“So did I. I told you that Martinez had been shot. We both had blood on our hands because we were trying to save Martinez’s life. And even so, that’s not enough evidence for an arrest.”
“I’m afraid it is,” she said, her tone hot with impatience. “It may be circumstantial, but combined with other factors, it’s evidence nonetheless. The boy has a record, Ruby. He almost killed someone before.”
“What? He was only protecting his little brothers and mother from his drunk dad,” I argued. “And how is that relevant?”
“Protecting yourself would be calling the police, not taking a baseball bat and putting your own father in a coma for seven days.”
“You don’t know all the facts,” I said, a little thrown by the baseball-bat thing. Liam hadn’t mentioned that detail, and I flinched at the image of him beating his father.
“Neither do you,” she said flatly. “No matter what his father did, he didn’t deserve to be nearly beaten to death. Contrary to what you might currently believe, violence is not the answer. The boy is a danger to society.”
“I should’ve known you would pick sides with the abusive parent,” I sputtered. “You know Liam didn’t do this.”
“That’s not true. He won’t even talk to me. He gave his statement to the police and now he is relying on his two-bit public defender,” she said, rubbing her eyes and smudging her makeup even more. “The whole thing…it just doesn’t look good.”
“It doesn’t look good?” I repeated. Of course, I should’ve seen this coming. “Looks have always been more important to you than the truth, Miss Botox California. Miss Sham Marriage, Miss Closet Alcoholic. I wonder how it would look if I decided to go see my paparazzo friend Sammy and gave him an exclusive interview on the real life of Jane Rose. Or call up our Bill Brandon and give him—”
“I’m going to bed,” she cut me off, pinching her eyes shut and blowing out a dramatic breath of exhaustion. She was bluffing, and I was calling.
“Drop the charges, Jane, or I’ll drop a bomb on your campaign you’ll never recover from. Bill Brandon will have a whole new set of names to call you,” I said, knowing I’d just crossed the line. But asking nicely wasn’t working. Liam’s life was on the line. “There is no evidence that can’t be explained away. He’s innocent, and you know it. I won’t let you use him as a scapegoat.”
She glared at me, and I almost lost my nerve, but instead of succumbing to her intimidation, I turned it up. “I will not be ignored by you anymore. I will not be neglected and abused because of your career. I will not let you scoff at what I have with Liam. It’s not a fling or a crush. He’s been there for me in a way you never have.” It was all true, but instead of feeling relieved for finally communicating what Liam meant to me, I felt awful for the mean way it came out.
“I don’t respond well to threats, young lady,” she said. “Not from the criminals off the street, and not from the criminals in my own home.”
I flinched, and for a second I thought she did, too. Her words stung worse than a slap to the face. Yes, I’d trailed the men I killed, I’d withheld information from the police, and I’d even “borrowed” a motorcycle from a neighbor without permission. But every life I took was taken either in self-defense or in the defense of others. None of what I’d done looked good—in fact, much of it looked horrendously stupid in hindsight.
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.