Killing Ruby Rose (3 page)

CHAPTER 3

Alana wasn’t much of a bodyguard—or publicist—but, bless her heart, she tried.

“Just keep walking,” she said, her arm unnecessarily wrapped through mine, escorting me out of last period. “When Chanel stink-eye over there gets pregnant by her twenty-four-year-old boyfriend, they’ll have a new scandal to talk about.” Her voice was loud enough for Chanel’s beady little eyes to turn to slits of spite. I wished Alana hadn’t said that—I didn’t need any more enemies.

It had been several weeks since the shooting, but I’d only been back to school for one. While the stares hadn’t dissipated much, at least the camera crews had. Thanks to Mother Jane getting an injunction against the media to leave me alone at school, I’d only seen two paparazzi snipers hiding in trees today.

Despite the fact that no charges were brought against me, the jury was still out in my trial by public opinion.

“After I finish cheer practice and you finish your
shopping
, wanna come over?” Alana asked, putting undue emphasis on our code word for my psychotherapy appointments. She was the only person in the world besides my parents who knew about my long-term therapy. Therapy that I may or may not have needed before my dad died or the LeMarq shooting, but that I’d definitely needed since. She added, “We can watch a totally non-creepy, non-killing Halloween movie at my house. Maybe
Scooby-Doo
or something?”

“Sure,” I said with my current version of a smile, keeping my head down as we crossed into the parking lot. “But do you mind if we do it at my house?”

“Ruby, it’s time to get out of the dungeon.” She shook her head. “Your tan is paying the price. You know what I always say: Tan makes fat look good!”

I pulled my head up to give her my
seriously
?
look. “First, you’re such a racist. White girls like me can’t get a brown Hawaiian glow like yours.”

“Hey…” She pretended to be offended, but instead began checking out her carefully maintained bronze forearm.

“Second, you’re a stick.”

“Not after that Tic Tac I just ate,” she said with a wink. When Alana and I first met nearly a decade ago, she still had some of her “baby fat”—as she liked to call it. But even though she was now thinner than me, she was still self-conscious. It probably didn’t help that half of her huge family (in size and number) still called her Baby Fat.

“Third, the breadth of your shallowness never ceases to amaze—”

A whistle that sounded more like a birdcall cut me off. I looked over to a group of guys hanging out on a classic yellow muscle car with ridiculous pinstripes. The guys reminded me of the
Macaws of the Amazon
series I’d been watching late at night on the Discovery Channel during my recent bouts with insomnia.

Display of brightly colored plumage: check.

Loud sounds to attract the female gender: check.

Posturing and puffing out of chests: check.

Then I saw Liam at the back of the flock. His rainforest-blue eyes caught mine, clouding my defenses. I’d been avoiding this moment.

I wanted to look away, I really did. But the way he was looking at me didn’t speak of preening or puffing. More like worry—or some other emotion I didn’t know how to read. He had to know by now
how
I got duped into going down to the docks in the first place—my ridiculous crush on him. Of course he knew. Everyone knew, thanks to a few corrupt cops and morally bankrupt tabloid reporters.

I felt like a fool.

“Call me later, Alana,” I said, already flying toward my hermit’s nest, where I could hide my pale feathers stained red at the tips.

“You’d better answer!” she called out after me.

Somewhere along the line I’d gotten the crazy idea that therapists’ offices were supposed to be tranquil, with the soothing sounds of bubbling water or something. No such luck.

If I’d had a gun, I would’ve shot the damn clock for ticking so obnoxiously at me—an impulse that, admittedly, screamed “anger-management issues.” But since my anger was directed toward an inanimate object and not a person, it was totally fine.

Or so I told myself.

Plus, my concealed weapons license had been suspended and Smith taken into evidence. I was harmless.

“How are things at home?” Dr. Teresa asked in her I-know-what-you’re-thinking-better-than-you-do voice.

“Fine,” I said, refusing eye contact. She sat only a few feet away in her oversized love seat, which made her appear intentionally undersized. She wasn’t the only one who could analyze others’ choices.

