The Heiress(66)

“It’s heavy, I know,” I say, and he rubs his hands over his face.

“That’s one word for it,” he replies, the words muffled.

“Do you have any idea who she was writing to?” I ask him now. “Because I thought they were to you, but then that part at the end about wanting someone to meet you…”

Cam presses his hands onto his thighs, standing with a wince. “No clue. And honestly, I don’t care. If you found them, she never sent them to anyone.”

He looks back at the papers. “For all we know, this was just another mind fuck of hers. A trap to spring further down the line. You said these were in her desk?”

I nod, and Cam shakes his head, blowing out a long breath. “Thank sweet fuck Ben and Howell didn’t find them first,” he says. I wait for him to ask the obvious question––how could Ben have found that key to the safety-deposit box, but missed these letters?

But he doesn’t, just keeps staring at the papers in his hand, and my fingers itch to pick up the pages again, to hunt for more clues. I think of Ruby saying that she kept replaying scenes from her life, looking for some hint of what was to come, and now I understand that impulse, because I’m sure there’s more to her story.

It doesn’t feel finished yet.

But our story here at Ashby, mine and Cam’s, that’s over.

I know that now. I thought that love would be enough to chase out the darkness, and in her own twisted way, I think Ruby thought that, too. I think she believed she loved Cam, but I don’t know if she really knew how to love anyone, no matter what she said.

But I do. And I love Cam too much to make him stay here.

“Let’s go,” I tell him. “Right now. Back to Colorado or … fuck, Timbuktu, I don’t care, just not here, okay?”

He looks at me, his fingers brushing mine. “I’m sorry,” he says. “That I couldn’t give you what you wanted.”

I step close to him, grabbing his shirtfront and pulling him in tight. “Don’t ever say that to me again. You have given me everything, Camden. Way more than I ever should have gotten.”

I mean it, and I hope he feels that in my kiss when I lift my face to his.

When we pull apart, he rubs my upper arms and says, “All right. Timbuktu it is. But there’s something I need to handle first. Can you manage being here on your own for a few hours?”

“Of course,” I say. “I can pack up while you do whatever it is you need to do. I’m sure the rest of them will be busy making arrangements for Nelle, so they probably won’t even notice I’m here.”

Cam nods, but his mind is already somewhere else, I can tell.

“I’m going to shower and change, and then I’ll head out. I should be back by dark.”

I blink, shocked to realize that it’s already noon. Time had stopped meaning anything once we’d gone into Ruby’s room and Camden told me what had happened there ten years ago.

I want to ask Cam where he’s going, but, more than that, I want him to tell me himself.

Instead, he kisses my cheek and makes his way to the bathroom.

I start folding Ruby’s letters, and he pauses, turning back around. “Do me a favor while I’m gone? Get rid of those. Burn them, shove them down the garbage disposal, whatever. But I don’t want anyone else to see them. Ever.”



* * *



ONCE CAM IS out of the house, I take my own shower and change, then start gathering our things. It’s hard to believe we’ve been here less than a week. I feel like a different person than the Jules who rode up here, full of anticipation and plans, excited to settle into her husband’s home.

It doesn’t take long until the room is clear of all our things. Except for Ruby’s letters.

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 that everything looks 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 up The 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.