Page 147 of Hard Heart

Thank goodness. Then why had she come to visit? Even though I wanted to slam the door in her face, I waved her inside, and Heidi—bless her—beckoned to Flora.

“I have a whole collection of DVDs in my room—why don’t we pick out a movie to watch after dinner?”

“Don’t you have Netflix? And who’s Levi?”

“Yes, we have Netflix, but does Netflix have Scott Lowes’s entire back catalogue? No, it does not.”

Jester settled onto the couch again, and Rimer eyed him warily. “Can we talk in private?”

“I don’t feel comfortable with that. If you have anything to say, you can say it in front of him.”

“Fine.” The circles under her eyes were worse than mine, and her hair hadn’t been washed in ages. “Larry Paulson was found dead yesterday.”

Well, I hadn’t been expecting that. What was I supposed to say? Any death was a tragedy—almost any death—but I couldn’t find too much sympathy for a man whose botched investigation had landed Levi in prison for a third of his life.

“I’m sorry for your loss. Was it a complication from his gunshot wound?”

“No, it was a fresh one. Kind of. The ME said he’d been gone for at least a week.”

Yikes. I wanted to ask “murder or suicide?” but Mum had imbued a sense of tact in me. “Gosh, what a tragedy. But why does the news bring you to my door at six o’clock on a Sunday evening?”

I needed an early night. Alexa hadn’t been kidding about the helicopter, and apparently, a car would be arriving at eight a.m. to take me to the airfield. The thought of the expense made my eyes water, but screw it, I’d had a terrible week. I deserved a freaking hug from the man I loved. The problem was, Flora would want to know where I was going, and I still had to explain to her that I was, in fact, swapping Rudd for a convict.

I’d managed to speak with Raelene earlier, and I felt bad for disturbing her weekend, but she’d told me to call if anything important happened, and the death of the main suspect in Ruby’s murder certainly counted. She’d listened with a mix of anger and incredulity as I told her about the abduction and subsequent car chase. We’d be requesting a pardon as soon as she could transfer her righteous indignation onto paper, and she’d told me to enjoy my time with Flora while she gleefully drafted a new petition.

“I have to tell you something,” Rimer said. “It’s been eating away at me for years.”

“About Levi’s case?”

She nodded and glanced at Jester, who was listening impassively. At least I had a witness.

“It was my fourth case as Special Agent. I spent years working to get that job, and I’d wanted it since the state police came to my high school to give us a careers talk. They did a great job of selling the dream—who wouldn’t want to make the best country in the world even better, and get paid at the same time?”

“I’m British, so…”

“Uh, right. Anyway, I finally made it. My dad told his friends. My mom baked a cake. My grandma knitted me a sweater with my badge number.” Her voice turned bitter. “My colleagues called me a DEI hire, and on my first day in the department, I walked around with a ‘Honk if you want your cock sucked’ sign on my back all morning. Paulson was the only guy who stuck up for me.”

“I’m sorry that happened to you. For what it’s worth, I reviewed your clearance rate, and it’s better than any of the men in your department have managed.”

“I know. As I said, I worked hard for it. Which is why it hurts so much to throw it all away.”

“Why would you do that?”

“Paulson was good to me. I used to call him my work dad.” Rimer wiped away a tear, and this was more awkward than the sock thing. “But he made some questionable decisions when it came to investigations.”

A flicker of excitement stirred. Was she telling me what I thought she was telling me?

“And one of those decisions related to Levi’s case?”

“He said from the start that Levi was guilty, but…but I sat in on the interviews. I thought Levi was shell-shocked, not evasive. Was his story far-fetched? Yes, but it still warranted a deeper look. Justin should also have been a suspect.”

“But he wasn’t?”

“Paulson said we shouldn’t muddy the waters. That if we looked too hard at Justin, Levi’s lawyers would use that against us in court.” Rimer studied her hands. “He told me to ‘lose’ some of the evidence.”

Holy shit.

“What evidence?”