Killing Ruby Rose (17 page)

No. I would not be another one of this man’s victims. My dad didn’t train me to survive only to have this pathetic sadist drown me.

I renewed my grip on the knife and slashed once as hard as I could, until I felt the blade slide through tissue and hit bone. He went limp.

Oh, crap. Where had I stabbed him that made him give up so fast? I’d only wanted to make him let go of me. But in my choking, frozen, and blinded state, I hadn’t had the senses for precision.

I released the weapon, too weak to even pull it out, and swam as far away from him as I could. It wasn’t until my fingers felt the slivery wooden ladder that I even turned back. But by then, he was already underwater.

Chances were he was dead, but I had to at least keep trying to save him. My soul couldn’t take any more deaths.

I scaled the ladder, shaking in the night wind. I charged to the stern and grabbed the rope, pulling with everything I had left. I heaved until my arms felt like they would come right out of their sockets, with no progress. He was too heavy. Maybe even stuck on something below. If he hadn’t been killed by the knife wound, he had to be dead now after several minutes underwater.

I let go of the rope, falling to the floor of the boat, and sunk my head between my knees.

How much more of this could I take? I tried to breathe, but my lungs were burning and I could only gasp in agony. My hands shook with the bitter cold.

What was I supposed to do now? Call the cops and tell them I’d killed yet another man? Watch them pull the priest’s body up with my knife sticking out of his chest? My stomach clenched in disgust.

Try to explain (again) that it really wasn’t my fault? How would I even justify my presence here—or his?

The whole truth would need to come out, only to be twisted and used against me. Used to destroy me, my mother, my dad’s good name. My heart stung with rage.

I let out a wild cry, banging my fists on the boat’s wet floor and letting the tears fall.

I hated myself, I hated Silver, and I hated what he’d made me.

He was Dr. Frankenstein, and I was his monster—forever tainted by the shedding of so much blood.

My tears mixed with the salt water still dripping from my sodden hair. I shook with anger—in near hypothermia, and in horror. Alana was right. I was always the one looking for the fight. I’d chosen to follow these men that I’d killed. I’d chosen to put myself in a place I shouldn’t be, carrying weapons I shouldn’t have.

Yes, part of me had wanted the priest dead, but not at my own hands. Yes, he had deserved to die by injection or old age in his lonely prison cell, but not by stabbing. Yes, he would never hurt another soul again, but what about me? I still had a soul. Perhaps a dark one—but it was a soul nonetheless.

I had to pull myself together and report this one. The four bodies at the warehouse were different. I had no idea where the damn warehouse even was. I would have looked like a lunatic.

But
this
body was right in front of me, dangling at the end of a hook like chum in the water. Silver may have made me into an executioner, but I wouldn’t let him take away my integrity. I wouldn’t leave Father Michael’s body here for a poor old fisherman to find.

Plus, I still believed in the justice system, and believed that I would receive a fair trial. Despite the mess of everything, I could rely on a jury of my peers. Well, maybe. As long as my mom employed a high-powered defense team (using up all my dad’s life insurance money meant for my college education); as long as I portrayed myself as sympathetic (which I had no idea how to do); as long as no juror had a secret hatred for any member of my family (not likely, since the polls showed that at least 25 percent of Orange County strongly disapproved of my mother’s tenure as D. A.); and as long as the press stopped calling me a Teen Vigilante (they’d probably come up with something worse).

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?

CHAPTER 18

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.

“Oh, Ruby,” he said. “What did you do?”

I told Liam the whole sordid story, and he just sat there in my bucket seat, staring down the radio dials like they’d done something horrible to him. Or maybe it was the heater vents. Oops, he was probably sweating in the hot car. I was still cold from being in the dirtiest part of the Pacific Ocean. I turned down the heater, and my seat warmer up. Damn, I wanted out of this car and into a hot shower, but Liam deserved to know what had happened.

I wondered when Liam was going to yell at me. Ask questions. Storm off to the police station. Or any other rational response.

“Liam, I’m really sorry I didn’t wait for you. I was impatient and cocky, and maybe in the back of my mind I felt like you didn’t deserve to be dragged any further into this mess.” I slammed my head back onto the headrest. “I win the contest for Most Screwed-Up Girl and Idiot of the Year.”

