Page 107 of Hard Heart

“Excuse me a moment,” I said to Raelene.

I climbed out of the car, looked around wildly, and waved my middle finger at all points of the compass.

“Stop spying on me,” I yelled, and an elderly man ambling past with his dog gave me a concerned glance and sped up. “Where are you? This isn’t funny anymore. It wasn’t even funny in the first place.”

My phone rang. Unknown number. I switched calls and took a deep breath.

“Stop shrieking before someone has you committed,” Jerry Knight said.

“You stole a freaking body. Are you crazy?”

“That’s a weird accusation to make.”

She’s a sneaky bitch, but she isn’t a liar, that’s what Levi had said. How accurate was his statement?

“I know you were behind it, and I don’t like being used. Why did you do it?”

There was a long pause, and I checked the phone to see if the call had dropped. But no, it was still connected.

Finally, she spoke. “I don’t trust the police. You said it yourself—the forensic evidence in Ruby’s case was hinky. Did you know the ME scheduled to perform Amie’s autopsy assisted on Ruby’s?”

So Levi was right.

“No, I didn’t know that.”

“Stop yelling at clouds,” she said, and then she really was gone.

How the hell was I supposed to explain this to Levi?

“Say that again?”

I spoke through gritted teeth. “Amie Carlson’s body is gone.”

“What do you mean, gone? How can it just disappear?”

“From the morgue. I’ll give you three guesses as to who was involved, but please don’t say her name out loud.” Not on a recorded call, anyway.

“Fuck.” Levi blew out a breath. “Remember that old urban legend? Where you chant ‘Bloody Mary’ three times in the mirror, and the devil appears and tells you the future?”

“At the moment, the future feels as if it’s spiralling out of control, but they did send the video we wanted. You were right about the sting in the tail.”

“Did you⁠—”

“Open it on a separate laptop? Yes. Our IT guy showed grudging admiration, then got annoyed, then sent a company-wide memo reminding everyone not to click on any links unless we’ve checked them out thoroughly. Apparently, we’ve experienced an unusually high number of phishing attacks this month.”

“We both know where they’re coming from,” Levi said.

“Right. But I’m not sure it’s all bad.”

“It isn’t?”

“Something your old friend said… I think they’re also starting to question the evidence. But there’s this whole media circus surrounding Justin, and…and it scares me.”

I’d never wanted to be in the public eye, and thanks to the Blackstone House link, heads were turning in our direction. We had one staff member who dealt with that stuff. Officially, Dolores wrote press releases and blog posts, ran the Justice Project’s social media profiles, and responded to any media enquiries, but in reality, she spent her days unjamming the printer and helping people to format documents. This morning, I’d spotted her drinking from a hip flask. Raelene was worried she might have a nervous breakdown.

And we’d been forced to bring the bikers inside because there were half a dozen podcasters roaming the car park like lost souls. Jester had taken over the reception desk and nobody was getting past, not even visitors who were supposed to be there. Worse, he’d sent away the chap trying to deliver coffee refills, and now everyone was cranky and under-caffeinated.

“I wish I’d never written that letter,” Levi said.