CHAPTER 7 JUSTIN #2
Ironically, if Justin had been forced to make a list of the people in the house who he could imagine killing someone, Jerry’s name would have been at the top, but she wouldn’t have gone wild with a knife.
No, Jerry Knight was calculating, and she never lost her cool.
If she’d wanted Ruby dead, she would have cut the brakes on her car or invited her for a walk in the wilderness and put a single bullet through her head.
Not left her lying in a pool of blood in her own fucking bedroom.
They’d all lost when Ruby died. Lost their friend, their home, and their privacy.
The knife belonged to Dawson, but Dawson said Levi had borrowed it.
Levi said he’d given it back, or at least, he’d left it in Dawson’s room.
At the time of the murder, Dawson had been playing pool with Nolan on the full-sized table they’d spent a weekend disassembling, carting down the narrow stairs, and then reassembling in the basement games room.
Alexa had been there too, working on her plan for world domination and bitching about Bryan’s music.
And while he could imagine her lying through her teeth to protect her friends, Ruby had also been a friend.
If Alexa had suspected Dawson or Nolan of murder, she would have turned them in.
But she hadn’t. No, she’d enlisted Dawson’s help to flee the state, and now she was dating Nolan.
Zach and Brax had been together watching TV, and somehow during their movie marathon, Brax had managed to submit a college assignment, time-stamped via an online portal.
Zach liked his sex on the rougher side, it was true, but he’d had no shortage of women willing to indulge his proclivities, and he wasn’t a psycho.
But Levi had also seemed like a good guy, overall.
In the years since, Justin had found himself questioning his judgment time and time again, and he no longer trusted easily.
Found it hard to make friends. He made stupid mistakes with the wrong women, yes, but when it came to business, he erred on the side of caution.
Got every contract checked by his attorney, performed surveys, obtained the correct permits, and expanded slowly rather than weighing down the business with debt.
The Blackstone House affair had affected him more deeply than he’d ever admit. And he’d spent way too much time thinking through the details, trying to work out what, if anything, he’d missed.
The most believable suspect would have been a stranger, if not for one thing.
Alexa had installed a state-of-the-art security system that recorded all the comings and goings, and nobody but the housemates had entered or left from the day of the murder to the moment Ruby’s body was found.
Eight people—Grey had been away at the time—plus Shadow the cat.
Of course, Linus and Mary Sykes disagreed with the police’s conclusions and tried to pin the crime on anyone but their son.
Justin had borne the brunt of their accusations, and his name was dragged through the mud for months afterward.
His whole life had been torn apart. A team of private investigators had followed him, threatened him, and tried to bribe his friends into turning against him.
Eliza couldn’t take the constant scrutiny, and she’d broken off their engagement before moving back home to Wyoming.
Now she was playing happy families with a rancher named Hank, their three kids, and too many horses to count.
She and Justin still sent each other Christmas cards.
There was no hate between them, but he still harboured bitterness toward the Sykes family when he thought back to what might have been.
Although in a roundabout way, he also had to thank them for his success.
While Grey headed off to law school and Brax muttered about suing for defamation, Alexa had simply stolen the Sykeses’ money, distributed it among the remaining housemates, and disappeared into the ether again.
Justin felt guilty for accepting the cash, but not too guilty.
Mostly, he’d been relieved that there was no longer a team of PIs tracking his every move—those assholes didn’t work for free.
He’d used his share to start Norquist Construction, but when he broke ground on his first project, he also made a promise to Ruby: for every ten properties he built, he’d transfer one to a charitable foundation, and those homes would be offered for rental to women escaping difficult situations at way below market rate.
So far, the Ruby Rose Foundation had provided accommodation to over one hundred women in need and their children too, and he hoped Ruby would be proud.
Next up, he planned to work with a local charity to provide emergency sleep pods for folks who found themselves unhoused, and he had a meeting about that at three p.m., with or without eyebrows.
Justin leaned back in his chair and groaned.
Why the hell had he hooked up with that blonde last night?
Ava had been wrong about it helping him to get over Melanie.
Okay, so he had no desire to get under her again, but no-strings sex with zero emotion just wasn’t his thing, and he didn’t plan on doing it again.
Justin was halfway through replying to a message from his quantity surveyor when Amie returned with two cups of coffee and a pencil. She set the cups on the desk and then perched on the edge herself.
“Okay, eyes on me,” she said.
“Why?”
“Because Lois has the same colour hair as you, so I borrowed her eyebrow pencil. Let’s see if we can make you look a little less…uh…”
“Accident-prone?”
“I was gonna go with ‘unhinged,’ but ‘accident-prone’ works too.”
Amie’s loose sweater brushed against his chest as she worked, her bottom lip pinched between her teeth, and he breathed in her citrusy perfume. Finally, she sat back and tilted her head to one side, studying his face.
“Okay, there we go. From a distance, you’ll look almost normal.”
“How big a distance are we talking?”
“Like, twenty yards?”
“Sheesh, I have two face-to-face meetings this afternoon.”
“Indoors or outdoors? If you’re outdoors, you could wear the hat.”
“Indoors.”
“I don’t know, maybe you could put a Band-Aid over the shaved patch and tell the folks you had surgery or something?”
“What kind of surgery does a person have on an eyebrow?”
“Uh, mole removal?”
“They’re going to know I didn’t have a mole.”
“Are the meetings with men or women?”
“Men.”
“Then I doubt they’re that observant.” Amie smiled brightly. “There’s your coffee, and Juliette says the monthly reports for February will be on your desk by lunchtime.”
“A fucking Band-Aid?”
“Better than looking unhinged.”
“Do we even have Band-Aids?”
“Sure we do.” Amie’s expression softened. “Breakups are hard. And it’s so easy to get distracted by questioning yourself and dwelling on every mistake. Believe me, I know.”
“Do you think I made a mistake?”
“With Melanie?”
“Breaking up with her.”
Amie blew out a breath. Yes, she was an employee, but they’d known each other for years, and Justin trusted her judgment.
“Honestly? No. She seemed friendly at first, but after the modelling thing took off, she changed.”
“She definitely got more confident.”
“It was more than that. She started thinking she was better than everyone else.” Amie shook her head. “Forget I said that.”
“No, it needed saying. I guess it was easier to bury my head in the sand than admit I have the worst taste in women.”
“Maybe lay off the dating for a few months? Honestly, it’s a minefield.”
“Speaking from experience?”
“Yes, but you also got distracted after Rebecca cheated on you, remember? Although you didn’t manage to shave off anything important that time.”
He’d just drunk too much and put on twenty pounds before Secret Santa gifted him a gym membership at the office Christmas party. He never did find out who’d been responsible, but it had given him the kick up the ass he needed.
“Yeah, I remember. Okay, no more dating for a while.”
“Phew. And no more Mr. Nice Guy. You’re such a pushover.”
“I’ll remember that the next time you ask for a raise.”
“I’ve never had to ask for a raise. You just pay me more every year because I’m amazing at my job.”
That was true.
“Fine, no more Mr. Nice Guy,” he grumbled. “Get me a cookie.”
Amie burst out laughing. “Sure, and a Band-Aid too. Do I have the best ideas, or what?”
Justin rolled his eyes and finally smiled. “Or what.”