Page 121 of Hard Heart

“Call the lab,” Jerry said. “Make sure they have that sample locked in a fucking vault.”

“It’s Sunday. I doubt they’re even open, and besides, we already have the results.”

“Finally, some good news. Did you get any hits?”

“How would we get hits? We don’t have anything to compare against. It’s not as if we can hack into the police database and compare our samples to a bunch of criminals.” They were all staring at me. Huh. Was I right about Alexa’s back door access? “Can we?”

“Oh, my sweet summer child… Send what you have to Alexa, and we’ll see if there’s a match.”

“Is that legal?”

“Your boyfriend was framed for murder, a judge sent him to prison for life, there’s a possibility of police corruption, and you’re worried about the law?”

“I suppose when you put it like that… You really think there’s corruption?”

“They went hard at Justin. An agent with the state police—Rimer—took the lead on that, and there’s something off about her.”

“Rimer? She showed up at my home one evening.”

“In Richmond?”

“Yes. I emailed her partner to ask about the case, and she dropped by to tell me he was on medical leave.”

“Weird.”

“That’s what I thought, especially since I never gave her my address. But it happened a couple of months ago, and she hasn’t been back.”

It felt as if I was crossing over to the dark side, but Levi was already there. And as Alexa and Ari said, we weren’t the ones who started this. It was time to fight fire with fire and darkness with darkness. As Alexa got to work dismantling the offending electronics, I began wondering whether I’d wasted my time sitting yet another bar exam. Not only was I doubting my ability to stand up in court without getting overcome by anxiety, but I was also beginning to suspect the law was an ass. Heinous mistakes had been made. The wrong people were being protected.

Then my phone pinged.

Unknown

Hey, it’s Rudd—I got a new number. I heard Flora’s coming to the US next week? Why don’t the two of you spend a few days in New York? We should clear the air.

What the actual fuck?

CHAPTER 36

SERAFINA

“Bloody hell. Shouldn’t she be wearing some kind of safety equipment? A harness?”

My heart lodged in my throat as I watched Spider walk along the ridge of the roof as if she were out for an afternoon stroll.

“She’s fine,” Jerry said, popping a grape into her mouth. Someone had DoorDashed coffee and lunch, although I couldn’t stomach the idea of eating.

“Doesn’t she understand gravity is a thing?”

“She free soloed El Capitan in under three hours.”

“In English?”

“She can climb big walls, fucking fast.”

Spider threw a loop of rope over the weathervane that topped the conical roof of the turret, hung onto the ends, and walked around the tower at a forty-five-degree angle. When she reached the front, she simply gripped the guttering and slipped through the open window. A second later, the rope was snaking loose, and that must have been what we saw on the video.

“Well?” Jerry asked Alexa.