Page 31 of Hard Heart

“I suppose if the lawyering thing doesn’t work out, I could always start a podcast.”

I half expected him to shut down, but instead, he chuckled. “‘My conversations with a killer: the Levi Sykes story.’”

Fuck it. I had to know. “Are you a killer?”

His gaze sharpened. “No, I’m not.”

“Are you a liar?”

“I think everyone bends the truth on occasion. But you’re asking if I’m lying to you here, today, and the answer is also no.”

I’d been holding my breath, waiting for his answer, and now I exhaled slowly. Of course, I still couldn’t be sure he was telling the truth, but he had little reason to lie to me. He already understood the futility of this quest.

“Will you promise not to lie in the future?”

“Yes, but I reserve the right to keep certain things to myself if I don’t think they’re relevant to the case.”

That was fair enough.

“So, the podcast… Are you going to hustle me to add a chunk of the ad revenue to your commissary account?”

“My commissary account is just fine. I do have one condition, though.”

Uh-oh. “What’s that?”

“You can’t mention Lake Sterling. Duke shouldn’t have told you about that.”

Ah, the art website. “Because that’s how you keep your commissary account healthy?”

“Because that’s how I keep my sanity in this place.”

“Why do you think he did tell me?”

“Because he believes the staff are assholes who take advantage.”

“And do they?”

“Yes, but I get perks too.” He nodded towards the door as a key scraped in the lock. “Decent coffee, for example. Who do you think paid for the Nespresso machine?”

The guard walked in and set a paper cup in front of each of us. Prior to our visit with Elias, Raelene had explained that we couldn’t take hot drinks into the interview room because boiling water could be used as a weapon. I glanced at my steaming cup—either the guards didn’t care if I got disfigured, or they believed Sykes could be trusted. As he himself would say: interesting. Once the guard had departed, I blew across the surface and took a sip of my drink, and I had to admit it wasn’t terrible coffee.

“Where were we?” he asked.

“Lake Sterling and your parents. I won’t jeopardise your coffee habit; don’t worry.”

“My parents.” Another sigh. “Where do I even start with that?”

“At the beginning?”

“How long do you have?”

It was a rhetorical question, but I answered anyway. “Most of the day. I need to drive back to Richmond this evening. How long do you have?”

“An hour, two max. I need to draw a possum today.”

“A…possum?”

“It’s a commission—a pet possum. Go figure.”