Page 7 of Twisted Truths (The Sunburnt Hearts #4)

Chapter Five

NASH

“ W hat are our options?” Levi asks Ryan Shaw.

After our little chat with Shane Elliot the other day, Levi called Paige’s uncle to make an appointment at his law firm, which is how we found ourselves in Rafters Falls, the closest town to Barrenridge, sitting in Ryan’s corner office at Conway and Shaw.

Ryan leans back in his chair with a sigh. “Not a lot, I’m afraid.”

“She’s not a murderer, Ryan,” I snap, trying and failing to keep the angry bite out of my tone. “I won’t let the town tarnish her name by calling her one.”

He strokes his jaw as he stares down at the copy of the initial police report.

“I’m not saying that. I’m just saying there’s not a lot we can do now they’ve closed the case.

It’s not surprising, with the overwhelming evidence stacked up against her.

” Ryan holds up his hand, lifting a finger as he ticks off each documented fact.

“She was covered in their blood. The murder weapon had her prints on it. There were no signs of a struggle, or anyone else in the house.” He pauses, his resigned gaze falling on me.

“She left a note apologising for her actions. On paper, it’s a pretty cut and dry case. ”

My fists clench in frustration, and I open my mouth, ready to snap at Ryan again, but Levi places his hand on my arm, stopping me.

“Apart from the obvious question of how the hell did she overpower Paul, instead of telling us how challenging it’s going to be, you could focus on telling us what we can do to prove Zara’s innocence,” he says, his voice steady but firm.

“The note in Zara’s handwriting is pretty damning,” Ryan says, picking up the photograph of the note. “It’s going to be hard to argue against something so black and white. You’ll have to find substantial evidence to prove the letter was forged or that she wrote it under duress.”

My stomach turns. I remember the way Zara’s handwriting used to flow, neat and precise.

The thought of her leaving behind a note—an admission of guilt—feels wrong, like it doesn’t fit.

But the police found it, and the town believes it.

I’ve heard the whispers, seen the pity in their eyes as they pass me in the streets.

“How do we do that?”

“It will be difficult, especially as this note is so short. Have you got anything we can compare it to? I can send it to a handwriting analysis expert in Sydney. It will take a week or so to get the results, but it might give us an idea of whether we can dispute it.”

“I’m sure I can find something. What do we do in the meantime?” I ask. “I can’t sit around and wait while the real murderer gets away with it.”

A knock on the door makes us pause, and Archie Conway, the other partner of the firm, sticks his head in. “John Cooper’s in reception asking for you,” he says in a serious tone. “He doesn’t look happy. ”

Ryan frowns. “Have him wait in the conference room. I’ll be five minutes.”

“No,” I interrupt. “Send him in here. I want to talk to him.”

Archie’s brow rises, and he defers to his partner.

Ryan shakes his head. “Not a good idea, Nash. This is neither the time nor the place.” To Archie, he says, “I’ll see John in the conference room.”

With a nod, Archie closes the door behind him.

“We have to tread carefully,” Ryan tells us.

“If you want justice for Zara and your family, you need to be patient and go through the right channels. This is not the time to become a vigilante. If we’re going to build a case, we need to play it smart.

Gather our own evidence … legally,” he adds when I straighten in my seat.

“I know it’s frustrating, but any misstep could jeopardise everything.

We have to stay within the law, or all of it will be for nothing. ”

“How are we supposed to gather evidence?” I press. “It’s not like either of us can infiltrate the fucking cult.”

“Have you considered it could be someone who’s not involved with the Circle?”

I let out a derisive scoff. “It’s no coincidence this all happened hours after she got free of Gabriel Solomon’s clutches. If it wasn’t him, I’m sure his old man wouldn’t be happy having someone leave his flock.”

“The timing makes sense,” Levi adds. “It has to have been them.”

He levels us with a hard look. “Don’t do anything stupid. Let’s ascertain the validity of this letter first. We’ll go from there.”

My jaw tightens, but I give him a terse nod as I get to my feet.

I’m lying. There’s no way I’m sitting on my arse and waiting for the incompetent local police to investigate when they’re so hellbent on blaming Zara and wiping their hands of it.

