Page 91 of Hard Heart

“No, nothing. Why would… I don’t know why she’d put them there. She only wore the dress once, and she hated it because it was too short.” Levi searched for the memory. “We were at a party with Brax and Grey.” Another snippet came back. “And Carissa. At Georgetown. Carissa made some comment like, ‘Only a ho would wear that outfit,’ and obviously Ruby was a little sensitive about that, so she spent the rest of the evening pulling the hem down, and I don’t think she ever wore the dress again.”

“I think she wore it once more. There was some, uh, staining. We’re sending it to the lab.”

“Staining?” He took a closer look at the photos. At the panties. “Ah, fuck.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be. It’s not as if I didn’t know what she was doing. But I still don’t understand why she wouldn’t just put the clothes in the laundry.”

“Raelene says blackmail or evidence.”

“Blackmail? No, no, no. Not Ruby. Evidence of what?”

“That’s what we’re trying to work out. But it’s weird that she went to so much trouble to keep the dress and the underwear safe and hidden. We thought the letters might be initials.”

Levi studied the photos again. RA and FT? “I have no idea who they could be.”

“Neither do I, not yet. But I’m going to find out. Raelene thinks that this could be a motive for her death, that she had a run-in with the wrong person and paid the ultimate price. Possibly a client who was afraid she’d tell his significant other? I have to ask—would Justin have paid for her services?”

“Hell no.” That was Levi’s immediate reaction, but how well did he know the guy really? “Maybe? I never had him pegged as a murderer either.”

“Which brings me to my next question… So much seems to hinge on the surveillance videos from the house, and our petition for the evidence is still working its way through the system. Do you think one of your former housemates might have kept a copy off the record?”

“Person A, absolutely.” Alexa undoubtedly had ten copies, all backed up in different places. “Jerry, probably. The others, possibly.”

“If I were to, say, approach one of them… Who would be the best person to try?”

“Ah, hell.” They’d already spoken about this. “I don’t want you near any of those assholes.”

“Sooner or later, I’m going to have to speak with them. They were there. They might know something you don’t.”

“Obviously.”

“Okay, I promise I won’t try speaking with Justin. And in the interests of full disclosure, I’ve set up alerts on each of their names, and it seems as if Braxton, Dawson, and Nolan might also come as a package deal.”

Another photo, this one of…a food fight? Nolan was front and centre with Brax and Dawson in the background, the three of them sporting tuxedos and various degrees of annoyance.

“Figures that Brax is the glue holding everyone together. Out of all of us, he was the most social. Him and Zach.”

“This was taken last night at an awards dinner in San Francisco. The woman with the chocolate mousse in her hair is married to a tech tycoon, and she had an altercation with Nolan de Luca’s wife.”

“Nolan’s wife? He got married?”

“Apparently so. If you look closely, he’s wearing a ring.”

Levi did take a closer look, and Sera was right. Nolan was wearing a wedding band, but that wasn’t the most notable thing about the picture. No, what made Levi curse under his breath was the tiny, furious blonde fighting to get free as Nolan tugged her away from the woman wearing the mousse.

“I don’t fucking believe this.”

“They shared a house for two years and then bonded over your trial. It doesn’t seem far-fetched that the three of them stayed on friendly terms.”

“That’s not the problem.” Levi’s cuffs jingled as he stabbed a finger at the paper. “That’s the problem.”

“Nolan’s wife?”

“Also known as Person A.”

“No way. Are you serious?”