Page 51 of Thicker Than Water
Face frozen, she stares in my direction. “Hurt him?” Her voice is distant, as if she’s only mouthing the words while someone else speaks them. “No, not really, but—” Her gaze sharpens, her eyes clicking into focus, penetrating mine. “You know Jason hates him, right?”
I straighten in my chair. “What?”
Maeve nods, the movement tight and quick, like she’s never been more certain of anything. “He despises Gavin.”
Ice feathers over me, a layer of frost on my skin. “What?” I say again.
But Maeve’s answer only worsens my chill: “I’m sure he’s relieved our boss is dead.”
Chapter FourteenSIENNA
Two hours after leaving the hospital, I’m at my desk, making a spreadsheet of suspects.
I’ve typed in all the customer names from the gutter machine, and I’ve googled them one by one, scouring for any red flags. I’m not even sure what a red flag would look like, or why someone getting a discount from Gavin would want to kill him, but I promised Julia I would prove Jason’s innocence, and the only place I can think to start is the last place we left off, when we were still trying to prove it together.
Despite the hour—middle of the afternoon, sun flooding my bedroom—I slurp my second coffee. I may have slept at Wyatt’s last night, but my body, knowing I wasn’t supposed to be there, kept me on the cusp of waking, a sleep too shallow for the mental sharpness I need now. I click my nails on my mug—a custom one Julia gave me:Liquid Motatoes, pure nonsense to anyone but us—and try to focus on my spreadsheet. Instead, I glance at my phone.
I’m surprised she hasn’t texted yet. I thought, at the very least, she’d ask what my plan is. I even decided to do my research from home, drinking my own bad coffee instead of hunkering down at a café, just in case Julia changed her mind and dropped by to help. And where the hell is Lou right now? Each time I look at my phone, I check for his name, too. When I left Jason’s hospital room, I thought I’d find Lou in the hall, arguing with Beck about the warrant, but the only person I saw was that stupid guard, smirking at me like there was something I didn’t know.
I force my gaze back to my spreadsheet. Like the names Julia recognized, Linear and Zigoris, most of the customers from Gavin’s notebook are businesses, not homeowners. At first that struck me as strange—homeowners are Integrity Plus’s bread and butter—but maybe businesses are a better target for this kind of scheme; the jobs themselves might be bigger, the owners more likely to be able to pay in cash.
It’s only once I google deeper, skimming pages of search results, that I find another link between some of Gavin’s customers: a website on which three of them appear. I didn’t think anything of the company’s name at the top of the site—Higher Home Improvement—until the third time it popped up in my search, but now I pore over the page, Higher Home’s testimonies section, and each time I read the name, it chimes in my mind as one I’ve heard before.
Higher Home Improvement bent over backwards to get us great service at the best price, says the owner of one business from Gavin’s notebook.Higher Home Improvement was an unprecedented pleasure to work with, says another.
Higher Home Improvement. I squint at the screen, and when I navigate to the homepage, I understand why the name is so familiar. The page is dominated by an orange banner:While Higher Home Improvement is no longer in business, we extend our eternal gratitude to ourloyal customers. We’ve been honored to serve Connecticut homes and businesses for over thirty years.
This is the company Integrity Plus almost merged with before Gavin turned the owner in for tax evasion—the same crime Gavin himself appears to be guilty of. Irritation scratches at me over Gavin’s hypocrisy. I knew Integrity Plus absorbed a lot of Higher Home’s customers after the merger fell through, but it appears they also absorbed the backdoor deals that some of those customers were enjoying.
I can only imagine the rage Higher Home’s owner would feel if he learned what Gavin was up to. It’s clear he hasn’t moved on—after all, the Higher Home website still exists; someone has paid the hosting service each month. It’s as if he’s keeping it as a reminder of everything Gavin destroyed.
I pull up my spreadsheet again, add Higher Home Improvement to the list of names.
My phone dings with an email, and my hand leaps for it.
It’s not Julia. Not Lou, either. It’s Dale Stapleton—speaking of angry business owners—and his message is an onslaught of capital letters.
THIS IS UNACCEPTABLE, he screams in the middle of the email.IT’S NOT HOW PROPER BUSINESSES OPERATE.
Heat builds in my stomach, boiling out toward my extremities. I already told Dale, twice now, that we’re dealing with a family emergency.
I write a response with my own capital letters, along with a particularly creative string of expletives. When I’m done, I read it over, finger hovering over Send. Then I turn my head to the side, because it’s pure habit, turning toward Julia, and I know this is the moment I should see my best friend, should hear her muttering my mantra, feel her taking my hand. Or, no—it’s past the moment. If Julia were here, she would grasp my palm before I could even begin a draft to Dale.Let’s not have another Lashley Incident.
But right now, my hand holds nothing. It’s cupping only air. And for a second, I forget everything: why my email is open, why my caps lock is set. All I feel is emptiness.
Blinking out of the moment, I delete the draft, push my phone away. Now is not the time to deal with Dale. Now is for proving to Julia that, despite his reckless infidelity, despite the money she never told me he took, Jason is still a man worth believing in.
I return to my spreadsheet, look at Higher Home on the list, and toggle back to their website to search for the owner’s name. I find it on the Meet Our Team page, right at the top, beneath a photo of a man with a round face and gray hair.
As soon as my eyes focus on his name, my spine straightens.
Henry Hendrix.
I’ve heard that recently. My mind gropes for the memory, repeating the name until I hear it spoken in Lou’s gravelly voice, the sound thinned by a phone connection. I jolt as I remember.
Henry Hendrix was the man arrested on drunk and disorderly. The man who accosted Gavin a week before his murder.
Pulse thrumming, I call Lou.
