(Miss Primm Blog) Sure the title reads Book 2, BUT if you want to jump into the second book of the Justix Files, that’s no problem. Loose Ends can be read as a standalone. Chapter One brings new readers into the investigation—and into the complicated relationship between Detective Jessick Justix and rock star Rik Drake—without requiring them to have read Hanging by a Thread. Take a look yourself:
Chapter One
Jessick
Today, for this trial? I reported, as ordered, to testify against Chrissy Greene, one year after she tried to kill her husband and shot me instead. Every seat was packed—reporters, cameras, and the curious public who think they know what happened between international rock star Rik Drake and me. Everything they think they know is wrong.
I rubbed my shoulder, still getting stabs of muscle pain from the gunshot wound—sharp spasms that struck unpredictably and a tiny nerve deficit in my left shoulder. It ticked me off that I had to face her again and recount these facts.
I wasn’t supposed to testify. The LAPD had assured me—given the circumstances and what they wanted kept quiet—that I wouldn’t take the stand.
But when Greene’s defense indicated they’d call me anyway, the prosecutor, DDA Guzman, added me to the witness list. Better to control the narrative than let the defense imply we’d concealed something.
Had the LAPD concealed information? About the facts of the case, no. About what happened between Rik Drake and me? Absolutely.
The bailiff opened the door. “Detective Justix!”
I stood, straightened my tie, and smoothed the front of my Italian suit. “Here.”
The whir of a smartphone camera followed me as I entered, and I ignored it. This past year had been a study in learning how to react in public. When you save the life of an international rockstar twice, you achieve a small measure of fame.
My stomach tightened, but I didn’t slow my pace. Professional. “Do that,” I told myself. All eyes in the media-packed courtroom centered on my dead man’s walk through the over-air-conditioned room scented with lemon cleaning products and the press of bodies.
Keeping my eyes forward, I avoided Chrissy Greene at the defendant’s table and her glare. But when I sat in the witness stand, I got a close-up view.
Rik’s most recent hit, The Witch of WeHo, called her the Rattlesnake Queen—a title from a teen beauty pageant she had won. Today, she looked the part.
As Chrissy glared at me, I almost didn’t recognize her.
The year of waiting for trial had not been kind. Her hair had been cut, shearing her platinum tresses and leaving her with her natural black color. Her skin was a pasty white, and her features were plain without makeup. She looked like a demented fairy without the glitter. The plain dress her lawyer put her in made her look like a teenager with a matron fetish.
Since Guzman had dropped the majority of the charges against her, the charge of attempted murder against her husband might have gotten her bail. But kidnapping a peace officer—a detective—meant the court remanded her without bail. Despite her money, she spent the last year in county—hard time, no matter how you looked at it.
If she were found guilty, which was inevitable, her sentence would range from 25 to life, with the possibility of parole after 20 years, provided she maintained good behavior.
I was in no danger of Chrissy getting out on parole. Good behavior was not her strong point.
Then the courtroom door opened, and the man himself stepped in, dressed for once like a lanky businessman in a tight-cut suit and without the rockstar eyeliner or swagger. His hair had grown back from the last time I saw him a year ago, but today he pulled it back in a ponytail. His eyes met mine, and my heart stuttered. I did not expect him here. But then I remembered the order of witnesses—he had testified on the stand before me, so he’d be allowed to sit in the gallery.
Casually, he unbuttoned his jacket and took a seat in the back row. He didn’t have to worry about space. The person sitting in the aisle seat recognized him immediately and pushed everyone down.
Guzman walked me through the basics first—my name, badge number, and the night Chrissy Greene showed up at my door with a Glock and a half-baked plan. I had given such testimony dozens of times before. But this testimony wasn’t standard because it was about Rik, and about that night, when everything went to hell.
“Detective Justix, can you describe the events of the night you were assaulted?”
I struggled to keep my voice steady and professional. How had I missed the signals that Chrissy was a danger? Back then she wore the veil of the rock star’s wife like a glamour, with a perpetual ditzy spin on life. It was easy to dismiss her, and that was a mistake I’d never make again.
