Courage Under Liar (Lexi Graves Mysteries #19)

Chapter One

“I need you to solve my murder.”

Across the table, Jessica Casey tugged at her fingers before locking them together and wringing her hands.

She took a deep breath and looked at me through thick lashes, her jaw stiff.

Her brown hair was swept back into a ponytail and she wore jeans and a T-shirt with Ashgrove Farms in large letters over the outline of a galloping horse.

She’d placed a pink phone with the initials, JC on the case cover, face down on the table, and her purse on the floor.

I estimated her to be a few years older than me.

Despite her tan, she looked deeply unhappy.

I blinked. “Excuse me? Did you just say…”

“You heard me correctly,” she said after another deep breath. “I believe I’m going to be murdered and I need you to make sure my killer doesn’t get away with it.”

“Okay,” I said, because I couldn’t think of anything else to say.

Usually, I only investigated heinous events after the fact.

That’s my job. I’m Lexi Graves, private investigator.

Being a PI wasn’t what I grew up wanting to be.

Unlike my career-orientated siblings, I’d had no idea or direction as to what I was meant to do before falling headfirst into the PI life and finally finding my calling.

I’d also fallen headfirst into danger and dumpsters. Was that unavoidable? It was hard to say.

The situation in front of me now was unusual and despite a myriad of successfully closed cases under my belt, I wasn’t sure how to respond. I wasn’t sure whether to worry… or laugh. Solving Jessica’s own murder while she was alive seemed absurd.

After a long pause, the silence hanging between us, Jessica sighed. Her shoulders slumped as she said, “You think I’m crazy.”

“No, I don’t think you’re crazy.” I wasn’t trying to placate her. It was the truth. Of course, the woman could be suffering from terrible delusions but she wasn’t exhibiting any strange behavior, only a strange conviction that someone wanted to kill her.

“Lying then.” Her whole demeanor said defeated and she glanced away, taking in the pale walls of the small interview room the agency’s investigators used to meet with clients away from the hustle of our shared office suite.

I shook my head. “I don’t think you’re lying either.”

I just didn’t know what to make of her claim.

Starting at the beginning seemed the best idea.

“I’d like to know more,” I told her, triggering a tiny spark of hope as I opened my notepad.

“Why do you think someone is going to murder you? Do you need protection from someone? We can provide a risk assessment and a close protection team if necessary.”

“Like a bodyguard?”

“Yes.”

She pulled at the hem of her T-shirt. “I don’t see how it would help.”

“A risk assessment would tell us what threat you’re facing, and then, from our experience, we’ll know how to go about protecting you.”

“I don’t know.”

“I can provide some more information for you to consider,” I said, reaching for a pamphlet from the shelves behind me.

The agency had them printed a couple of weeks ago so there was a glossy stack to peel one from to give to clients.

As I handed it over, I asked, “Who do you think wants to kill you?”

“I don’t know that either.”

“So it’s not someone you know?” I waited, my pen poised above the fresh sheet of notepaper on which I had yet to write a thing. An identity would be ideal as my first case note but I assumed if Jessica knew that information, it would have been the first thing she told me.

“It could be. I don’t know.” She toyed with the pamphlet, but didn’t open it or pretend to read it. “My home and business are on the same site so we get a lot of strangers on the property, plus, there’re the employees who live and work there.”

“What is your business?”

“Ashgrove Farms.” Jessica pointed to the logo on her T-shirt.

“We used to be a riding school, and we still give a small number of lessons but now we focus on equestrian services such as boarding, training, and rehabbing of racehorses and other competition horses. We’re considering developing our own stud facility too.

My passion is eventing. I train horses and compete with my own.

I dream of training an Olympic-level horse. ”

The farm sounded familiar but I couldn’t think why. “That’s amazing.”

“Horses are my life,” she added with a smile. It was the first time I’d seen her look happy.

“Let’s go back to the threat.” I paused. What did one call an unidentified potential assailant? Perpetrator was reserved for after. The opposite of perpetrator was innocent party… but were they? “Is there anyone you suspect of wishing you harm?”

The edges of Jessica’s mouth tweaked and she gulped, then shook her head. “Emotions can run high in my world although I can’t think of anyone who actually wants to harm me but I suppose no one is going to walk up to me, or sit down with me for a coffee, and announce they intend to kill me?”

