Things We Do in the Dark(55)

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.

“It’s funny how quickly the narrative can change,” she says. “No longer is he the good man who was stalked by an obsessed home-wrecker. Now he’s the pedophile who molested his own daughter, the powerful man who assaulted the women who worked for him.”

“You realize that both those things can be true,” Drew says. “He can be a sexual predator, and you can be the psychopath who murdered him when he tried to end your affair.”

Ruby pauses, then shrugs. “Whatever. There’s nothing to be done about it now. Charles is dead.”

“Because you killed him.”

She eats another chip.

“How did you convince the parole board to let you out?” Drew asks.

“I didn’t,” Ruby says. “Lexi did. She came to my parole hearing and spoke out in support of me. She told the board that while her father’s murder was not okay, she understood the rage behind it. She said as far as she was concerned, her father was a criminal himself, and were he alive today, he would most certainly be in prison. She said I deserved compassion, and that twenty-five years behind bars was long enough. She was very compelling.”

She gives Drew a wide smile. “The whole thing was very dramatic. Suzanne Baxter stood up and called her daughter a liar. Lexi then accused her mother of being complicit. And then, as Lexi was walking out, Suzanne spit on her. Imagine that? Horrible mother.”

Takes one to know one.

“Is all this going into your podcast?” Ruby asks. “Because I’d be happy to say it again, if you ever want to record it.”

“Maybe some of it,” Drew says. “But let’s be honest. Enough has been said about you.”

She frowns. “Then why are you here?”

“I want to talk about your daughter, Joey.”

“Wait a minute.” Ruby puts down the potato chip bag and cocks her head. “I know who you are now. My sister told me that after Joey left Maple Sound—and stole all their money, by the way—that she moved back to our old neighborhood. That she was living with some Black guy and his girlfriend.”

Drew raises a hand. “Some Black guy.”

“So were you two fucking?”

Ah. There you are. The first real glimpse of the Ice Queen. It’s strangely satisfying, and Drew can’t resist a smile.

“My girlfriend? Yes.”

“What about you and Joey?”

“We were just very good friends.”

“Friends who fucked.”

“Never happened.”

“But you wanted it to.”

“Why wouldn’t I? She was beautiful.”

Ruby stiffens. “So you must have been really sad when she died.”

“Devastated.” Drew holds her gaze. “Weren’t you?”

“Of course I was.” She looks away briefly. “No mother wants to outlive her child.”

Please. You’d have thrown Joey overboard if the two of you were in a leaky canoe and only one of you could make it to shore.

“No matter what you think about me, I loved my daughter,” Ruby says.

“You had an interesting way of showing it.”

“I wasn’t perfect,” she snaps. “But neither was she.”

“She was a kid. She didn’t need to be.”