Killing Ruby Rose (27 page)

The world started spinning. Their words kept flowing into my consciousness, but I was being taken back to the crib, to apartment 4E, to the sound of a woman’s weak sobs just out of reach, to the feel of the bars, to being trapped and abandoned. The sketch at the fair, the picture on the wall of the burning apartment. It was her—my real mother. I could almost see her face in my mind. Not how it looked in the pictures, but in real life. Her long blonde hair, her soft skin, her smile.

Somewhere deep inside, I’d been holding on to her.

“I gave Ruby a good home,” Jane Rose said. “An education, resources, things she never would have had in those seedy University apartments. Things I never had but fought to earn.”

“That wasn’t your call to make. She belonged with her mother—her
true
mother.”

“No, she belonged with us! Jack and I tried for years to do it the right way. We paid thousands of dollars in fertility treatments for a baby of our own. That woman had a fling for a few months, and oopsie, here was an unwanted pregnancy. Kelly didn’t want a child. She wanted sorority parties, football games, and hot young military men to screw on the side.”

“Do you really want to talk about women who like to screw on the side?” he warned.

“I’m not the only one at fault here! Kelly contributed to the problem, and though I know postpartum depression must be truly horrendous,” she said with all the sarcasm she could muster, “it didn’t give her an excuse to neglect her own baby. I wasn’t the one who called Child Protective Services on her. It was her neighbors, her friends.”

“Odds are, she would have figured it out without your threats and sabotage.
You
backed her into a corner.
You
are responsible for her death.
You
are responsible for too many crimes to count. Not only in letting criminals walk free because of your incompetence, laziness, and selfish pursuit of political power, but in neglecting, abusing, and turning your back on everyone you’ve purported to love. You manipulated Kelly, just like you manipulate everyone else in your life. Like you manipulated Jack into marrying you, like you manipulated me into an affair that was going nowhere, like you manipulated the voters into electing you—and last, but certainly not least, like you
attempted
to manipulate Ruby’s biological father to keep him away from her. So tell me, Jane, what did that get you?” His smirk widened as his voice rose. “Besides a dead husband?”

The world spun cobwebs of imaginary fog around me, cocooning me too tightly, constricting me too forcefully. I couldn’t breathe. Was he saying that my father killed Jack—the man I’d always believed was my dad?

Suddenly, he put his hand to an ear-comm unit as if he was getting an urgent message.

“Speak of the devil,” Martinez said with an evil edge. “It appears that the man of the hour, Commander Damon Silver, has returned to Grissom Island—and he is most eager to finish what he started the day he killed Sergeant Jack Rose.”

D for devil.

D for D. S.

D for Damon Silver.

D for Dad…

CHAPTER 30

I felt him before I saw him.

He entered from the door behind Martinez, also wearing a bulletproof vest. I recognized his groomed salt-and-pepper-stubbled beard from the school surveillance photo. But unlike Martinez, he wasn’t wearing a helmet or neck guard, and he didn’t seem to be armed.

“Welcome, Commander Silver,” Martinez said, his body turned midway between the door and us, his weapon firmly pointed at my heart. “You’re a little behind schedule, but at least the introductions have already been made. All except for the formal father-daughter one, of course.”

Silver said nothing. He just moved slowly to the edge of the scaffolding’s cover where a dash of light spread across his face.

The way he looked at me didn’t speak of anger or insanity. He was calm, steady, and maybe even—sad? His strikingly pale eyes creased around the edges, like he was trying to communicate something without words. He wasn’t the raging lunatic I’d imagined him to be. Instead, his expression and body language spoke of submission and surrender. He even looked a little beat up.

Why did it feel like I knew him? Like his face, his manner, his eyes, were familiar to me. Not just because of that grainy surveillance picture, or because we were biologically connected—but because I’d seen him face-to-face. I couldn’t find the exact memories, but I was sure they were there.

“I’m sorry, Ruby,” he said quietly. “This isn’t how I dreamed of meeting you.” A heartbreaking grimace formed on his face. Why was he pretending to be decent? Where was his sadistic grin? If his strategy was to sedate me with his gentle approach—good cop/bad cop style with Martinez—it was working. I didn’t know what to make of him.

“Very touching,” Martinez mocked. “But we must be getting down to business. Despite the fact that Jane might
want
to kill herself after witnessing this little family reunion, I doubt she will. Mr. Violet will have to do it for her.” Martinez shifted his weapon in Violet’s direction. “Are you ready to make your choice, Mr. Violet?”

“Wait, no!” I raised my weapon, not knowing in which direction to point. “Don’t do this.” I looked at Martinez with his self-satisfied smirk. “Why? Because my mom chose my dad over you? Because he turned you in to Internal Affairs? Tell me why you’re doing this!” The barrel of my gun settled on him.

“Oh, Ruby, do I really need to spell it out for you?”

“Martinez, no—” Silver started.

