Ruby in Reverse

By Karen Gutierrez

Ruby Diaz’s life seems to be going in the wrong direction.

Following a painful split from her husband of three years, Ruby finds herself reluctantly returning to her old neighborhood. The one-bedroom apartment she’s lives in now is twenty-five miles and a far cry from the three-story brownstone she once shared with her husband, Will Cooper. What’s worse, it’s only blocks from her meddlesome parents, who still treat her like the delinquent teenager she once was.

Looking for a new direction, Ruby accepts a position with a local PI firm. Aptly named Gotcha!, the practice specializes in catching cheating lovers in the act. But Ruby’s covert skills are a work in progress. Being ‘made’ while on surveillance is one thing. Being chased down the street by the cheating husband in all his naked glory is something else entirely.

When her beloved former fourth-grade teacher hires her to find out if his wife is cheating, Ruby’s only concern is having to tell him that she found his wife with another man. But her detective skills are put to the test when he is suddenly accused of murder. Convinced of his innocence, Ruby is determined to find the real killer.

Along for the ride is Alex Gabriel, an experienced private detective and Ruby’s childhood nemesis. Alex has grown from a grade school bully into a man with dark smoky eyes and a killer grin, and Ruby finds herself stumbling into feelings for a man she’s hated since she was nine years old. While still pining for her husband, Ruby wonders how she will negotiate the emotional minefield that lies between the man from her past and the man of her future. Especially since she’s having a hard time figuring out which one is which.

RUBY IN REVERSE is a humorous take on moving back home after believing your life was on track, questioning your heart when you thought you’d already found the love of your life, and starting over by going in reverse.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Karen Gutierrez
• Release date: Aug 24, 2016
• ISBN: 9781370337415

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE

I have the target in my sights. As expected, he is not alone. Long, muggy days of stalking him have paid off. I finally got my guy.

I’m hidden behind a six-foot cinder block wall, perched on a hastily constructed tower of bricks. My eyes are trained on the illicit business being conducted inside the house next door. The midday glare bounces harshly off the windows, causing me to squint. It’s difficult to get a clear shot.

The wait has been excruciating. My legs are stiff, and I struggle to remain still. Pearls of sweat slide down my back, and my new lacy bra is pasted to my skin. The growl of a motorcycle cuts the air, making me flinch.

The figures inside the house move in and out of focus, like ghosts. My trigger finger is loose, ready. A cloud slides across the sun, cutting off its reflection. I see the figures clearly now. At last, I have the shot I need. One more second and-

Crap!

My target spots me. His locks eyes on me, spurring my heart into a kickboxing frenzy. The bricks wobble, and I tumble to the ground, clutching my prized camera. A cluster of weeds swallows me whole. The pounding of my heart and the wheeze of my lungs flood my ears. Something scurries across my face and burrows in my hair.

Arrrrgghhhh!

I scream and bat wildly at my head as I struggle to my feet. From the neighboring yard, a booming Fuuuuuuuck! sails through the air like a missile, and I take off running. I stumble down a narrow, uneven footpath that winds between the concrete wall and a boarded-up house. My hair catches on a low-hanging tangle of wild vines, and a sharp pain tells me I’ve left a few of my long, red, curly strands in my wake.

I tear around to the front of the house and dash across a junkyard obstacle course, sidestepping old car parts, dodging broken lawn tools, and leaping over a rusted motorcycle. The yard looks like the place where everyone’s crap comes to die. Out of the corner of my eye I spot a large plastic statue of…wait, is that Chewbacca kicking back on a reclined lopsided La-Z-Boy?

A quick double-take, and I barely miss stepping in a foul smelling lumpy green puddle. The stench makes me gag and throws me off my stride. I trip over my feet, hit the ground, and slide face-first across the wet grass, skidding to a stop in front of a large, ragged stuffed bear that’s missing one button eye. Damn bear looks like it’s winking at me, mocking me.

My poor battered body refuses to move. I lie motionless, listening for the sounds of pursuit: heavy footsteps, labored breathing, swear words, threats to my life. But all I hear is my own gut-wrenching groans. And then, just as I think my target is not coming after me, that he has given up, that I can make a clean getaway, I hear the whine of a screen door and the thunder of footsteps pounding across the neighboring porch.