He knows it, too, by the worried gaze he watches us with as we leave his office.

The tension vibrates between Levi and me as we walk out to the car.

Levi’s as restless as I am as he starts the engine, gripping the wheel tighter than usual.

A frown mars his calm facade. It’s been five days since my family was murdered.

Six days since Levi helped my sister escape Solomon’s cult.

We still don’t know why she joined them in the first place.

“We need to talk to Tanner,” I finally say, breaking the silence.

Levi’s frown deepens. “You think he had something to do with it?”

“He had something to do with why she ended up in the cult. I want to know what he did to her.”

Pressing his lips into a thin line, he nods and takes the next turn, heading towards what I assume is the house Tanner shared with my sister until eight months ago.

I never met Tanner Crawley. He only moved to Barrenridge five years ago, but he quickly took a shining to Zara, and it wasn’t long before they started dating.

When they finished high school, they moved to Rafters Falls so Zara could study a Certificate III in Hairdressing at the TAFE, while Tanner began a building apprenticeship.

The small farmhouse they rented is on the outskirts of town, and something niggles at me when I realise how secluded it is.

Set on an acre, their neighbours wouldn’t hear a thing.

Levi and I exchange a loaded glance as we turn onto the driveway and see Tanner’s ute sitting in front of the garage.

It’s four in the afternoon. He would have just finished work.

We pull up behind it, and Levi shuts off the engine.

“How do you want to handle this?”

I shrug. “We ask him what he can tell us about Zara and take it from there. See how he reacts.”

“Right.”

Tanner steps onto his front porch as we climb out of the car, and my gaze locks on his as I shut the door. His face twists in confusion, but then Levi rounds the car, and there’s a fleeting moment of panic in his eyes when he registers who I must be. He quickly schools his expression though.

“Levi,” he says in greeting, tucking his hands in his pockets and rocking back on his heels. “What’s up?”

“Tanner.” Levi’s voice is gruff. “This is Nash, Zara’s brother.”

My sister’s ex-boyfriend shifts his attention to me. “Sorry about your family.”

“Are you?” I challenge, and he balks.

“Excuse me?”

“Are you sorry? You and Zara broke up.”

Tanner blinks, his gaze bouncing from me, to Levi, and back. “I don’t understand?—”

“Why did you break up, Tanner?” Levi demands. “When she came home, she was a shell of her former self, and not long after, she joined the Circle. What did you do to her?”

He sneers, his body shifting to a defensive stance. “I didn’t do anything to her. She left me. I came home from work one day and she’d packed her bags.”

“Did she mention Gabriel or the Circle to you before she left?” I ask, watching him carefully for any tells.

I’m not disappointed. His fists clench by his sides and his jaw tightens. “No. Like I said, one minute we were fine, and the next she was gone.”

“Did you hurt her?” I level him with a heavy stare.

Tanner flinches, and for a moment his eyes flicker with something I can’t discern—guilt, or maybe fear—but then he straightens, his shoulders stiffening.

“I didn’t hurt her,” he grits out, glaring at us.

“I’m sorry about what happened to your family, but it’s got nothing to do with me.

Zara walked out, and I haven’t spoken to her since.

Her phone was disconnected, and when I went to your parent’s house to talk to her, she’d already moved to Solomon’s commune. ”

“What I don’t understand is why my sister moved to the Sunfire Circle.” I close the space between us. “The only reason I can come up with is she was trying to get away from you.” I punctuate my statement with a finger to Tanner’s chest. “So, why did she leave you, huh? What did you do?”

Tanner’s eyes flash with anger, and I brace myself, but rather than taking a swing at me, he grits his teeth and takes a step back, crossing his arms. “I’m just as much in the dark as you are. I loved Zara, and I was blindsided when she left.”

“Yeah?” I scoff. “Why aren’t you more distraught over her death?”

He narrows his eyes. “You have no idea what I’m feeling. I think you should leave. I’ve got nothing else to tell you.”

Silence hangs thick in the air as we face off, but then Levi grabs my arm and pulls me back towards the car. “He won’t admit to anything. Let’s get out of here. We’ll get our answers elsewhere.”

