“Tanga kaayo ka,” Ruby spits. “You always were a stupid girl. I was glad when I found out you were dead all those years ago. Now we might as well make it true.”
Her mother charges at her, full force.
The edge of the pond is slippery, and when Ruby makes contact, Paris is propelled backward into the pond. She instantly goes under. She feels the lid of the urn lift off, and sees the ashes—Mae’s ashes—float out and dissolve into nothing.
In a panic, Paris lets go of the urn and tries to stand, but the pond is shockingly deep, just like her aunt always insisted it was. She tries to kick her way back to the surface, but it’s no use. She can’t swim, she never learned, and as the pond water enters her mouth, she hears Tita Flora’s voice screeching in her head. Stay away from the pond Jason you can’t swim you will drown!
Oh, the irony, Paris thinks. But before she can sink any deeper, she feels strong arms grab her under both armpits and pull. She can’t swim, but Drew can, and he heaves her out of the water, stumbling backward with her into the grass.
From somewhere nearby, Ruby is still screaming as Paris sputters and vomits. The pond water tastes exactly like it smells.
“The urn,” she manages to say, before she coughs up more water.
Drew helps her sit up. He points to the urn, which is now floating too far out in the pond to retrieve without swimming for it. As relieved as she is, it makes Paris sad to look at it. Of all the places she thought she might spread Mae’s ashes, it wasn’t here, in Maple Sound.
Goodbye, my friend.
In the distance, they hear the sirens. Drew called the police as soon as Paris came out of the house.
“Did you get it?” she asks him, still trying to catch her breath.
Ultimately, it probably doesn’t matter. For her mother, being stuck in Maple Sound would be as bad as prison.
Drew shows her where the video he made is saved.
“I got it,” he says.
* * *
The shove that Ruby gave Paris is all on video. Ruby Reyes has violated her parole and will be going back to Sainte-élisabeth to serve out her sentence.
Her life sentence.
There are two patrol cars and four officers at the house, which might well be half the entire Maple Sound police force. As two of them lead Ruby to a car, she thrashes in her handcuffs, hair flying everywhere, her eyes wild and desperate.
“That’s my daughter!” she shrieks. “She’s not who she says she is! She’s a liar!”
It takes both of the officers to push her into the police car, and even when the door closes, Paris and Drew can still hear her screaming.
“So that’s the infamous Ice Queen,” says the officer taking down Drew’s and Paris’s statements. “I was just a rookie when she was on trial, and I remember the story well. She is not what I expected. At all.”
His partner, young enough to look like a rookie herself, could not seem less interested in Ruby Reyes. Instead, her gaze fixes on Paris as she hands Drew’s phone back.
Both officers watched the short video twice. Drew captured Ruby following Paris out to the pond, where she seemingly forced Paris to take the urn. With Paris’s back to the camera, the cashier’s check is not visible. All that’s shown is Ruby screaming and impulsively pushing Paris into the water.
From inside the police car, Ruby hollers again.
“Do either of you understand what she’s talking about?” The senior officer looks back and forth between Paris and Drew. “What’s this about her daughter?”
Paris is rubbing her wet hair with an old towel Drew found in his trunk. She shakes her head.
“We honestly don’t know,” Drew says. “I was supposed to interview Ruby Reyes today for my podcast, and I brought my friend along. Ruby must have been triggered when she saw her, because she started going on about her daughter being alive. But if you’re familiar with the story, Ruby’s daughter died nearly twenty years ago, in a house fire.”
Drew points to the empty urn, now floating in the middle of the pond. “Unfortunately, those were her ashes. Her daughter’s name is on the urn.”
Both police officers nod.
“This might be a weird question,” the young officer finally says to Paris, sounding hesitant. “But … aren’t you Jimmy Peralta’s wife?”
She exchanges a look with Drew, then nods. “That’s me.”
Paris braces herself for a comment about the murder charge, or maybe something about her inheritance. But the officer merely nods and gives Paris’s arm a light squeeze.