CHAPTER 26 JUSTIN
JUSTIN
“This is the place?”
Brax sounded incredulous, and Justin couldn’t blame him. When Alexa said Linus Sykes had moved out of politics and into the hospitality industry to become the CEO of Sunwake Brew Co., he’d been expecting a chain of coffee shops that rivalled Starbucks.
But the building they found themselves standing outside wasn’t a fancy HQ.
No, it was more of a shack. A simple building with a tiled roof, a long wooden counter, and half a dozen stools lined up in front.
A dark-haired man was frothing milk with a fancy coffee machine, and another was making small talk with a woman waiting for her drink, a half-read paperback sitting on the counter in front of him.
No.
No way.
That couldn’t be Linus Sykes.
Gone were the custom-made suit and Italian leather shoes. He was wearing shorts and flip-flops, and he hadn’t shaved for days.
“Alexa said he’d fallen on hard times, but can’t he afford a haircut?” Brax muttered.
“If he can’t afford a haircut, how is he paying the private investigator?”
“Let’s find out.”
The two of them walked over to the coffee shack, and Justin checked out the menu. It was basic, just six kinds of coffee plus a selection of cantuccini, and the place was only open for three hours in the mornings.
“How is this a business?” Justin asked under his breath.
“Money laundering. This has to be a money-laundering operation.”
Okay, that made more sense. Justin perched on a stool while Brax remained standing.
“Ciao, ragazzi. What can I get for you?” the barista asked, his greeting Italian but his accent Spanish. His name badge said “Alejandro.”
“Do you have decaf?” Justin asked.
He’d been awake half the night, and he needed to sleep on the flight back.
Although he didn’t regret the exhaustion.
He’d been about to climb into bed when Jessie knocked softly on his door, two glasses of wine and two mugs of hot chocolate on a tray.
The good kind with cream and marshmallows.
He’d updated her on the Amie investigation, and although she didn’t say so in words, he knew she’d been worried about him making the trip here today.
They’d ended up watching a movie together, some Hallmark romcom with an ending Justin had almost given up on finding for himself.
But when Jessie fell asleep with her head on his shoulder, he’d begun to wonder “what if?”
What if he said fuck the timing and gave in to his feelings?
What if he asked Jessie out on a date?
What if he kept the house in Greenway Park and suggested she stay permanently?
But those were questions for tomorrow.
Today, the barista looked faintly horrified. “Decaf? No. We have a Colombian roast or an excellent blend from Guatemala.”
“Surprise me.” Depending on how the conversation went, there was a good chance Justin wouldn’t be drinking the coffee anyway.
“I’ll have a double espresso,” Brax said, then turned sideways to lean on the counter. “Hello, Linus.”
Sykes looked up sharply from his book. “Do I know you?”
“Braxton Dupré.” He used his old last name, the one he’d changed to distance himself from both the murder investigation and the father he hated. “It’s been a while.”
“Braxton Dupré.” Sykes turned the name over in his mouth. “You’re one of the reprobates who used to share a house with Levi.”
Somehow, Sykes managed to sound more disgusted by the thought of his son than the barista had about the decaf.
“That’s right.”
“My sympathies. What brings you to Florida?” Linus Sykes waved a hand at the marina. “Thinking of buying a boat?”
“We came to talk to you, actually.”
The man looked beyond Brax and focused on Justin, no doubt trying to work out where they’d crossed paths before.
“Justin Norquist. I also used to live in Blackstone House.”
“As I said, I’m sorry to hear that. Why would you come here to speak with me?”
Sykes hadn’t told them to go to hell, which Justin took as a good sign.
“We want to know what’s going on with Levi.”
“How should I know? I haven’t seen him since the trial.”
“He’s your son,” Brax said simply.
“Sometimes, we’re dealt bad hands in life. Look, as far as I’m aware, Levi’s locked up in Redding’s Gap prison, and that’s where he’ll be until he breathes his last.”
“Redding’s Hill. He got downgraded from the supermax to its sister facility.”
Sykes merely shrugged. “I have a new life here in Florida.”
“Did you know Levi’s planning to file an appeal?”
Justin didn’t think Linus was faking his confusion.
“An appeal? On what grounds could he possibly appeal?”
“We were hoping you’d be able to tell us.”
“Just because he shares half of my DNA—and believe me, I checked that—doesn’t mean we have anything to do with each other. If he’s filing an appeal, presumably he has a lawyer. Try talking to him.”
“Her. She’s a woman. And we were actually hoping to talk to the private investigator you’ve had on retainer for the past decade. We’ve been unable to find his phone number.”
“What are you talking about?”
Justin decided to cut to the chase. “My executive assistant has disappeared. She’s been missing for almost a week now, and her roommate told us you’ve been paying her a hundred bucks a month to spy on me.”
“Well, she told you wrong.”
“She had no reason to lie.”
“Everyone has a reason to lie. You just don’t know what hers is yet.”
“Do you think we’ve forgotten the way those assholes from Liberty Line Investigations hounded us before the trial?” Brax asked.
“I told Mary they were a bunch of clowns, but would she listen? Of course not. She never listened to anybody.”
Justin and Brax looked at each other, puzzled. During the trial, there had been a very different dynamic between Linus and Mary Sykes. She’d supported Levi, and apart from providing the occasional soundbite to the media, he’d been stoic in the background. Quiet. Supportive.
“So you didn’t want Levi to get off scot-free?”
“He killed a woman; it seems there’s little doubt about that. You think I wanted to keep him out of prison so he could kill another one?”
