Things We Do in the Dark(22)

In light of this wonderful change in circumstance, I think it makes sense to increase the original amount I requested. I’ll need somewhere to live once I’m back in the regular world, and I’ve heard Toronto real estate is very expensive now. I feel an amount of three million dollars is appropriate for a fresh start.

I have several interviews lined up in the coming weeks, and what I say to those journalists will depend entirely on whether you’ve paid me what I’m owed. It’s the least you can do, considering what you’ve taken from me.

In my next letter, I will send you the information for the bank account where you can wire the money.

My warmest regards,

Ruby

P.S. I sent you a photo. Thought you might like a reminder of the life you decided to destroy.

P.P.S. Perhaps, once our transaction is complete, you’ll tell me the story of how you became Paris. In particular, I’m dying to know whose ashes are in the urn with your real name on it.

Paris drops the letter onto the coffee table. No. It can’t be true. Ruby Reyes cannot actually be getting out of prison. The Ice Queen received a life sentence for the brutal murder of her wealthy, married lover, a crime that made headlines back in Toronto in the nineties. In what fucked-up world could someone like that make parole? And in what fucked-up world would any journalist want to hear what Ruby Reyes has to say about anything?

With shaking hands, Paris grabs her new iPhone. The woman is a liar, after all, and until she sees it for herself, she won’t believe a word Ruby says. Opening Safari, she googles Ruby Reyes Ice Queen Toronto.

But, oh God, it’s true. There it is, in the Toronto Star. Everything after the headline and first few sentences is behind a paywall, but there’s enough of the article showing to confirm that Ruby isn’t lying. They really are letting her out, and in all the ways Paris’s mind permutated the possibilities of what might happen once she left Toronto, Ruby Reyes being released had never once occurred to her. The woman was convicted of first-degree murder. The Ice Queen was supposed to die in prison.

In her first letter, Ruby asked Paris for a million dollars. A few months ago, that had seemed utterly ridiculous. What does an inmate serving a life sentence need a million bucks for? How much can commissary snacks cost? The only logical reason Paris could come up with for an ask like that was that Ruby wanted to fuck with her, to see if Paris would pay something to keep her quiet.

But now Ruby wants three million. And if Paris doesn’t pay her, everyone will know who Paris really is. And it won’t just be Jimmy’s death she’ll go down for.

The only thing worse than a murder charge? Two murder charges.

Paris closes her eyes and focuses on her breathing until she feels her heart rate beginning to slow. She reaches for the photo Ruby sent with the letter. Scrawled on the back in faded blue ink is Humber Bay Park, Toronto, 1982. Joey’s 3rd birthday.

The greenish-tinted photo is a perfect square with rounded edges. Ruby Reyes is sitting with her daughter, Joey, at a picnic table covered with a red-and-white-checkered cloth. There’s so much food—a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken, Styrofoam containers filled with bright green coleslaw and macaroni salad, a large bowl of white rice, a tray of fried lumpia with dipping sauce, and a cooler filled with cans of Tab and cream soda. There are also balloons, a birthday cake with three candles and pink icing, and a modest stack of brightly wrapped presents. Ruby’s sister and brother-in-law are in the background, laughing.

Ruby and her little girl are wearing matching yellow sundresses, each of them eating one half of a banana Popsicle, the kind you could split apart and share. They’re smiling at each other, their faces beaming with happiness in the sun. The love between mother and daughter in that moment is obvious, and it hurts Paris to look at it now. She runs a finger lightly over the little girl’s sweet face. Joey was so small in this photo, which was taken in better times.

It wasn’t like Paris planned to kill her. But neither was it an accident.

She places the photo back on the coffee table and brings the letter with her to the bathroom. Standing over the toilet, she rips it up into tiny pieces. It looks like purple confetti swirling around the bowl until it finally disappears.

Paris soaks a washcloth in cold water and presses it to her face, staring into the mirror. It was a risk not paying Ruby right after the first blackmail letter arrived. But she didn’t have the money, and asking Jimmy for it was not an option. Instead, she’d tried to fix things on her own, but her plan to retrieve the urn filled with the ashes that everyone assumes are hers did not go as she’d hoped.

If she doesn’t pay Ruby the money, all her secrets will come out.

She’s worked so hard to shed her old identity and become Paris. Most days, it feels like she’s succeeded, that she has reinvented herself. But at night, in her dreams, it’s nineteen years ago, and she’s back in Toronto, in that dingy basement apartment with the checkerboard floors, staring at the ravaged body and bloody face of the young woman who was her best friend, her eyes pleading and desperate, her voice raspy and weak.

She had begged at the end.

Please, she had whispered. Please.

Paris walks back out to the living room and picks up the photo once again. She thought she’d left this picture behind on the night of the fire, the night she stepped out of one life and into another.

She thought she’d left this photo to burn, along with the girl in the urn.