Chapter 4: The Man From Before
She didn't go downstairs.
She stood at the top of the staircase in the dark and listened.
The voice was coming from the entrance hall.
A man.
Mid-forties, she guessed, though she hadn't heard it in years.
Smooth.
Patient.
The kind of voice that never raised itself because it never needed to.
"I understand it's late," the man was saying.
"Tell Mr.
Romano that Marcus Hale is here.
He'll want to see me."
Ruby's hand found the wall.
Marcus Hale.
She hadn't heard that name spoken aloud since the night she ran.
She pressed herself back into the shadow of the corridor and listened to the housekeeper's footsteps cross the marble floor, then Vincent's office door opening, then silence.
Three minutes later, she heard Vincent say: "Send him in."
Ruby went back to her room.
She sat on the edge of the bed and did not move for a long time.
Marcus Hale was not a man you explained to people.
He was the kind of man who arrived at your door after you'd stopped looking over your shoulder — which meant he had been patient enough to wait until you did.
She had worked for him once.
Not the way people imagined when they heard the word "worked." She had been twenty-one, desperate, and stupid, and he had offered her a way out of a situation she hadn't known how to name.
She had taken it.
She had done three jobs.
The third one had shown her exactly what she was involved in, and she had run.
She had built Ruby Jenkins out of nothing and she had never looked back.
Until now.
In the morning, Leo found her at the kitchen table before the cook arrived.
He climbed into the chair beside her and pushed his bowl of dry cereal toward her like an offering.
"You share," he announced.
"Thank you," Ruby said.
He watched her face.
He was two, but he watched faces the way much older people did — like he was reading something.
"You sad?" he asked.
"A little," she said honestly.
He thought about this.
Then he picked up one piece of cereal and placed it carefully in her palm.
"Better?" he asked.
Ruby looked at the single piece of cereal in her hand.
"Yeah," she said.
"Better."
She heard footsteps in the doorway.
Vincent.
He had his jacket on already, his phone in his hand.
He looked at Leo, then at Ruby, and something moved across his face that he didn't let stay.
"My office," he said to Ruby.
"Ten minutes."
He left before she could answer.
Leo looked at the doorway, then back at Ruby.
"Daddy sad too," he said simply, and went back to his cereal.
When Ruby walked into the office, Vincent was standing with his back to her again.
But this time he turned immediately.
"Marcus Hale came here last night," he said.
"I know.
I heard."
"He asked about you."
Ruby's chest tightened.
"What did he say?"
"He said he was looking for a woman who used to work for him.
He gave a description." Vincent's eyes moved over her face.
"It was very accurate."
"What did you tell him?"
"I told him I'd never heard of her."
Ruby stared at him.
"Why?" she asked.
Vincent set his phone face-down on the desk.
"Because Leo ate breakfast this morning," he said.
"For the first time in four months, he ate breakfast without throwing it at someone."
He looked at her steadily.
"So before I decide anything else, you're going to sit down and tell me exactly who you were before you became Ruby Jenkins."
May you like
Ruby sat down.
And for the first time in seven years, she opened her mouth and told the truth.
