“Well, it wasn’t every day,” Mr. Malinowski was overheard saying to the police the night of Ruby’s arrest. He was the building superintendent who lived on the first floor. “I mean, was she skinny? Sure, but a lot of girls are at that age. Did I once see a bruise on her cheek? Sure, but she’s a kid. Did I ask if she was all right? Of course I did, and her mother said she fell off her bike. What was I supposed to do, accuse her of lying?”
Except Joey didn’t have a bike. Nor did she have a skateboard, or Rollerblades, or any of the other things that had supposedly caused the purple welts that occasionally popped up in different places on her face and body.
“She did have a bandage around her arm once,” said Mrs. Finch, who lived down the hall from them with her unemployed adult son. She was eager to talk to the police since she was the one who had finally called them. “The girl looked embarrassed, said she tripped and fell, that she was a klutz. I always knew something wasn’t right. But I never actually saw her mother do anything, so what could I do? And besides, it was none of my business. Okay, fine, I admit I never liked the woman much. She was a floozy, always wearing those short skirts and high heels, her tatas up to here, and every few months a different boyfriend. But the girl is what, twelve? Thirteen? If something was going on, she should have said so, or how else is anyone supposed to know?”
But they knew. Of course they knew.
The murder trial that followed was big news. Charles Baxter, the president of the large bank where Ruby worked, had died of exsanguination as the result of multiple stab wounds. Sixteen, to be exact, but it was the slice across the neck that ultimately killed him. Afraid to ask an adult what exsanguination meant, Joey looked it up in the dictionary. It turned out to be a very fancy and interesting-sounding word for something that just meant “blood loss.”
Her mother’s beauty only fueled the publicity. Ruby Reyes’s long, glossy black hair and seductive smile were at the center of every article, every TV news report. They even gave her a nickname: The Ice Queen. She was thirty-five at the time of her arrest, but she could have passed for ten years younger.
“If I didn’t have you,” Ruby always said to her daughter, “I could tell people I’m twenty-five. I hate that you look like me.”
Joey never doubted that she was the worst thing that ever happened to her mother. Just like her mother was the worst thing that ever happened to her.
After her mother’s conviction, Joey was sent to live with her aunt and uncle in Maple Sound, a small town two hours north of Toronto. It was supposed to make things better. Flora and Miguel Escario had three small boys of their own, and they’d agreed to take in their niece when the social worker made it clear that it was either them, or foster care. Joey made the move a few days after her mother’s arrest. Finally, she would have a real family. It was a chance at a fresh start.
Except it wasn’t, because the kids at her high school knew exactly who Ruby Reyes was, which meant they knew exactly who Joey Reyes was. They knew because their parents read the newspapers and watched the news, as did their teachers. The new girl was the Ice Queen’s daughter, and the Ice Queen was fresh off the boat and a slut and a gold digger who had murdered someone. The story was horrific and titillating and oh so much fun to talk about, and so they whispered and gossiped and speculated until the bits of truth twisted into more interesting rumors, which grew into outright lies. There was no getting away from it, from her mother, from the story of her mother.
After graduating from high school at the age of eighteen, Joey moved back to Toronto. Two years later, she died at home, alone, in a fire. It was a tragic end to a tragic life, and in all the years Drew has worked as a journalist, he promised himself he would never write about Ruby, because of Joey. He knew there was no chance he could ever be objective.
But he’s not a journalist anymore. The newspaper he wrote for folded three years ago, forcing Drew to pivot hard if he wanted to continue paying his mortgage. He’s a podcaster now, and The Things We Do in the Dark averages three million listeners every season. People tune in for his opinions. And when it comes to Ruby Reyes being presented as a victim of anything, he has a shitload of things to say. At the age of sixty, the Ice Queen is getting a second chance at life, while the daughter she abused for years died at the age of twenty?
Drew isn’t just angry.
He’s fucking furious.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
There’s only one parking spot on the street in front of Junior’s, and Drew snags it.