Chapter Fourteen: Jules

CHAPTER FOURTEENJules

I’m at the top of the stairs, staring up at Ruby’s portrait.

It’s dark, the house quiet, and I’m still in that fancy dress, the crystal beading digging into the skin of my collarbone. Those crystals glitter in the dim light from the sconces lining the wall, but Ruby’s eyes are shining brighter, and as I watch, they begin to move.

She’s looking directly at me now, and her painted lips curve up even more, a smile that reminds me of Camden, and I know I should be scared—paintings aren’t supposed to come to life—but all I feel is relieved because she’s here now, because I can finally talk to her.

I need her help.

“Tell me what to do,” I whisper, but she doesn’t answer. Instead, the painting shifts, color bleeding away from her dark hair, her green dress, and now I’m the one in the portrait, still wearing this dress, my hands folded just like hers had been.

No, not like hers. Hers were pale and elegant, a discreet emerald ring on one finger, and mine, mine are red.

Dark crimson drops fall from my painted hands, soaking into the skirt of my dress, and I look down at my bare feet on the carpet to see that the blood is seeping out of the frame now, snaking along in a viscous river, warm when it reaches my skin.

I stumble back in horror, but the stairs are there, and I’m falling until fingers wrap around my wrist, pulling me up short.

Camden looks at me with those eyes, the eyes I love, one blue, one brown, both cold as he says, “I told you we shouldn’t have come here. Why did you make me come back here?”

I look over his shoulder at the painting, and it’s Ruby again, she’s laughing, and then Cam is letting me go, and I’m falling again, falling into nothingness, falling—

I startle awake to arms wrapped around me, to a voice in my ear and warm breath at my temple.

“Jules. Jules, wake up.”

For one dazed and horrified moment, I struggle in Cam’s arms, pushing him away, remembering that cold look, the feel of his fingers slipping from my wrist, but when I look into his face, there’s only concern.

His palm rests against my cheek, warm and real, and the last bits of the nightmare finally let go of me, making me sag, exhausted, against his chest.

“I haven’t had a nightmare since I was in fourth grade,” I stammer against his shirt—he’s still wearing his suit?—and he holds me tighter.

“This is what happens when we sleep in separate rooms.”

It all comes back, then: dinner, that scene with the papers, Ruby’s DNA test, the panic flooding my system as I realized what was happening, the fight with Cam …

No wonder my dreams were haunted.

Now I let Cam hold me, breathing in his familiar scent, reminding myself that he’s here and he’s real and that cold-eyed man in my nightmare was just a figment of my imagination.

We sit there for a long time, arms around each other, the mountain waking up around us. I can hear birdsong as the light in the room goes from gray to orange, the sunrise lighting up all that red, making it garish.

It reminds me of the blood dripping from Ruby’s portrait, and I shiver, closing my eyes.

Cam is stroking my hair, rocking me slightly, and I think I could almost fall back asleep right there, exhausted as I am, when he suddenly goes still.

I can feel tension tightening his muscles, and I look up, frowning, to see him staring at the window.

There’s another sound now, tires on gravel, and Cam lets go of me, slowly rising from the bed and going over to that window, the one that faces the front of the house.

Confused, I follow him, stepping on Ruby’s dress where I left it last night, crumpled on the floor. The beading bites into the sole of my foot, but I ignore the slight sting, going to stand next to Cam.

A police car sits in the drive. There are no sirens, no flashing lights, and for some reason, that makes it feel much more ominous. And then another car appears, a sleek dark blue BMW, parking just behind the cruiser.

Cam is watching as the cops get out of the cars, followed by the man in the BMW, his hair snow white, belly hanging over the belt of his khaki slacks. Then we see Ben, still in his pajamas, coming out to meet them, pointing back at the house.

A muscle ticks in Cam’s jaw, and when he turns away from the window, I follow him out into the hallway.

Ben is coming up the stairs, the policemen trailing him, and when he looks up at us, I see that his face looks slack, his eyes bloodshot. He looks awful, and after last night’s bullshit, that should be satisfying. But right now, I’m more concerned with those men behind him, their solemn expressions, the guns on their waists.

