“You need to see something.”
She pulls me out of Ruby’s room and down the hall, back to our bedroom, and picks up a sheaf of paper from the nightstand. Even without her letterhead at the top, I’d know it was from Ruby’s desk. I’d seen that heavy, cream-colored vellum my whole life, done my fucking algebra homework on it.
“The other day when I was in Ruby’s office, looking through photo albums, I … okay, I took the snooping a little too far, and went through her desk. I found these.”
Letters. Not addressed to anyone, but I can hear Ruby’s voice as my eyes scan the first line.
Well, darling, here we are.
“I took them out because I thought they must be to you, but I didn’t read them until last night. I couldn’t sleep, and after I read them, well … then I really couldn’t sleep.”
Pages and pages, written in Ruby’s careful, neat hand, all dated in the days just before she died.
I’ve never seen them before.
I don’t want to read them, I don’t want Ruby’s voice in my head, and I try to hand them back to Jules. “It doesn’t matter,” I tell her, but she patiently shoves the papers back at me, her hazel eyes imploring.
“It does, Cam,” she says softly. “I promise you.”
I’m exhausted, drained, but I sit on the edge of the bed, willing to humor her.
I read the first page, then the second. Three more, five more.
Page after page, confession after confession, Ruby’s familiar, chatty voice, and then all these nightmares, all this death. I feel heavy with it, weighed down with the knowledge of who this woman, the only mother I’d ever known, really was.
But right behind all of that?
Relief.
Because now I know. The rumors, the whispers, the secret Google searches at the library, the guilt for suspecting that the woman who raised me was a murderer making my palms sweat and my stomach ache.
All of it was true.
What’s more, I feel like I understand her better now. She did these things, and she wanted to tell me about them because I was her son, and she thought I deserved to know.
And then I get to the last letter and remember that nothing was ever that simple with Ruby.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Jules
I watch as Cam reads Ruby’s letters, waiting for him to say something, but when he’s finished, he just places the last page facedown on the growing stack beside him on the bed, his expression far away.
“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.”