I’d never been able to zoom in close enough to be sure, but I’d counted at least a dozen cherries on his arm. A crop that should have earned him at least a dozen life sentences.
My dad died before he could catch LeMarq, but shortly after, another detective nabbed the creep. My mom was the lead prosecutor. I stared at the newspaper clippings in my hands now, remembering the injustice. His expensive attorney (provided by a rich relative), a procedural technicality (provided by an inept member of my mother’s prosecution team), and a hung jury (provided by the great State of California) sent him walking. It was only a matter of time before he killed again, and neither my mom nor the police were likely to stop him. They only had another 113,000 or so registered sex offenders to worry about.
I slammed shut the file, disgusted with his ugly mug, his stupid baby-blue pedophile van with Louisiana plates he still hadn’t registered (not even a misdemeanor crime), and the infuriating lack of evidence against him. I knew he’d be skipping jurisdictions again before long. If I didn’t catch him soon, he could keep getting away with murder forever—and those little girls would never see him coming.
I shoved the file back into the console and looked out at the beach parking lot. The five-foot replica of Bill Brandon’s toothy grin stared back at me. Brandon was my mom’s increasingly nasty mud-throwing opponent in the upcoming District Attorney race. His campaign poster was plastered on the side of a parked advertising truck: “A Vote for Me Is a Vote for Change.”
“What’dya think, Bill?” I asked. “Should Unruly Ruby change? Should I take a night off from my rogue ways to be wooed by one of the hottest guys in school?”
He just smiled with that charming set of veneers only money could buy.
I looked at the dashboard clock. I still had thirty minutes before LeMarq would get to the bar. Once there, he never left his drinking hole in less than an hour. I had a window of opportunity. I could go play Regular Ruby for a minute, find out if this whole Homecoming thing was happening, and get back to LeMarq before he left the bar. If there was any chance Liam really wanted to ask me, I had to find out.
I blew out a deep breath and plugged the Water Street address into my GPS system. With a stomach full of butterflies that felt more like fully equipped hornets, I let my GPS’s Mary Poppins voice guide me toward the terrifying unknown. That’s right—I felt more comfortable trailing a known murderer than being asked out on a date.
At least with LeMarq, I had a secure vehicle, a weapon, and a cell phone to use in case I needed to call for help. But if anything went wrong with Liam, I had nothing.
No protection. No backup. I’d be totally vulnerable.
The closer I got to the little destination star on my GPS screen, the more I questioned my decision. Every song that came up on my shuffle seemed to have strange overtones or dark undercurrents—“A White Demon Love Song” by The Killers, “I Will Follow You Into the Dark” by Death Cab for Cutie, and even my man MJ had to pipe in with “Thriller.” I finally turned it off.
As I drove farther downtown and into the dark heart of the shipping harbor, I wondered how Liam was going to pull this off. Rose petals and candles hardly seemed dreamy among empty beer cans and broken meth needles. I imagined a trail of Hershey’s Kisses leading me through a camp of homeless people until I found a balloon with a note inside reading, “I’d pop if you’d go to Homecoming with me!” Or something equally idiotic.
I really hoped Liam wasn’t that guy. I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt—maybe he had something totally non-lame planned. Yet, looking around this neighborhood, all I had were doubts—and an increasingly bad feeling.
“You have reached your destination,” said the eerily pleasant Mary Poppins voice.
“If you could see where I am, Mary, you wouldn’t be so chipper,” I responded in my best British accent, realizing I’d rather sit in the car and have conversations with billboards and GPS systems than real people. My therapist would be so disappointed.
I brought Big Black to a stop outside an industrial-sized warehouse. Building 366’s entrance was barely visible through the low-lying harbor fog. Only a few sickly yellow patches of light glowed over the large roll-up garage doors, all of which were closed.
Growing anxiety and a waft of fish-flavored air prompted me to raise the windows. I pushed aside all my instincts to bolt by convincing myself that leaving Liam hanging would not be socially acceptable. Or nice. Which lately wasn’t a very strong argument for me, but this was Liam Slater.
So where was he? What if this was some kind of mean joke?
Easing off the brake, I let Big Black roll around to the side of the building. I flipped on the windshield wipers for a quick clean—and rubbed my eyes to do the same.
That’s when I saw it.
Beside an open door was the familiar old blue van I’d been following for months.
And it wasn’t Liam’s.
CHAPTER 2
It took a few stretched-out seconds for me to process the fact that the text wasn’t from Liam at all.
My stomach plummeted as I realized who owned that van: Charlie LeMarq. I fumbled to double-check the locks, pressing the lock a few extra times to be sure. My heart thumped in my ears. And my mind reached out for some invisible chain of logic.
Had LeMarq discovered I’d been trailing him? Had he brought me here to teach me a lesson? But how could he have known? And how would he know to fake a text from Liam?
I grabbed my night-vision binos and zoomed in on the threat. Written across the back window’s condensation was the dripping question: “You think you can stop me?”
Then a bone-chilling scream from inside the building stabbed me like a dagger—a young girl’s desperate call for help. He had a child in that warehouse.
Simultaneous flashes of heat and penetrating coldness warped my senses, debilitating my instincts to move, while images of horrifying scenarios consumed me.
I fought the escalating pins and pricks of panic. I had to act.
I reached into the false bottom of my console again and traded the heavy binos for the lightweight steel of Smith. Curling my fingers around the revolver’s grip, I dialed with my other hand.
Almost immediately, I heard, “911, what’s your emergency?”
“Send all available units to 366 Water Street. There’s been a child abduction…and if help doesn’t arrive soon…a probable homicide.” I tried to sound in control.
“OK, 366 Water Street.” Pause…typing…“Help is on the way. Please tell me your name.”
“Ruby Rose. Daughter to District Attorney Jane Rose and the former SWAT Sergeant Jack Rose—”
“Sweetie,” she cut me off. “Did you say Jack R—?”
“I have to go,” I said, pressing “End.” She didn’t need to call me sweetie. Right now I was anything but Sweet Ruby, and I wasn’t going to wait for the sirens to tip off Mr. LeMarq so he could slit the girl’s throat and escape. I knew his MO: no survivors, no witnesses. Just lifeless little girls with no forensic traces of his filth. I had to get in there. Whoever just screamed had no chance if I didn’t at least try.
I exited Big Black and raised Smith securely in front of me with both hands, just like Dad had taught me. My hands trembled, like they knew this wasn’t pretend—this wasn’t a simulation. I stared at the van and the dark brick building looming behind it, wondering if I was capable of stopping a dangerous man like LeMarq. Especially without my father.
I could almost hear Dad whispering over my shoulder. Telling me to slow my breathing, raise my awareness of every sound and movement surrounding me, and slowly put one foot in front of the other.