You! he yells. I’ll get you!

Pain be damned, I scramble to my feet, grab my camera, and run like hell, frantically scanning the street for my car.

Where the heck is it?

Then I remember Rule 7.1.2, subsection A, of The Manual: never park in plain sight. I hadn’t taken into account the need for a quick getaway.

Spotting my rust-pocked, second-hand car a half a block away, I sprint down the street, pressing the remote. By the time I reach the car, the alarm has set again. Fumbling with the key fob, I accidentally hit the panic button. The car squawks like a bird under siege. Sweat drips down my forehead, burning my eyes. I press frantically on the key fob again and finally silence the vehicle. Or it has simply died from fright. As I just might.

I jump into the driver’s seat, turn over the ignition, and jam my foot on the gas. The car revolts and sputters out.

Damn, damn, DAMN!

Hand shaking, I turn the key again. The engine grinds to life. Releasing my breath, I glance in the rear view mirror.

Toby Worley is running toward me in the middle of the street, buck naked, his jewels swinging in full view.

Yeeeeeesh!

Toby is a bear of a man, not only in height and girth, but he’s also in desperate need of a body wax. I roll down my car window, stick out my camera, and shoot some extra video for good measure.

Come back here, you fat bitch!

Okay, that’s just uncalled for.

My courage kicks in, the kind that only an insult about my weight or a night of Budweiser can muster. I grab the door handle, ready to jump out and square off with my crazed pursuer, but common sense takes over. He’s bigger than me. More importantly, he’s naked. And I don’t want those hairy jewels anywhere near me.

Tires squealing, I peel rubber and tear down the street.

As a Surveillance Expert-in-Training—a title bestowed on me because of my newbie status—I track down and expose cheaters. I’m a month and a half on the job and am working hard to become a full-fledged private investigator. But as I glance back at Toby Worley, naked and screaming at me in the middle of the street, it’s clear my covert skills are still a work in progress.

* * *

I speed away on Elderberry Lane, a name which conjures up the image of a neighborhood lined with cherry blossom trees and filled with the sounds of children playing. But it’s hard to imagine that this place has ever seen such days. Frog Town, as this area of Calumet City is known, is littered with faded and sagging houses and crisscrossed with pock-marked and weed-filled streets.

Calumet City, or Cal City as it’s referred to by locals, is a small burb pressed in between Hammond, Indiana, to its east and the southeast tip of the Chicago city limits. Back in the day, Cal City was a hotbed of gambling, speakeasies, and prostitution. Once dubbed the Sin City of the Midwest, remnants of its past linger to this day. Strip clubs continue to line State Street, though in far fewer numbers than in the past, and you can still pay for sex on a Saturday night along State Line Road. At one time, the suburb had the distinction of having more liquor licenses per capita than any other city or town in the country, though that’s not something the City Council mentions on its website.

Frog Town is a patch of land tucked into a wooded area in this blue collar town. In its not so distant past, Frog Town was a puddle of swampland, which, in the height of summer filled the air with the sounds of croaking amphibians and the odor of feet. A few ramshackle homes have been added since then, but beyond that not much seems to have changed.

This is where I had finally tracked Toby Worley. To a broken-down, puce-colored house with peeling paint and a cracked front window on the edge of Frog Town where he was doing the naked hokey-pokey with Babs Orlowski. Frankly, I was surprised. The man lives with his wife, Arlene, in a nice split-level four-bedroom with a two-car garage and a neatly manicured lawn in another part of town, and spends his extra-curricular time in a beautiful townhouse filled with antiques across the state line in Hammond, Indiana, with his mistress, Regina Timberland. It was Regina who had hired me.

I thought the surveillance would be a waste of her money. Toby was already cheating on his wife with Regina. I mean, how many lies can one man keep track of? Apparently quite a few.

