Joey slipped off the bed and went straight into the connecting bathroom, where she used the toilet and tried to straighten herself up. She stayed in there until the shouting stopped, only venturing out when it had been quiet for more than a minute.
When she opened the door, she saw that Ruby was back, and she was horrified to see that her mother’s summer dress was splotched with blood. In Ruby’s hand was the long, thin knife Charles had been using to cut their cheese and fruit earlier. The blade of the knife was also covered in blood.
“Mama?” Joey said, alarmed. “Mama, what happened?”
“I killed him.” Her mother’s eyes were glassy with shock. “Oh God, I killed him. Charles is dead. You have to help me … oh God, Joey, you have to help me. I don’t know what to do.”
Just as she would testify in court a few months later, Joey told Ruby to change her clothes and go get the car. Then she headed down the hallway toward the master bedroom to clean up after her mother.
But unlike what she’d said in court, Ruby never did come back to finish the job.
As Joey was taking one last look around the master bedroom and bathroom, trying to make sure that everything her mother had brought with her was now in the garbage bag, she heard a moan, and jumped. Heart racing, she turned slowly and looked down at the carpet where Charles lay. His eyes, which had been closed before, were now open. Ruby had said he was dead. But there he was, staring up at her from the floor.
The monster her mother was supposed to have killed was trying to speak to her.
Joey looked around wildly, terrified to be alone with him, certain he was going to stand up and come for her. But Charles remained where he was, lying on his side on the floor.
“Joey.” He managed to lift his head an inch off the carpet. “Joey, help me.”
At the sound of his voice, Joey backed up until she hit the wall, holding the garbage bag out in front of her as some kind of useless shield.
“Joey … Joey, call 911 … Joey … please…”
Charles’s breathing was shallow, but he was breathing. What was she supposed to do now? She had offered to clean up her mother’s mess … but for what? Even if Charles died, and they somehow got away with this, there would eventually be another Charles.
It was Ruby, after all. There would always be another Charles.
The knife was somewhere at the bottom of the plastic bag, covered in Ruby’s fingerprints and Charles’s blood.
Joey was surprised at how easy it was to make the decision.
Setting the garbage bag down on the floor, she walked down the hall to Lexi’s room to retrieve the ice skate. She brought it back with her to the master bedroom, where she took a seat in the chair in the corner, filled with calm certainty about what was going to happen next. She slipped her foot into the smooth leather boot, and laced it up.
And then she stomped on Charles’s neck, feeling the muscles and tendons split apart under the blade with a wet crunch, driven by the force of her thirteen-year-old rage and fueled by years of abuse and helplessness and shame.
Joey couldn’t slay all the monsters, but she could slay this one.
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
When Paris finishes speaking, her mother’s coffee mug is empty.
“You don’t regret it, do you?” Ruby says softly.
“No,” Paris says. “But I paid the price for it, just as you did.”
Ruby opens her mouth to say something, then closes it again. After a few seconds, she finally nods. “Just wire me the money,” she says. “And then we can be done with each other, which is what we both want anyway.”
“I brought a cashier’s check.” Paris leans back in her chair. “And I’ll give it to you once you give me what I came for.”
Ruby gets up and walks into the living room. Paris watches as she removes the decorative screen in front of the fireplace and reaches for the urn, which is sitting right inside the hearth. Paris’s flashlight had passed right over the fireplace screen that night; it never did occur to her to look behind it. Ruby walks back to the kitchen table with the urn and stands near her, holding it up so the name on it is visible.
The urn is plain, about nine inches tall, and made of plastic. JOELLE REYES is stamped into the tarnished metal plate across the front.
But inside it is Mae Ocampo. Paris stares at it. To think, an entire adult human body can be reduced to ashes that fit inside a container this size.
Oh, Mae. I wish you were here.
She reaches for the urn, but Ruby moves it out of her reach.
“I want my ten million,” her mother says. “And then you can take the urn and get the fuck out.”