She dropped the gun into a paper sack, buried it in her backpack, and methodically tore the room apart. The tape wasn’t there. However, in the closet she found boxes of bullets for his numerous guns. She took back the box she’d bought for her gun, but she had no idea which bullets fit his gun she’d taken. She opened the boxes, one by one, and kept trying bullets until she hit paydirt on the eleventh box she checked. She took exactly five bullets. Five chances. Five. She would make sure it was enough.
She opened the door to his bedroom and grimaced. She’d found the source of the smell.
His childish furniture from his old house was here, and there were dirty clothes and glasses and take-out boxes and bags with caked on food strewn about on the floor. His twin bed was unmade, the crimson, satin bedding twisted and crumpled and baring a corner of his stained, bare mattress. She’d had his penis in her mouth! Stomach heaving, she forced the thought from her mind.
She looked around the room with despair. If that tape was here, it would take a miracle to find it. It could be buried under any number of piles of clothes and God knows what else. She set her jaw. Well. She’d just have to look under every pile of clothes and God knows what until she either got the tape or made sure it wasn’t there.
She took another picture and checked his closet first. It wasn’t there. Not much was. A few hanging suits, but most of his clothes were dirty and strewn on the floor.
She lifted his mattress and smiled. Aha! The tape wasn’t there, but there was a fat yellow envelope. How suspicious! She braced the mattress on her shoulder, reached down and pulled it out. The flap on the envelope wasn’t sealed, and a stack of photographs fell out and scattered onto the floor.
They were pictures of her.
She dropped the mattress and spent a few tense moments trying to gather the photos with her mittens on. When she’d finally scooped them into a pile, she sat on the edge of his bed and went through them one by one. It was difficult going, but she couldn’t risk taking off her mittens.
In the first picture, she sat at her drafting table sketching, with a thoughtful expression on her face. Her hair was pulled back in a long ponytail, and she wasn’t wearing makeup. Then she came to a series of her going up and down her porch steps. Sometimes she had a bicycle, other times trash or a backpack, but she’d been utterly unaware that she was being photographed.
And then she saw one of her sleeping and she shivered. So, he’d been inside her house at night. The covers were pulled up to her chin, but she could see a bare shoulder, and she knew she was naked underneath. She didn’t always sleep naked, only sometimes, so she didn’t know what day these were taken, but she had her new haircut—which she’d only had for a little over a week.
She knew it hadn’t been taken last night because last night she’d slept in flannel. She could almost guess what was coming, but it was still a shock to see her naked body asleep in bed with the covers pulled down to her ankles. He’d taken a whole series of her at her most vulnerable, and then she’d pulled up into a fetal position, and that was the last picture he’d taken that night.
Her hands were shaking. Why hadn’t she woken up? He could have killed her while she slept! Where had her protective instincts gone? It wasn’t safe for her to stay at her house anymore. Maybe she could stay with Hilary until Jeremy was in jail? Thank goodness she’d already disabled her garage door.
The next few pictures were boring in comparison. They showed her washing dishes, talking on the phone, asleep on her couch under her afghan…
She jumped up, about ready to set this place on fire and call it good. Her gaze fell upon the last picture, which had been taken at Mona’s. She stood in the middle of the crowded cafe with her pink uniform on and her thick hair in a huge, messy updo. She looked young and pretty with her hip jutted out as she took an order. She recognized the other girl in the picture. Her name was…Gretchen? And she’d been Jeremy’s girlfriend at the time. She was smiling enormously, and for a moment, Ruby thought that he’d been taking pictures of his girlfriend and had only accidentally included her in the picture too. Then she turned it over, and he’d written, “Ruby Deardon. Beautiful. Something to think about.”
She looked again at the first picture of her, at her desk with her long hair in a ponytail, and it finally hit her. When she’d met him last week, she’d just cut her hair. Like earlier that same day. When had he taken this? Just how long had he been stalking her?
