Chapter 10 #2
Agent Saldano follows Lucy’s directions, and instead of flinching, the horse leans into his touch. Madeline bites her cheek,
hating that Lucy is right.
“Good girl,” Saldano murmurs. “Until we have definitive proof that the explosion was an accident, we have to explore all possibilities.
I know we talked briefly about this last evening at the hospital, but can you think of anyone who might have wanted to target
you or your property?”
“No, no one,” Madeline says and then backtracks. “Our neighbor, Sully Preston. We were in business with him for a short time,
and it ended badly. He and his wife crashed our party.”
“Badly enough that you can see him blowing up your barn?” the agent asks.
Madeline thinks for a moment. Sully Preston is a shady businessman and could have destroyed their business, but arson? Murder? It was possible. “I don’t know, but I saw Wes’s brother, Dix, and Sully having words earlier in the evening.”
“The partnership went south,” he says. “Why?”
“Bute,” Lucy says, and Madeline glares at her, willing her to shut up.
“Bute,” the agent repeats. “What’s that?”
“Phenylbutazone,” Lucy says. “It’s used as a pain reliever for horses. Sully Preston uses it to trick horse buyers into thinking
a lame horse is healthy. And acepromazine can make a badly trained horse appear safe.” The Prestons could have made a mint
duping potential buyers into spending tens, even hundreds of thousands of dollars under the pretense that the horses they
purchased were potential superstars. Luckily, Dix caught on and the partnership was quickly dissolved.
“I just have a hard time believing that Sully could kill someone over this,” Madeline says, regretting having told Lucy about
the whole mess. “We parted ways with the Prestons last fall. It’s not an issue any longer.”
“But they showed up at your party uninvited?” the agent asks. “Isn’t that odd?”
It’s very strange, Madeline thinks. Over the last eight months, she has been doing everything she can to avoid running into
Sully and Mia Preston—not an easy feat considering how small Nightjar is. So far she has been mostly successful.
“Yes,” Madeline admits. “There’s no love lost between us.” And hadn’t Mia Preston acted like they were practically best friends
at the party? It was almost like she was putting on a show. But for who?
“I’ll talk to the Prestons,” Agent Saldano says. “Is there anyone else you can think of?”
“You had those animal activists running around here, didn’t you?” Lucy asks, and Madeline brushes the comment away with the
shake of her head.
“What about Johanna Monaghan? How long have you known her?” Saldano asks.
“We’ve been best friends for nine years,” Madeline says. “We met at the coffee shop in Nightjar and just clicked.”
“Can you think of anyone who might want to do her harm?” he asks.
“Johanna?” she asks in surprise. “No, everyone loved her. All she ever did was help people and bring babies into the world.
I can’t imagine anyone hurting her.” Lucy has grown bored with the conversation, and Madeline watches as she moves down the
aisle, stopping in front of Blackjack again.
“And Johanna’s marriage? All good on that front?”
Madeline hesitates. Like the Prestons, Madeline couldn’t see Dalton killing his wife, but there were problems. “Johanna and
Dalton had their issues,” Madeline finally says.
“What kind of issues?” the agent presses.
“I don’t know,” Madeline says. “They argued. But what couple doesn’t? Dalton has a temper, but I can’t believe that he would
do something like this.” Even as she says this, there is a wisp of doubt. She loved Johanna like a sister, but Dalton? Not
so much. And hadn’t Johanna increasingly complained about how erratic Dalton could be?
“What do you mean by temper?” Saldano asks.
Madeline scans her memory for examples. “Johanna told me how, one time, one of their neighbors planted some trees just on
the other side of the property line and in their backyard. Dalton freaked out. He started yelling at them and ran over the
seedlings with their John Deere mower.”
“Seems over-the-top,” Saldano agrees. “Anything else?”
“Dalton was, I don’t know, overprotective of Johanna.
Too much so. He didn’t like that she had to go out at all hours of the day or night to assist with a birth.
