He’s nearly finished skimming the Canadian news journal when the door to the visitors’ room buzzes open. A tall woman with shoulder-length black hair enters, strolling in as if she has no cares in the world. She’s slim, almost drowning in her lavender-colored prison scrubs, but she walks as if she’s wearing the same gold dress she wore to the holiday party twenty-five years ago.
He stands as the Ice Queen approaches.
“Drew Malcolm,” he says, and they shake hands briefly. “Thanks for meeting with me, Ms. Reyes.”
“It’s Ruby, please.” She scans him from face to feet before taking a seat, then appraises the assortment of snacks. “These for me?”
“Help yourself.”
“I hardly get any visitors.” Ruby twists open the bottle of Dasani. “Then suddenly, after my parole is approved, I’ve now had six. None were as good-looking as you, though. Where were you twenty-five years ago?”
“In high school,” Drew says. Reading about you in the paper. “Thank you, ma’am.”
“Are you trying to insult me? I said call me Ruby.” She smiles. “I’m amazed anyone is still interested in all my ancient history, but I suppose I have Lexi Baxter to thank for that.”
She only has a trace of a Filipino accent, and you’d have to be listening for it to hear it. Seated, she looks so unassuming, which doesn’t fit with what Drew’s always imagined. In his mind, Ruby Reyes is a formidable presence, someone dangerous, someone to be feared. The woman across from him now seems like none of these things. She’s disappointingly … regular.
It bothers him that she looks like Joey.
She leans forward, picking through the small pile of snacks, and finally settles on the bag of Lay’s potato chips. “I do love my salt. So. You’re a journalist. For which newspaper? The guy I met with yesterday wrote for some online thing. I didn’t like him.”
“I’m an investigative journalist,” Drew says. “And they’re all online things now. I have a podcast.”
She munches on a chip. “I’m not even sure I know what that is.”
He briefly explains it. “I focus on one story at a time and usually break it down over six to eight episodes.”
“And people actually listen to this?”
“Three million of them do, yes.”
Ruby seems impressed by the number. “So you’re here to make me the focus of your next one?”
“Not exactly, though I admit the #MeToo twist is interesting.”
She smiles again. “Of all the people I thought would vilify me at my parole hearing, I assumed it would be Charles’s children. His son certainly had some vicious things to say to the parole board, but it turned out that Lexi was on my side.”
“And what side is that?” Drew knows the answer already, but he wants to hear it from her.
“The victim side, of course. Charles was the president of the bank. I was a lowly customer service rep. He shouldn’t have even noticed me, except he was a predator. I saw him a few times at the coffee shop when I was with my daughter. It’s probably why he targeted me.”
Wrong. You targeted him. You made sure you were at the Second Cup whenever he was. That came up at the trial.
Ruby sighs. “At the time, he was wonderfully charming.”
“It didn’t bother you that he was married?”
“Not even a little bit. His life, his wife, his choices.” She eats another potato chip. “Anyway, about a year ago, Lexi wrote about her father on her lifestyle blog. I still can’t believe that’s a real job—writing about your own life on the internet.” She rolls her eyes. “She sent me a print copy here in prison. I found it very eye-opening. It turns out her father molested her, like he did Joey.”
You placed Joey right in his path.
“In her letter, Lexi said she forgave me, and that a part of her was glad he was dead. She’s now estranged from her mother, you know. When Lexi went public with the story last year, Suzanne cut her off.”
That part, Drew did not know.
“And then, of course, once that blog went everywhere—and oh, there’s a word for that—”
“Viral.”
“When her blog went viral, a whole bunch of women who’d worked for Charles came forward. They all had terrible stories. One even said Charles raped her, in his office, after everyone went home for the night. And just like that, Charles goes from victim to villain.”
Ruby hides her smile behind a sip of water.