Flipping on the radio, I catch the refrain from Thin Lizzy’s The Boys Are Back in Town on The Loop, the classic rock station. I blast the music, filling my car with the head-knocking beat. "That’s right, baby! The boys are back in town!" I yell. My adrenaline is pumping, and I’m feeling good. Despite the close call, it beats sitting behind a desk all day.

As Thin Lizzy fades, I turn down the radio, grab my cell from my backpack, and check my messages.

Ruby Who-Never-Returns-My-Calls Diaz! This is your mother.

My good mood bursts like a pin-pricked balloon.

My mother thinks that calling me by my first, middle, and last name will frighten me into confessing to one transgression or another, guilty or not. My mother’s twist on that notion is to replace my real middle name, Maria, with a breath-defying reference to the reason she is using my full name to begin with. Over the years I’ve been referred to as Ruby Who-Never-Listens-To-Her-Mother Diaz, Ruby Who-Insists-On-Violating-Her-Curfew Diaz, and Ruby Who-Must-Think-Her-Parents-Are-Idiots Diaz. That last handle was the go-to for a myriad of infractions. You’d think, at twenty-eight years old, those names and accusations would be long in my past, but my parents—particularly my mother—are stubbornly refusing to give up that notion. Though admittedly, my actions of late may have something to do with that.

I left you a message earlier, my mother’s voice continues. I know you’re screening your calls. You can’t avoid me forever, missy. I know where you live. And you know what I’m capable of.

My mother likes to threaten me like a bookie looking for payment. The fact that I live within walking distance of my parents’ house means I don’t take the threat lightly.

When my marriage unraveled five months ago, I had naively believed that having my family around me would be comforting. Ashamed and confused, I left the spacious three-story brownstone that I’d shared with my husband, Will Cooper, in the trendy Wicker Park neighborhood on Chicago’s near northwest side and moved back to Cal City and into my parents’ unfinished and cluttered basement. For four very long months.

The bedroom I had once shared with my older sister, Felicia, had been turned by my mother into a hobby room. (Yes, the quotes are warranted.) In reality, the hobby room was the way station for an assortment of art supplies, fabrics, scrapbooks, and gadgets my mother had intended to use for her creative endeavors before the remnants hit the basement. So I found myself separated from my husband of three years and sleeping on an air mattress surrounded by the hobby room castoffs, rejected furniture, stacks of cartons filled with childhood relics, and two kitty litter boxes.

The descent had been humbling.

I want to remind you about your nephew’s birthday dinner, my mother’s message continues. "Aunt Sherry and Uncle Ernie will be there. And call your sister. Did I mention this was my third call? Okay then, call me. Oh, and your brother’s future in-laws will be there too, so wear something nice, i.e., wear a dress."

My mother is taking a course on Business Writing for the Creatively Challenged at the community college and has recently discovered the use of i.e., which she has taken to sprinkling into her conversations. Usually with finger quotes.

And shave your legs this time, she adds before hanging up.

Four extremely long months. Like winter-in-Siberia long.

* * *

I take a left and cut into a side road that runs between a stretch of reedy ponds that dot the north end of Frog Town. My brother Ben and I used to pick cattails here when we were kids. The road is unpaved and rarely used, but it provides a shortcut back to the office.

The car is warm, and the air conditioner is refusing to cooperate. I bang on the dash and flip the lever up and back, but the fan produces only a whisper of cold air. I’m studying the control panel, pushing and turning buttons and sliding the vents, when I hit a pothole. The sudden jolt forces my eyes back up to the road.

Just in time to see the body that’s lying in it.

CHAPTER TWO

I slam on the brakes and yank the steering wheel hard to the right. The car skids and slides onto the marshy shoulder. My heart pounds furiously in my chest. I’m too young to have a heart attack, but if I keep having days like today, I may not survive into my thirties. I glance back. A woman is lying in a fetal position in the middle of the road. She’s so still, it’s clear she’s hurt. Or worse.

I jump out of my car, stepping onto damp soil. Are you hurt? I yell. Stupid question. What did I expect her to say? No, I’m good. Just taking a little rest here in the middle of the road.