“How’s your mother handling the press?” she said. It was a nudge—a pleasant, patient push. I knew this tactic well. She was focusing the attention on someone else to make me more comfortable until I opened up naturally.

And if that didn’t work, she’d move on to the crowbar-to-a-nail strategy.

“I’m not sure,” I responded, biting at a cuticle that just wouldn’t behave. I had tactics, too.

“Ruby,” she said, lowering her voice into what I liked to call The Tone (a deeper version of her voice that meant it was time to drop the pretenses), “for me to help, you have to give me more than three-word answers.”

I still didn’t want to look at her, but I felt myself soften a little. The Tone had that effect on me. I was pretty sure she was part witch. But in a good way. I liked to think of her as my own personal Mother Teresa. At least when she was in one of those super-intuitive saintly kinds of moods where she seemed to be molding my soul like Play-Doh. In some ways, she was more of a mother to me than my own mom—especially during campaign season.

For the last eleven years, she’d been here for me whenever I needed her.

Signs of depression or withdrawal?
Call Dr. T.

Night terrors and recurring dreams of being locked behind bars?
Dr. T can fix it.

Fighting at school?
Get Dr. T on the phone, stat!

Some years were better than others. In fact, in the last few I’d only been checking in with her every six months or so. But after Dad died, we reinstated our weekly Wednesday sessions at three. And since “the incident” with LeMarq, we’d been meeting every Friday, too.

Dr. T was one of the only people in the world who truly knew me—and still liked me.

She used to be my mom’s therapist, too, but apparently the D. A. didn’t need it (or have time for it) anymore. Jane Rose was now holding herself out as a beacon of mental health and stability, warming everyone with her powerful glow.

“Why don’t you tell me what
you
would like to talk about today?” Dr. T uncrossed her legs and sat forward in her seat so only a few uncomfortable feet divided us—another one of her tactics to open me up. Next would be the crowbar.

I tucked my feet under my knees and bought myself a few more inches of personal space on the couch.

We sat in silence for a while. She would be patient—eternally, painfully, patient.

“Why don’t I feel bad that LeMarq’s dead?” I asked, point-blank.

“Because you did the right thing,” she said without hesitation.

“Yeah, but killing is wrong. Morally, ethically,
biblically
wrong.” Not that I’d ever read the Bible, but that sounded right. “And even though I hate the fact I had to do it, I sort of
…
don’t hate that he’s dead.” I hung my head, knowing these words would be dangerous spoken outside this room.

“You killed to save a life. Defense of others is not only legally acceptable, but morally, ethically, and
biblically
as well.” Her lips spread into a soft smile. “That’s precisely why no charges have been filed against you. You
know
all this.”

It was true. I
knew
all this because it had been carefully explained to me more times than necessary. And although my mind understood it, my heart and soul didn’t seem to be getting the same message.

Part of me couldn’t help feel a satisfaction in LeMarq being dead and gone. At least he would never kill again. And yet, nothing seemed to cleanse me from the dirtiness of being the one who’d pulled the trigger. I shouldn’t have been forced to kill. I believed in law and order. I was born and raised with the principles of “innocent until proven guilty,” and “justice is blind.” Seriously, my mom sat me in front of that damn Justice statue every Saturday one summer so she could work while I studied. Turns out, Justice is a scantily clad, blindfolded woman holding a phallic sword and a set of scales—more like a Vegas stripper than an appropriate representation of fairness. And although I’d seen enough to know that our justice system didn’t always live up to its ideals, I still believed it was the only and best solution for handling criminals. Who was I to have single-handedly sentenced someone—even someone like LeMarq—to the death penalty?

“The newspapers don’t see it that way,” I said. “They think the reason no charges have been filed against me is because my mom’s the D. A.” I looked out the window, wondering how many so-called journalists would love to be privy to this conversation. “It’s been nearly two months, and they won’t leave me alone.”

“Don’t pay attention to them,” she said. “I keep telling you, don’t give them the satisfaction.”

“But aren’t they right to question what happened? None of this makes any sense.” I rubbed my temples, trying to put together a puzzle for which I didn’t have all the pieces. “Somebody lured me there. Somebody sent me a text.”