“It’s unlikely,” I agreed. “Have you received any anonymous threats? Demands, perhaps, or any unpleasant gifts?”

“No, nothing like that. I almost wish I had because then I would have something to show someone and the police wouldn’t have laughed me out of the station.”

“You went to the police already?”

“A few days ago. It seemed like the sensible thing to do.” She pulled a face.

“It’s what I would have advised someone else in my position to do, but I got as far as the front desk and the sergeant said if I don’t have any proof, then what were they supposed to do? Detectives don’t work with feelings.”

“They do. They just call them hunches.”

“Maybe so but he wasn’t interested in mine. He said until I could produce some kind of proof of wrongdoing, there was nothing he, or anyone else, could do.”

“So what has happened to make you think…”

“Someone wants to murder me,” she cut in, finishing my sentence. She blew out a breath and raised her gaze to the ceiling, thinking. “Let’s see. There was citrus in my cereal. I don’t eat citrus. I’m allergic to it. There’s no way I’d buy any citrus, never mind put it in my cereal.”

I made a note. “Could it be a manufacturer error?”

“Maybe. I thought at the time I must have picked up the wrong box and because I dumped it into a clear container, I didn’t even have the original box to refer to. I spotted the citrus chunks on my spoon and threw it all out before I took a bite and then I washed the container.”

“It sounds like there’re more things?”

“I got a nasty letter,” she said, reaching for a slip of paper in her bag. She handed it to me and I unfolded it, finding a short, typed letter. “I showed this to the sergeant. He didn’t seem to think it was an actual threat.”

I read it and placed it on the table. “What do you think ‘BACK OFF’ is referring to?”

Jessica shrugged. “I don’t know! I figured it was some dumb prank and tossed it in a drawer and forgot about it.

I thought it was a joke until I started thinking about other things that had happened.

Earlier this year, the path leading from my back porch was thick ice.

It was like someone had thrown water over it and turned the path into a skating rink. I slipped and hurt my back.”

“That…”

“Could have been a weird weather thing, I know. I thought that too, and resolved to make sure I salted the path, but when I was riding my horse, Maroon, at a show last month, the girth had been loosened. Thankfully, I realized it just as we were gaining speed. I felt the saddle slip and pulled up.”

“What’s a girth?”

“The strap that runs under the horse’s belly and holds the saddle on. If the saddle slipped out of place while we were going over a jump, I could have been paralyzed or killed.”

“And you’re sure…”

“Yes, I’m sure I fastened it correctly!” Her nostrils flared with annoyance but she took a deep breath and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear as she composed herself.

“I’ve been riding since I was three. I’ve won dozens of prizes with Maroon.

I know how to fasten a saddle! I did it myself too and I don’t think I was away from my horse at all after I fastened it.

My sister, Yvette, held her when I went to the bathroom but that’s it. ”

“Okay.” I tapped my pen lightly against my thigh, thinking about the curious incidents.

“A couple of weeks later, I borrowed my sister’s back protector. It had been tampered with.”

“That’s something you wear when riding?”

“Yes, it’s a padded vest we put on over our clothing when riding.

Eventers like me wear them because the speed and height can pose a high risk.

This style attaches to the saddle. If I’m thrown from the horse for any reason, the cord is pulled and the extra protection activated.

It blows up to protect my spine and torso.

It’s not just head injuries that kill. Neck injuries can too, or the rider can be permanently paralyzed. ”

“How was it tampered with?”

“The canister was empty. There was no way it could activate.”

“Why did you borrow your sister’s?”

“I couldn’t find mine.”

“How…”

“And the final thing was my car,” Jessica cut in before I could question her further.

“I was driving home late at night last weekend and my brakes didn’t work.

I was pumping and pumping them and nothing happened.

I managed to slow the car down enough to run it into the fence at the edge of my property.

I was halfway into the field before the car stopped.

When I had the mechanic pick up the car and check it out, he said it looked like a rat had chewed through the cable and the fluid had leaked out. ”

“Do you have rats on the property?”

“I can’t say no for sure because I live on a farm, but we do proper pest maintenance and not once has a rat ever chewed anything in anyone’s car there. It’s absurd to think one would now — and only mine!”