Page 14 of Hard Heart

Things could be a lot worse.

CHAPTER 6

SERAFINA

“Braxton Vale,” Heidi said.

“Huh?” I looked up from a pile of textbooks, my brain sludge at five p.m. on Friday night. A hard week had taken its toll. Raelene had started me on research, and I’d spent hours preparing notes and drafting motions.

“Leila messaged me. Braxton Dupré is now Braxton Vale, and the club is called Nyx. And actually, it’s clubs, plural, because there are at least two more of them. San Francisco and New York.” Heidi’s eyes widened. “Damn, those girls make bank. I’m in the wrong city.”

“You wouldn’t really do that kinky basement stuff, would you?”

“No, of course not.” She scrunched her lips to one side. “I mean, probably. Leila says her friend Maddie earned enough tips to buy a car in one freaking week.” A pause. “Oh wow, it was a brand-new Audi, not a clunker. I wonder how you get an interview?”

“I suspect you have to be able to walk.”

She glanced at her ankle, now encased in a foam boot, and sighed. “Right.”

After the tumble, her ankle had swelled more and more, and when a cushion fell on her foot and she yelped in pain, I’d found an urgent care clinic that worked with payment plans and driven her there for an X-ray. Nothing was broken, thank goodness, but she’d torn a ligament, and she had to rest for three to six weeks.

So now she was sitting on the sofa, watching one true-crime documentary after another, and it turned out the obsession was contagious. I’d begun listening to podcasts on the way to work, and the whole Levi Sykes conspiracy was starting to sound quite reasonable in comparison.

“Why did Braxton change his name?” I mused. What was he trying to hide? Was he ashamed of his past?

“You want me to ask?”

“No, no, don’t do that. I was just wondering out loud.”

News articles cast him as a “successful businessman” without going into detail about what his business actually was, and he showed up at charity galas and award ceremonies on a semi-regular basis. The other Blackstone House roommates were every bit as fascinating.

Greyson Meyer had been elected to Congress, representing the tenth district of Virginia, which seemed fitting—what politician didn’t have a few skeletons lurking in his closet? Zach Torres carved out a new career as a professional surfer with an apparent allergy to shirts. Dawson Masters had kept a low profile in the military, only to surface years later on the arm of Hollywood actress Violet Miller, and Nolan de Luca ran a vineyard in California.

The other woman in the house, Jerry Knight, had vanished without a trace. There was no indication she’d died, so I had to assume she was alive somewhere and keen to forget her past as a side character in the life of Levi Sykes. And the unidentified minor was still a mystery.

While I was at work, Heidi had stuck a big sheet of paper to the refrigerator and begun summarising what we’d been able to learn from the FOIA requests, from the news, and from the many, many podcasts she’d listened to on the subject. There was a list of evidence that seemed reasonably accurate based on commonalities across the sources, plus our own theories of what might have happened if Sykes was innocent as he claimed. I hadn’t realised a friend of Costello’s also went missing, although no body had ever been found, so maybe she was just running scared?

Evidence from the house

DNA evidence - semen found in Costello. Sykes admitted to sleeping with her earlier that day.

Knife used to stab Costello belonged to Dawson Masters. Masters said he lent it to Sykes. Sykes said he put it back in Masters’s room.

Costello strangled manually. No touch DNA noted.

Sykes was moody with known psychiatric problems.

Security cameras showed nobody but the roommates were present in the house when the murder happened.

Bedroom windows secured from the inside.

Pentagram carved on Costello’s chest. Occult ritual gone wrong?

Large quantity of cash found in the fireplace in Costello’s room.

Locket she always wore was missing.

Worked part-time in a bar in DC.