Page 52 of Hard Heart

“Like where? What about money? Why would he leave all his stuff behind? His parents haven’t heard from him either, and we had another operation planned.”

Maybe he just didn’t fancy being deported from Argentina? I almost said, but I bit my tongue. In truth, I wanted Big Oil to be the answer because, let’s face it, there weren’t any other leads in Sykes’s case. But where would I even start with this web of—dare I say it—lunacy? Yes, the number of scientists who’d died while involved in water electrolysis research did seem unusual, but there were several wild leaps required to spin a series of seemingly unrelated incidents into a coherent story. A brain tumour? A hit-and-run? A gun crime? None of those were unusual events in the US, although the disappearance of Julisa Denning was a little disturbing.

Raelene had been right when she said this was a rabbit hole we didn’t want to go down.

And if it weren’t for Levi, I’d walk away.

What a bloody mess.

I glanced at my watch, more as an excuse than because I had to get back to work in a hurry. Raelene wasn’t a clock-watcher, and she didn’t care if I took an extra ten minutes for lunch. Hell, she wasn’t even there this afternoon. Her daughter was off school sick, and her husband had a bunch of meetings, so Raelene was working from home. Apparently, a hybrid arrangement would be possible once I was fully qualified and settled in. I’d never planned to stay at the Justice Project for that long, but the place was growing on me, and I liked the idea of flexibility. Was money more important than job satisfaction? Was it better to be rich than happy? I’d been brought up to believe they were one and the same, but I was yet to find a role in life that combined the two.

“Did anyone speak with the staff at the prison?”

“Oh, sure, they said he’d been released. Then poof, he was gone.”

“How about the police? Was he reported missing?”

“There’s no evidence of foul play. That’s what they said.”

“I really have to head back to work, but do you think you could email me the information you have on the people you just mentioned?”

“So you can go after the billionaires? They need to pay.”

“So I can understand whether a case might have merit.”

“I can do it,” Bliss offered. “But I’ll have to photocopy everything. We don’t send investigative files by email because the deep state is always watching.”

Seriously? Who did they think was going to read their emails? Twenty minutes of conversation, and I was already losing the will to live—monitoring their communications would be ten times worse.

“Thank you, I’d very much appreciate that. Shall we meet back here when you have the copies ready?”

“You want us to drop the stuff off at your place?”

No, I absolutely did not.

I tapped the side of my nose. “No addresses. The deep state is always watching, remember?”

“Wow, that’s a lot of paper.”

Heidi stared at the three boxes that I’d stacked beside the couch. I’d gone to the vegan restaurant to collect them, and then I’d had to call a cab so I could schlep them back to the apartment. Bliss and Bodhi both scowled when they saw the cab.

“Yup, it’s from Save Our Planet.”

“They sure don’t seem concerned about saving the trees. Do we have to read all that? What is it?”

“Their investigative files on Sykes and a bunch of other missing scientists. They’re in agreement that his conviction was a setup by Big Oil.”

She opened a box and groaned. “This is full to the top. Ugh, I think I liked it better when you were just helping regular murderers. How’s that going, by the way?”

“Slowly.”

I spent my days requesting public records, drafting petitions for Raelene to review, filing them with various courts once they’d been approved, and reading any new applications that came in. We’d been granted permission to retest for DNA in the Jones case, and that evidence was with the lab. An expert was reviewing the medical records in the Sam Stevens case, and a private investigator was looking for the cellmate who’d testified against Javier Montenegro. He’d been released three years ago and promptly disappeared, a bit like Bodhi’s friend. I toyed with the idea of having an off-the-record chat with the PI. How common was it for parolees to go missing?

“I’m not working this evening—you want to split a pizza?”

“Why not?”

Heidi worked six days a week, depending on whether she had any auditions. Technically, she was self-employed, which meant she paid Jackson to use his stage, and in return, she kept all the tips. Jackson made the rest of his money from cover charges and overpriced beverages.