“If it weren’t for
you,
Ruby,” he said, “none of this would have
ever
happened. Jack would’ve walked away from the marriage, Jane and I could’ve been happy together, and Damon Silver never would have been involved. There would’ve been no need for all these lies, all these cover-ups, all these deaths!”

My jaw dropped. He blamed
me
for all of this?

“This is not
her fault, James!” my mom shouted. It was the first time I’d heard her, or anyone, use his first name. He flinched.

“I warned you about her, Jane!” he shouted back. “That she’d grow up to be just like her father.”

What was that supposed to mean? What did he know about my real father?

“I told you she was damaged goods,” Martinez continued. “That one day she’d snap!”

“But you made her do it,” my mom said, coming to my defense. “You set her up! You entrapped her!”

“Are you serious? I didn’t make her follow those five criminals.” He was incensed that she was standing up for me. “She did that all on her own. I watched her go out several times a week to stalk one of her Filthy Five.”
He followed me?
“I’ve seen the thick criminal profiles she spent weeks and months accumulating.”
He broke into my house and went through my things? “
Do you think that’s normal behavior for a seventeen-year-old girl, Jane? No, she happily killed all those men. Don’t be deceived by her innocent act. Jack knew exactly what she was, and he did his best with her—to rein her in and teach her about his holier-than-thou ‘shoreline’ crap.”
That’s what the training was about?
“But it didn’t work with me when Jack and I were partners, and it didn’t work with Ruby. As soon as Jack was gone, she became who she was always going to be—a sociopath. I told you that no amount of money or therapy would change that. And you still chose
this
over me!” Martinez was losing his mind, and control of his voice.

“Do me one last favor, Jane. Take a good look in Ruby’s eyes when she pulls the trigger on you
…
or Violet. You’ll see what she really is—the greatest mistake of your life!” He stopped waving his gun around to point it directly at my heart.

“Martinez, remember our agreement,” Silver warned—except he held no weapon to back himself up.

“Of course, our agreement. How could I forget?” Martinez dialed it back a notch, suddenly amused by something. “Tell me, Ruby, did you know the blood of an assassin runs through your veins? Did you know your little hobby of taking out bad guys is a shared pastime of dear-old biological dad here?”

Silver pursed his lips as if he thought about defending himself but decided not to.

“Of course you didn’t,” Martinez continued. “But now that you do, I bet it comes as very little surprise. Sure, Silver’s kills have always been sanctioned by clandestine government agencies, but he certainly knows how to get the job done. Which was shocking and troublesome information to the young Jack and Jane, who so quickly fell in love with you—or fell in love with the
idea
of you saving their marriage. But this information is probably a little less shocking to
you
at this point. Especially since Silver was your accomplice, in terms of cleanup and concealment detail.”

I thought back to what cleanup Martinez could be referring to.

Target 2—Taking out the two human traffickers at the warehouse to save my friends and me.

Target 3—Cleaning up the boat and removing Father Michael’s body from the water so I couldn’t go to the police.

Target 4—The fire. A memory came to me, and I almost gasped when I realized that Silver had carried me out. My eyes strained to see his eyes once more. For a moment, I swore I could still see the flames in them.

“Tell us, Silver, have you kept track of how many dozens of lives you’ve taken in your career in special ops? I mean sure, Jack and I both had our share of forced shootings, but you—”

“This has gone far enough.” Silver cut off Martinez.

“OK, I get it. You won’t accept the trophy for the most accomplished killer of us all. But perhaps the District Attorney will.” Martinez’s eyes roamed all over her. “No, she’s never actually pulled a trigger or set a fire. But as Ruby now knows, all it takes is a choice. And Jane Rose’s choices have led to more deaths than we can even estimate. Make no mistake, Jane Rose will lie and cheat to get what she wants, no matter how many people are destroyed in the process.”

Mom sat in her defendant’s chair in the center of the room, while Martinez stood to prosecute her with the facts. Violet was the bailiff keeping her in place. Silver was a coconspirator—though I wasn’t sure about that. They seemed to be at odds, and yet they shared some kind of agreement.

Which left me to be what?

The judge?

The jury?

The defense?

Or the victim.

“You have a choice, Ruby,” Martinez said, his voice low, watching me. “Either you kill her, or Mr. Violet does. Who deserves to die more? A man who rapes and murders innocent women? Or a woman who destroys the lives of those she purports to love and protect?”

Really? Did he honestly believe I would shoot my own mother? Even if she wasn’t my biological mother?

I would never do that.

He had to know it just as well as I did.

No, he didn’t expect me to kill her. I had to remind myself that what he was truly trying to do was get me to kill Violet. Just like one through four. He started with me saving a stranger, then my best friend and boyfriend, then myself, then Dr. T, and now my mom—each time raising the stakes to ensure that I made the kill. He wanted to prove to my mom that I was the coldhearted murderer he thought I was—the psycho he’d predicted I’d be.

I turned back to her. Her tears were flowing freely.

“You can’t do this,” she said to me. “It’s murder. It’s wrong.”