She straightened her back and ran her fingers through her dark hair. She always did that when she felt like she was losing control of the conversation. “Have they been able to trace the number that texted you yet? Or find out who LeMarq was on the phone with when you arrived?”

“They haven’t said anything if they have.”

“I’m sure they will. It’s only a matter of time before they complete their investigation and clear you officially,” she assured me. As if she was in a position to do so. “We all believe you did the right thing.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t think Detective Martinez
believes
me.” I bit at that damn cuticle as though everything else would be OK if I could just fix my poorly executed manicure.

“Why would you think that?” she asked.

“You should have seen how he grilled me when he asked me to come into the precinct for more questioning. About why I had a gun with a laser sight in the first place, why my dad would give me a concealed weapons license, why I took the kill shot, why I would be so gullible as to respond to a text from an unknown number, why I didn’t wait for the police, why I’ve been in therapy for most of my life…”

“Wait. He asked you about therapy?” Her eyebrows drew together, highlighting a few wrinkles her organic oils and yoga meditations hadn’t managed to erase.

“Yeah, I’m not even sure how he knew. I guess that’s why he’s Mr. Big-Shot Detective.”

“What did you say his name was?” She reached for her pen and pad of paper.

“Detective Martinez. With a capital
M
for Meathead. Why?” I asked.

“Did you know this detective before the incident?” She answered my question with a question. Why do therapists always do that?

“Yeah, he used to be my dad’s partner, like twenty years ago. Before Dad switched over to SWAT,” I said, trying to use the lack of personal space to my advantage for once and read the notes on her lap. Detecting the angle, she pulled the notepad up to her chest, removing the distraction. “That’s why it sucks that he’s the lead investigator. He hated my dad. And I think he hates me.”

“Who told you he hated your dad?”

“My mom. She said something about bad blood between them, and I should never talk to him without her present.”

Dr. T looked puzzled. “Though I’m sure you’d do well to follow her legal advice, I’m not so sure he would have any reason to hate
you.”

“How about that I killed somebody,” I said. “I’m a Vigilante Teen Assassin. At least that’s what TMZ called me. They can’t get over the accuracy of my shot. They think that because LeMarq humiliated my mom in court,
I
might be the one who set
him
up.”

“I told you not to pay attention to that filth—”

“They’re very thorough, you know.” I cut her off. “They found out my ‘abnormally high’ IQ results, my ‘strange obsession’ with combat training under my father’s tutelage, my prolonged leave of absence from school after he died, and even my ‘isolating behavior’ at school since. They even quoted this girl in my class named Taylor, saying, ‘She never really did fit in.’ ”

I shook my head, knowing Taylor’s brutally public words were true. Even when I was little, I knew I wasn’t like everyone else. Sure, I had the clothes and the shoes and the general skills to win superficial popularity points. But most girls, like Taylor, didn’t go around knee-thrusting bullies in the crotch, even if they deserved it. And it probably didn’t help when Dad reprimanded me for said crotch-kicking with a poorly concealed smile on his face.

In the last couple years, I’d managed to get involved in stuff like debate and student government, but I’d never managed to be, well, normal.

“And yesterday,” I continued, “I saw this picture on the cover of a magazine—white rose petals dripping with blood, falling over an unidentified headstone—and above it in block letters: ‘Ruby Rose: Teen Hero Bleeding with Grief Over Her Fallen Father? Or Drenched with Guilt Over Her Dead Victim?’ ”

Dr. Teresa must have sensed my latent insanity and put the pad and pen down to clear her throat and get my attention back.

“Let’s not focus on that right now.”

“But they’re right!” I shook my head in defiance. “What the hell was I doing there? How did this happen to me?”

I knew exactly how this had happened, though
.
I’d brought it all on myself
.
I’d been tracking LeMarq (and a few others like him) for weeks
,
and
voila
—the consequences had arrived
.
I knew that what I was doing was dangerous. I just hadn’t quite realized how killing a monster like him would make me
feel
.