Page 93 of To All the Guys I Killed Before

“That’s not⁠—”

“—what it looks like?” My hands curl into fists on the tabletop, and when her eyes dart nervously to them, I force my fingers flat. “Because it looks like I was more open with you than I’ve been with anyone in my life, and you were collecting blackmail against me. Or maybe it was supposed to be evidence. Which is it, Rue?”

Her hand trembles when she reaches for the vials. “Both? Neither? I don’t know.”

I snatch them back as I’m struck by a third, worse option, the one Quinn voiced as she checked my pupils and fed me homemade stew.

“Did you know who I was when you moved in?”

Have I been in love with a woman who saw me as a mark the whole time?

“What? No!” she cries, her expression stricken. “How could you think that?”

“What am I supposed to think?” I slam my palm on the table, making her jump and the tubes roll until one of the labels is facing me. A silent reminder.

I exhale and soften my voice, all but begging her for an explanation I can make peace with. “I could understand the first night. Gomez was a stranger, and you were being careful. But after the second night? After we made plans to meet a third time? After I made you laugh and made you come? I know having sex isn’t necessarily a reason to trust someone⁠—”

Her laugh is cruel. “You can say that again.”

That shuts me up. I try to catch her gaze so I can search for a trace of the woman I thought I knew, but she refuses to meet my eyes.

“So I’m the only one who thought what they had—what we had—was different?” I ask. “Morticia made me think about living a life with someone who saw all of me. Didn’t you feel the same about Gomez?”

I’ve never been this nakedly vulnerable, and she’s looking at me with unreadable eyes.

“Maybe,” she finally says. “But that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t be ready to take care of myself.”

“By planting my DNA at a crime scene?” I ask incredulously. “Turning me over to the police?”

“That’s not why I… My literal job is collecting evidence,” she says. “I did it out of habit.”

“Habit.” My voice cracks. I’m too gutted to care. “A habit is something you do without thinking about it, like biting your nails—which you don’t do, by the way. This was intentional.”

Her eyes harden.

“If you knew my mother, you’d understand.”

Her mother. The blank spot in her history.

“Okay, Rue.” I lean back in the chair and cross my legs, clinging to the safety of my professional mask. “Let’s talk about your mother.”

“Now you want to do talk therapy?” She shoots me a disbelieving look. “When a man had a gun to my head, you went straight to ‘Hulk smash.’”

“Please.” I hold the tubes up. “Help me understand.”

Her jaw tenses, flexes, and I hold my breath until her gaze swings back to mine. “Fine. But it’s ugly.”

She’s gone so rigid that I almost stop her, almost tell her she doesn’t have to do this. But I need to know.

“Bellamy’s the name they gave me in foster care,” she says in a too-even voice. “I was born Ruby Lynn Alsop.”

It takes me a beat, and then it clicks.

It clicks hard.

“You’re Jennifer Alsop’s daughter,” I breathe.

When she nods tightly, I dredge up everything I can remember about the case from my research into other people like me.