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I hold them in my hand for a moment, remembering Cam’s instructions to destroy them, and I hesitate for a moment before shoving them into the bottom of my bag.
Just one more thing to do now.
Ruby’s office is quiet and dim, the door barely creaking as I push it open and make my way over to the desk.
The whole house is quiet, in fact. The coroner came for Nelle while Cam and I were in Ruby’s room, and Ben had followed them to the funeral home. Libby had been so upset that she’d taken an Ambien and gone back to bed.
That was hours ago, but I haven’t heard anyone return, and when I glance out the window, I see that Cecilia’s car isn’t in its usual spot.
It’s possible that I’m completely alone in the house, but I still try to be as quick and as quiet as I can as I slide open the top drawer of her desk.
My heart leaps at the sight of that familiar paper, but the pages are all blank, and the other drawers are nearly empty, like I’d known they’d almost certainly be.
Fuck.
I straighten up, looking around the office for another hiding place. But the thing with fancy offices in mansions belonging to homicidal heiresses is thateverythinglooks like a hiding place. For all I know, I could go pull one of the books on the far wall and an entire room would open up.
Still, I move in that direction, my fingers dragging along the spines, looking for anything likely.
I’ve just picked upThe Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám—Ruby strikes me as both vain enough and potentially crazy enough to choose something that sounds like her own name as a hiding place—when a shadow falls across the shelf.
“Stuffing your pockets with valuables before you slink out of town?”
Ben stands there, still in the suit he’d worn to accompany Nelle’s body to the funeral home, that blinding grin on his face.
“Just looking for something to read,” I lie, and he winks at me.
“I liked you, you know. Thought you had spunk.”
Of course, he did.
“I didn’t like you. I thought you were a dick,” I reply, and his grin widens as he points at me.
“See? That’s what I’m talking about. A straight shooter!”
If he does finger guns at me, I swear to god––
“Kapow!”
He blows imaginary smoke from the tip of his finger, and I grit my teeth.
“Really cheerful for a man whose grandmother just died,” I tell him, and finally, he drops some of that Good Ol’ Boy bullshit.
“She lived a long life and died happy in her bed. None of us could wish better for someone we love.”
“Right, because love is in such abundant supply in this family.”
I head for the door, frustrated and anxious. This was my one chance, and now it’s gone. It’s already late in the afternoon, Cam will be back soon, and then we’ll never step foot in this house again. This will become Ben’s office, probably, and what if he finds––
“I’m guessing you’re looking for this.”
He pulls a tight rectangle of folded papers from his suit jacket, and my mouth goes dry.
Still, I make myself say, “I wasn’t looking for anything.”
“Oh, you weren’t?” He raises his eyebrows. “Huh. Well, I’ll be damned. Because I found this not long after Daddy died. Right before you got in touch.”
He nods at the bookcases, specifically at a jeweled boxnestled onto one of the shelves, glittering dully in the low light. Its top sits at a drunken angle, the hinges broken.
