Page 108 of Hard Heart

“What letter? To the Justice Project?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, I’m glad you did.” I swallowed hard. “I wasn’t expecting to fall for a man behind bars, but it happened, and I don’t regret it.”

Levi cursed softly under his breath. “I’m not going to tell you ‘I love you’ over the phone. I’ll wait until I can say it in person.”

I wiped away a tear. This was harder than I’d ever dreamed it would be. “I’ll hold you to that.”

“Just keep your head down and stay safe. That’s the most important thing.”

“I will; I promise. This will all blow over.”

CHAPTER 32

SERAFINA

It didn’t blow over.

Not unless you counted the hurricane that raged through on Wednesday.

I got to the office at eight and began watching the footage from Blackstone House, starting the morning of the murder on a sunny October day. Damn, it was boring. Nothing happened except a housemate occasionally arrived or left, although Ruby’s bright personality shone from the screen and Levi had been a lot wirier in those days. I was on my third cup of coffee when the shit hit the fan.

The first indication that something was wrong—well, wronger—was the ping-ping-ping of messages from Heidi. Then I saw Dolores hyperventilating in the corner. I looked at Raelene, Raelene looked at me, and we both grabbed our phones as Lili helped Dolores to breathe into a paper bag.

A shooting. There had been a shooting.

Wait, two shootings.

There were two dead bodies in the forest behind Justin Norquist’s home, and the influencers must have arrived on the scene before the police because they were live-streaming corpses on BuzzHub. Shitting hell. I recognised Justin’s girlfriend sitting on a rock, being comforted by… Holy crap. Was that Violet Miller? It was. A podcaster asked Jessalyn if she had any comment, and Violet told him to back off unless he wanted to ride home in a body bag.

Heidi gave up texting and called instead.

“Are you seeing this?”

“Everyone in the office is seeing this.”

“What does it mean? It has to be connected to the Carlson murder, right? I’m telling you, this is going to be on Netflix—a creepy mansion, a dead woman in a locked room, another dead woman going missing from the morgue, a celebrity chef, an A-list actress… And let’s not overlook that everyone involved is hot. This has miniseries written all over it.” Heidi gasped. “Ohmigosh! That’s Ridge Packer.”

“Where?”

“On the ground. Jessalyn murdered her freaking husband. Do you think the other guy was a witness?”

“I thought her husband lived in Maine?”

The husband she’d more or less accused of domestic violence during her last cooking broadcast. I’d watched some of the shows with Heidi—Jessalyn Packer had started out three years ago in a rough, playful style with wobbly footage and basic recipes. Each time, she began with “Dear Saylor, today we’re going to make…” and it appeared as if Saylor was a friend of hers. The two of them often chatted in the comments. But her performances had grown more polished, the recipes more complex, and Ridge Packer had begun making guest appearances. The good humour disappeared, replaced by practised professionalism, and soon she was promoting bakeware, grocery brands, and food-themed holidays. Even without watching the most recent videos, it was obvious all the fun had been sucked out of her world.

Just over a week ago, she’d posted another “Dear Saylor” video, although nobody cared about the recipe because they were too busy discussing the “P.S. Ridge, you never made me come” caption that accompanied it. And last weekend, Justin had gotten in on the act as co-star in a video that started with moussaka and ended with what was basically foreplay. The chemistry between them was off the charts.

But now Justin was in jail.

And Ridge Packer was dead.

“I guess he came to Virginia.”

“Do you think Justin’s been giving her murder lessons?”

I might have said “probably” if another ghoulishly gleeful influencer hadn’t panned over the other body. The face was a bloody mess—that wasn’t hyperbole; it was full of bullet holes—but there was something strangely familiar about him. The slicked-back blond hair. The expensive-looking wool overcoat.