Prologue: Ruby PROLOGUE Ruby There's something wrong with Ruby Johnson. That's what her grandma used to say. These days, Ruby often thought about what her grandmother had said. She wasn't a little girl anymore. She was twenty-two now. Older, definitely wiser, and perhaps more self-aware. It often occurred to Ruby that she was not like other people. It happened in moments such as this. It was coming up on midnight. Ruby was at the counter, stirring a cup of coffee, in a kitchen almost twice the size of her apartment. The kitchen belonged to a thirty-five-million-dollar town house on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. Chad and Lara Puller were due to return any time now. They were one of Ruby's newer clients. She'd been sitting for them for just a few months. Upstairs, Clara, six, and Zara, recently turned three, were fast asleep in their large and expensively decorated bedrooms. Babysitting made up about forty percent of Ruby's little enterprise. Mostly she worked as a maid and/or cleaner for most of the high-class residents of West Seventy-Fourth Street. To buy a house here you had to be seriously rich. Throw a nickel in any direction and you'd hit a successful Broadway producer, a plastic surgeon, a CEO of a high-end tech company, or anyone on the board of a Fortune 500 behemoth. At any time, there could be between twelve million and thirty million dollars' worth of cars parked by the curbs. The long-term residents grew up here. Old money from New York real estate, not the two-bit slumlords who pretended to be millionaires. These people were rich. Crazy rich. And what allowed Ruby into their homes to look after their children, clean their floors, and do their laundry was that some of them remembered that Ruby was one of them . Or at least she used to be . She wasn't an outsider. She was their kind of people. Or so they thought. Ruby's family had had money once. Or that was what her father would have had people believe. Ruby certainly thought that she belonged with these people. Only Ruby's grandma knew differently. Ruby stirred the coffee and gazed into the dark liquid, her reflection lost in a swirling spiral of foam crema in the center of the cup. She thought about her grandmother. As a young child, Ruby would sit on the cold tiles in the grand hallway of her grandparents' house and eavesdrop as the adults talked in the lounge. "There is something wrong with Ruby," said her grandmother. Smart lady. "What do you mean? She's quiet. Shy, maybe. But there's nothing wrong with her," said her mother. Even as she spoke, Ruby could detect the tone of denial in her mother's voice. A slight quiver in the throat. Ruby knew, deep down, at the age of ten, that Grandma's statement hit a lot deeper than her mother would ever reveal. Ruby's memories of her grandmother were probably all mixed up by her youthful gaze and innocent perspective, but they were still clear enough. Grandma always wore fine gold chains that got caught in the sagging folds of skin that hung around her neck. She always dressed in black, as if in mourning for someone, somewhere, all the time. Her false teeth were loose, giving a clacking, hissing, and sometimes gummy sound to her words. But her eyes... Grandma had huge blue eyes that seemed to take up most of her face. They were misty with age, as if they gazed out behind a thick fog, but those eyes saw everything. And they always seemed to fix on Ruby whenever she entered her grandma's living room. Those old, dusty sapphire eyes came to life for Ruby. There was no affection in that stare. No curiosity. No love. It was more like... watchfulness. As someone might look upon a stray coyote that had wandered into their backyard. There is something wrong with Ruby. Ruby knew, even then, her grandma was right. The sound of the front door opening brought Ruby's mind back to the present. She took the spoon from the coffee cup, quickly opened the dishwasher and dropped it into the cutlery rack, then closed it and spun around just as Chad and Lara walked in. She flashed a smile. "Hi, how was your evening?" asked Ruby brightly. "Insufferable. Bad food, too much small talk. These galas are all the same. But it's for a good cause," said Lara as she held on to the doorframe and slipped off her Jimmy Choo heels. Ruby took a moment to admire Lara's dress. Sleek, black, cut to fit her slim frame while accentuating everything that could bear it. "How are the kids?" asked Chad as he took off his bow tie and popped open the top button on his dress shirt. "Sound asleep. They're little angels. I just made you some coffee. You two are always right on time," she said, handing Chad the cup. "Lara, can I get you a nightcap?" "Just