Page 103 of Hard Heart

Jerry looked at me sharply. “Why do you say that?”

“Because Levi nearly got killed over this last month, and we think someone’s been tracking us. Or maybe that was you?”

“We haven’t touched Levi. How can you be sure it wasn’t a regular jailhouse bust-up?”

“Because the person who stabbed him said, ‘Your girlfriend is sticking her nose where it doesn’t belong.’”

“Girlfriend?”

“I guess ‘paralegal working with the lawyer who represents you’ was too much of a mouthful.”

“Who stabbed him? Did he see?”

“A couple of kids from the El Caminos. New guys. He’d only spoken to them a handful of times.”

“I see. And that’s why he sent the one-percenters to keep an eye on you?”

“He’s concerned for our safety.”

“What’s Levi’s theory on this?” Ari asked. “You’ve obviously spent a lot of time talking with him. If he didn’t kill Ruby, what does he think happened?”

I glanced at Raelene, but she just gave me an encouraging smile. How much should I tell them?

“Uh, the theory is evolving. Because of the dynamic in the house, he’s always assumed Justin was paid to murder Ruby, but at the time, he had no idea why.”

Ari began making notes, her pen scratching across a notepad. “So it’s the motive that’s evolving?”

“Exactly. To start with, he figured it was something to do with his work. Did you know his research partner was killed in a house fire soon after the trial?”

“August Groveland? Yes, we’re aware.”

“So, that was where we started. But we have more visibility over the circumstances of that crime now, and it doesn’t feel right.”

“By ‘visibility,’ you mean…”

“I mean we know who did it, and we have an idea why, but we’ve put that issue on the back burner while we deal with this one.”

“Justin isn’t motivated by money,” Braxton said. “He still drives a twenty-year-old pickup, and he lived in the same duplex for a decade until it burned down.”

“Wait, it burned down?”

“Unrelated,” Jerry said. “His neighbour was trying to burn leaves.”

“Out of all the property developers in Virginia, Justin has the worst margins,” Greyson told me. “He’s obsessed with craftsmanship, and he gives half his profits to charity.”

“It’s not a terrible approach,” Braxton added. “Because he has a reputation for quality, his developments sell out before they’re even completed, but he could make more money if he cut corners the way every other builder does. The point is, Justin isn’t going to murder anyone to make a quick buck.”

“That’s what Levi thought to start with, because he didn’t want to believe Justin was a psycho. But Ruby was killed in her own bed, and now Amie’s dead too…”

“…and Justin was looking for her from the moment he realised. He reported her disappearance to the police, he handed out flyers all over the neighbourhood, he hired Ari to help find her. Those are hardly the actions of a guilty man, and that’s before we get into the alibis.”

“So we’re back to the beginning.”

“And as I said, this began with Ruby,” Ari repeated. “That’s where we need to look.”

She might have been the enemy, but I appreciated her thought process.

“Maybe you’re right.”