Page 69 of The Engagement Party

Ruthie

“He wouldn’t disappear.” Ruthie whispered the words as Sierra cut the zip tie locking her hands together.

Cassie snorted. “You would know.”

Once free, Ruthie rubbed her sore wrists. All the stretching and pulling had carved deep red grooves in her skin. Not her biggest issue right now, but it was easier to look at the bruises than to glance up and see the judgment on the faces around the room.

Sierra cut them all free. “Now isn’t the time for—”

“Why did you say yes?” Will sat on the edge of the cushions with an unreadable look on his face. “You never felt anything for me. Clearly. So, why say yes when I proposed?”

Everyone stopped moving, as if waiting to hear Ruthie’s answer.

The quest for a concrete solution, for a way to assuage her own guilt over not pushing harder, had brought her here. Every move, every decision, had gotten bound up in a confusing mix ofanything for the cause,a need for closure, a drive to define this new career path, and unresolved trauma. Her judgment clouded and the line between good idea and bad got so blurred she’d sacrificed her personal life—and Will’s—for the truth.

Ruthie had given different excuses to different people. Her friends and colleagues viewed her relationship with Will as book-related research that grew into something else. Thetoo busyexcuses to dinner invitations and limited contact helped her carry off the charade. She never let the separate parts of her life touch for fear someone would ask the wrong, or right, question and figure out the dangerous game she was playing then try to stop her. Her best friend knew, even encouraged the dangerous stunts, right up until the time Will proposed, when she shifted and declared the whole setup had gone too far.

Ruthie had promised herself to end the lies after this weekend, but she never expected another person with goals more twisted than hers to get in the way. If she’d been more aware, less tied to sticking close to Will in the hope of stumbling over the truth, maybe Dylan wouldn’t have blindsided her.

Instead of letting any of those thoughts rise to the surface, she fought back. She ignored the disappointment and hurt in Will’s eyes and went for the killing blow. “Why did you propose after six weeks? Who does that?”

“That’s pretty fucked up, coming from you.” Alex’s voice sounded breathy and pained as Cassie dabbed and fussed over his wounded shoulder and covered him with a blanket. “You used him.”

The guilt Ruthie had so strategically pushed aside and buried under a pile of he-deserves-this excuses smacked her. Every time themaybe he didn’t do itandhe’s a human beingthoughts crept in, she’d stomped those doubts out. She focused on the end goal and not who she had to become and how much decency she’d sacrificed to get there.

All of the lies and months of deceit twisted inside Ruthie.She wanted to scream at all of them to, for once, tell the truth, but had she sacrificed that right? She was an imperfect vessel for gaining justice. Breaking Will, a man she knew lacked the emotional skills to avoid her manipulation, made her into someone she pretended not to be. Constantly reminding herself of his faults and setting him up to fall in the wake of any Emily and Brendan revelations allowed her to take away his humanity and reinforce her self-designated right to be his judge.

The echo of how cold and ruthless that sounded had her questioning if she and Dylan were more alike than she wanted to believe.

“I messed up.” The words came out as a whisper.

Cassie didn’t miss it. “That’s all you have to say?”

“I was trying to get to the truth.”

Will stood up. “By lying to me.”

“Okay, enough.” Sierra stepped into the middle of the group and fell into the practical leader role that fit her so well. “We can all interrogate Ruthie later. Right now, we need to find Dylan.”

“She’s his partner.” Will shrugged. “Not me. Him.”

Ruthie wanted to kick Dylan for binding them together in that way. “In case you missed it, the man threatened to kill me.”

“How convenient for your little game.” Cassie finished wrapping Alex’s shoulder and dropped discarded scraps of material on the table.

“What about this is convenient?” Mitch asked.

Before anyone could answer, Sierra took the lead again. “He has a boat.”

That got everyone’s attention.

Cassie frowned. “What?”

“Dylan came to the island by boat.” Sierra looked to Mitchand Alex. “Remember when we were at the garage? He then left on it. We saw him go. It wasn’t a trick. Now he’s back. So either that boat is on the island or it’s parked somewhere and he used a smaller boat or some other way to get to the island.”

Ruthie thought about the islands she’d researched for this weekend. All the information about boats and travel and weather. She hadn’t been looking at this island, at this house. She thought it was too remote but then it kept popping up in her searches. The reviews were great. The owners were so accommodating in their emails and... all Dylan. Had to be. He’d had access to her computer the whole time and drew them here.

She decided not to share that revelation with the group and focused on the boat. Having one meant he had to be holed up nearby. Close enough to get on and off the island without being detected. His policeman sham wouldn’t have worked for as long otherwise... and wouldn’t have worked at all if she’d been at the garage or seen him sooner.

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