water would be fine. I don't know how the hell Chad can drink coffee at this hour and still sleep like a log." "Good genes, I guess," said Chad. Ruby got some ice from the dispenser and poured a ten-dollar bottle of Icelandic water into a glass for Lara. "Okilly dokilly, well, if that's everything, I'll just take off," said Ruby. "Our driver can take you home," said Lara. "No, it's fine. Thank you, Lara. It's a nice evening. I'm only ten blocks." "Ruby, parts of your neighborhood..." But Lara didn't finish the sentence. She wanted to say that Ruby lived in a dangerous area. But it would've been an unkind reminder that Ruby no longer enjoyed West Seventy-Fourth Street as her address. The Pullers, like everyone else on Ruby's client list, knew she had once been a resident. Before something bad had happened. Still, she was one of them. From money. Trustworthy. Reliable. "Don't worry. I'm fine. I'm free tomorrow if you need anything. I do love spending time with those little perfect peach fairies upstairs. They're sooooo adorable," Ruby said. "The kids are all good for tomorrow. Chad's taking them to the park. Just text me and let me know how much for tonight and I'll send it," said Lara. "Great, good night, you two. Don't let the beddy bugs bite," she said. As the thick mahogany front door closed behind Ruby, the bubbly expression slid from her face. She skipped down the steps to the street. Chad wouldn't be taking the kids anywhere tomorrow. Ruby took out her phone, pulled up her photo files. She had shots of the diaries of all her clients. Most of them just put the calendars on their fridge; some had them in little notebooks on the hall table; others synced their diaries to their Google Nest Hubs or Amazon Echos, which made them easy to access. Tomorrow, Lara had a nail appointment at eleven, then lunch with the girls. Chad had racquetball with Jeff at eight thirty in the morning; then he was taking the kids out. The slow-acting emetic that Ruby had added to his coffee would have Chad puking his guts out within a few hours. She expected to get a text from Lara around nine saying Chad was ill in bed and could she take the kids for the day? Ruby charged extra on Saturdays, and she needed the money. This little trick could only be pulled once or twice. Chad would blame the food at the gala. Last spring, Ruby had managed to work every Saturday for a month, dosing both parents of four different households. An outbreak of norovirus in one of the kid's schools provided great cover. She stood on the sidewalk and gazed up at the houses lining the street. She knew these people. She had spent time in their homes unobserved. She knew their bathroom medicine cabinets, their underwear drawers, their email passwords, their internet search histories, their diaries, and, in some cases, their text messages. She knew their innermost thoughts... Their secrets. To Ruby, knowledge was power. Something else she had learned from her grandmother. Yet, with all that she knew of the residents and their lives, that knowledge could not seem to help her solve the biggest problem of all. Ruby was in trouble. She had spent months worrying, thinking, tearing her mind apart at three in the morning, trying desperately to think of a solution. She'd had various ideas. None of them seemed to suit her purpose. And every night as she paced her little room, unable to sleep, she hated the residents of West Seventy-Fourth Street even more. Yet walking seemed to help. It always did when Ruby was worried. The small effort of physical movement at least gave her the illusion she was getting somewhere. She inhaled, took in the smell of fresh spring rain on the midnight streets of Manhattan, and took off toward home, letting her mind wander with her feet. As she passed the houses, she glanced up at the bay windows of these old brownstones and counted off her clientele one by one. Out of all the homes on the street, Ruby worked for almost half. The homes that had not yet sampled her services either had live-in nannies for the kids or used a commercial maid service. But they would come around eventually. Neighbors talked. There was even a private neighborhood WhatsApp group that included most of the homes and people she worked for. She had been recommended so many times that a friendly client had added her to the chat. Ruby had walked this street more times than she could remember. When she was young, she'd felt at home here. This was her street, with her people, even though back then she didn't know all of them. But, still, she belonged here. Those were the early days. The good times. She also remembered the bad times. That's what her mother called them. One night she