Chapter Seven #2
“Thanks,” said Lily and then he was gone, pulling the door closed behind him.
I waited thirty seconds, then checked the window, watching Harvey walk through the gate and head back the way we’d come. I whirled around, asking, “What just happened? What did we walk into?”
“I have no idea,” said Lily, throwing up her hands, “but I think we live here now.”
“They must’ve gotten me mixed up with someone else. I’m not a horse trainer.”
“Jessica seemed to have said you were.”
“It looks like she set up an identity for me. Lexi Gray, horse trainer.” It was exactly what I would have done. Easy to remember, and it gave me good reason to investigate the farm and its residents.
“She must really want… have wanted… you to investigate,” corrected Lily. “You wanted to turn things around. This is how you do it. Investigate!”
I flopped into the easy chair, dumbfounded.
Despite my dropping the ball, Jessica had set up the perfect cover for me.
She must’ve believed I would help, that she had convinced me, despite my inaction.
She must’ve been intending to return my subsequent call and tell me what was in play. Another wave of guilt hit me.
“We all drop balls,” said Lily, coming to perch on the couch opposite.
“Every one of us. Even the people we think are the most perfect. Even when others think we’re perfect.
We’re not. We’re human. We’re fallible. We get stuff wrong.
We get hurt. We cause hurt. It matters what we do, but it matters just as much what we do when we get something wrong.
So you can sit around and mope about letting Jessica down, or you can do something to help her, even now. ”
“I can help,” I said, my resolve set. Jessica’s ruse was brilliant, and Lily’s speech was full of positivity. “She’s set everything up to give me access to her family, employees, and the whole farm.”
“She has.”
“Although I have no idea how I’m supposed to pass myself off as a brilliant horse trainer.”
“I’ll help.”
“I don’t even have any riding clothes.”
“Make like one of those rich English aristocrats and wear the oldest, holiest, most bedraggled things you can find.”
I wrinkled my nose. “That sounds awful.”
“But it’ll look like you live and breathe horses, and you’re too rich to give a shit what other people think.”
“I’m not wearing brown,” I decided. “It’s not a good look on me.”
“Agreed. You look like a sausage without a blanket in brown.”
I gave Lily the side-eye for that but she just shrugged and gave me a puzzled look in return.
“That was a rousing speech,” I said. “The doing something speech, not the one where you said I look like a sausage.”
“It’s all the positivity talk. I feel like I can do anything.”
“That’s a good job, because you’re doing this with me,” I decided. “You told them you’re my assistant, so that’s what you have to do now. Assist me so I don’t look like I don’t know what the hell I’m doing, which I don’t. And we’ll need to live here.”
“Live without my husband?” Lily gasped.
“Yep.”
“And my baby girl.?
“She’s not really a baby anymore. She can walk and talk some.”
“Your mom said you’re still her baby.”
“That’s true. I am.” It was the one of the benefits of being the youngest. I was forever the baby, no matter that I was eagerly trying for my own.
“But you mean for me to live without my husband and my baby, for as long as this takes?” clarified Lily.
“Yes. I know that’s a big ask but…”
“And get a full night’s sleep every night? Without anyone dive-bombing me in the wee hours?”
“Yes.”
“Hang on.” Lily got up and hurried to the bathroom door. She took a long look, then closed the door and returned to the couch. “There’s a bathtub,” she said.
“I will insist you take long baths and will not bother you when you do.”
Lily’s eyes began to tear.
“I can’t promise sleeping through the night. We might have to do night snooping.”
“Say no more. I’ll do it. I am your right-hand woman. Your wing woman. The Robin to your Batman. The Cabot Cove to your Jessica Fletcher. The Dick to your Tracy.”
“I’m not sure some of that made sense.”
“The answer is yes.” Lily clapped her hands. “I will stay here and snoop with you. Are you going to put me on payroll?”
“Unlikely,” I decided.
“Don’t ask, definitely don’t get,” said Lily with another shrug.
Then she plopped onto the couch again and reached for my hand, wrapping her fingers around mine.
“We should do this every year. Take off from our lives and solve a mystery, while living in a girly cabin of dreams without men and children and… and… and life.”
“We could just go to Lake Pierce for the weekend. The cabins there are nice and I have a discount voucher towards our next stay.”
“Last time we got a cabin at Lake Pierce, you set fire to the deck because you saw a spider and decided hurling a log from the grill at it was the right move.” Lily raised her eyebrows.
I tossed my hair nonchalantly. “I’ve matured since then.”
“So proud of you! Also, so don’t believe you.”
“Regardless,” I said, sitting up. “We have a mystery to solve. What happened to Jessica Casey?”