She shoved the photos in her backpack and slipped the empty envelope back under the mattress. He’d know she’d broken in here, but he wouldn’t be able to prove it. And she couldn’t let him keep the pictures.
Next, she got down on her hands and knees and peered under the bed. The only thing under there was a huge stack of hard-core porn magazines. Why were they under his bed? Who was he hiding them from? His mother was dead, and he was a grown man with no children and no roommates. If he wanted, he could keep his porn the coffee table for casual reading. How did anyone get so messed up? She flipped rapidly through the stack, shaking out each magazine in turn, to make sure nothing was hidden within their pages. They were clean, but she was filthy and glad for her mittens.
She crawled around on the floor and made sure that she checked every single disgusting pile in the room for the tape or his phone or a digital camera. …No luck.
She went into his bathroom and caught her reflection in the mirror. She stopped and gazed at it, horrified. She looked like an escaped mental patient.
The whites of her eyes had little red lines in them, probably from when he’d choked her last night. Her black eye had darkened considerably—was her other eye going black as well? Her cheek looked like she was chewing a wad of gum. There was a sharp purple bruise following the lines of her cheekbone, with a faint yellow bruise underneath it. Her temple was purple, and her neck had half-moon cuts from his fingernails and bruises from his thumbs. How had she missed that earlier?
She pulled up her sleeves and each upper arm had a perfect set of fingertip bruises. …She was a mess, and Sean’s surprise party was tomorrow! She was supposed to meet all his friends, and she looked like she’d been in a bar fight!
Jeremy was going to pay for this.
She emptied the trash and his hamper, checked the toilet tank, the shower and his medicine cabinet, which contained self-tanning lotion and a tube of prescription medication to make your eyelashes grow—Ha! She’d known his looks were fake!
Her tape wasn’t in the bathroom.
His living room was a sty. His window seat mirrored hers, and it overlooked her deck and garage. He had pillows piled by the window and…was that her blanket? It was! He must’ve stolen it out of her linen closet.
He’d made himself a cozy nest to spy on her.
Crumpled fast food bags littered the floor, and there were empty beer and water bottles scattered about. The carpet had a sticky, purple stain, and he’d turned his TV so he could watch it while he watched her.
He had a desk with an old desktop computer, but it was password protected. Dammit! Should she unplug it and leave with the tower?
She didn’t see a laptop, which bothered her. Everyone had computers these days, where was his? Did he take it to work in his briefcase? She took another picture.
An expensive camera with a telephoto lens sat on the cushion to the window seat. She picked it up, turned it on, and found 253 pictures. She sat and took the time to go through all of them. They were mostly of her. In many she still had long hair. She didn’t linger until she came to picture number 236. She stared at the picture, and bit her lip hard enough to draw blood, trying to keep her panic at bay. Her hands trembled uncontrollably, so she set the camera down and rubbed her mittens rapidly up and down her thighs, trying not to hyperventilate.
It was a picture of her hosing down her car, date stamped after she’d told the police it had already been stolen. By him. The picture showed only the back of her car, so no damage was visible, but it’s very existence could send her to the gas
chamber if the police saw it. He could really hurt her with this. She shivered again. Why hadn’t he mentioned this to Ben Trumpower? Jeremy had a picture that backed up his story that he’d seen her washing her car that morning.
…Unless he watched her so much that he’d gotten his days and times mixed up? Or he knew stalking was illegal and he didn’t realize what, exactly, he’d captured?
She flipped rapidly forward and found five more pictures in the series. She flipped through to the end to make sure there were no other incriminating pictures before carefully deleting pictures 236-241. She pocketed the Sim card before shoving the camera into her pack. It was a nicer model than her own Canon.
Jeremy obviously didn’t know those pictures were important. Don’t panic. She thought of something else, and her heart started pounding in her chest. What if he had pictures or video of her driving her car into her garage the night she’d killed Tara? If they were on his cellphone, she’d never find them. She pounded her fists together as she fought for control. Breathe slow. You can fix this. Find his computer, look for any phones or cameras, look for sim cards, jump drives…this was an impossible task! One fire was out, but an inferno threatened to engulf her.