“I was at home recovering from a head injury sustained in the line of duty. I opened the door to find the defendant, Chrissy Greene, on my doorstep. She appeared agitated—disheveled. She requested that I take her to see Rik Drake. When I declined, she produced a firearm.”
Guzman took me through the rest—the abduction, waking up in her car, and the confrontation at Rik’s house. I answered each question with the same measured tone and careful distance. Just the facts. Nothing more.
“Thank you, detective. No more questions.”
Then Klein, the defense attorney, stood up for cross-examination with a glare at me, and I knew this cross would get ugly.
Klein smiled like a shark scenting blood. “Your testimony paints a picture of you as a victim. But isn’t it true that you and Mr. Drake, Mrs. Greene’s husband, had a personal relationship?”
There it was. The landmine.
For a second, I was transported to another courtroom, twenty years ago, when my father stood in a similar witness stand and testified about the events that ended his career.
He woke to discover a dead woman in his bed.
I was twelve, and though I was supposed to be at school, I got to the courthouse by hitchhiking. I’ll never forget the expression of horror on his face when, after the prosecutor impeached my father’s testimony, he spotted me in the gallery.
But, unlike my father, I had done nothing wrong.
Mostly.
“Mr. Justix, please answer the question.”
“That’s Detective Justix,” I said coldly.
“Your Honor, please direct the witness to answer the original question.”
The judge nodded his head. “I will, Mr. Klein, and you will address the detective properly as well. Proceed, Detective Justix.”
“We had contact during multiple investigations, yes.”
There was no cleaner way to say it. Or rather, whitewash it. The LAPD demanded no less from me.
“Contact? Is that what we’re calling it now?” Klein’s voice carried just enough insinuation to make the reporters lean forward. “Isn’t it true you were disciplined for inappropriate personal interaction with Mr. Drake?”
The words clouded the air like cigar smoke. I felt the courtroom’s attention sharpen and the weight of every eye on me.
“Yes. I accepted a disciplinary memo noting the appearance of a potential conflict and agreed to a no-contact period during my probation.”
“And during that time, did you still have contact with Mr. Drake?”
“No.”
Klein took a step closer, not enough to get close to me, which by court protocol was prohibited. But I knew what was coming, like pressure before a storm.
“So, you expect this court to believe that, despite your documented emotional entanglement with Mr. Drake, your testimony today is unbiased?”
I kept my voice level. “I expect the court to believe the facts. I was abducted, assaulted, and used as leverage. That incident occurred, and Chrissy Greene was responsible.”
Then Klein leaned forward, and I saw the glint in his eyes that meant he was going for the kill shot.
“Detective, are you in love with Rik Drake?”
Don’t react. Don’t move.
I thought I was prepared and knew this could come up. Still, for a second, my breath stuck in my throat. I remembered the moment that seemed like years ago, when Rik told me to breathe, and I did. So, I filtered this moment through that, imagining his voice in my head. And I breathed.
“Objection, Your Honor. Relevance,” Guzman said. But the damage was done. The question poisoned the air, and everyone in that courtroom knew exactly why it had been asked.
“Sustained. Move on, Mr. Klein.”
Chrissy shot to her feet, spine rigid, her face twisted with rage. She spun toward the gallery, scanning the crowd until she found him. “Rik! Rik, darling! I love you!”
Her voice cracked as she spoke across the room, desperate and pleading. Then she whirled back to me, and I saw the full force of her delusion blazing in her eyes.
“He stole my husband from me! That little snake seduced him! He turned Rik against me!”
The judge banged his gavel, and the bailiff moved toward her, but Chrissy wasn’t done. She kept screaming and pointing at me like I was the source of all her pain. No doubt, in her mind, I was.
I watched her performance—because that’s what it was, even in her breakdown—and remembered the woman who had held a gun to my head, who had used me as a bargaining chip in her twisted game. The woman who had been part of Chase and Amanda’s scheme to destroy Rik for insurance money.
She was dangerous then and now. The only difference was that today she was caged. And I put her there.
They finally got her seated, the courtroom settled, and the prosecutor asked to redirect.
“Detective Justix, following your probation, did the department take any further action?
“Yes. I completed my probationary period without incident. I was later awarded a Medal of Commendation for protecting a civilian while off-duty and under medical restriction. That civilian was Mr. Drake.”