I cautiously step from my car toward the woman. Upon seeing her up close, I stumble back, falling on my ass. The woman’s face is bloody and bruised, and her eyes are flat. She’s staring right at me, lifeless. A pool of blood seeps out from beneath her head. Was she hit by a car and left to die? But then I spot in her matted hair, a gaping hole in the side of her head.

My mind tells me that I need to call the police, but I’m so shocked I’m paralyzed. A dragonfly flutters past, startling me. I stumble to my feet and dash back to my car. I jump in and grab my phone, but before I can dial 911 a wail of sirens pierces the air.

With lights flashing, a black-and-white brakes to a screeching halt and two cops jump out, guns at the ready.

Get out of the car!

What? Huh?

Get out now! Show me your hands!

They’re talking to me! Holy shit!

I step out. Wait! I yell. I was just calling you guys.

Get on the ground!

No, you don’t understand. I found her.

On the ground!

I immediately abandon my feeble attempt at explaining myself and drop down to all fours, stretching out spread-eagled on the unpaved road. For the second time today, I’m sucking dirt. I hear feet shuffling and then quick movements around me. I watch a line of ants in military formation march toward my face.

More sirens pierce the air, followed by the squeal of tires. I’m afraid to breathe. I sense a presence near me and squeeze my eyes shut.

Ruby?

That voice is familiar.

What the hell are you doing here?

Really familiar.

I cautiously glance up. Sam Matawyn, Cal City cop, is standing over me, a frustrated look on his face. It’s an expression I’m well acquainted with, as far as Sam is concerned.

I spit out dirt, then say. Sam! Thank God!

Get up, he says.

Put your gun away.

He cocks his head. Afraid I’m going to shoot you?

Well…

Give me a second. I have to assess your threat potential.

Seriously? I’m sure he’s kidding, but considering our history, I’m not surprised he has to think it over.

Finally, he turns back to the other officers and says, It’s okay, guys. I know her.

Tell them I’m innocent, I say.

Define ‘innocent.’ Come on, get up. He holsters his gun and offers me a hand. I grab it and rise to my feet.

Sam is a smidgen under six feet, and his body fills out his police uniform rather nicely. His blond hair is cut short, military style, so different from the long unkempt fashion he wore in high school. But he still has the soft features that make him appear hardly older than the seventeen-year-old I knew.

And once loved.

His light blue eyes reflect surprise at my appearance, then confusion. What happened to you?

I was on a surveillance. I feebly brush dirt and crushed leaves from the front of my shirt. It went a little sideways.

You’re a mess. And you smell. He wrinkles his nose. Maybe you should consider another line of work.

I’m good at what I do. I say. Sam cocks an eyebrow and looks me over from head to toe. Okay, I’m still learning, but I like it.

What are you doing here, Ruby?

I was heading back to the office from my surveillance. I look past Sam. What happened to that woman?

We got a call there were shots fired in the area. Was that you?

I didn’t shoot her! I don’t even own a gun.

And thank God for that. I meant, did you call 911?

I was about to when you guys showed up. So she was shot? I crane my neck around Sam again. Uniforms are taping off the area as people gather to gape at the scene.

He steps to the side, blocking my view. I’m the one who gets to ask the questions. He pulls out a small notebook. Now tell me what happened.

Nothing happened. I mean, I don’t know what happened. I was driving along, minding my own business, when I saw her lying in the road. Shocked the hell out of me.

And you didn’t see anyone else? Think hard, Ruby. He looks at me pointedly.

Is that your bad-cop impression? 'Cause you’re really scaring me. I mockingly throw my hands up in surrender.

He stares at me for a few moments and I fold. Damn he’s good. Or I’m weak. Must be the uniform.

I didn’t see anyone, I say. "I didn’t hear anything. I just saw her. She was lying there. Her eyes were… I swallow. The image of the woman’s face flashes before me. And the blood. It was…horrible."

His eyes soften, and he touches my shoulder. Are you okay?

I take a breath and nod.

Another cop sidles up to us and stands, legs apart, his thumbs hooked into his belt. I half expect him to drawl, What can we do for you, little lady?

So, what have we got here? Is she a witness? he says instead.

