Sea Haven 02 - Spirit Bound

them.”
    “I suppose getting used to dog hair will be all right,” Rikki conceded. “Levi fits into my life without asking much. A dog would be fun for us . . . maybe.” She didn’t sound terribly sure of herself.
    And that was the real problem in life, Judith decided. There was no certainty about anything. Rikki loved Levi with everything she was, her intense loyalty, her all or nothing nature, and still, that wasn’t enough. Her ordered world—the one she needed to survive—would be turned upside down in order to accommodate a need for her partner.
    Judith pressed her lips together tightly and shook her head. Life had just taken an ugly turn. She looked around the room at the women who had left their beds in the middle of the night to comfort her. They’d successfully distracted her long enough to get over that first rush of shock and horror. She realized the changes in subject had been for her benefit, skillfully directed by Blythe with all of her sisters willingly following to give her time to pull herself together.
    “I’m so lucky to have all of you.” The intense emotion she had for them welled up and spilled out into the room.
    Lissa blew her a kiss. “I think what we’ve got to do, my sister, is figure out why Jean-Claude has kept tabs on you for the last five years, because it doesn’t make sense. If he paid this man here, to take pictures of you all this time, he went to a lot of trouble and expense. He’s in France. He had to have someone find Shariton and hire him, bribe the guard, and arrange for payments. That couldn’t have been easy from prison.”
    Judith suppressed the wince at the sound of his name. Jean-Claude belonged in her dark studio surrounded and kept prisoner by hatred and sorrow. Judith pressed her fingertips to her eyes. Maybe she was the one kept prisoner. All along, maybe she’d been the one locked up. Thomas had come along and opened her eyes, although she hadn’t wanted it to happen and she felt guiltier than ever. If she let go of those feelings after carefully cultivating them for so long, how could she ever face her brother’s memory again?
    “Jean-Claude has more money than any of us can conceive of. Money buys a lot of loyalty and he has a large, widespread organization. He has a long reach, longer than I realized.”
    “But what does he want from you, Judith?” Blythe asked. “He must know you despise him. He can’t think you would ever want to get back together with him, it just isn’t logical. He had your brother murdered and he knows you’re well aware it was him, right?”
    Judith nodded, biting down on her lower lip. “I have no idea what he wants.”
    “Did you testify against him?” Lissa asked.
    Judith shook her head. “He was never prosecuted for murder. How could I prove that he’d ordered the torture and murder of my brother? We were in Greece. He was in France. I saw a man being tortured at his house, but I didn’t get a look at the man, just the blood everywhere. If the body disappeared, and there’s no doubt that it did because I didn’t read a thing about a body being found, what could I prove? I was in hiding when he went to trial for gun running and had nothing to do with his conviction.”
    “So what then, if not getting you back or revenge?” Lissa persisted. “What’s left? Why did he send those men after you in the first place? Did he know you saw the man being killed in his house?”
    Judith frowned. “I don’t think so. I didn’t make any noise and I don’t see how he could have, unless he had cameras, which is entirely possible.”
    “But if he knew where she was, why didn’t he just have her killed?” Lexi asked.
    Blythe nodded. “That’s a good question. If he was afraid you could pin a murder on him, he would have had you killed. You knew him better than anyone else, Judith, what do you think? Could he have some twisted idea that you’d take him back?”
    Judith tried to separate the last five years of guilt and shame from the years as an art student when she’d first met Jean-Claude and was so swept away by his charm. He’d been sophisticated. Elegant even. She’d been awkward and shy with him, far too innocent to ever imagine what a monster he’d been. She’d had no idea men like Jean-Claude even existed. Wrapped in her world of art, she saw only colors and beauty in the world around her. She’d been in Paris, haunted the museums, ate at the little street cafés, and studied, all the while