She resumed her search. She just needed to be more thorough than the police would be. She set her shoulders. She could do that. She would do it.
The apology she’d written to him was sitting on his coffee table, and she pocketed it quickly. There was a card made out to her and the envelope wasn’t sealed yet. She picked it up apprehensively, but it was only a birthday card with a “Love, Jeremy. XOXOXO signature. He knew her birthday. It didn’t surprise her. She set the card back down exactly where she’d picked it up.
Next, she looked through his movies. He didn’t have a VCR or any tapes (thank God), but he had a lot of porn on DVD, and a series of unmarked, homemade DVDs.
She popped one labeled LC in his DVD player, bracing for porn. Instead, it showed a gorgeous redhead sitting behind a computer in an office of some sort. The video was filmed from outside, looking in through a window.
Ruby watched for a minute, completely puzzled. What was the purpose of this video? She turned it off. Was the redhead her elusive Ms. Cosway? Neither of the women she’d emailed had written back. She’d probably never know.
Had Jeremy made any movies of her? She didn’t have time to look through all of them, but none had the initials RD. …But, many were not labeled. She shuddered and moved on.
She was searching his kitchen drawers when Hilary’s ringtone went off. She answered immediately. “Is he coming?”
“No, but I’m bored just sitting here,” Hilary whined. “I thought this was going to be exciting but it’s not. How long do I have to stay here, anyway?”
“Just a few more hours. Uh, Jinxy!” she said, hoping to get Hilary back into the spirit of the adventure.
It didn’t work. “This isn’t fun. I’m hungry and thirsty, and my phone’s almost dead and I have to pee.”
It had been less than two hours! “I’ll make it up to you, I swear,” Ruby promised, struggling to keep her voice even. Hilary was such a whiner.
“I searched his car—you’re welcome. He didn’t bother to lock it, and the tape wasn’t there. And I checked everywhere I could think of. Under the seats and in the trunk and glove box and with the spare tire. Did you find it yet?”
“No, but I found other stuff,” Ruby said, and filled her in on some of it.
“Ruby, be careful!” He’s psychotic!”
“I’ll call you when I’m done.”
She went back to her task. Beside his phone she found his address book. She was in it, but he only had her old home phone number.
Next, she looked up Lauren Cosway. There were four phone numbers listed for her, and two addresses. All local, so she’d emailed two strangers with her problems. Oh well. …She took a picture of the page. Underneath Lauren’s name he’d scrawled, “CUNT!” in all caps.
She needed his home number, so she googled how to tell what number you were calling from on a landline and found an article on just that. How had people lived before Google? She dialed a number and an automated voice gave her a number, which she put in her notes on her phone.
She opened the little drawer in his coffee table and found her missing keys! He’d poked a bread twist tie into a note that said “Ruby,” which he’d twisted around the ring. She pocketed them, then decided against it. These needed to be found by the police. She also found two jump drives inside and pocketed both.
She finally found his laptop hidden underneath a pile of newspapers on one of his spindly, uncomfortable chairs.
…It wasn’t password protected. She felt like cheering.
She nosed around for a bit, not sure what she was looking for but trying to hurry. As soon as she left, she was going to run it over and toss it in a dumpster. There was just no telling what incriminating stuff he could’ve hidden on it.
She looked in his documents and found a list of his passwords, which included his desktop computer password, email passwords, and his Apple ID. She quickly looked up on her phone how to permanently delete an iCloud and followed the instructions, only to read a bit more and realize his information would still be stored in and retrievable from his online trash can. Fuck. A bit more research showed that the only way to be sure she got everything, was to delete his entire Apple ID, which she promptly did. It wasn’t her stuff she was deleting, and Jeremy deserved it.
She went on Chrome, and Facebook opened immediately to her page.
