Page 95 of Justice

I watched them go and didn’t think much more about it.

The drive back home was when Kira’s voice found me again.

I’d been pushing it down for days, because it came from a bitter woman who had just been caught on my property with evidence next to a dead horse. But it kept coming back up, stubborn, refusing to stay buried.

You don’t know one real thing about her. You think I’m the threat? You need to open your eyes.

I knew what Kira was doing. She was deflecting. Pointing at somebody else to take the heat off herself. I wasn’t stupid. I’d watched people do that my entire life.

But…

Skye mentioned having a sister. Early on, one of the first conversations we ever had, she told me her ex left her for her sister. I remembered it because it stuck with me. A man leaves you for your own sister. That’s a special kind of pain. I felt for her when she said it.

When I had her checked out initially, nothing flagged. Clean background, credentials verified, references checked out. But there was no sister. No sibling at all, actually. No family that showed up in any search. At the time I let it go, told myself maybe they were estranged, maybe she cut them off, maybe there was a reason she didn’t want them found. I’m the last man on earth who’d judge somebody for keeping a piece of themselves locked away.

But it wasn’t just the sister.

It was everything. How she never talked about where she came from. How she changed the subject anytime I got too close to her past. How she flinched those first few weeks. The scar on her chest. How her face went somewhere else sometimes, somewhere far and scared. She’d snap back and smile like nothing happened. Months in my house and I still didn’t know a single real thing about this woman’s life before she walked through my door.

I picked up my phone at a red light and scrolled to a name I hadn’t called in a while.

Creed picked up on the second ring. “Justice Banks. Been a minute.”

“It has. I need a favor.”

“Personal or business?”

“Personal.”

“What do you need?”

“I need you to run somebody for me. I need a deep scrub. Not the surface stuff I already got. I’m talking everything. Anything that got scrubbed or buried, I need it dug back up.”

“She.” Creed caught it. “This a woman?”

“Yeah. She’s living in my house. Been there about five months. She takes care of my grandmother.” I gripped the wheel. “I care about her, Creed. A lot. But something’s not adding up, and I can’t keep pretending it is.”

“Send me what you got. Full name, date of birth, social, whatever she gave you. I’ll have my people on it tonight.”

“How long?”

“If she’s clean, forty-eight hours. If she’s not clean…” Another pause. “If she’s buried something, it might take longer. But I’ll find it. I always do.”

“I know you do. That’s why I’m calling you.”

I hung up and sat at that green light a second too long, until the car behind me honked. I pulled off and drove the rest of the way home thinking about a woman I was falling in love with, and how badly I needed Creed to come back with nothing.

49

SKYE

I waited until the house was quiet.

Justice was still out. Rita was asleep. The girls were in their rooms. I locked my bedroom door, sat down on the edge of the bed, and pulled the envelope out of the pocket I’d been hiding it in since I took it from Storie’s closet.

To Justice.

My hands were not steady. I’d been carrying this thing for hours. I didn’t want to put it off anymore. I needed to know what Storie had been hiding from her father.