Page 106 of A Real Good Bad Thing

But still…those diamonds had slipped through my fingers.

I pointed in Clarissa’s direction, though she was long gone, and so was her accomplice. “Did she know you were going to be here? Did you tell her?”

Ruby parked her hands on her hips, her brow knitting tightly. “Why would I tell her?”

“How else would she know to be here?”

“She was following us,” she said, as if it were obvious.

“You said she was joining your dive tour. You said she was nice. You said you liked her. You trust so easily, Ruby. You get too close to people.” I was grasping at straws, trying to figure out what the hell had just happened.

“And that means what, Jake?” she asked, her tone cool and even.

Meeting her gaze, I asked, “How can you be so casual about her taking the diamonds?” Ruby had said she was done with the diamond hunt. It was too personal. She’d leave it to me. When she’d stepped back from the mission, had that distance made her too open with Clarissa or Eli? Had she let down her guard so much that she’d inadvertently let some hint slip while she’d been in Sapphire or at lunch?

Ruby held up a hand. “Think real hard before you say whatever is on your mind, Jake. You can’t take these next words back.”

I clenched my fists. Drew a tight breath. “Did you say anything that might have tipped them off?”

She scoffed. “Seriously? You really just asked me that?”

“Ruby,” I said, at my wits end and the end of my rope as well. After so many false leads, to have the diamonds snatched literally from my fingers…I couldn’t think straight. “We were so close, so damn close. Clarissa was right here in seconds, or maybe she’d been waiting for us. I’m just trying to logic this out. Is there anything you might have said, inadvertently—”

“How could you think I’d be so careless?” she demanded. “Never mind that I didn’t know we were coming here until we, you know,came here. But I care about this too.”

She did. Or she had. But not like I did.

“I don’t know what the hell to think,” I spat out, frustration eating away my common sense. I mimed holding something precious. “I had them.Wehad them. And then she just took off in your stepfather’s car. I’ve been there before, Ruby, and you knew it. I told you what happened in Venice.”

“Just because something happened once doesn’t mean it has to happen again, Jake. And it for sure doesn’t mean I’m the same as the woman in your past.”

“Of course you’re not.” The way I felt about Ruby was different. But watching the Audi speed down the street, all I knew was that this was happeningagainand the only common denominator was me falling too hard and too fast when I should have known better.

“That’s all? Not ‘You’re right, Ruby,’ or ‘I trust you, Ruby’?”

I groaned and rubbed my hands over my face. Why couldn’t I just say that? But I didn’t trust my instincts anymore. “This whole case has felt like someone is playing a game. None of the clues add up. Even if you are totally uninvolved, the only thing that connects all the pieces is you.”

“Evenif?” Ruby seemed to wrestle with saying something else, her mouth open and closing but nothing coming out.

When she finally spoke again, her words were measured, icy, and sharp as a blade. “Here are three clues for you, Jake. One, you know me, but you’re too gun-shy to trust yourself. Two, this is not a game to me. Because I’m falling for you. Three, this hurts me more than you can know. And when I put those all together, they tell me it’s best if we take a break. Goodbye.”

She turned to leave, and though I wouldn’t have thought it possible, the horrible moment became even worse.

And it was all my fault.

53

HIT CAT

Ruby

Great. Just great. After all that, I still had to see Eli and tell him that his car—and, oh yeah, his diamonds—had been stolen. The thirty-minute wait and ensuing cab ride hadn’t been long enough to figure out what I was going to say to my stepfather. It hadn’t been enough time to wrap my head around everything that Jake had said.

He was right about one thing though. I felt like a pawn in someone’s game.

A heartbroken pawn.

The cab pulled up in front of Eli’s house, and I paid and headed to the door, my feet weighted down with dread. I’d called ahead and told Eli and Willow something had happened to the car, but before I could break the news, Eli told me to come to the house. Like a guy worried about what had happened to his car with the millions of dollars’ worth of diamonds in it.