“So, let me get this straight,” Liam said, staring at the unopened chest. “This guy is sending you messages? Leaving you clues?”
“It feels like it. Like he’s giving me pieces of some strange, twisted puzzle, and I’m supposed to put them together somehow.”
“But why? To show you who he is? To exact revenge on your mom or dad? To lead you on a wild goose chase until he strangles you in some Satan-worshipping ceremony?”
“Jeez, Liam.” I glared at him. “Way to make a girl feel better.”
“Oh, sorry.” He frowned and shook his head. “That was an insensitive joke and absolutely not going to happen. I was just thinking out loud.”
“Whatever,” I said, now focusing on the chest, wondering again if I should actually share this darkness with another human being. I could just see him on the witness stand. The prosecutor would ask him, “Then what did the defendant do?” He’d reply, “We were alone in her bedroom when she showed me her chest—her chest of horrors.” Dun dun dun!
“Well, are you going to show me what’s in this thing or not?” Liam asked.
“Yeah, of course.” I flung open the top and pulled out a few of the most recent notebooks. “OK, before you start judging me, I just want you to know my therapist told me I needed an outlet. I was, like, comatose for two months after my dad was murdered. And one of the only things that got my mind off of his death was focusing on these guys.” I laid out five files. “I call them the Filthy Five. Child abusers, murderers, and drug traffickers that either my dad couldn’t catch or my mom put back on the street. I’ve been following them. Now two of them are dead.” I stopped myself. I wasn’t explaining it right. Maybe, if I just let him look at the records and connect the dots himself, he’d see something I missed.
He started thumbing through the thick green files and notebooks. And he stopped when he apparently couldn’t read any more about what these men had done. He wiped his brow with the back of his hand as if he’d just eaten a hot pepper.
“Wow,” Liam said quietly. “You did all this research yourself?”
“Like I said, I needed an outlet.” I waited for him to look at me again, but he wouldn’t. I could see the wheels turning in his head. He was figuring out that if I was following them, that would give me a motive—which meant maybe I was really trying to kill them after all. And maybe I wasn’t telling him the whole story. Which is what my mom, Detective Martinez, and any other rational person would think.
“Look, I know these guys are guilty,” I continued. “The evidence is all there. But for one reason or another it couldn’t be used in a court of law, or wasn’t strong enough for a life sentence. I had to get new evidence in order to convict these guys for good. So I started tailing them.” I knew I was rambling, and it sounded borderline psychotic, but I couldn’t hold it back. “Anyway, whoever is behind this knows about my Five. LeMarq was number one and Rick is number two.” I pointed to Rick’s file. “You never saw him, but he was there last night. I killed him right before I killed the guy who fell on top of you. Oh my hell…I just admitted to killing two men last night.”
“Shhh, Ruby, shhh,” he said, holding me close. “It’s OK.” Was that him shaking or me?
“I never meant to do it, I swear,” I said, covering my face with my hands and fighting surging tears. “I never wanted to kill anyone—”
“You didn’t do anything wrong.” Liam cut me off. “You don’t have to work so hard to explain it to me. I’ve seen and heard enough to know that someone is manipulating you. We just need to figure out who and why.”
A rogue tear escaped, and I wiped it away before it could reach my cheek. I couldn’t let myself go to that place ever again. There was a time after Dad died when I let myself be crippled and debilitated by constant waterworks. I couldn’t go anywhere or do anything without embarrassing myself. It had been at least three months since my last ugly cry. To survive I needed to see clearly, without the blurring pain.
As much as I needed and wanted Liam’s touch, I pulled away to steel myself against the weakness threatening to destroy me. My walls were there for a reason: protection.
“Hey,” Liam said, brushing my hair out of my eyes. “Why don’t we get something to eat, check the news to see if there’s a report on any, uh, crime scenes, and we can go through this in a little while.”
I was hesitant to leave my research without showing Liam the three remaining criminals. There had to be another clue that would help me understand why all this was happening, or maybe prepare me for the next time around. Because by now, I knew there’d be a next time.
“C’mon, when was the last time you ate anything?” Liam asked, frowning and lifting himself off the floor. I could tell he was trying to hide the pain in his side from last night. “I had a bowl of Captain Crunch a few hours ago when I woke up, but I need some real food.”
“Yeah, real food,” I said, rubbing away any stray traces of emotion. “My mom doesn’t do a lot of grocery shopping these days. I doubt there’s anything here.”
He offered me his hand and I let him pull me up.
“That’s cool,” he said, giving me that devilish grin. “I could really go for some In-N-Out Burger right now. A Double-Double, extra salt on the fries, and a big ol’ whammer jammer chocolate shake. How about you?”
For the first time in a long while, Liam Slater made me laugh. I could only smile and nod in agreement.
“That was easy,” Liam said, leading me toward the door. “You never do what I say.”
“You had me at chocolate shake.” I smiled. “And whammer jammer.” I smiled even wider. But as I hit the top of the stairs I remembered I’d left all my “dirty laundry” spread out all over the floor. “Wait, let me just put away the chest. I’ll meet you downstairs.”
I put most of the files and notebooks back, and shoved the box under my bed. Admittedly, it wasn’t the most original place to hide my deepest, darkest secrets. I stuffed the remaining three of five monster files in my backpack. They were heavy, but as I slung the bag over my shoulders, I couldn’t help but feel lighter. I finally had someone to confide in. Someone who I could finally be myself around. He knew everything now—he was the only one. Not my mom, not Dr. T, not Alana.
My heart sank remembering the way Alana looked at me when she got out of Big Black early this morning. She wanted nothing to do with me anymore. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t see it coming. Though she’d always made an effort to understand—and even sometimes participate in—my dad’s training, she never loved it. In fact, in the year leading up to Dad’s death, she was pretty much over it. Especially when it got in the way of parties, boys, shopping, and beach time. Which it always did.
I checked my cell phone to see if she’d called or texted, but her silence was deafening. I so badly wanted to tell her again that I was sorry for dragging her into all of this. Talk to her about how Liam made me laugh. She would practically drool over the phone if I told her about Liam’s neon sign. How ironic that the only time I’d managed to push Alana away was also the one time I finally had something to say.
Suddenly, I heard men’s voices coming from downstairs. Liam was talking to someone, but I hadn’t heard the doorbell. I held tight to my phone in case I needed to call 911. I thought about getting one of Dad’s shotguns, but first I peeked over the railing to see if I could catch where the voices were coming from and whose they were.
Liam stood near the open front door, arms crossed. I could see the outline of a man in black clothes standing opposite him.