He didn’t get that this went with the job.
Johanna told me Dalton insisted on having Location Services enabled on her phone, which makes sense, right?
” Saldano nods. “But Dalton took it further, and Johanna found one of those little tags in her car.”
“A GPS monitor?” the agent asks.
“Yes,” Madeline says. “Johanna was so angry that Dalton didn’t trust her.”
“Any reason Dalton would have good reason not to trust her?”
Reluctantly, Madeline responds. “Johanna never right out told me she was involved with another man, but I think she might
have been. She was secretive—even with me. And more than once asked me to tell Dalton that she was with me when she wasn’t.”
Saldano continues to stroke Sonnet’s withers. “You have no idea who the other man might be?” Madeline shakes her head. “What
about her other—would you call them patients? The women she helped give birth. Any issues with them?”
Madeline shakes her head. “Johanna didn’t really talk about her other clients, not specifically anyway. She was careful about
their privacy. But as far as I know, everyone was happy with her care. Everyone wanted Johanna to be their midwife.”
Agent Saldano seems satisfied. “If you think of anything, no matter how small it seems, please let me know,” he says.
“I will,” Madeline says, then adds, “Wait, have you heard anything about Dix? No one seems to know where he is. We’ve called
the area hospitals but haven’t had any luck.”
“No, but I’ll be sure to check for you. Does he live nearby?”
“Down the road a few miles, but his truck is still here. We figured he was taken by ambulance to a hospital.”
“I’ll see what I can find out,” Saldano assures her. “And how are you doing?”
“I’m fine,” Madeline says automatically. That has always been her go-to response to that question. I’m fine. Everything’s fine. But it isn’t, hasn’t been for a long time.
“Good,” Agent Saldano says. “We’ll figure out what’s going on, and you focus on taking care of yourself and that baby.”
Saldano turns away from Madeline. “Ms. Quaid,” Agent Saldano calls out to Lucy and moves to the far end of the stable where
she is grooming Sonnet. Madeline can’t hear what they are saying, but Lucy seems relaxed, unfazed by the questions. But that’s
Lucy for you. On the outside she is calm. But inside, that’s a different story.
When they were younger, Lucy always had an underlying current of discontent just below the surface of her skin. At first it
would show itself in the most subtle of ways: a backhanded compliment, a stolen trinket, a biting pinch beneath the kitchen
table. The anger would fester and boil until it no longer could be contained. The results were Barbie dolls with bald heads,
stinging slaps, a loosened billet strap on Madeline’s saddle. And always Lucy denied, denied, denied, looking at her father
and Madeline’s mother with her big doe eyes. Madeline’s stepfather and Lucy’s dad, who wasn’t one to interfere in childhood
spats, simply told the girls to get along. Madeline’s mother and Lucy’s stepmother tried to get Madeline to understand that
Lucy was adjusting to having a new mom and sister, that she would come around. And she had. Despite their epic arguments,
Madeline and Lucy became as close as two sisters could, at least until Lucy’s dad died and he put Madeline in charge of the
money.
Madeline watches as Lucy hands the grooming brush to Agent Saldano, guiding his hand across a spotted Appaloosa’s flank. The
timing is strange. The sisters haven’t talked in a month, and suddenly Lucy appears in the aftermath of a tragedy that has
taken the life of Madeline’s best friend. The thought of Johanna pierces Madeline so sharply she nearly doubles. In Johanna,
Madeline thought she found another sister, one very different than Lucy. Sisters of the soul—that’s what they called one another.
Agent Saldano is smiling at something Lucy is saying, and she moves close to him. Too close. A cold finger of dread crawls
across Madeline’s belly, and she cradles it protectively. Lucy glances over at Madeline to make sure she is watching. Her
small smile seems to say Do you see? Do you see what I can do?
Madeline does see. She feels the sudden urge to flee, to run away from this nightmare. But she knows she can’t. This is her
life now. There’s no running. She has to face whatever is coming her way head-on. She has no other choice.