Page 57 of Hard Heart

“Dawson joined the military after he left Blackstone House, and now he’s a bodyguard in California. He shot a man who was trying to harm his client. It made the news.”

“Damn. He always did have a protective streak.”

“There is a vast difference between taking a life in the line of duty and killing a woman in cold blood,” I agreed. “And for Dawson to be guilty, two other people would need to be covering for him, not one.”

“What’s Nolan doing these days? Did you find out?”

“He’s running a vineyard in the Sierra Nevada, quite a successful one. You mentioned that they were both protective of Person A. What if she harmed Ruby and they gave her an alibi? It’s convenient that she was also responsible for the video footage that put the blame on you.”

“No way. Person A thought blood was gross, plus she was tiny. She wouldn’t have had the physical strength to overpower Ruby.” Sykes read down to the next item on my agenda. “Tina wasn’t there.”

“But she disappeared around the same time, didn’t she?”

“So I understand.”

“And she was a colleague of Ruby’s?”

“A colleague and a friend.”

“When you say ‘colleague,’ do you mean just at the bar? Or did they share the same sideline?”

There was a long pause. I was starting to read Sykes better, and that gave me my answer even before he spoke.

“Both.”

“Did she ever come over to the house?”

“Sometimes, mostly to watch a movie or have dinner.”

“Don’t you think it’s weird that she vanished?”

“A little. But Tina never put down roots. She was a year older than Ruby, a military brat, and she’d already lived in four countries and at least six states. Before Ruby died, Tina was saving up to travel around Europe for a year, but it was taking her a while because she took off on a trip every other month.”

“And you think that’s what she did? Went to Europe?”

“I think she wouldn’t have wanted to answer questions about her sideline.”

“Did anyone ever look for her?”

“I don’t know; I got arrested.”

“How about her parents? Family?”

“I doubt it—that was another mess. Officially, her dad died in a training accident.”

“And unofficially?”

“Unofficially, her mom had an affair, her dad found out, and they had a fight. The day after, a grenade he was holding unexpectedly discharged.”

“Oh, hell.”

“Tina thought the Army classed it as a service-related death rather than suicide so the family would get full benefits. I heard that from Ruby, by the way, not from Tina herself. Tina blamed her mom and left home as soon as she turned eighteen.”

A sigh escaped my lips. “This case is a spiderweb of tragedy.”

“That’s a good way of describing it.”

“And we’re trapped in the sticky silk.”