“So, your conduct, though under scrutiny, was ultimately honored?”
“Yes, sir. The department deemed my actions above and beyond.”
“Thank you, detective. No further questions.”
“You’re dismissed, detective,” said the judge.
As I stood to leave the witness stand, I couldn’t help but glance toward the back of the courtroom.
Rik was watching me with that ghost of a smile, not triumphant or vindictive, as if he’d seen something in my testimony that mattered to him.
I looked away.
The parking garage was dim, and my footsteps echoed off the concrete walls, making everything sound twice as loud. I was halfway to my car when I heard him.
“Jessick.”
I didn’t turn around. Keys dangling in hand, I kept walking.
“Jessick, wait.”
His voice carried that same command it always had, the one that used to make me stop without thinking. But I’d had a year to practice not responding to it.
“Please.”
The ‘please’ did it. It made me stop and turn around, even though a swallow stuck in my throat and I knew better.
Rik stood about ten feet away, hands in his pockets, trying to make himself less threatening. It didn’t work. He still filled the space the way he always had and still made the air feel electric just by existing.
“Jessick, you handled the Rattlesnake Queen well.”
I sighed.
“I handled it like a cop. That’s what I am.”
He took a step closer, and I took a step back. The distance between us felt measured and deliberate, as if we both counted the spaces.
“How’s the shoulder?” he asked.
“Fine. Healed,” I lied.
“Good.”
We stood there in the vast silence, two men who had once known each other’s demons, now talking like polite strangers. It was precisely what I’d wanted, what I’d worked for this past year.
So why did it feel like dying?
Because silence was worse than the small talk, I spoke. “I saw your new album hit number one.”
“Yeah. The Witch of WeHo is doing well.”
“That’s great. But that doesn’t make this any better. It makes it worse.”
He looked at his feet before he answered. “I wrote the song about her, you know. About what she did to us.”
“There is no ‘us,’ Rik.”
“What if—”
I shook my head. “Rik, you are the one who brought her to your bed and kept her there, because, as you told me, it gave the media someone else to focus on.”
“That’s before I met you.”
“Decisions have consequences. But you must know that in any other universe, if Chase, Amanda, and Chrissy hadn’t concocted their crazy scheme, you and I would never have met. So, this is how it should go.”
The words echoed against the concrete walls harder than I’d intended, but they needed to be said.
Because I knew Rik Greene. He wasn’t the give-up-and-surrender kind of man.
He closed his eyes for a second. When he spoke, his voice came out hoarse, as if he’d suffered a gut punch. “I know that’s what you need.”
“It is what it is. Period.”
He nodded as if he accepted it, but his eyes spoke something different—that stubborn defiance of reality that was so endemic to his rockstar soul.
“I should go,” I said.
“Should?”
“Nothing’s changed, Rik. If someone reports me speaking to you, say, that security guard of yours who’s lurking in the elevator, I could face another disciplinary review. My career can’t afford that.”
“I know. Teller told me—”
Then he stopped as if he was about to reveal a secret he shouldn’t.
“My partner told you what?”
“Never mind.”
I cursed under my breath. Teller and his fucking mouth.
He looked away. “You clocked the security guard.”
Damn it. Rik wouldn’t let this conversation go.
“He’s holding the elevator door open for you. And you know why this conversation must end.”
I turned toward my car, but his voice stopped me one more time.
“Jesse.”
That name—the private one I’d reserved for only two men. Rik was one.
I unlocked my car door with the key fob, and the beep echoed through the space, sounding like a warning signal. I put my hand on the door handle before I turned my head to him and answered, ready to make a quick getaway.
“Don’t contact me again, Rik.”
Rik gazed at me with the eyes of a man haunted by life choices that failed him.
I got into my car and locked the door. He shook his head and returned to the elevator.
Every movement of his body carried the smooth grace of someone who knew how to command the room—and hearts.
I watched him until he entered the elevator. Of course, I did.
Damn it.
That’s it. A recap of the first book without reading the entire book.
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Hanging by a Thread, Book 1 of the Justix Files, is available now through Kindle Unlimited.
Images created by Starry Night Media with the assistance of ChatGPT.
