CHAPTER 24 JUSTIN
JUSTIN
“Amie was spying on me? For seven fucking years?”
“Apparently so.”
Time and nerves stretched in the near silence as they absorbed the news. The mystery that had shaped their lives a decade ago wouldn’t die. The ghosts of Blackstone House had returned.
Ari was sitting cross-legged on the coffee table in Justin’s living room, her gaze tracking him as he wore a hole in the carpet. Brax picked at his fingernails, Dawson was leaning against the wall, and the whir of Alexa’s fidget spinner was getting on Justin’s last nerve.
“Will you stop that?” he snapped.
“Stop what?”
“Playing with that damn toy.”
“It’s not a toy; it’s an outlet for stress.”
“Yeah? Well, it’s not helping mine.”
She huffed, but she did at least drop the spinner into her lap.
“If Levi wasn’t in prison, I’d break his fucking nose,” Justin muttered. “He had a spy in my office. What did he think I was going to do? Break down and make a false confession between meetings?”
“At the moment, we don’t know the reason. But the Sykes family was paying Amie twelve hundred bucks a year, so there must have been one.”
“The Sykeses’ PIs were brutal,” Alexa said. Great, she’d started typing instead, her fingers flying over the keys. Click-click-click-click-click. “They hounded Nolan for ages because of who his dad is.”
Justin’s father had killed his mom in a fit of anger, but Nolan’s dad had been a Little League coach, a part-time pastor, and a bona fide serial killer.
Justin wasn’t at all surprised that Linus and Mary Sykes had targeted him, even though Nolan had a solid alibi.
They’d been desperate to free their son.
But Mary had passed away several years ago, and Linus had gone quiet. Why was he back? And why now?
“Do you know who they used?” Ari asked.
“Some questionable outfit based out of DC—Liberty Line Investigations.”
Ari’s expression said that wasn’t good news. “I thought they’d gone out of business.”
Justin only remembered the way they’d followed him from dawn till dusk, asking everyone he knew intrusive questions until he found himself more or less alone.
The stalking had continued until Alexa stole the Sykeses’ money, and although he often felt guilty for accepting stolen funds, he also thought of Eliza and her cowboy in Wyoming and figured he deserved the compensation for what those assholes had put him through.
“Who’s paying them?” he asked Alexa. “I thought you emptied the Sykeses’ bank accounts?”
“Not completely. I just liberated the offshore funds Linus was hiding from the IRS. He still had an account with Wells Fargo, but he also had a drug habit, and could you blame him? If I’d had to live with Mary Sykes, I’d have snorted coke constantly too.”
“She was a strange one,” Dawson agreed. “The way she constantly called Levi, and he wasn’t allowed to make a decision without consulting her first. That was some weird shit.”
“He was sick,” Brax said. “All those pills he took, and he never wanted to talk about what was wrong with him.”
“He was an addict.”
“Did you ever notice he seemed more normal when he hadn’t seen his mom for a few days?”
“Ruby said that’s because he forgot to take his meds,” Alexa put in. “Oh shit.”
“What?” Ari asked.
“Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit.”
“What?” everyone asked together.
“Levi filed…something. Not an appeal, because he tried that and lost, but three weeks ago, a lawyer filed…” Alexa’s gaze flicked from side to side as she studied the screen.
“It’s a petition to release the police files relating to Ruby’s murder as part of…
that fucker. As part of an innocence investigation. ”
A cold knot twisted in Justin’s gut. Not content with wrecking everyone’s lives once, Levi Sykes was trying to do it for a second time?
“I don’t believe this,” he muttered. “How the hell does he think he can get out? There was DNA evidence. A video showing no one else entered or left the house. Dawson lent him the knife he used to stab her.”
“I don’t know; I guess he found a lawyer who’s as crazy as he is.”
“What’s his name?”
“Her name. Raelene Holtz.” More clicking. “She works for the Justice Project in Richmond, Virginia.”
