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Geo and I eye the papers sitting there, then look at each other. There’s only a few, taunting me, and I pick one up, taking a deep breath. I circle to the other side of the desk and sink into my chair before I open the document.
Geo sits in the wingback on the other side of me, hands on the armrests, but he stays silent.
I take a deep breath and unfold the sheet, then let my eyes roam the page. I read it twice before I move to look at Geo. He cocks an eyebrow. I look back down.
“Well?” he asks, clearly unable to be kept in the dark any longer.
“It’s my mother’s death certificate.”
“Why was he keeping it in the safe?” Geo furrows his brow, and I do the same.
I grab another paper and open it. I read it.
“It’s a receipt of sorts. As close to a receipt as a hit man can give you. Or in this case, a hit woman.”
The irony hits me that my father who saw women as something to stick his dick in used one to kill my mother.
I’m instantly transported back to that day, and I can see the woman in a trench coat as clearly as I can see Geo sitting in front of me. I clench the paper in my hand, and it crinkles while I float a million miles away to Miss Lulah’s stoop as my mother falls to the concrete, leaking blood, losing her life in front of me.
The proof I always wanted is in my grasp, and there’s no one to confront about it now. Bertrand is dead, and as much as I wish I could beat him to a bloody pulp for this, I can’t. He met his end, and I’m glad I was the one to feel his life drain from him.
Miserable bastard.
“He paid the hit woman ten thousand dollars. My mother’s life was worth ten thousand dollars.” I’m not sure I have a point to anything I’m saying; I’m only giving voice to my thoughts. Geo doesn’t stop me or respond. “She was his wife, and he killed her.”
I set the receipt down and pick up the next piece of paper. I don’t want to look at it, but a sick part of me must know now. I unfold it with shaky hands, cursing as I steady them against the edge of the desk. Now isn’t the time to lose it.
It’s a picture. This time, the name scrawled along the top has me unable to control the way my fingers flex, dropping it to the desktop. I examine it where it lies and then read that damn name again.
Ruby Sutton.
Her name is stark against the picture, written in loose handwriting, as if the writer didn’t have a care in the world, and I suck in a breath. Suddenly, it seems like there’s not enough air in the room. I reach up to loosen my collar around my neck.
So, she’s dead.
It’s clear from the grotesque picture, the swelling and the blood, the way she’s lying at an unnatural angle.
All the hope I’ve clung to that we would find her alive deflates inside me, and I’m left with a hollow pit in the bottom of my stomach. For someone who has inflicted pain on others, even death, I have guilt over this. Rage. Desperation. I’m the one who caused this, the one who got her into this situation. I knew better than to bring an outsider in, and now, I’ve gone and done it again.
Will I also be responsible for Wryn’s death?
“It’s a picture,” I say, looking up at Geo. “Of Ruby. Proof of death, it looks like.”
He stares at me. And I nod once, curtly letting him know that he heard me right.
“She’s dead?”
“It appears that way.”
I shove the picture at him, and he reaches for it, eyes tracking the name at the top, then dropping to look at the image. His face doesn’t change. He just stares.
I don’t think I’ll be able to get that image out of my mind anytime soon, if ever. My stomach clenches, and I don’t know how I’m going to tell Wryn. What will she do? I don’t want to lose her now, but Ruby was our tie, the one that brought us together and kept us going, and to have that tie severed, it could break her. It could break us.
“What are you going to do?” Geo asks, setting the picture down softly and leaning to rest against the tall back of the chair.
“What can I do? She’s gone.”
“You don’t know that,” he says.