Apparently not, Sam says. Ruby, this is Martin Fletcher, my partner. Martin, Ruby Diaz. Or what is it now that you’re married? Copper? Popper? Scooper? Dooper?

Funny. It’s Cooper. But I still use Diaz.

How do you two know each other? Martin asks. He’s a tall, slender man, with gray eyes and delicate, almost pretty, features. He looks to be about the same age as Sam.

Ruby and I, uh…dated several years back.

Dated? That sounds like a few dinners, a couple movies, some kissing, maybe a little south-of-the-border action. But that would not accurately portray the relationship I had with Sam. He was my first, and we were in love. For two years in high school and another year beyond, we were inseparable. I thought we would be together forever. But I was a teenager, and forever was a romantic concept unrelated to reality.

You two dated? Martin asks, looking me over.

I don’t always look like this! I say. I’m having a weird day.

All right, Ruby, you can leave, Sam says. I know how to reach you if I need to. Go home and take a shower.

I glance back at the scene. A cop is crouched over the body; two others are walking the area, eyes focused on the ground. I climb back into my car just as another police cruiser with sirens blaring pulls up, followed by the M.E.’s van. Sam glances at me then walks over to join his colleagues. It’s been more than eight years since we broke up, but it’s only in the last few months that we’ve become friendly again. For a long time, I wasn’t sure we ever would or could, considering I was the one who ended it. And apparently broke his heart.

CHAPTER THREE

My tires spin on the muddy shoulder, then find traction and I race out of there. I turn onto Pulaski Road and slow to within ten miles over the speed limit. Heading east, I pass T.F. North, my old high school, and then the apartment I once shared with my best friend, Jessie. Just down the street is Wentworth School, the grade school I attended when my family moved to Calumet City just after my ninth birthday. Despite its sordid history, Cal City offered many people, like my parents, the opportunity to purchase a small home with a scrap of green in back and a small flowerbed in front.

I pass Sharpie’s Diner, cross over Burnham Avenue, turn down a narrow alley, then pull in behind the storefront office of the small private investigation agency where I am employed. Aptly named Gotcha!, the firm specializes in catching cheaters in the act. I had initially been hired as the front desk receptionist, a position my father arranged with the owner, Shirley Montoya, a woman he knows from the neighborhood.

The neighborhood is actually a patchwork of communities—South Deering, the East Side, South Chicago and Hegewisch—stitched together on Chicago’s southeast side. It’s a blue-collar area, anchored by the Ford Auto Plant, the Cargill Factory and the Paxton Landfill. Even blindfolded, you’d know you were in the neighborhood simply by the smell.

It’s also a place where everyone knows someone who knows someone else, and nicknames are the norm. Hence, I grew up with Squeaky, Bozo, Shorty, Toto, and Mafia. Knowledge of such handles meant that you were a Southsider. So the fact that my father knew Shirley by her nickname, Shirley Girl, a pet name given to her as a child by her father, and by which she is still known throughout the neighborhood, meant more to her than the college courses I had recently been taking or my years of clerical experience before that. One phone call and I had a job.

* * *

I pull into a parking space and notice Alex Gabriel’s black SUV parked near the rear entrance. Alex is Shirley Girl’s nephew and a successful private investigator with his own firm in Hegewisch, Gabriel Investigations. He does the occasional surveillance job for his aunt when the workload becomes too much for her small staff to handle, and she refers business to him when a case is particularly tricky. Alex is also the co-author, along with Shirley Girl, of The Manual, a set of general PI guidelines for newbies to the business, which I was required to study and was tested on by Shirley Girl, in addition to studying for the state required exam.

I’ve known Alex since I was nine years old, from the moment I was assigned the desk next to his in Mr. Davinski’s fourth-grade class. He and his gang of fellow delinquents had been the school bullies, and for reasons I never understood, I became a target. In class he would lean over when Mr. Davinski wasn’t looking and make kissing noises. Or he’d yank up my dress on the playground and laugh. In the years that followed, he’d grab me in the hall and whisper in my ear, I love you, Ruby Diaz. Then he and his friends would laugh hysterically, leaving me embarrassed and near tears.

