Page 5 of Save You

“Ruby…Did you see my message earlier?”

Lin’s voice is so cautious that my whole body suddenly runs hot and cold.I gulp.“No…I haven’t looked at my phone since Wednesday.”

Lin takes a deep breath.“Then you really haven’t heard.”

“What haven’t I heard?”

“Ruby, are you sitting down?”

I straighten up in my bed.

Nobody asks that question unless something absolutely terrible has happened.Suddenly, the image of James, totally wasted, in that pool with Elaine is replaced by one that’s way worse.James, hurt in an accident.James in the hospital.

“What’s wrong?”I croak.

“Cordelia Beaufort died last Monday.”

I need a moment to take in what Lin just said.

Cordelia Beaufort died last Monday.

An unbearable silence spreads between us.

James’s mother is dead.Died on Monday.

I remember our passionate kisses, his hands running restlessly over my naked body, the overwhelming sensation of him inside me.

No way can James have known about it that evening—that night.Even he isn’t that good an actor.No, he and Lydia must have only found out themselves on Wednesday.

I can hear Lin speaking but can’t focus on her words.My mind is too busy wondering if it’s really possible that Mortimer Beaufort waited two whole days to tell his children that their mother had died.And if so, how shit must James and Lydia have felt when they got home on Wednesday and found out?

I remember Lydia’s swollen red eyes as she stood there on my doorstep, asking if James was with me.The blank, emotionless expression on James’s face as he looked at me.And the moment that he jumped into the pool and smashed up everything we had created between us the night before.

A painful throb spreads through my body.I take my phone from my ear and put it on speaker.Then I click through my texts.I open the thread shown under a number I don’t know.Three unread messages:

Ruby.I’m so sorry.I can explain everything

Please come back to Cyril’s or tell me where you are so Percy can pick you up

Our Mum died.James is losing it.I don’t know what to do

“Lin,” I whisper.“Is that really true?”

“Yes,” Lin whispers back.“They put out a press release earlieron, and within about thirty seconds, everyone had heard the news.”

More silence.Thousands of thoughts are swirling around in my head.Nothing makes sense anymore.Nothing but this one feeling, which comes over me so suddenly and so violently that the words just bubble up out of me by themselves: “I have to go to him.”

This is the first time I’ve seen the gray stone wall around the Beauforts’ house and grounds.There’s a huge iron gate across the drive with dozens of people hanging around outside it, cameras and microphones in hand.

“Lowlifes,” mutters Lin, stopping her car a few yards away from them.Instantly, the reporters swarm toward us.

Lin leans down to lock the car doors from the inside.“Call Lydia and get her to open the gate.”

I’m so grateful to have her at my side at this moment, keeping a clear head.She offered to drive me without a second’s hesitation, and in less than half an hour from our phone call, she was outside my house.If I’d ever doubted the depth of Lin’s and my friendship, those doubts dissolved in that instant.

I pull my phone from my pocket and call the number that’s been contacting me so often in the last few days.

It takes a few seconds for Lydia to pick up.