Jessie Humphries - Killing Ruby Rose

But I thought I’d explained it to her, all very clearly. Yet here she was, calling me a criminal. Mothers aren’t supposed to say things like that. They’re supposed to love unconditionally, aren’t they?

“You would do well to remember that I’m the one who’s kept you out of the courtroom. I’ve kept you out of prison.” Her red-wine breath made me back up. “So you don’t care for who I am, I get it. Well, guess what, honey —I don’t much care for who you are.” The look of disgust on her face was enough for my soul to scurry back into the hole it had come from. “Or not, at least, what you’ve become.”

She turned her back and closed her double doors on me with deliberate force. Then she locked them. She was scared of me. Maybe even repulsed by me. And, until further notice, she was done with me.

I was officially alone in the world. Not that I didn’t already feel it, but now I knew it. I had Alana again, but for now, the less contact I had with her the better.

I bit my lip trying to fight the sting of my tears. In the darkness, I felt the pain, the rejection, and the guilt roll down my cheeks. Maybe if I hadn’t followed my Filthy Five in the first place, none of this would have happened and she’d still love me.

Never in my whole life had she so deliberately rejected me. Through all my failures to live up to her expectations, through all our differences of opinion, and even through the death of my dad, I had never seen her so cold.

If Silver was trying to demolish me, mission accomplished.

Everything I’d ever valued was gone.

I tried not to imagine my mom’s gloating face as they took me away forever. She’d be happy to be rid of me, and my inheritance would only be a bonus. She’d get all five million dollars of life insurance funds held in trust for me.

Wait, the money! Why hadn’t I thought of this before? I wiped salty tears from my cheeks.

Liam needed a million dollars, and I had it. Maybe I could call the estate-planning attorney and get the money wired by noon—Liam could be here by nightfall. The thought of his arms around me and the warmth of his breath on my neck made me lightheaded. Like a balloon expanding with air, I allowed myself to fill up with hope.

Unfortunately, my thin piece of ruby-colored rubber popped when I remembered who the trustee was: Wicked Witch of the West Coast Jane Rose. She controlled my trust fund, and there was no way I’d be getting my hands on any of it. At least not until I was twenty-one. And even then, it had been explained to me that I would only receive one-third increments—presumably to prevent my spending it all on shoes in one year. Which, to be honest, was a bigger possibility than I cared to admit.

I gave my pillow a pile driver to the gut and threw it across the room. Not knowing what else to do with myself, I grabbed the remote. Part of me wanted to throw it like a Chinese star at the flat screen, but instead I pressed power. My TV had never done anything to me.

The only thing on was Real Housewives of Orange County , and—oh yeah, the late-night reruns of the talking heads speculating on the sanity of Ruby Rose. How would I ever get a fair trial with these bottle blondes spouting off about “mounting evidence yet to be released?” Not that I didn’t like free speech—or getting a few highlights now and then—but please, these girls didn’t know the difference between the day spa and a defamation charge. I doubted either of them would have called me a “disturbed and traumatized child” to my face. But it was cool to say it in front of the entire free world.

I listened to them hypothesize how Liam and I were like a teen version of Bonnie and Clyde. That perhaps the motive behind Martinez’s murder was Liam protecting me from being investigated. That young love sparked his intent to kill.

Did these women smoke crack before going on air? How much more outrageous could they get?

The tolling of the grandfather clock downstairs brought me back to cold reality. It was 12:15 a.m., and I was no closer to sleeping. No closer to finding any answers that could save me from this nightmare called my life. I turned off the TV and sat there brooding until around 1:00, finally falling asleep in Gladys, my trusty shoe closet and most loyal friend.

I woke up with a start. Gasping for air, I rolled over wondering who’d taken my pillow and why my comforter was tangled around me. It was 4:00 a.m.

“Oh jeez.” I sat up to get my bearings. Light trickled in from my bathroom across the way. “No rest for the wicked.”

Sore didn’t cover the way my back felt. Even my mind felt stiff. Dreams of blonde-headed zombies chasing me with pitchforks hadn’t been exactly restful. I looked around Gladys’s dark walls for some comfort, but for perhaps the first time in my life, my shoes had none to give. They all just sat there, listless and inanimate. I must have hit rock bottom if I felt alone even among my shoes.

I finally scraped myself off the floor and headed to the kitchen for something to eat. As I hobbled down the stairs, I noticed my mom’s doors were open. Maybe she couldn’t sleep, either.

I perked up my ears for signs of her presence, but all I heard was the howling wind seeping in from outside. No TV coming from her room, no dishes clinking in the kitchen, no tapping of the keyboard in her office.

I couldn’t help myself. I mounted the stairs again and peeked into her room. It would be so like her to lure me in there just to punish me for it. Maybe she was the mastermind after all. Or had employed Silver to make me into the assassin she couldn’t be. If she couldn’t put those killers away, she would have her psychopath child do it for her.

Now my speculation was getting out of control.

“Mom?” I called out. I hadn’t been in her room for months. “Are you in here?”

The wind whistled back like it was trying to tell me something. The hair on my arms stood on end.

Her bed was unmade; the light in her walk-in closet was on. Curious.

Her briefcase and car keys were on the dresser. Suspicious.

I rounded the corner into the hallway leading to her bathroom but was stopped by papers scattered all over the floor. Straight-up alarming.

“Mom!” I called out again, this time with a tremor of panic. To be sure, I doubled back into her room to look under the crumpled bedcover, in the closet, and even on her balcony.

I ran downstairs and then back up, checking each room to make sure she wasn’t hiding somewhere.

She wasn’t here.

Silver had gotten her. I was sure of it. Somehow, he’d slipped in past security and taken her. Despite the anger I’d felt toward her last night, all I felt now was sick. I went back to her bed and put my head in my hands. She was my mom, and I still loved her. I needed her, even if she’d never need me back. She was all I had left.

Blood. Why could I smell it all of a sudden? I sniffed the air like a dog. The metallic scent was definitely coming from the bathroom. I’d followed the coppery smell over the trail of papers and into the excessively large master bathroom suite when the wind got kicked right out of me. My mom’s sink was full of bloodstained water and more papers. The drain was actually blocked, holding it all there for me. I pulled out some of the papers and let them drip on the floor.

Red streaks covered the countertop and mirror. Mom must have resisted. I was horrified by my reflection—it looked like I was covered in blood. Like some magic mirror had finally revealed the real me.

Red Ruby Rose, stained in blood.

More papers were strewn across the drawers and shelves, all of them soaked in watery blood. I put them together on the bath mat to figure out what they could be. Knowing Silver, I had to assume they had meaning.