had sat Ruby down and told her there would be some changes to their lives. That money was now a problem. Her father had made a mistake. Ruby, like children in most rich families, had never had to think about money. It was always there, like water from the faucet, and there was no reason to question it. In the days and weeks following that conversation, Ruby had walked this same street with a different feeling. She'd gazed through the same windows, wondering why her family's lives were now so different. What did it feel like to have so much money? What would you do if you didn't have to worry about money, ever? What would it feel like to be free? Tonight the homes on Ruby's side of the street were in darkness. Only four homes on the opposite side had lights on. Peter and Petra Schwartzman were having a party. They often held parties, always for residents only, with exceptions made for celebrities. Ruby could hear tasteful jazz and the low buzz of a house filled with people drinking and probably talking about their third and fourth homes, their cars, their boats, and their favorite vineyards. Ruby saw that the front door of the Schwartzmans' home was slightly ajar. A narrow strip of light spilled onto the street along with the music. For a second Ruby longed to be inside that home, rubbing elbows with the neighbors. She wondered what would happen if she walked in through the open door. She knew almost everyone in there. But she wasn't one of them anymore. Not really. There would be strange looks, perhaps. Questions asked. And the Schwartzmans would be milling around, telling people that Ruby had most definitely not been invited. Everyone who was anyone on the street was probably there. The Pullers couldn't have gone because they were at a gala. The only other residents who were not in attendance probably weren't invited. The Colchesters had a lamp on in one of the bedrooms, casting a warm red glow from the window. Once the residents had discovered that they'd made a campaign donation to a president who was unpopular in this city, they'd stopped speaking to the Colchesters. Next door's open-plan lounge area was bathed in cold blue light from the underlit refrigerator and low-level LED strip lighting hitting their black kitchen tiles. Just because the Satrianis were rich didn't mean that they had any taste, not when it came to interior design anyway. They were seen as a tacky couple. The Satrianis made their money from selling mattresses. Not the kind of people who were invited to the Schwartzmans' parties. There were probably one or two other families on the street who weren't partying with the Schwartzmans that night. But their homes were in darkness. The last illuminated home belonged to Margaret and Alan Blakemore. They had lived on the street for a long time. More than thirty years at least. In their fifties, married but no kids. Margaret had enjoyed a twenty-year career as a model. Alan didn't need to work. As a young man he had enjoyed his trust fund, traveling the world. That's when he'd developed a talent for photography and decided that that would be his career. He'd met Maggs, as she liked to be called, on a shoot for Vogue , and when she learned he was a billionaire, the rather plain-looking Alan suddenly became more attractive. Their marriage was happy at first, but soon Maggs embarked on a series of scandalous affairs with musicians, actors, and other models, and the couple had grown apart. But she always came back to Alan's money. Maggs was definitely not invited to the Schwartzmans'. Not after the rumors. Maggs had been romantically linked to a number of men on the street. Some of them married. And Maggs liked to flirt with men who had nine-figure checking accounts. None of the rich wives could stand Maggs. She was not welcome at these kinds of soirees. Perhaps because Maggs was something of an outsider to the reserved residents of the street, she had found a kindred spirit in Ruby. After Ruby cleaned her house, Maggs took the time to sit with her, have some coffee, ask about her life. Get the gossip. It was a small thing, but Ruby had always appreciated and liked Maggs for this kindness. To the rest of the street, Ruby was all but invisible. Maggs tipped well, but giving Ruby her time meant a lot more. Even though she was always entangled with more than one man, Ruby felt Maggs was haunted by a loneliness no affair could banish. The chandelier in Maggs's lounge was lit. A harsh, bright white light. Maggs hated the thing. She lit her living room by antique brass lamps with colored glass shades that she had imported from Hong Kong. Ruby was told to be extra careful when dusting these. Ruby thought it must've been