I rip my arm from his grasp, my pulse racing as I turn back to Tanner, fury burning in my chest. “You owe her more than that. We’re going to find out what happened, and trust me, if I find out you hurt her, I’ll do worse.”

Tanner doesn’t even flinch. His eyes are cold as he smirks, waving his fingers in a mocking gesture.

I fight the urge to wipe the grin off his smarmy face and walk back to the car with Levi by my side.

My chest is heavy with the weight of unanswered questions, but deep down, I know this isn’t over. I will find out what Tanner Crawley did to my sister, and he will pay.

I spend the rest of Friday poring over the police report Ryan gave us.

After we returned home from Rafters Falls, Levi and I swung past Mum and Paul’s to see if we could find anything with Zara’s handwriting to send off for analysis.

I couldn’t bring myself to set foot in her bedroom, but we managed to find a note she’d scrawled for Mum in a pile of papers on the kitchen bench.

We passed it on to Paige’s dad and he drove it down to his brother for us. Now, I’m searching for anything else we might have missed. Anything that might seem insignificant. But there’s fuck all in this report. To the Barrenridge Police, this was a cut and dry murder-suicide case.

Something keeps niggling at the back of my mind, though.

According to the report, Paul was murdered first, his throat slit by the same machete found buried in my sister’s stomach.

Besides wondering how the hell Zara is supposed to have come into possession of a machete, what doesn’t make sense is how she took him by surprise.

She is … was five foot four, and she’d be lucky to weigh sixty kilos on a good day.

Paul was easily five foot nine, and while he kept himself fit enough managing the property, he still had at least forty kilos on her.

He had no drugs in his system according to the toxicology reports, so why wasn’t he able to overpower her?

Levi walks into the kitchen in red and black sports gear—the colours of the Barrenridge High Red Backs—spinning a basketball on his finger. “Anything jumping out?” he asks, placing the ball on the counter as he grabs a glass and fills it with water.

I toss the folder back on the table and lean back in my chair, arching my back with a small groan. “Maybe.”

He raises a questioning brow as he gulps down the water.

“Paul’s not a small man. Taking Zara out of the equation, because we know she didn’t do it, how does someone overpower him without him, one, fighting back, and two, alerting Mum, Zara, and Rylan?

” I sigh, massaging my temples. “It’s not adding up.

Neither Mum nor Zara would risk Rylan’s life.

They’d make him run or hide or something .

But the way the crime scene plays out, no one put up a fight. ”

Frowning, Levi drums his fingers on the ball. “You think there was more than one person involved? There were no signs of a struggle. Do you think it was an ambush?”

“It’s possible.” I rub a hand over my face, thinking it over.

“Solomon has any number of people who would willingly do his dirty work for him. But something still feels off. The report says they were all killed by the same weapon. If there were more than one person, wouldn’t there be more murder weapons?

But if it really was only one person, then how did no one hear anything? Why didn’t they try to get away?”

His expression turns thoughtful. “You think Solomon set the whole scene up to make it look like Paul didn’t put up a fight? To make it look like it was all Zara’s doing?”

A frustrated sigh escapes my lips as I stare down at the evidence in front of me. “I don’t know. It sounds ridiculous, but like I said, nothing makes sense. Even if it was Zara, Mum wouldn’t cower in the living room with Rylan while her daughter murdered her husband in cold blood.”

“You’ve been going over the report for days. Why don’t you take a break and come to the game this afternoon? The boys would get a kick out of having a homegrown NBA superstar come to watch them. We can sit down with fresh eyes tomorrow.”

I roll my eyes. “Laying it on a bit thick there with the superstar, don’t you think?

” But he’s right. I’ve been staring at this report for way too long, and all it has resulted in is going round and round in circles.

I still believe it wasn’t Ziggy, but nothing new is jumping out at me. “Who are they playing?”

“Timberflat High School.”

My lips tug up into a smug grin. Timberflat were our rivals back when I was on the Red Backs, and it was so satisfying to beat them in my final game in Australia. “Why didn’t you start with that?”