Immediately, a shield falls over her face. “No. I’m busy.”

She turns away, but I yell her name sharply. “Ruby Myers, I’d like to ask you a few questions about the statement you gave in the Davidson murder.”

I can only see the side of her face, but it’s pale and stricken. Suspicion spikes through me.

“I-I got nothing to say,” she stutters, then puts her head down and rushes to a vehicle parked three spaces away.

I can only watch as she climbs in and speeds out of the parking lot.

“Did you see that?” Val demands.

I turn to find her at my elbow. “What? That I suck as an investigator?” I want to stomp my foot on the ground like a spoiled kid. “I couldn’t even get one answer out of her.”

“No. Did you see what she was driving?”

“God, not you, too. Reed was hassling me about not knowing the difference between a truck and a car. It was an SUV?”

“That’s a Lincoln Navigator and it runs about sixty grand. This one still has the showroom shine, it’s so new. You said she was a catering waitress, right? You’re telling me she just found a bunch of money?”

“You think someone paid her to lie about Reed?”

“Maybe?”

I think it over for a beat, then hiss out a breath. “There’s only one person who really has anything to gain by pinning this on Reed.”

“Who?”

I lock eyes with Val. “My stepmother.”

28

Ella

After I drop Val off at home, I immediately speed back to the hotel. It takes me all of two seconds to find Dinah. She’s lounging on the sofa when I storm in, her eyes glazed and her hair slightly mussed up.

“Where’s Steve?” I demand, glancing around. If I’m going to confront Dinah about possibly paying off Ruby Myers, then I don’t want an audience. Steve will just antagonize her, and then she’ll clam up.

Dinah lifts one shoulder, her barely-there nightgown sliding halfway down her slender arm. “Who knows? Probably buying a sixteen-year-old hooker down at the wharf. He likes them young, you know. I’m surprised he hasn’t crawled into your bed yet.”

Disgust fills my throat. “Do you do anything but sit on your ass all day?”

“Why, yes. I shop. I go to the gym. Sometimes I fuck your stepbrother, Gideon.” She laughs drunkenly.

I loom over the couch, my arms crossed, but a part of me is hesitating. My plan was to come out and confront her about Myers, but I don’t know how to start. How would she have paid Myers off? Cash, right? I wonder if Steve would let me look at their bank withdrawals. Or does she carry around a bunch of cash?

Instead of accusing her right off the bat, I decide to use a different approach. Drunk people have lower inhibitions. Maybe I can squeeze some information out of her without her knowing I’m even doing it.

So I sit on the opposite end of the couch and wait for her to keep talking.

“How was dance practice? You don’t look very sweaty.”

I shrug. “That’s because I quit.”

“Ha!” she exclaims way too loudly. She points a shaky finger in my direction. “I told Steve that you joined just so you could sleep with your boyfriend.”

I give another shrug. “What do you care what I do with Reed?”

“I don’t. I just enjoy making the Royals miserable. Your unhappiness is a little extra something special.”

“Nice,” I say sarcastically.

“Nice gets you nowhere,” she snarls. But then her whole face crumples, and for the first time since I walked in, I notice that besides smelling like a brewery, her eyes are rimmed with red.

“Are you okay?” I ask uneasily.

“No, I’m not okay,” Dinah snaps, except this time her voice shakes a little. “I miss Brooke. I really miss her. Why did she have to be so greedy and stupid?”

I swallow my shock. I can’t believe she’s the one who’s bringing it up! Okay, this is perfect. I sneak a hand into my pocket and fiddle with my phone. Do I have a recording app? Can I get Dinah to say something incriminating?

“What do you mean?”

Dinah’s eyes take on a faraway glimmer. “She said you were like us. Are you?”

“No,” I blurt out, and immediately regret it. Damn it. I should’ve said yes.

But Dinah seems too lost in her own world to notice my disagreement. “You need to be careful of those Royals. They’ll take you in and then stab you in the back.”

I watch my words this time. “How so?”

“It happened to me.”

Was this before or after you slept with Gideon? Before or after you decided to take down the Royals?

“How?” I ask instead.

She fiddles with one of the heavy rocks on her fingers. “I knew Maria Royal. She was the queen in Bayview. Everyone loved her, but no one saw how sad she was. I did, though.”

I frown. Where is she going with this?

“I told her I knew where she’d come from and how lonely it could be when you weren’t born into these circles. I was being friendly,” Dinah mutters. “But did she appreciate that?”

“No?”

“No, she certainly did not.” Dinah slams a hand on the coffee table, and I flinch in surprise. “The Royals are like the apple in the fairy tale. Golden on the outside, but rotten to the core. Maria didn’t come from money. She was poor trash from the wharf who opened her legs at the right time to the right man—Callum Royal. Once she was pregnant, he had to marry her. But Maria wasn’t satisfied with Callum’s devotion. She always wanted more, and woe to any woman who stood in her way of total domination over the males in her circle. She was a manipulative bitch who enjoyed playing both sides of the table. To the women, she was spiteful and cruel, running others down constantly. To the men, she was nothing but sweet words and compliments.”

Wow. This is a side of Maria Royal I’d never heard about. Reed and his brothers remember her as a saint. But then the comments Steve made when he dragged me out of school pop up in my head.

No living person is a saint.

On the other hand, Dinah isn’t exactly the most trustworthy person. And she probably paid someone off to send Reed to jail. I’d be stupid to believe anything she says.