I flinched as his fist connected with the dash. Out of all the reactions I could’ve foreseen, that wasn’t one of them.

I gripped my armrest, unsure of what he might do next. I’d never seen this side of him. He was furious.

“Yeah, Ruby, maybe I’m a little pissed that you went to see Sammy without me. And maybe I think you’re absolutely crazy for hunting down this guy alone. But what I’m the most upset about is the danger this dick, Silver, is putting you in. You could have died!” he raised his voice like I wouldn’t get the message at a normal volume.

“Relax, Liam.” I slid my hand halfway over the console between us. “I didn’t die. I’m right here.”

He saw my gesture (which was no little thing for me) and was quiet for a few moments. Taking a deep breath, he grabbed my hand and squeezed it in both of his. “Ruby, this guy is smart and patient. He knew you would go to the boat dock. He had it all planned out. He made it so that either you had to watch the priest die or risk yourself to save him. He obviously told the priest that you were dangerous to ensure the priest would fight back and you’d have to kill him in self-defense. Then he lured you away so he—or his accomplice—could go back and take the body and leave the priest’s shirt, knowing you’d call the cops. He’s not trying to get you caught. It’s almost like he’s trying to protect you.” As he said it, some of the puzzle pieces started shuffling around in my mind, but they weren’t fitting neatly into place.

I pulled my hands away and slumped back in my seat, massaging my sore head. “If that’s true, then he has split personalities or something. First, he puts me in these dangerous situations, forcing me to kill, and then he defends me and cleans up to make sure I could never be prosecuted. The dude gave me back my dad’s engraved handgun! Why would he do that?”

“I don’t know, but no matter what, it’s like he’s ten steps ahead of us.” Liam paused and pursed his lips. “I know you don’t like it, but I think it’s time to go to the police, Ruby. Maybe Sammy was right and Detective Martinez would back us up if he knew what was going on with your dad.”

“No.” I stared at him. “No, no, and no.”

“Things are getting out of control—”

“Things have long been out of control, Liam. I have killed, or been responsible for…” I stopped to count with my fingers. “Seven deaths now. Seven!”

“That’s not true,” he argued.

“LeMarq, the girl I didn’t save, The Stick and his friend, the two other gangsters
…
or whoever they were
…
and now Father Michael. How would I ever be able to explain that?”

He blew out a breath, and clenched his hair in his fists.

“You aren’t responsible for any of those deaths.
He
is,” Liam said. Who was he trying to persuade? Himself?

“
He
didn’t make me carry that knife.
He
didn’t force me to pull any triggers,” I said, playing prosecutor. “
I
put myself in those positions.
I
am the one with motive, intent, and—worst of all—very little remorse for the
victims.
”

“Ruby,
he
put you in impossible situations. And in every single case, you did the right thing. Every one of them deserved to die, except for the girl. But now the right thing is to tell the authorities. Maybe the FBI or CIA can help.” He reached for me again, but I didn’t want his touch. I put up my signature warning hand.

“Yeah, so they can
help
destroy my family and escort the both of us to prison for the rest of our lives,” I said, my voice rising an octave. “No matter who we go to, it all trickles back down to the detective assigned to my case—Martinez. And if Sammy was wrong about Martinez, he’ll take you down with me. Because, as you recall, you were present for some of this.”

“Don’t worry about me. I can take care of myself. I’ve been doing it all my life. Believe me, I can handle whatever the police throw at me,” he said with a weird smirk.

“What are you talking about?” I asked. I glanced over at his disfigured ear.

“Never mind. I didn’t mean that literally,” he said, shaking his head—a move I now knew he did to make sure his hair covered his scar. “I just meant that we have no choice but to trust the system—”

“What happened to you?” I cut him off. He knew my secrets. It was time for me to know some of his.

He glared at me with
how dare you
eyes, but I held his gaze like we were having a blinking contest. “Liam, c’mon, you know I won’t say a word—”

“I have a record, OK? A juvenile record, that is. It’s sealed, and supposed to be expunged or erased, or whatever, when I turn eighteen next year. But it exists. And somehow Martinez knows about it. That’s what he was talking to me about that night he came to your door. He warned me to stay out of this, and away from you, or else he’d make sure my record got longer.”

“What?” I lost the blinking contest. “Back up. What did you do?”

“It was a long time ago, Ruby. I’ve never told anyone about it.”