“So are they funding the PI? Where’s Linus Sykes? Is he driving this?”
“Give me a second…”
“How do you not already know the answers?” Brax asked Alexa. “You spy on literally everyone.”
“I do not. Levi Sykes is dead to me. Why would I want to keep up with the details of his life?”
“So that when he files an appeal, we hear about it?”
“Who expected him to file an appeal? On what grounds? He’s supposed to die in prison. Oh, wait… He almost did.”
“Almost did what?”
“Died in prison. There’s, like, a paragraph on a local news website that says he got shipped out to the hospital three and a half weeks ago.”
“Why? Is he sick? Is he trying to get released on health grounds?”
“No, he got knifed in a fight with another prisoner. Shame they didn’t finish him off.”
“I thought you hated blood?” Brax said.
“I should find out who did it and top up their commissary account,” Alexa muttered.
Justin would chip in, especially if Levi had anything to do with Amie’s disappearance.
He felt sick. And angry, not just at Levi but also at Amie for taking that money.
In the office, she was his right-hand woman.
She had access to everything—his emails, his bank accounts, his schedule.
How could he trust her with that information again?
Things were going to be mighty awkward at work if she came back.
And if she didn’t come back? Well, that would be worse.
Justin’s phone rang with an unknown number, and the first thought to go through his mind? Ransom demand. He almost hoped she’d been kidnapped because that seemed like the lesser evil right now.
“Justin? This is Chris Carlson. Saige said I needed to call you about Amie?”
Yeah, he definitely would’ve preferred the kidnapper. Telling a father his daughter had gone missing was a hundred times worse than handing over a pile of cash.
The conversation went as well as expected—Mr. Carlson apologised for assuming Justin’s voicemail was a crank call and promised to call the police right away to add extra weight to the initial report.
He hoped to arrive in Virginia on Monday morning, and with little else to offer, Justin promised to find the family somewhere to stay. He still had a spare bedroom, and—
“No,” Alexa said.
“No, what?”
“Amie’s family isn’t setting up camp here. Don’t even think about it.”
“Isn’t putting them in a hotel a little impersonal?”
“Isn’t inviting them into your home when you’re about to become a suspect in another murder investigation a little weird?”
Brax groaned, and Alexa spread her hands.
“What?” she said. “I’m only saying what everyone else is thinking.”
“I have an alibi,” Justin said.
“An alibi that still has too much wiggle room for comfort, and you were the last person to see Amie.”
“We don’t even know that she’s dead. This investigator could be holding her prisoner.”
Alexa just rolled her eyes.
“You don’t have to be such a pessimist.”
“I prefer the term ‘realist.’”
“Don’t private investigators have rules to follow? Licencing?”
“Alexa’s right,” Brax said. “I won’t comment on whether Amie’s still breathing, but having her parents stay here is a bad idea. Keep some distance. I’ll ask Meera to book them a hotel suite.”
Meera was his latest assistant, and since she was also a close friend of his wife, she might stick around for a while.
Ari unfolded her legs and stood. “And I’ll look into Liberty Line. The Justice Project too—how did Levi get onto their radar?”
“I know a couple of guys in private security,” Dawson put in. “One of them might be familiar with Liberty Line.”
“Which means I get Linus Sykes.” Alexa was already typing again. “Yay.”
“What am I supposed to do?” Justin asked.
“Bring coffee?”
He opened his mouth to argue, then closed it again.
He was a builder. He knew nothing about murder cases.
Ari at least had experience with investigations, and so did Dawson, seeing as he’d found Violet when she got abducted a while back.
Brax was smart, and Alexa was a conniving little sneak who could find anything online. Justin was glad they were on his side.
“Espresso, latte, or cappuccino?”
“Double espresso, two sugars,” Alexa said.
Ari cleared her throat.
“Double espresso, no sugar,” Alexa amended.
Justin left to play waiter.