Alan who was up late, because Maggs preferred soft lighting now that she was in her fifties but still carried the vanity of a catwalk queen. Ruby was wrong. As she got closer, she saw Maggs from across the street. She had her back to the window and her hands outstretched, palms upward. Ruby watched Maggs shake her dyed chestnut hair, as if saying no or pleading with someone. Then she saw who Maggs was talking to. It wasn't Alan. It was another resident. She knew his face. Knew his name. He pointed a gun at Maggs. She was backing away. Ruby's breath caught in her throat and she ducked down behind the hood of a large SUV with gold-plated rims. She heard the shot, but only just. It was muted somehow. Maggs disappeared from view--thrown to the floor by the kinetic force of the bullet. The man pointed the weapon to the floor. Ruby could no longer see Maggs, only the upper half of the man's body from her position behind the SUV across the street. He fired twice more, turned, and left her view. The front door to the Blakemore house opened and the man, dressed in black, gun in hand, leapt down the steps to the street. Ruby ducked as he looked left and then right. He walked back up the street in the direction Ruby had just come from. Stopped for a second, then moved on, running now. Ruby crouched low, holding her breath for fear he would see her. He ran back to the open front door to the Schwartzmans' party. They were all probably too drunk to notice him leaving and then coming back in. Ruby could feel her heartbeat in her throat. Still crouched, she moved around the hood of the car, then crossed the street. The man was gone. The street was empty. There hadn't been a huge amount of noise from the gun. It must've been silenced, but Ruby had definitely heard the crack from that pistol. Like somebody splintering wood. She gazed up at the house. The front door was wide-open. She quickly moved up the steps, into the hallway, and turned left into the living space. Maggs was dead on the floor. Blood on her face and pooling behind her head. The feeling in Ruby's stomach reminded her of being on a roller coaster: it felt as if her insides were doing somersaults, and she found it hard to breathe. She recognized the sensation. It wasn't fear. It wasn't revulsion. It wasn't shock. It was excitement . Quickly and quietly, Ruby left the house and followed the path of the killer back up the street. He had stopped around halfway, she remembered. Why had he stopped? Ruby saw a pile of garbage bags leaning against a lamppost. One of the bags was ripped at the side. She peeled back the rip in the bag, saw the matte-black butt of a gun. The gun and the bag would be taken in six hours, heaved into a garbage truck at dawn and lost forever. Pulling the sleeve of her coat over her hand, Ruby reached into the bag and retrieved the gun, then slipped it into her purse. There was no one else on the street. No sirens from police cars. No paramedics. She watched the windows of the houses. No one peering out. Ruby turned back the way she'd come, made her way past the Blakemores' home, and kept on walking. She didn't call the cops. Just walked the ten blocks home on a warm night, her mind alive with possibilities. Ruby knew who had shot and killed Maggs. Knowledge is power . She could hear her grandmother saying it now, her watchful eyes mooning at young Ruby from her throne. The only question on Ruby's mind was what she was going to do with that power. She was used to keeping secrets. For the years she had worked for the rich families of West Seventy-Fourth Street, knowing their minds, their secret affairs, their hopes and fears, and their crimes... She hated them. She hated the fathers, the mothers, and even some of the children. Now was her chance. A possible way out of the deep trouble that had agonized her thoughts for the past months. A chance for a new life. While thoughts of her terrible situation had kept her from sleep, her choices had not. Ruby had hurt people. She knew that she would have to hurt a lot more of them before the end. She did what she had to do without fear, without mercy, without a second thought for those she would destroy. Suddenly, Ruby had the solution. It was right there, in her purse. Still warm from firing three rounds into a woman she had fondly known all her life. Ruby felt nothing for Maggs. No sadness. If anything, she was glad. She could now see a way out. West Seventy-Fourth Street would wake in the morning to the shocking murder of one of their own. It would not be the last. Because, right now, Ruby Johnson had a plan. Excerpted from Witness 8: A Novel by Steve Cavanagh All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