“Are you freaking kidding me? Whatever you did can’t compare to what you’ve witnessed me do,” I said, irritated that he was holding back when things were so lopsided in the bad-deeds department.

“I nearly killed my father,” he said point-blank, staring at his hands as if they might still have blood on them.

“Because he did that to you?” Not only did I ask the question we’d been avoiding for weeks, but I actually reached over and touched his ear. At first he flinched away, but then he hung his head and let me move his hair aside to run my fingertips along the disfigured skin. I could feel him cringing as I prodded his head to the side to allow the blue light of my console to shine on the scarring. My heart ached for Liam’s embarrassment, and it burned for the father that had done this to him.

“Well, yeah, I reacted to defend myself from him, but really to protect my mom and brothers.” Before he looked away, I saw that his eyes were now full of sorrow and rage. “He used to abuse her right in front of us, our whole lives. He’d come home wasted, knock her around, call her every name in the book, accuse her of things—and if my brothers or I got in the way, we got it, too.”

“You have brothers?” I asked, wondering how I didn’t know this.

“Christian is twelve, and Tug is only eight.”

“Tug? That’s his name?”

“Well, his real name is Tomas, but my mom always says ‘If you’re not careful, he’ll tug your heart right out,’ ” Liam said, smiling painfully and looking out into the night. “Not to mention your arms if you don’t take him surfing when he wants.”

“Good to know,” I said, hoping I’d get the chance to meet them someday.

“Anyway, one night, when I was thirteen, I just couldn’t take it anymore. He came home from work late, drunk and out of his mind. He was angry about
…
everything. He went after my mom. Slapping her, pushing her, accusing her of having affairs when everyone knew—well, I knew because I was the oldest—that he was the one sleeping around. He threw Christian across the room for getting in the way and was about to go after Tug for crying when I snapped. He got me in the ear with a broken beer bottle, but I…” He closed his eyes as if talking about it made him relive it.

I put my hands on his cheeks and made him look at me. It was my turn to comfort him. “It’s OK—if there’s anybody in this world who’d understand, it’s me.”

“I would have done anything to protect my mom and brothers, even if it meant killing him.” Liam swallowed hard, like he regretted letting his dad live. I finally understood why he liked me—I was just as damaged as he was, if not more.

He was big and strong and gorgeous, but broken. Cracked inside—just like me. We both put on our best show, but underneath we couldn’t stop the suffering for those we’d lost and what we’d done.

“Where is he?” I asked, wondering if I needed to go kick his ass right this second.

“He still lives up in NorCal. I haven’t seen him since the trial.”

“Trial? He pressed charges on you?” I gasped and placed my hands over his balled-up fists.

“Yeah, and they stuck. They said I should’ve spoken up about the abuse—
if
it really happened.” He squeezed my hand. “They didn’t believe me after the fact.”

“What? Didn’t your mom and brothers testify to back you up? Surely they had bruises or other physical evidence to corroborate your side of the story.”

“Things got complicated, Ruby.” He shook his head and pulled his hands away from mine. “My dad was smart. He rarely left evidence of his abuse. Even that night, I was the only one hurt. Christian had carpet burns and my mom had red marks, but as usual, the real damage was on the inside.” Liam cracked his window and took a breath of fresh air. “Plus, my dad has a lot of money and he hired an attorney to file a petition to terminate
her
parental rights, arguing that my mom had poisoned me against him. That she actually brainwashed me into trying to kill him for the money. My brothers were little, and I couldn’t bear to see them being put through all that. And, we didn’t have any money to fight him. He agreed to drop the petition and let her have custody of us if I copped to the assault charge. So I did. He kept his good name along with his multimillion-dollar business, and I took the blame.”

I grimaced at the reality of the situation.

I had been taught—ingrained with the belief, really—that the justice system worked. That the police investigate the crimes, the D. A.’s office prosecutes them, and the Constitution protects it all. Sure, there were glitches, but overall it was the best system in the world. And I preached this at my high school Constitution Society meetings. True, I only founded the stupid club to pad my resume, but I still believed it.

Until now.

Now, I didn’t know what to believe if abusers like Liam’s father and murderers like Father Michael could get away with so many premeditated crimes, with
malice aforethought
and
intent to do harm
. Liam had none of that, I had none of that, but we could go down in flames.