Page 155 of Hard Heart

Awkward. “There was a brief conversation during the operation to retrieve Flora.”

There, that covered a multitude of sins, and thankfully Levi didn’t pry any harder.

“So you want to find Tina,” he murmured.

“If she’s still alive. That’s why we’re here today—to piece together any information we have about her.”

“Where’s Grey? He was closer to her than any of us—they used to hang out together at school.”

“Yeah, so there’s a problem with that.”

Ari took over. “The kompromat is being used to influence votes. Both Robert Allen and Frank Trainor showed anomalies in their voting patterns, and those anomalies began to show up shortly after Ruby’s death.”

“Anomalies?” Justin asked.

“Trainor served Rhode Island for seventeen years. For the first eleven, he was pro-choice, and it’s well-documented that his eldest daughter died during a difficult childbirth. But suddenly, he has an ‘epiphany,’ and begins campaigning for anti-abortion laws, and he decides no-fault divorce is no longer a great idea either.”

“Despite being married four times,” Echo added.

“Robert Allen was firmly in favour of improving workplace safety, raising the minimum wage, and making sure more South Dakotans could afford healthcare. But now he’s helping to cut regulations left, right, and centre. He says what his constituents want to hear, and he has more campaign donations than ever, but then he votes against his own manifesto.”

“This is happening on a state level too,” Alexa said. “We’ve identified four hundred and seventeen elected officials with ‘interesting’ voting records.”

Serafina raised an eyebrow. “Yikes. That many?”

“Yup. And one of them is Greyson Meyer.”

Levi paused with a macaron halfway to his mouth. “Are you joking?”

Unfortunately not, which was why he wasn’t here today. “Grey spent two years bitching that his parents were never there for him as a child. He voted against enhanced maternity leave last month. Two months before that, he voted to loosen fracking regulations.”

“He hates fracking. It ruined his hometown.”

“Precisely. The question is, what do they have on him?”

“And how compromised is he?” Alexa added. “What a dumbass.”

“Have you asked him about this?”

“Not yet. We’re taking the low-key approach, trying to gather whatever information we can before we raise our heads above the parapet again.”

“Uh, so there might be a problem with that strategy,” Serafina said. “Which is the other reason we came today, that and I’ve always wanted to see the fountains at the Bellagio.”

Justin groaned. “I’m sick of problems. I just want to build houses and watch Jessie making a mess in our kitchen.”

“What’s the problem?” Dawson asked.

“People keep calling the Justice Project with interview requests. I’m screening them and filing most of them in the bin. Raelene occasionally talks with a reporter, if they’re with a reputable publication and she thinks it might benefit our work. I’m not speaking with anyone, and neither is Levi.”

“Same approach as Jessie and me,” Justin said.

“Did you get an email from a reporter named Giselle Martineau?”

“The name doesn’t ring a bell, but I told Sophy to delete all those messages.”

When Amie Carlson’s former roommate got fired from her job at the Waffle Factory for taking too much personal time, Justin had hired her to help out in the office at Norquist Construction. She might not have been the best PA, but at least she wasn’t taking backhanders from a secretive organisation to spy on her boss. Echo had background-checked her thoroughly.

“Check your recycle bin.”