Page 39 of Hard Heart

“Oh, I know the type. And you need a key to open it from the outside?”

“Exactly. I kept meaning to replace it—she’d lost one of the keys anyway—so Jerry just assumed she’d gone out and it had locked on its own.”

Levi thought she might even have “lost” the key on purpose. The spare used to live in a cupboard in his studio with all the other spare keys, but Grey would borrow it to use Ruby’s en-suite instead of the shared bathroom on the second floor. Ruby had grumbled about skid marks in the toilet, but she didn’t like confrontation. From her point of view, accidentally-on-purpose misplacing a key would have been the perfect solution. She’d nagged Levi to replace the faulty thermostatic valve on her radiator—the part was on back order—but she’d barely mentioned the door lock.

“I’d have probably assumed the same thing,” Serafina said. “Was Ruby old enough to drink? Isn’t the age limit ridiculously high here? You can join the Army at seventeen, but you can’t have a beer until you’re twenty-one?”

“Shades of grey, Serafina. Shades of grey.”

“Tell me you didn’t let Person A indulge?”

“If I recall correctly, Person A got the case of Merlot shipped in from France. Don’t ask me where she got the fake ID or the credit card. I didn’t know, and I didn’t want to know.”

“How old was she at that point?”

“She had a passport that put her at eighteen. If it helps, the adjective most commonly used to describe her was ‘fucking,’ and I’m not talking in the carnal sense.”

“Are you sure about that? What if another of the men was taking advantage of her? Maybe Ruby saw something and⁠—”

“Don’t even go there. Person A was strictly off-limits. If any one of those guys had acted inappropriately, Jerry would have lopped off their balls with a rusty steak knife. Person A also had a dumb crush on Nolan, who was totally oblivious and treated her like a little sister.”

“The steak knife thing… That’s a joke, right?”

“My mom’s fixation with my health wasn’t the only reason I didn’t push for bail.”

“So Jerry Knight had a mean streak?”

“‘Mean’ is the wrong word. She was protective and calculating.”

“She also didn’t have an alibi.”

“Which is how I know she wasn’t involved. If Jerry was going to pull some shit, her alibi would be airtight.”

“How about a double bluff?”

“Firstly, that’s getting damn complicated, and secondly, my lawyers already thought of that, and the handprints on Ruby’s neck were deemed too big.”

Serafina blew out a breath and made another note. “Okay. When did you first realise there was a problem?”

“At first, I figured Ruby was staying with a friend. When I didn’t hear from her by Monday night and she wasn’t answering my messages, I began to worry, but I talked myself out of it because she was a grown woman and it wasn’t unusual for her to spend a few days elsewhere. Then on Tuesday morning, Justin went upstairs to water the plant in the vestibule and smelled something weird.”

Serafina visibly stiffened. “Oh no.”

“We were going to break down the door, but then Dawson said he’d find a ladder and try looking through the windows first. Al— Person A was saying it might be leftover food that went bad, trying to convince us everything was okay, but really, I think she was just trying to convince herself.”

Jerry had been impatient as always, and she’d wanted to climb up the trellis rather than waiting for the ladder. But Brax decided the trellis wasn’t strong enough, and Dawson insisted he’d be the one to look, then Justin had come running with the ladder, and… Levi pinched his eyes shut at the memory. Dawson’s pale face as he climbed back down and said Ruby was lying in bed. Alexa’s gasp of horror. Jerry’s curses. At that point, Levi had figured it was natural causes, not that it stopped him from vomiting his breakfast and a handful of pills into Ruby’s beloved rose garden.

“We ended up breaking the door down anyway, and… Fuck. Have you seen the photos?”

“They weren’t available.”

“I can’t…” Levi’s eyes began to prickle. “There was a knife…in her chest. And a pentagram…carved into her like she was a fucking canvas.”

Even in death, Ruby had been a work of art.

He felt Serafina’s touch before he saw it, those elegant fingers squeezing his in a gesture of comfort. There wasn’t supposed to be any contact between them, but Jim had meandered off somewhere, and for a moment, they just sat there. The maiden and the monster. Two lost souls sharing a moment of comfort before the universe realigned.

Another heartbeat, and she withdrew her hand. “Sorry.”