28. Ruby
twenty-eight
I am pacing in the foyer when Cassius walks in the door with Garrett behind him.
They’re both pale, but while Garrett looks as though he might fall, Cassius looks like an addict, jittery and anxious. His eyes don’t meet mine; they flit around the room without focus, which is unusual and unnerving. He always looks at me, even on the brink of death.
The air is thick with silence as I wait for him to say something, anything. Instead, he makes his way to the bar in the kitchen and grabs a bottle of tequila. He doesn’t pour a glass or a shot. No, Cassius lifts the bottle to his lips and drinks.
In my hand, my phone rings, breaking up the fog that chokes us. I blow out my breath and slide the green button over to answer it.
Here we fucking go.
“Rubes, I didn’t miss anything, I promise. I don’t know who she is,” Rowan says before I can say hello.
I shift my eyes to Cassius, who squeezes his gray eyes shut, and when he opens them, they are glazed, vapid. He takes another sip of the tequila, his knuckles white from gripping the bottle, and then slams the bottle on the counter.
“Rowan, perfect timing.” I prop my phone up on the kitchen counter so she can see all of us.
Putting my hands on my hips, I look pointedly at Cassius, who is now leaning on his elbows on the island, his chin in his hands. “One of you better start talking. Who is Hannah?”
Cassius shifts his gaze first to Rowan, then to me, and finally to Garrett, settling there.
“She’s supposed to be dead,” he says.
“She is dead,” Garrett adds.
“But it was a closed casket.”
“Dead or not dead, I need facts fellas,” Rowan commands from the screen, “because Cassius, none of my research even mentioned a Hannah.”
Garrett cracks his knuckles. “It doesn’t make sense, Cass. If she was alive, she would have contacted me. Right? I mean, I loved her, and she loved me. We loved each other. Fuck, I still love her. I always have.”
“Facts,” Rowan yells. Has she ever yelled before? I rack my brain and can’t think of a single time. “Stick to the facts.”
Cassius straightens to standing and drags his hand over his face in defeat or frustration, I can’t tell. “Her name was … is Hannah Flemming. When we were teenagers, she and Garrett were in love.”
“There is no Hannah Flemming in my research,” Rowan says matter-of-factly.
“Because what you’re seeing is made up.” Garrett moves closer to the tablet. “You’re good, I’ll give you that, but apparently not that good.”
“We grew up in New Mexico, close to the border,” Cassius says. “In a city called Echolls.”
Rowan bites the inside of her cheek, the clacking of the keyboard in front of her the only indication she heard any of what they said. How could she have possibly missed this?
“We grew up in the Row.” Cassius meets my eyes. “I didn’t lie about that. We grew up and got out of some really shit situations.”
“Hannah,” Garrett winces as if only saying her name causes him physical pain. “She was good. Too good for me, and her dad let everyone know it.”
“Got it.” Rowan interrupts. “According to this article, Hannah got on the city bus and was later found on the front porch of a house, raped and murdered,” she fills us all in, her fingers still typing a mile a minute.
“His house,” Garrett says, gesturing to Cassius.
“They arrested a couple teens for it, but no charges were ever made,” Rowan says from the screen.
“Us,” Cassius says.
“You’re Christopher Cruz and Gavin Sharp?” Rowan asks.
The men nod. “Our names were everywhere.” Garrett explains, “It took a lot of time and a lot of money for us to fabricate new identities, because we couldn’t just change our names. We needed foolproof backgrounds. Apparently, it worked.”
“Are we forgetting the fact that she’s dead?” Rowan asks. “I am staring at her obituary. Rubes, I’m sending it to your phone now.”
“So, it was a closed casket?” I ask, repeating what they said earlier, while I wait for the obituary to come through. “But Cassius, why would she want you dead? None of this makes sense.”
“She was at the club,” Garrett answers. “She’s alive.” He leans back in his stool, color coming back into his cheeks. His bright eyes close briefly before opening again. His gaze flits between his best friend, the assassin, and the girl on my phone. He stands abruptly, knocking the stool over.
Cassius moves to the other side of the island.
“She,” Garrett points at me and then Cassius, his hand shaking, the vein in his forehead prominent. “She’s right, what did you do? Why the fuck does Hannah want you dead?” He picks the bottle of tequila up off the counter and throws it on the floor next to Cassius. Glass skitters across the floor and what was left of the tequila pools at Cassius’ feet.
“G.” Cassius’ shoulders drop. “I’m sorry, I never wanted it to go that far. I never, I never thought they would follow through.”
“Who would follow through? With what?” Garrett raises his voice, stepping into Cassius’ personal space. He’s not as big as Cassius, but the fear and anger radiating off him makes him a threat. Cassius shrinks back as regret takes over his features.
“It’s all my fault.” Cassius takes a step back from Garrett, broken glass crunching beneath his feet, and grips the back of his neck with his hand. “I hustled the wrong people.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
“You were so wrapped up in Hannah, and I was bored, man.” Cassius winces at his own admission, shrinking smaller with every word. “I played cards with some people, men in suits. I don’t fucking know who they were, but I knew they were important. Their suits, G, they cost more than anything we owned.”
Garrett doesn’t move. His fists clench at his sides and the vein in his neck throbs, but his feet remain planted.
