“I don’t... I don’t understand. When you’re in a horrible job, you quit, you find something else.” She paused, weighing her words. “That’s what any... normal person would do.”
Ruskin ran his finger along the edge of the laptop. “I’d never walked away from a challenge. My father, he... he...”
Ruskin stopped briefly, clenched his jaw.
“My father used to drill into me that only losers quit. Only losers walk away. When things get tough, you don’t knuckle under. You fight back.”
“But a deliberatively manipulative, nasty boss — walking away from someone like that — how could that be wrong? How could anyone blame you for that?”
“Every time I was ready to walk, I’d hear my father’s voice in my head. Doesn’t matter that he’s been dead for more than twenty years. He’s always there, judging me. So I didn’t quit, I didn’t walk away, I hung in. I was not going to let her defeat me.” He paused, and then he smiled. “And I didn’t. Lisa Carver perished, and I’ve survived.”
Ruskin smiled and extended his arms to the sides, as if getting ready to dance. “Free. I’m free.”
Sandra asked, “What did you mean, when you said ‘fight back’?”
“Hmm?”
“You said fight back. How’d you fight back? Lisa died.” She paused. “You got lucky. You didn’t defeat her yourself.” Another pause. “Or did you?”
He shook his head, then smiled as he continued to run a finger along the edges of the laptop. The two of them entered into a moment of silence that ended when someone else rapped at the door.
“Hold on!” Sandra shouted.
“What is it they say?” Ruskin asked. “Karma’s a bitch?”
“What are you saying?”
“No sense covering up for her now. Brandon Kyle wasn’t wrong. He wasn’t crazy. Lisa killed that movie producer and his girlfriend in the Gandalf. Not directly, of course. That’s the beauty of the world today. You never have to actually be there. She planted someone at Gandalf HQ years ago. Someone with the skills to plant a tiny, little virus. A random bit of nastiness that wouldn’t hit the whole fleet, but a car or two. Like dropping a cockroach into some cake batter. Most of the cake, it’s okay, but you get that one slice...”
“Did you know?”
“How could I not know? She bragged about it all the time.”
“And that woman? The one who used to work for Brandon Kyle, who came to Arrival? Who had that accident in the bathroom and died?”
Ruskin smiled at her like she was a five-year-old who’d just figured out how to tie her own shoes.
“What do you think?”
He looked contemplative again. “Maybe I should go out there and talk to them. Tell them everything Lisa did.”
“And what you did, too,” Sandra said.
“What?”
“It’s pretty clear you hated Lisa Carver as much as Brandon Kyle did. Maybe you were working together.” She thought about what she was going to say next. “Maybe you helped him pull off what’s happened here today.”
Someone else rapped loudly on the door.
Sandra turned her head again and shouted, “In a minute! We’re drafting a statement!”
From the other side, a man shouted: “Sandra?”
“Joe?”
“Yeah!”
Sandra gave Ruskin one last accusatory look before unlocking the door and opening it. Joe put his arms around her, pulled her close, and Sandra briefly laid her head on his chest. But she quickly pulled away and looked up at him.
“The kids?”
Joe shook his head. “I checked the house. No sign.”
The air seemed to go out of Sandra. “Shit,” she said, turning away, putting a hand to her cheek to catch a tear. “Shit, shit, shit.”
“But listen,” Joe said, putting a hand on her shoulder. “I didn’t see anything to suggest anything bad’s happened to them. They’re out there, somewhere, but I’m betting they’re okay. They’re smart kids.”
“I’ve tried to call, they won’t answer...”
She turned her attention back to Ruskin.
“You son of a bitch,” she said. “That’s what you did, isn’t it? Made a deal with Kyle. Was he here today? Is he Stapleton? Did you help him do this?”
“No,” he said, shaking his head as Sandra closed the distance between them, backing him into a corner.
“Sandra,” Joe said. “What’s happening here?”
She pointed a finger at Ruskin. “Somehow, he did this. I know it. I can feel it. He had his reasons. He’s as much as admitted it.” She pointed to the laptop that belonged to Lisa Carver. “I bet he knows how to get into that. I bet he knows how to make all this stop.”
Ruskin continued to shake his head. “No. Look, I’m not sorry Lisa’s gone, but I didn’t have anything to do with this shit show. And even if I could get into her computer, I’ve no idea how to stop it.”
Sandra wasn’t buying his denials. She gave Joe a desperate look. “Give me your gun.”
“What?” Joe said.
“Just give it to me!” She held out her hand, as though expecting Joe to do what she’d asked. To a wide-eyed Ruskin, she said, “You’ll shut these cars down or I’ll fucking shoot you in the foot.”
“Sandra,” Joe said with forced calmness. “We can’t do that.”
“You’re crazy,” Ruskin told her. “You’re out of your mind.”
Sandra, realizing she might have crossed a line, said, “There has to be a way. Joe knows computers. The two of you, working together—”
“Oh, please,” Ruskin said, casting a derisive look at the police chief. “Does he work at the Genius Bar in his spare time? Does he go to India on vacation and offer tech support?”
When Joe’s jawline hardened, Ruskin realized he’d just pissed off the one possible ally he had in the room. “Sorry,” he said. “Look, I’m telling you, it’s not my doing. I don’t have to put up with this one more minute.”
He pushed Sandra out of his way.
“Hey!” she said.
“Whoa, hang on,” Joe said as Ruskin moved past Sandra and headed for the door.
“Stop him!” Sandra said. “Joe, handcuff him or something!”
“You have no right!” Ruskin said.
“Arrest him!” Sandra said. “Arrest him for something.”
Joe was nonplussed. “Sandra, I just can’t—”
Ruskin needed to get past Joe to leave the room. He waved a hand, a wordless command that the chief get out of his way.
“Mr. Ruskin, I think it’d be a good idea if you did hang in. I mean, I do have a few questions—”
He glared at Joe. “You going to shoot me in the foot if I don’t answer them? I’d rather take my chances with those fucking cars than stay in here with that crazy woman. I just got rid of one bitch and now I’ve got another.”
“Whoa, hold on there, Mr. Ruskin, that’s no way—”
“Get the fuck out of my way.”
Ruskin tried to shove Joe out of his path, and Joe wasn’t having any of it. He grabbed hold of Ruskin’s shirt and tossed him back into the room.
Ruskin lost his footing and stumbled backward.
As he headed for the floor, the back of his head connected with the edge of the desk, making a sound not unlike a baseball bat connecting with a pitch.
Ruskin went down. He settled into a heap, not moving.
Joe looked at Sandra, his mouth open, as if trying to express his shock and regret, but no words came out.
Sandra looked equally stunned, but at least she managed to speak.
“Tell me he’s not dead,” she said.
Joe quickly knelt down next to the man, put two fingers to his neck, hunting for a pulse. Blood was already beginning to pool beneath Ruskin’s head.