One afternoon, soon after I began working the front desk, Alex walked into Gotcha! looking for Shirley Girl. It had been years since I’d seen him. Puberty had hit him late. He’d been a stocky kid with a pudgy face and dark eyes, but the ten years since high school had been very generous to him. He stood before me, well over six feet, with pitch-black, silky hair that curled behind his ears and brushed against his collar. His features, which were muted in his youth, were now sharp and defined. Those dark eyes I remembered from childhood focused on me as I looked up at him that afternoon, and in that instant I knew exactly who he was. All those grade school memories washed over me. I was nine again, and he was making kissing noises from across the aisle.

The Skittles I had tossed in my mouth just before he strolled in that afternoon burst into globs of sugar at the back of my throat, and I started choking.

You okay? he said as I hacked like a cat trying to cough up a hairball.

Uck…yes…uck…uck.

Do I need to Heimlich you?

I shook my head but couldn’t stop gagging. He stepped around the desk and moved behind me, but I swatted him away.

Then drink some water. He handed me a bottle.

When the liquid hit the back of my throat, it came back up and out, right onto Alex’s shirt, producing a large wet stain with a couple of half-chewed Skittles pasted to the front. I took a few calming breaths.

Better? He looked at me, eyebrows raised.

I nodded. Sorry, I croaked.

I admit I’ve pissed off a few women over the years. A few swear words, a couple slammed doors. I’ve even had a plate thrown at my head once. Something about my so-called inability to commit. But this is the first time someone spit Skittles at me. He picked the candy pieces off his shirt and tossed them in the trash. Usually I’ve done something to provoke that kind of reaction.

And then he did just that. He smiled, extended his hand and said, You’re new here. I’m Alex.

The bastard hadn’t even recognized me! I mean, hadn’t I been his obsession in grade school? The guy tormented me! And now he didn’t even remember me?

I quickly took a gulp of water and was about to rain down on him again, this time with intent, when Shirley Girl entered the reception area.

Alex, dear boy, come over here and give your auntie a kiss. You know Ruby, of course. You two went to school together, didn’t you?

He turned back and looked at me again, but now curiously, as if poking his memory bank. Ruby? Ruby Diaz? A slow, lazy grin crossed his face, and he was no longer that horrible boy I grew up with. He was a man with dark smoky eyes and a killer grin. The type your mother warned you about, and you and your girlfriends were drawn to like moths to a big flaming barbeque pit.

* * *

I turn off the engine and debate whether to go inside. But I want to catch Shirley Girl before she leaves for the day. I’ve got rent to pay and I’m hoping she has another assignment for me. I step out of my car, grab my camera from the passenger seat, and enter the office through the back door.

At the end of the hall near the front entrance sits Elliott Merkel, the receptionist who replaced me. Elliott is baby-faced and shaggy-haired, with a hint of a goatee that looks like lint on his chin. This afternoon he is wearing an orange and green striped shirt, green bell-bottoms, and an ascot. I’m used to Elliott’s fashion choices by now. His boyfriend, Neal, attends the Fashion Institute in Chicago, and Elliott’s attire often reflects whatever style Neal is studying at the time. Elliott is his fashion guinea pig. This month’s subject appears to be Swinging London, a throwback to the sixties.

Love the ascot, Elliott, I say. Where’s the Aston Martin?

You’re a stitch, but I wouldn’t be so cheeky if I were you, Ruby. Is that dog doo-doo on your ass?

What? Seriously? I twist around to look at my butt. Man, this day sucks.

Elliott laughs. Wait till Shirley Girl gets a look at you. And what is that yellow crap? He points to my jeans.

I look down at the yellow stains streaking across the front of my jeans. I lift my right leg onto the edge of his desk to examine it further, my body stiff with pain. Balancing precariously on one leg, I stretch toward my knee and catch a whiff of something that smells really bad.

Coming up behind me, Alex says, I had no idea you were so limber.

Heat rises up my neck, and I lose my balance. Before I hit the floor, Alex grabs me by the waist.

Gotcha!

Whoa, I can’t believe you just said that, Elliott says. "Can you say it again? You have such a nice deep voice. I want to record it for