Jay raised an eyebrow. “And you accepted?”
“Of course not,” she said, her tone biting. “I am not Miranda. I looked into the email, found nothing, and blocked them. A week later, the first letter arrived.” She reached into her desk and pulled out a sheaf of papers. “Read them and you’ll understand.”
Jay took the pages but didn’t read. “So you followed these instead?”
“After I had a meeting with the sender. And before you ask, no, I can’t tell you anything about them. They dressed head-to-toe in some kind of body suit. They never spoke, writing their questions or answers on a tablet. I can’t even tell you their gender.”
Jay had frozen. Her description matched Stan’s perfectly. “What did they want with Miranda?”
Ms. Carmichael shrugged. “Revenge. They said they’d been badly handled by both Miranda and Stella. That they would kidnap them both, keep them for a terrifying week so they’d never forget, then release them near the estate again.” Jay felt his hands clenched into fists, and Ms. Carmichael spoke quickly. “I refused to play along. I didn't give them any information. I even said that Stella was likely going to drop Miranda as her father wanted.”
“Then why start all this by giving us reasons to excuse your behavior?” Dave asked.
Jay answered for her, watching her face to see if he was right. “Because she met with that person here in this house.. She gave them not only the opportunity to learn the layout of the land, but also access to hints about Miranda’s upcoming events. They knew exactly when and where Ms. Williams and Stella were going to meet.”
Ms. Carmichael let out a long breath and nodded, confirming his guess.
***
Dave was watching him with a look that seemed to toe the line of fanboy adoration as they walked back to the inn.
Finally unable to keep a straight face, Jay turned to Dave. “Is there something you’d like to say or is your look enough?”
Dave snapped out of whatever dreamworld he had been inhabiting and looked away. Jay looked the other way too. However, in that direction, Jay spotted a slight figure darting around the corner of a connecting side street and froze.
“Sorry, Jay,” Dave said, stopping a pace ahead and running a hand over his hair. “It is just, well, hearing about you was one thing. Watching you in action was something else entirely.”
“I’ll catch up with you at the inn later,” Jay told him quickly. “You can start writing up the report of our work today and make sure to add the list she gave us. If you have the time, start going through it.”
Dave turned back as Jay sprinted away. “Wait, where are you going?”
“No time. Just do it.”
He left Dave standing there and took off after the figure he had seen. She had a massive head start, and he also knew that if she did not wish to be found, she would not be able to be found.
He walked slowly, paying attention to every little thing and every deep shadow he passed. It was around lunch hour and the streets were busy, but he still caught another two glimpses of a thin, small woman, dressed all in black flitting through the throng like a ghost. She glanced back once, meeting his eye dead on as if she had known exactly where he was. Those too big, dark eyes were the last factor. There was no doubt now that he was indeed tailing Ruby.
He felt a remembered pang from the last time he had spoken to her. She had hated him, justifiably so, but had also still wanted, or hoped, to be able to forgive him one day.
He kept following the glimpses of her as he took each turn. He knew he was being led to a place of her choosing. Jay took a little heart from the fact that she clearly wanted to speak to him. She would have otherwise simply vanished in the lunch hour crowds, and he would have had nothing to go on in order to track her.
He saw a flash of her dark red hair vanish around a corner and started moving through the throng, having a lot more trouble than his wraith-like guide. He stepped out of the crowds and glaring sunlight into a dim alleyway.
Jayden blinked a few times trying to see into the darker shadows up ahead, but there was no sign now of Ruby. He stifled the urge to call out to her. If she was watching him because she knew something, then perhaps she was aware of Stella’s case.
He moved up the alley slowly. He’s unwilling to mess this up by missing some small gap she may have used to slip into one of the buildings on either side. He came to what looked like a small service tunnel. It was pitch black inside, but he could just about make out the small semi-circle of light at the other end. He stepped into the darkness. It reeked of vomit and other excrement. Jay pulled out his phone for the flashlight.
“Put that away.” Her voice was still so familiar, even after four years of silence.
Jay glanced up and saw her slight figure in the far distance, framed by the semi-circle of sunlight. “I don’t want to step in anything,” he began.
“Power it off and put it away,” she repeated. “Stay in line with me and you won’t step in anything.”
Jay tilted his head to the side but did as she asked, pointing the screen towards her so she could see that he had, in fact, powered it off.
He pocketed his phone and began to walk towards her, keeping her directly ahead. He felt his gut settle into a cold vice. This Ruby was not the one he had left behind. While he was glad that she
