Page 22 of Hard Heart

“Okay, fine. But we have to be back before dark.”

CHAPTER 9

SERAFINA

“There’s no HOA here,” Heidi said as we stared up at the gloomy facade of Blackstone House. “They’d pitch a fit over those trees.”

I gripped the rusted gate and studied the pale grey walls. The windows were boarded up, and paint peeled from wooden frames, but it was clear someone had cared for this place once. A wide porch stretched from the tower in the left-hand corner all the way across the front of the building, a broken rocking chair still sitting in one corner.

But the place wasn’t in as bad a shape as I’d imagined it would be. The hedge and trees in the front yard desperately needed a trim, but the grass had been cut recently, and the gravel driveway was weed-free. A couple of flyers poked out of the mailbox. Was it emptied regularly? By whom? Did Sykes’s father keep an eye on the place?

“Let’s go in,” Heidi whispered. Why was she whispering? The nearest neighbours were fifty yards away, tucked behind Blackstone House with a row of conifers in between. I snuck a look at the house on the other side of the street and thought I saw a curtain twitch, but nobody came rushing out to ask what we were doing. Maybe they were used to true-crime junkies dropping by for “research purposes”?

Ugh. Was this what my life had come to? Visiting murder scenes on my day off, like a ghoulish kind of tourist?

“We can’t go in. It’s private property. Close the freaking gate—we need to leave.”

“Call it research. You’re practically Levi’s lawyer.”

“No, I’m really not. For starters, I’m not a lawyer in Virginia, and he doesn’t seem to want my help anyway.”

“If anyone sees us, we can just say we’re lost.”

“Seriously? You think they haven’t heard that line before?”

“What’s the worst they can do? Call the cops? It’s Boxing Day—I bet most of them are on vacay, and even if a patrol car did show up, they’re not going to arrest us for ringing the doorbell.”

I squinted past her. “I think it’s a knocker.”

“Whatevs.” She spun around and headed up the driveway before I could stop her. “Are you coming?”

Did I have a choice? I hurried to catch up with her as she climbed the steps to the front door. “Stop.”

“Wow, this was a beautiful house once.”

“We have to go.”

“Look at this trim. I think it’s original.”

“Heidi…”

“Ruby died right up there in the tower. Did you ever read Rapunzel?”

“Her life was no fairy tale.”

“I know. But if I lived here, that’s the room I would have picked. Maybe my Prince Charming would show up?”

Heidi jogged back down the steps and went to take a closer look at the tower. Up close, the house was both impressive and imposing, a dream home that had turned into a nightmare. And I saw what Heidi meant about the Rapunzel thing. A trellis stretched from the ground to Ruby’s bedroom window, a plant twining its way skywards. Whatever it was, it had died off for the winter—or possibly permanently—and the wiry stems did remind me of hair.

Before I could help myself, I’d walked around the back of the house, to the wide, stepped terrace that looked down onto a once beautiful garden. The outlines of flower beds scarred the lawn, and a triple garage was still standing despite the roof sagging in the middle. Beyond the garage, muddy water filled a giant hole. Was that their last unfinished project? A pond? A swimming pool? My heart ached for the seven innocent people who’d lost their home and the one who’d lost her life.

“It would have been so cool to live here,” Heidi said, skipping ahead to peer through the dusty garage window. “I see a car.”

“Perhaps it’s Levi’s?” He wouldn’t be using it in prison.

“A lawnmower too.”

“Well, someone’s looking after the place.”