Finding Justice by Rachel Brimble Read Free Book Online Page A

carpet pile, her mind still reeled with Jay’s news and what that
now made him in her mind. Cat dropped backward onto the bed and covered her face
with her hands as bitterness scorched her throat. Is that
why he called me? Does he know about my mother and assume we’ll have some
sort of affinity? Is any of this about Sarah?
    She groaned into the silence of the room. She couldn’t even
leave, couldn’t run away despite the urge rising in her on a tidal wave. The
possibility of Jay being a suspect stuck hard in her mind. Yes, he’d loved Sarah
back then, but four years was a long time. A lifetime for an addict. Had Sarah
given up on him? Or enabled him? Had she been selling drugs rather than using?
Cat’s mind whirled with a kaleidoscope of heartbreaking possibility.
    How had all three of their lives spun so completely out of
control? Drugs and alcohol had seeped into their once-innocent lives and
completely obliterated their dreams of what was real and what wasn’t. Sitting
up, Cat swiped angrily at her cheeks. No tears. No self-pity. She stared at the
closed bedroom door.
    She had to give him the benefit of the doubt. Had to seek out
the evidence and assess it logically and unemotionally. The reality was that Jay
had turned things around and surrounded himself with luxury. She was happy for
his success. He had managed to get on in the world, and even though Cat hadn’t
done too badly in the intervening time, she had little more money now than she
had when she was last at the Cove.
    Her mum’s stealing, spending and drinking it away had seen to
her lack of savings. Swallowing against the pain of what had happened to her
family, Cat pressed her hand to her stomach, willing the gnawing shame away.
    She and Jay lived different lives now. Lives tainted by toxic
substances—but different lives, all the same. The fact she had left her mum in
Chris’s hands and came to the Cove still felt liberating. She’d shown both of
them, in no uncertain terms, that she gave priority for certain people and
certain circumstances. She drew in a shaky breath. It would take a while for the
guilt skimming over her skin to disappear, but despite the short time since she
and Jay had been reunited, some of her responsibility was already subsiding.
    This trip, even with its sickening cause, would allow the
perspective and space she needed to figure out how to help her mum and herself
from falling into the abyss of hopelessness that grew wider every day.
    Tears threatened and she snapped her eyes open, determination
heating her blood. Jay couldn’t have killed Sarah. He would never be capable of
locking his hands around her throat, squeezing and squeezing until no breath
came from her. But if he had been high...
    She shook her head vehemently in an effort to banish the ugly
consideration from her mind. Her thoughts were born from her perpetual doubt
about everything. Nothing more. She needed to put his addiction to one side. She
needed to think clearly and professionally.
    Maybe her coming to the Cove was God’s great plan. She might
have been sent there to learn enough from Jay that she would return home with
the inner strength to put her mum into rehab. Who was to say her mum couldn’t
emerge a success story, just as Jay had? Cat’s chest tightened as she tried and
failed to bring forth some faith, some belief it would all come right in the
end. She gripped the silky-soft bedspread beneath her. It had to be possible.
She had to believe Jay’s intentions had been nothing but honorable when he’d
asked her here. She had to. The alternative was unbearable.
    Her thoughts turned to Sarah. For her friend, it was too late.
Drugs or no drugs, Sarah was dead, her life over. The one thing Cat knew for
sure, even before uncovering a single thing, was that she and Jay owed it to
Sarah’s memory to solve her murder and live the best lives they could.
    She had to work from the foundation that Jay was innocent until
proven guilty. She would put all