“Well, yes? He was family.”
“Mr. Dupré, you’ve obviously come a long way to speak with me, and I’m sure neither one of us wants this conversation to go on for longer than it has to.
So I’ll be honest here. I never wanted children.
Do you know how many therapy sessions it took for me to admit that?
Mary was supposed to be on birth control, but there was an ‘accident.’” He used finger quotes around the word for emphasis.
“I told myself it might not be that bad. If she was preoccupied with a kid, then she wouldn’t be meddling in my life anymore, and it worked.
She became so focused on Levi that everything else took a back seat. ”
“It’s called toxic codependency,” the barista put in. “Look it up.”
Sykes just nodded. “I was the third wheel in that relationship.”
“More therapy,” added the barista.
“You never considered divorce?” Justin asked.
“Every damn day. But you know who Mary’s aunt was?”
Justin glanced at Brax, who gave the tiniest shake of the head. “Who?”
“Eileen Crabtree. Senator Eileen Crabtree. She believed in three things—the Constitution, capitalism, and the sanctity of marriage—and if I’d divorced her favourite niece, that crone would have tanked my career and made my life a living hell.”
“So you stayed married for business purposes?”
“Few people marry for love in DC. And it wasn’t a terrible decision until Mary forgot we were in Washington and not Hollywood. The ‘no publicity is bad publicity’ rule doesn’t apply there, not unless you’re Dax Prescott and your father owns a media empire.”
Sykes wasn’t wrong about Prescott. Last year, the man had been caught on a hot mic saying he could choke a hooker live on camera and Americans would still vote for him, and when the tape went viral, he’d claimed his words were taken out of context.
Like many, Justin had wondered how the fuck you could take that out of context.
But Prescott had been featured on every TV channel, every radio show, every podcast explaining that he’d been speaking metaphorically.
That hardworking Americans were sick of seeing crime on every street corner and he, Dax Prescott, was the only man willing to do something about it.
“I guess I can understand that,” said Brax, who’d stayed married way too long for financial reasons.
“Anyhow, Mary became obsessed with getting Levi out of jail, which at least kept her out of my hair. But the stress killed her in the end.”
“I’m sorry for your loss.” Brax didn’t sound sorry at all.
“You need to work on your sincerity,” Sykes told him. “You’d never make a politician.”
“That’s fine.”
“Not like your friend. Congressman Meyer, isn’t it? He sent a card.”
“I’m surprised you left Washington.”
“It was the right time. Things are changing there, and not for the better.”
“Yes, I heard Senator Crabtree passed away.”
“It wasn’t just that. The whole damn government is turning into a circus.
In the old days, it was simple—you had the Democrats and the Republicans.
Democrats wanted to take money from the rich and give it to the poor, and Republicans wanted to take money from the poor and give it to the rich. Everyone knew their place.”
“And then we had President Biggs,” Brax said, grimacing.
“That fool got himself elected with a promise of small government, which he kept. Shame he didn’t understand more about what the government actually did. By the time he finished gutting every agency, the whole damn shebang was ready to collapse. And now we have President Harrison.”
“Isn’t that a good thing?” Justin asked. “He’s always struck me as a man of principle.”
“Exactly.” Sykes pointed at him with a cookie. “Harrison is fundamentally honest, and how can big business work with a man like that? Backroom deals make the world go around, and he refuses to play the game.”
“Linus, remember your blood pressure,” the barista said. “And breathe.”
“Right.” Sykes took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “That’s all in the past. I’m a new man now.”
“A coffee magnate?” Brax asked.
“The coffee’s just a hobby. Do you realise how hard it is to get a decent espresso around here?”
“We only flew in this morning.”
“Are you staying at the Bohemian?”
“No, we’re heading straight back to Virginia.”
“Shame. They serve a great surf ’n’ turf.”
“About Levi…”
“Forget Levi. I have. Moving on was the best thing I ever did.” His face softened as he smiled at the barista. “Mary’s life insurance policy paid out, then I met Alejandro in rehab, and we decided to move here for a fresh start.”
“He’s finally living his truth,” Alejandro said, smiling back. “Now we serve coffee in the mornings and sail in the afternoons.”
Uh…
Sykes gestured toward a sixty-foot yacht parked just beyond the coffee stand. Three flags fluttered from the top deck—the Stars and Stripes and the Colombian Tricolor Nacional, with a pride flag between them. Well, fuck.
“I’m experiencing freedom for the first time. Freedom from past mistakes, freedom from society’s expectations. You should try one of the cantuccini—they’re made to an old family recipe.”
“Whose family?” Brax asked. “Not yours, surely?”
“Heavens, no. The Riccis live a couple of miles away, and Lucia bakes the cookies to supplement her social security. I cycle over each morning to pick them up.”
“The doctor says he needs to take more exercise,” Alejandro told them.
Alejandro had to be at least fifteen years younger than Linus. Was that part of the reason for the health kick? Whatever, they seemed happy together, and unless Linus was lying through his teeth, he wasn’t involved in Levi’s latest bid for freedom.
“Thanks for talking with us,” Brax said. “If Levi gets in touch, will you let us know?”
“Sure, if you leave a number, but I wouldn’t hold your breath. Levi was his mother’s son. I had a brief moment of hope when he moved in with you people and began focusing on his studies, but…” Linus shrugged. “We all know how that turned out.”
Yeah, they did. With a funeral, a police investigation, and a nightmare that refused to end. It was time to head back to Virginia.
And to Jessie.