“What’s going on?” Cam asks, and Ben pauses, running a shaking hand over his jaw.

“It’s Nana Nelle,” he says, and then he and the police make their way past us, the two in plain clothes giving us tight nods.

“Nelle?” Cam asks. “What about her?”

Ben turns at the top of the stairs, his face flushing red. “She’s dead, that’s what.”

The words are flat, but his voice cracks just the littlest bit on that last word before he makes his way to the second staircase, the one that leads to the third floor where Nelle’s bedroom is.

“Lordy lordy,” the man with white hair says, huffing as he holds on to the banister. “I told her she needed to move to the ground floor years ago, but she wouldn’t hear of it. Said her room had the best views in the whole place.”

When we follow them into Nelle’s bedroom, I see immediately that she was right. The large windows behind the bed frame the forest outside, the mountain below, and other peaks in the distance, soft gray smudges against the sky.

I want to keep my eyes on that view because otherwise, I’ll have to look at the small, shrunken figure in the bed.

They look like they’re sleeping.

That’s what I’ve heard about dead people. That’s what I’ve seen in movies––someone walking into a bedroom, calling cheerfully for the person in the bed to wake up, only to be concerned when they don’t move, that concern slowly turning to panic as they realize the person is never waking up again.

Maybe that’s true in some cases, but Nelle is unquestionably dead. Her skin is a waxy yellow, her eyes open and cloudy, mouth agape.

Next to her on the sheets is a doll, an old one if the flaking paint and yellowing lace dress are anything to go by. One of its eyes is half-shut, making it look as dead as the woman in the bed, and a shudder runs through me, making me chafe my arms as a bitter taste floods my mouth.

“I found her just before I called you,” Ben says, and I think he’s talking to the police, but it’s the white-haired man who nods, his wrinkled face creased with sympathy.

“Hell of a thing, Benji, hell of a thing. But her heart had been bad since … what, ’fifteen? ’sixteen?”

“Sometime around there,” Ben says with a sigh.

One of the police officers is holding Nelle’s thin wrist in his hand, but that’s clearly a formality, and he nods at his partner, who steps out of the room, pressing the radio on his shoulder as he goes, the static crackle loud in the quiet room.

“At least she got to pass here at Ashby,” the white-haired man says, clapping Ben on the shoulder. “It’s what she wanted.”

“She was tired last night,” Ben says, almost to himself. “She said so. Went to bed early.”

Trailing off, he swings his gaze to Camden, his jaw clenching. “It was too much for her. That little performance at dinner. Wore her out.”

Like “that little performance” was all Cam’s doing. Like they hadn’t all licked up the drama of it eagerly, Nelle herself in the starring role.

Honestly? It would serve her right if that shit is what finally made her heart give out.

“So. I came up here early this morning to see how she was feeling, and—what the hell are you doing?”

He barks the words, and the other cop, the one still by the bed, drops his hand from Nelle’s face. He’s young, probably barely in his twenties, and a flush actually rises up his smooth cheeks, like he’s been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. Like Ben is the authority, not him.

“I was just … I thought I could see some bruising on the inside of her mouth, and I wanted to check.”

“Now, now,” the white-haired man says, stepping forward and laying his hand on the younger officer’s shoulder. “This is an old woman who died in her bed, Officer Jamison. No need to upset anyone with that kind of talk. And Miss Nelle certainly wouldn’t want strangers pawing over her in her own bedroom.”

I wait for the officer to tell him that it doesn’t matter what Nelle would want, she’s dead, and he’s a cop, doing his job.

But instead, he mutters, “Sorry, Mr. Jackson. Mr. McTavish,” practically doffing his cap to them.

I’ve seen the house and the wealth and the way people in town respect the McTavish name, but until this moment, I don’t think I fully realized the kind of power this family wields around here.

It’s their own little kingdom, and everyone else is simply a servant bowing to their commands.

God, no wonder they’re all so fucked up.

The cop steps back into the room, skirting around me and Cam, still frozen just inside the doorway, and walking over to Ben. “The coroner is on his way. I guess you want her taken to Thornton’s?”

