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TheonlyMrs. McTavish.
It didn’t hurt that Officer Jamison hadn’t been as easily dissuaded from looking more closely at Nelle’s death as I’d originally feared, and ultimately found those telltale marks on the inside of her lips.
My story of finding Ben burning something in the office, of asking him what he was doing, his sudden rage, an attack, and then a fire spreading out of control…
It made sense.
Or at least, people accepted it.
The sun breaks through the clouds, and I shade my eyes with one hand, glancing down the beach. Cam is nothing more than a speck, but I know it’s him, wrapping up his morning jog, and I smile to myself, patting my belly.
“That’s your daddy,” I tell my daughter, heaving myself out of my chair to make my way—slowly, very slowly—back up the steps to the deck and the sliding glass door leading into the open kitchen and den.
“Morning, Ruby,” I call.
Her portrait was the one thing that survived the fire. All of Ashby House was in ruins, but Andrew Miller’s painting was somehow mostly intact. The frame was too badly burned to save, and the edges of the canvas were stained with smoke and water damage, but Ruby herself had been no worse for wear.
“That happens sometimes,” one of the firefighters had said. “A whole house can be destroyed, but the paintings are virtually untouched.”
He said it was because the heat tended to snap their hanging wires early on, so they fall face down, protecting them.
Another story that made sense, sure.
But when I meet Ruby’s eyes over the fireplace of this new house, I wonder if there’s more to it.
I’d told Camden we could get rid of it if he wanted. I would understand. Now that I knew the full extent of what she put him through I wouldn’t have blamed him.
“We can donate it or something if you feel weird about throwing it away,” I said. “Any museum would be happy to take it, I bet.”
That had been in the early days, before we bought this place, when it was just the two of us (well, three, but we didn’t know it then) in a hotel room in Asheville.
He’d thought about it, but in the end, he’d shaken his head and said, “It’s all that’s left of her, really. Only thing left from Ashby House.”
Not the only thing,I think now, my hand once again going to my stomach. Ashby House may have been reduced to adark rectangle of earth on a mountaintop miles away, but one night in that red bedroom gave us a permanent reminder of our time there.
And Ruby’s portrait, professionally repaired and reframed, was the first thing we hung in our new house.
I wondered if I’d feel differently about her, now that I fully understood all that she was, all that she’d done. She’d seemed like my savior, all those years ago. A woman who wanted to ease her conscience by fixing everything that was wrong inmylife? Setting me up with her handsome son, ensuring that I would ultimately inherit her estate? What wasn’t there to like?
But she’d hurt Camden. Oh, I know that in her own way, she’d thought she was doing the right thing by him. I even think she had known she might die that night, had made her peace with it. She was giving Cam one final test, but in her mind, either outcome would mean that her project had been successful. He’d call the ambulance and prove his loyalty––or he’d let her die and prove his independence. Either way, I’d be waiting in the wings.
Still, she’d manipulated him—manipulatedme—in ways I might never fully understand.
And yet.
I couldn’t make myself get rid of that fucking portrait.
Or her letters.
Lost in the fire, I’d told Cam, and that was for the best. Why would we need them now? I knew everything there was to know about Ruby, about her crimes and her schemes and her plans.
I understood her.
And learning the truth about Ruby’s past had released something in Cam as well. No more shadows in his eyes, no more guilt.
No, that was my emotion to carry, but I was fine with that. It seemed like a small price to pay.
The sliding glass door opens, and Cam comes in, damp with sweat and sea air. “How are my ladies this morning?”
