I mean it, and I hope he feels that in my kiss when I lift my face to his.
When we pull apart, he rubs my upper arms and says, “All right. Timbuktu it is. But there’s something I need to handle first. Can you manage being here on your own for a few hours?”
“Of course,” I say. “I can pack up while you do whatever it is you need to do. I’m sure the rest of them will be busy making arrangements for Nelle, so they probably won’t even notice I’m here.”
Cam nods, but his mind is already somewhere else, I can tell.
“I’m going to shower and change, and then I’ll head out. I should be back by dark.”
I blink, shocked to realize that it’s already noon. Time had stopped meaning anything once we’d gone into Ruby’s room and Camden told me what had happened there ten years ago.
I want to ask Cam where he’s going, but, more than that, I want him to tell me himself.
Instead, he kisses my cheek and makes his way to the bathroom.
I start folding Ruby’s letters, and he pauses, turning back around. “Do me a favor while I’m gone? Get rid of those. Burn them, shove them down the garbage disposal, whatever. But I don’t want anyone else to see them. Ever.”
* * *
ONCE CAM IS out of the house, I take my own shower and change, then start gathering our things. It’s hard to believe we’ve been here less than a week. I feel like a different person than the Jules who rode up here, full of anticipation and plans, excited to settle into her husband’s home.
It doesn’t take long until the room is clear of all our things. Except for Ruby’s letters.
I hold them in my hand for a moment, remembering Cam’s instructions to destroy them, and I hesitate for a moment before shoving them into the bottom of my bag.
Just one more thing to do now.
Ruby’s office is quiet and dim, the door barely creaking as I push it open and make my way over to the desk.
The whole house is quiet, in fact. The coroner came for Nelle while Cam and I were in Ruby’s room, and Ben had followed them to the funeral home. Libby had been so upset that she’d taken an Ambien and gone back to bed.
That was hours ago, but I haven’t heard anyone return, and when I glance out the window, I see that Cecilia’s car isn’t in its usual spot.
It’s possible that I’m completely alone in the house, but I still try to be as quick and as quiet as I can as I slide open the top drawer of her desk.
My heart leaps at the sight of that familiar paper, but the pages are all blank, and the other drawers are nearly empty, like I’d known they’d almost certainly be.
Fuck.
I straighten up, looking around the office for another hiding place. But the thing with fancy offices in mansions belonging to homicidal heiresses is that everything looks like a hiding place. For all I know, I could go pull one of the books on the far wall and an entire room would open up.
Still, I move in that direction, my fingers dragging along the spines, looking for anything likely.
I’ve just picked up The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám—Ruby strikes me as both vain enough and potentially crazy enough to choose something that sounds like her own name as a hiding place—when a shadow falls across the shelf.
“Stuffing your pockets with valuables before you slink out of town?”
Ben stands there, still in the suit he’d worn to accompany Nelle’s body to the funeral home, that blinding grin on his face.
“Just looking for something to read,” I lie, and he winks at me.
“I liked you, you know. Thought you had spunk.”
Of course, he did.
“I didn’t like you. I thought you were a dick,” I reply, and his grin widens as he points at me.
“See? That’s what I’m talking about. A straight shooter!”
If he does finger guns at me, I swear to god––
“Kapow!”
He blows imaginary smoke from the tip of his finger, and I grit my teeth.
“Really cheerful for a man whose grandmother just died,” I tell him, and finally, he drops some of that Good Ol’ Boy bullshit.
“She lived a long life and died happy in her bed. None of us could wish better for someone we love.”
“Right, because love is in such abundant supply in this family.”
I head for the door, frustrated and anxious. This was my one chance, and now it’s gone. It’s already late in the afternoon, Cam will be back soon, and then we’ll never step foot in this house again. This will become Ben’s office, probably, and what if he finds––