders slumped, a few tears suddenly running down her cheeks. Was she a wounded lamb or incensed tiger? I had no idea. I wanted to take back the words, even if they were partially true.

In the lingering, threatening silence, I braced myself for her response.

Even after she quietly got up and left the room, I held tight to the table for a while—just in case.

For weeks I held on, waiting for my mom to lash out at me, punish me, forbid me to see Liam. Take away my credit card and shoe allowance. Surely, she’d come up with some retribution for my insubordination. But nothing happened.

I wondered if I’d really hurt her. My grandmother—my mom’s mom—died before I was born, but I knew she’d worked more than one job to help put my mom through college and then law school after my no-good grandfather left. My dad had explained to me that one of my mom’s biggest regrets in life was not having her mother there when she walked onstage to receive her law degree. Which was why she pushed me so hard. It was her way of honoring her mother and rising above the hardship she’d endured as a girl.

For days after our fight, she left early and came home late, which I liked to think wasn’t only because of me—Bill Brandon’s attack ads were picking up steam on every TV, radio, and Internet channel.

I went to school and to bed without seeing her. I reviewed the assassination of JFK (and Charlie LeMarq), the carnage of World War II (and Rick “The Stick” and his cohorts), and the dissection of frogs (and Father Michael). Everything reminded me of those horrible moments. Not even Liam’s kissing skills, or several pounds of my mom’s best imported chocolates, could make me forget. As if committing “legally justified murder” wasn’t already hard enough on my soul, it was also taking its toll on my thighs.

And to add insult to injury, I had absolutely no new evidence to lead me to the answers I needed.

Liam and I checked the California databases for any additional information on D. Silver, but there were over a thousand results. Even after we refined the search criteria to an adult male, there were over a hundred. Early one Saturday morning, before Liam’s football practice, we went back to Bayside Buccaneer Yacht Club. While Liam used his old scuba gear to search the shallow bottom of the boat dock for Father Michael’s body, I scoured the boat for clues. Big surprise—nothing.

We went back down the coast—to the cliff we’d woken up on—to search for answers, but that was a bust, too. We had no idea where to start to find the warehouse we’d been taken to the night of the beach party. Liam even asked a bunch of kids if they’d seen anyone suspicious that night, but since it was a high school party full of all kinds of shady behavior, that didn’t produce anything helpful, either. One of his friends, pleasantly nicknamed Johnson (and not because it was his last name), thought he “might” have seen Liam being carried down the back staircase over the shoulder of “some dude,” but he said he didn’t think twice about it because he thought Liam was probably wasted, too, and anyway he was a “little high,” and in the middle of making out with a Swedish exchange student named “Molly or Marin or something.”