She had lots of friends she didn’t know on Facebook because she was a cartoonist, but she had to accept someone’s friend request for them to access her page. Which meant they were Facebook friends. She shivered. Since when?
She googled “How to find out how long you’ve been Facebook friends with someone” and found they’d been friends for four years. She had no memory of accepting him.
She was about to block him when Hilary called again.
“I’m almost done. I’m leaving in a minute,” she said into the phone as she slammed his laptop shut and shoved it into her backpack.
“You better be,” Hilary said and hung up.
A little voice whispered in her ear that he could easily have hidden a second laptop in his briefcase, and he owned at least one other house in town…
She unplugged the tower from his desktop computer and set it beside the back door. She couldn’t take any chances here.
The only room left to check was his garage, and she did this quickly. There were only three things inside. His black SUV, a wheelbarrow and a lawn mower. There was a door in the back of the garage though, and it opened to his workroom. It was also mostly empty, though there was a bench along the back wall, and the two garbage bags he’d stolen from her backyard were on the floor in front of it.
It was one thing to suspect he’d taken them, and quite another to actually find her trash in his house. The open bags seemed to contain all of her real trash. Her bottles, cans, coffee filters, banana peels were piled neatly inside. The workbench was covered in a layer of newspapers and spread out on top was her personal trash.
Her crumpled receipts and recently paid bills. Her bank statements. There was a blue notebook opened to a list of her account numbers. She flipped through it. He had a list of her deposits from her syndicate. Lists of food she’d purchased including the brand names. He had a list of her most frequently called phone numbers, including the private cell number of her editor Hal in New York. He knew so much about her; he must have gone through her trash multiple times before. He’d gleaned all this from stuff she’d just casually tossed away.
She was buying a shredder.
Next to all of this, was a copy of ScuttleBUZZ opened to the article on her, and a note he was trying to piece together that she’d doodled about Sean. She’d torn it up, it was just daydreaming nonsense, but Jeremy had obviously spent time piecing it together like a puzzle. She saw the words, “Mrs. Sean Chaplin, and Mrs. Ru
by Chaplin, scrawled in her best handwriting, and she felt so violated, she furiously wiped away tears.
She left the magazine and gathered the rest of the stuff up and stuffed it into her pack. She left the garbage bags. He could keep her trash.
She’d spent hours inside his house, and she’d been incredibly thorough in her search. She was certain her tape wasn’t there. That meant he’d taken it to his office.
She adjusted her heavy backpack on her shoulder, grabbed his tower, left his house, and locked the door behind her.
She’d go relieve Hilary from her shift. But first, she needed to shower again, change clothes, turn her doorbell camera back on, and find her picnic basket.
She remembered how much Jeremy liked picnics.
CHAPTER 32
When Ruby finally arrived in Old Towne, it was after one o’clock, and her nerves were shot. She was about to drop from exhaustion.
The Uber driver left Ruby right beside Hilary’s van, and her friend didn’t wave or smile, even after they made eye contact. Hilary was seething. Ruby didn’t need this scene. Well. The trick with Hilary was to just keep talking and not admit any wrongdoing, and eventually Hilary would drop it rather than confront her. Things would be okay.
She went around to the passenger side door, and Hilary clicked the door lock up without moving or looking over at her. Ruby got in and said, “You won’t believe the day I’ve had!”
“Why are you dressed like that?” Hilary asked mildly. “Your face doesn’t look bad at all. A little swollen, maybe. I thought you said he beat you up? …I take that back. Close up, you look terrible!”
“I have a lot of makeup on,” Ruby said, touching her face. “Talk about being dressed up, you look great!” In fact, Hilary looked gorgeous, as usual. She wore a filmy white dress, and she had her hair up in a sleek ponytail. She looked like she’d stepped out of a perfume ad, which meant she’d been dressed like this, for no reason, in her own house at 8:30 that morning. Ruby did not understand Hilary’s commitment to fashion.
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