Ben nods, and the white-haired man makes his way over to us, giving me a broad smile with teeth that are just a little too big and a little too white. “Harlan Jackson,” he says, offering me his hand. “Family friend, foremost, but also family attorney. You must be Mrs. McTavish.”

“Jules,” I murmur, shaking his hand, and then he looks over at Camden.

So do I, and what I see makes my heart almost stop.

Cam looks nearly as pale as Nelle, his face gone gray, his expression shuttered, and Harlan gives him a sympathetic frown, resting a hand on his arm. “I forgot you were the one who found Ruby,” he says. “Hell of a thing.”

I’m guessing that’s his go-to phrase for anything bad that happens, but when Cam just nods robotically, swallowing hard, I get the sense he’s in his own hell right now.

I take his hand, his fingers icy, and when I squeeze, he doesn’t return it. Doesn’t even look at me.

His gaze is locked on Nelle in her bed. When Harlan turns back to Ben, Camden drops my hand and strides out of the room.

I stand there for a beat, suddenly remembering that I’m wearing nothing more than an oversize T-shirt that used to be Cam’s and a pair of sleep shorts, my bare legs cold in the chilly room, my hair a sleep-tangled mess. I murmur something about getting dressed, and hurriedly excuse myself, making my way back to our bedroom.

But Cam isn’t in there.

I stand in the hallway, unsure of what to do next, when I hear a sound from the other end of the hall.

The door is ajar, and I push it open to see Cam sitting on the edge of a lace-covered bed, elbows on his thighs, head in his hands, one foot jiggling up and down so hard that his whole body shakes with it.

Closing the door behind me, I hurry over to him, crouching between his knees, my hands reaching up to take his face. “Hey,” I say softly. “I’m so sorry. Not about Nelle, honestly, fuck her, but I didn’t know about Ruby. That you were the one to find her … that must have been so hard. And, Jesus, they had the nerve to say all of that to you last night, to accuse you of…”

Pushing myself up onto my knees, I wrap my arms awkwardly around his shoulders, feeling him trembling, but he doesn’t make a move to hug me back, the top of his head pressed against my chest.

I’ve never seen him like this, and I don’t know what to say, what to do, to make this better, guilt almost choking me.

I’d told myself that I could make things right here, that I could heal this place for him, and instead, I’ve let it break him wide open.

My eyes are hot with tears as I say, “I’m sorry. This is all my fault.”

He shakes his head, hair tickling my chin. “Don’t say that,” he replies, voice thick, and finally his hands drop from his head, coming to rest on my ribs for a moment before he lifts his head.

I let him go, sitting back on my heels and looking up at him. His face, his beautiful face that I’ve loved from the first time I saw him, is anguished, tears wetting his cheeks, and there’s a twisting pain in my chest that makes me understand why people say a heart breaks. That’s what it feels like now, and I know how much I must love him because if I could take this away from him, if I could feel whatever agony is inside of him so that he wouldn’t have to, I would.

“It brought it all back, didn’t it?” I ask, stroking his calf. “Seeing Nelle. You can tell me, Cam. You can tell me anything. You know that, right?”

He’s staring somewhere over my shoulder, his hands clasped in front of him, knuckles white. I can see where he’s picked at his cuticles, the skin raw, and I touch one of those red places gently, once again wishing I could take the pain he’s feeling and hold it inside of me instead.

“I know things with you and Ruby were complicated,” I say, my voice low and gentle, like I’m talking to a wounded animal. That’s what he reminds me of right now, jittery and tense, his eyes haunted. “But still. It must have been such a shock, finding her like—”

Cam gets up so fast that I rock back in surprise, almost knocked over by his long legs as he strides away from me, one hand on his hip, the other rubbing his mouth.

He stands there in the middle of the room, and something starts to go cold inside me, sinking into my veins, my heart.

“It wasn’t a shock. Finding her,” he says as I sit there on the plush carpet of Ruby’s bedroom and wait for him to say what my sick stomach and dazed mind somehow already know.

“I knew she was dead when I opened the door,” he goes on, and he turns, our gazes meeting, and I want to tell him to stop there, not to say the next part, the part that he won’t be able to take back, the part I won’t be able to unhear.

“I knew. Because I killed her.”