“Mr. Violet!” Martinez barked. “This is your last chance!”

Violet jumped, looked down at the knife in his hand and then up at me, as if asking for my help. This was it. I had to make my decision.

I raised my gun in the general direction of Violet, aiming somewhere to the right of him, when an echoing noise from above caught my attention.

It started out as a single clank of metal against metal. Then it rose to a chorus of tappings all around the decks of scaffolding. Through my veil of shock and rising panic, I couldn’t work out what was causing it.

Then it dawned on me—coins. I ran my fingers over the engraved metal of my dad’s Challenge Coin in my pocket. His SWAT team had finally moved in. Sergeant Mathews, his unit, and maybe Sammy were up there somewhere with their sights set on me. They were challenging me to do the right thing. And perhaps warning Martinez.

But they didn’t know what was going on! Did they think I was really going to kill my mom or Violet? They wouldn’t let me. They’d shoot me first—a shot to disable me. Lowering my weapon, I looked over to Damon Silver. He’d retreated further into the shadows, along with Martinez. SWAT would have no shot on either of them. Hell, SWAT wouldn’t even be able to confirm that they were ever here. They’d escape the same way Silver had the night he killed my
…
other dad.

Wait. Silver killed my dad? I didn’t understand. Jack Rose didn’t
deserve
to die. I was just starting to get the feeling that maybe Silver cared for me. That he was trying to protect me. Not only from Martinez’s setups, but maybe even from Martinez himself. So why would he take away someone I loved?

I turned to him in a flash of anger. “You didn’t have to kill him!” I yelled into the shadows where I could see Silver, but anyone above couldn’t.

“You don’t understand,” Silver replied quietly. “It’s complicated.”

I pointed my gun at him. “
Un
complicate it, then!”

“OK, Ruby, OK.” He paused as if waiting for Martinez to stop him. But he didn’t. “I’ve wanted to meet you for a long time. I don’t expect you to remember this, but when you were three I came for you. I knocked on the door and Jane
…
your mother
…
answered with you in her arms.” His deep voice cracked.

My head swiveled to Jane to assess if he was telling the truth. She didn’t deny it.

“She warned me to stay away and shut the door in my face,” Silver continued. “I tried for years to change her mind—or Jack’s mind. The last thing I wanted was to hurt you or disrupt your life. Especially considering my line of work. So I let it go. But I never let
you
go. I watched you grow up from a distance. There were times when I could’ve reached out to you. So many times. Especially after the LeMarq shooting when I started following you to try to figure out what was going on. Then when I saw that sketch the day of your high school art fair—that’s when I knew that someone was trying to dig up the past.”

Could this be true? Was this why I felt like I knew him already? He’d been so near for so long and I had no idea.

“So you’re claiming that it wasn’t
you
digging up the past?” I asked, not sure I could believe him. “Why would you have risked coming into my school?”

“I received a letter asking me to come.
Supposedly
from you.”

“What?” I asked, utterly confused. “I didn’t send you a letter. I didn’t even know you existed!”

“I knew it wasn’t from you, but I had to go anyway.” He paused and rolled his neck as if hesitating in his explanation—or his lies. “Almost a year ago, I received a very similar letter—on the same exact stationery—from Jack Rose, saying that he wanted to talk. When I read the suggestion that we meet here on Grissom, I became suspicious but figured I could handle it. You had just turned sixteen, and I thought it was finally time for us to meet. But when I got here, it was a trap.”

“So you blew him to pieces?” My furious voice bounced off the walls.

“No, Ruby, I thought Jack set the trap for
me
. That he chose Grissom Island because one of his ex-Marine buddies is head of security here. I figured that when he realized I wasn’t going to fall into his ambush, he called in his SWAT team and told them that I’d set the explosives. I escaped, and I honestly didn’t know what had happened. At the time, I thought he must’ve made a mistake or tried to disengage one of his own traps to protect his men and
…
something had gone wrong.” Silver sounded miserable. And he could no longer yell his side of the story over the clamor of the tapping.

I didn’t understand this guy.

Why would my dad have messed with something he wasn’t experienced with? He didn’t work with explosives. Something wasn’t adding up. If only he had trusted me enough to tell me what was going on. If only he’d told me the truth.

And then I realized what Mathews was really trying to say with the tapping. It’s what Jack himself would have said if he were here—to remember to stand for honor, courage, and commitment. Jack Rose taught me everything I knew. Whatever his flaws were, or whatever mistakes he made, he shouldn’t have died because of this madness. He was only trying to keep his family together. Prevent all this from happening. And he couldn’t. Despite how hard he tried to prepare me for it, even his worst fears couldn’t have dreamed up this particular nightmare.

“That’s it!” Martinez cut back in. “It’s time to make your choice. You shoot Mr. Violet or your mother. Ten, nine…”

There had to be another choice. If I took a Hail Mary shot at Martinez, he’d stop me—either with a bullet at my mom or me. Plus he had a bulletproof vest on. Same with Silver.