“The guy Neil that was hanging around my mom at the time, you remember him? He told me where I could find their game. So, I went. And I played. I lost the first few rounds, on purpose, of course. And then I won, and I kept fucking winning. I could taste it, G. Freedom. For both of us.”
“What the actual fuck,” Garrett spits. “What does this have to do with Hannah?”
“The next day, they must have put two and two together and went after Neil. Neil gave me up. Told them I was a cheat. They pounded down the fucking door, held a fucking gun to my head, and told me I had twenty-four hours to give the money back, or they’d kill my girl. I didn’t have a girl, so it didn’t matter to me.”
Cassius pauses. His Adam's apple bobs as he swallows. “When we found Hannah, I realized that Neil must have thought she was mine because the two of us hung at the house a lot while we waited for you to get out of school. He must have thought…” He pinches his eyes closed and takes a deep breath. “He must have told them about Hannah. It’s the only thing I can think of.” He looks at Garrett. “I’m so sorry G.”
“You piece of fucking shit.” Garrett shoves Cassius, “How could you keep this from me?”
“I thought you would blame me, and you should. I never should have played with them in the first place.”
Garrett steps back, turning away from Cassius. It happens in a flash, one second, he’s walking away and the next the two are on the ground, Garrett with the upper hand but only because Cassius is still. He takes the beating as his penance, as if living with the knowledge has not been enough.
“I should fucking kill you myself!” Garrett is purple with rage; his veins threaten to burst with every hit he throws at Cassius. “You were supposed to be my best friend.”
“I am,” Cassius gurgles, blood sputtering from lips. “I didn’t know G, I swear.”
“Rubes, stop them. I need facts,” Rowan yells from her screen.
I pull a blade from my waistband and touch the cold steel to Garrett’s throat.
“Enough,” I say. “We have work to do.” Using my blade, I point to the stools and then to the men. “Sit. Now.”
I know that my feelings for Cassius should make me feel sympathetic to his injuries, but instead I find myself turned on. I want to drag my tongue over the cut on his lip, to feel the roughness beneath my touch. I wonder if he would lay there and take it while I did unspeakable things to him.
“Did the men ever come back looking for the money?” I ask.
Cassius shakes his head. “No. I kept expecting them to, but they never did.”
“While you two were acting like children,” Rowan says, “I’ve been going through her obituary line by line looking for anything that could help us. The first thing that’s odd is that there isn’t a picture, and even a thorough search of her doesn’t bring one up.”
“Her dad was into some shit, international business shit,” Garrett supplies. “He was very private and forced the girls to be private too.”
“After they didn’t come back for the money, I started to wonder if the suits knew her dad, and realized they fucked up,” Cassius offers a shrug. “Or maybe it was on purpose, and their play with me was just a cover.”
“I’ll look into it. But here’s the other thing,” Rowan continues, “the obit is clean. Like, it says that Hannah Flemming died, but services were for close family only and doesn’t mention any of them by name.”
“If it was a closed service, how do the two of you know it was a closed casket?” I ask.
“We blackmailed the funeral director to let us in before the family,” Cassius answers.
“He was having an affair with his wife’s sister,” Garrett says. “It was child’s play.”
“You said girls.” Rowan backtracks.
I throw Cassius a dish towel from the drawer, and he uses it to wipe the blood from his face. His eye is puffy, and I think his nose needs to be reset. Again.
“Hannah had… has? A sister,” Cassius offers. “I don’t remember her name, though.”
“Sophie,” Garrett supplies. “She and Hannah were like eight or nine years apart.”
The three of us stare at the phone, the rhythmic tapping of Rowan’s keyboard the only noise in the room.
“She doesn’t exist. How is that possible?” Rowan lets out a frustrated groan. “And why are there no fucking pictures? Rubes, I’m going to need a little time to get into the county database, see if I can pull up the case file on Hannah.”
Garrett digs into his pocket, pulling out his wallet. “I have a picture. Of Hannah, I mean, but I don’t know how much good it will do. It’s pretty beat up.”
“And you just thought of this now? I could have been running facial recognition this entire fucking time.” Rowan bobs her head forward. “And you call yourself a genius.”
“Excuse me if I’m rattled after the ghost of the only girl I’ve ever loved made a fucking appearance tonight,” Garrett bites back. “And the guy who’s supposed to be a brother, is the fucking reason why.” He removes a photo strip from his wallet and slides it across the counter to me without looking at it. It’s from a photo booth. The kind where two teenagers kiss and laugh.
Four black and white pictures. In them, the man in front of me is no more than a child. There are deep creases across his features, where the strip has been folded and unfolded over the years. Some of the finish has rubbed off in places, evidence of time gone by. He never once looks at the camera, his eyes stay firmly planted only on the girl. It makes me think that he sees her through the torn edges, through the creases. He folds and unfolds, and opens out of habit, to feel close to her, not because he forgets. He must see her every time he closes his eyes. “Is this all you have?” I ask Garrett.
He nods and reaches for it, but instead of handing it back to him, I snap a photo and text it to Rowan.
“Work your magic with that, Row.”
A ping sounds and she stretches her arms out, cracks her knuckles, then moves her head side to side as if preparing for a fight. Always the theatrics. We watch as she takes in the photo. Her face pales, and her features go slack.
“Rubes,” her voice is barely a whisper. “This is a problem.” She puts a finger to her lips and looks over her shoulder like someone might be standing behind her. “I’ll call you back,” she says, and the screen goes black.