Chapter Twenty #2
“Okay,” said Lily and laughed as I walked shakily ahead, one hand against the barn for stability. We rounded the barn and almost collided with Harvey.
“That was fun,” he said, grinning broadly. “Can’t wait to see you ride in the school. I’m sure you can teach the kids a thing or two.” He clapped me on the shoulder and strode past.
“I can’t decide if that was friendly or not,” said Lily. “His words seemed friendly, but he looked so gleeful.”
“He’s the least of my worries,” I said. “C’mon. Let’s go teach this class.”
The back-to-back classes went swiftly and I was glad to close the gate behind the last horse leaving the school.
Brittany and her friends were riding out on a trail, ignoring me as we passed.
I stunk of horses, and straw seemed to stick to me everywhere.
It was in my hair, all over my pants, and I flicked some off my T-shirt sleeve.
When I checked my phone, Lucas had sent an email reading “On it!” but there was nothing else so we headed back to the cabin to shower and change into clean clothes.
By the time I’d dressed in jeans and a white T-shirt and handed off the hairdryer to Lily, Lucas had emailed an address, adding it was a small cluster of houses built on the site of a former farmhouse only a few miles away.
“Let’s go,” said Lily, scrunching her hair dry with a towel. “My hair can dry on the way.”
“But your curls,” I protested.
“They will ping into place,” she said, winding a section around her finger and letting it spring into a loose curl.
The farm seemed to have quieted as we headed for the parking lot.
Horses grazed in the paddock, alongside a pair of adorable donkeys.
A radio still played by the barn, and two cats raced past, sliding through the hedgerow.
Harvey’s and Yvette’s cars were both gone.
Clare and Carl waved to us as they crossed the lot, piles of halters and saddle blankets in hand as they made their way towards the paddocks.
We found our way through country roads bordered with pasture as we navigated to Sebastian Moore’s home. Lucas hadn’t added any extra information so Lily searched online as I drove.
“There’s nothing,” she said, “he doesn’t have any social media. There’s a business profile that I think is him and that’s it.”
“What does he do?” I asked.
“Freelance accounting.”
I considered that, a small alarm going off in my head. “Valerie said Jessica was looking into the farm’s books. Perhaps he’s who Jessica asked to look at the farm’s books. It would make sense and explain any gossip. Perhaps they’d been seen together and someone jumped to conclusions.”
“Like Yvette?” asked Lily.
“I think so. Jessica was clearly suspicious of Joel. She wouldn’t admit what she was really doing without having solid proof, so she might have let people think they were more than friends to cover up what was really going on.
Whatever was going on. Or she didn’t realize anyone had spotted them and made up a lie. ”
“Or,” countered Lily, “maybe there was something going on. She found out about Joel. Perhaps she sought solace in a friend.”
“Could be. Why would you have an extra pair of eyes look over the bar’s books?” I asked.
“I’d want a second opinion if the money wasn’t adding up,” said Lily. “Either the income changed drastically, or the outflow. Or the books weren’t balancing.”
“Could Joel have been embezzling like Garrett suggested?” I wondered. “He would have access to the accounts. Maybe since he knew he’d get nothing in any divorce, he figured he’d take money out now and hide it.”
“But Jessica discovered it.”
“Maybe he didn’t expect her to. Maybe he escalated. It’s only speculation,” I added.
“Turn left here,” said Lily, pointing at a turnoff ahead.
I hung a left and we followed the road all the way to a small cluster of homes, far enough apart to give every home privacy, but close enough for community. The houses were arranged in a semi-circle, each with a driveway and garage. Behind them was more farmland.
“Which house is it?” I wondered.
“The one at the end,” said Lily. I rolled the car to a stop and we hopped out, walking up to the house. Like all the others, it was modern, with a wood and glass frame, out of kilter with the older style homes we’d passed on the way here, but eye-catching in a good way.
I knocked and the door was promptly answered, the man holding a phone to his ear. He ended the call quickly. I cut to the point, offering my PI license. “Sebastian Moore? We’d like to talk to you about Jessica Casey,” I told him.
He nodded. “I thought so. Valerie Tripp just called me out of the blue and asked if I’d spoken to Jessica recently.
She said you might contact me and here you are, on my doorstep.
She wanted to know if Jessica had asked me about the farm’s books.
I’ve only met Valerie once or twice over the years so I was surprised she called me and even more surprised when she asked that!
If I’d known Jessica hired you, I would have called you myself.
” He chattered away, unselfconscious, as he opened the door wider and stepped back, shooing away a chubby, old, golden Labrador that waddled around on his legs.
“Out of the way, Daisy. Come in. I can’t tell you how devastated I am by Jessica’s passing,” he said as we followed him to the rear of the house.
“She was always such a good driver and to lose her like this… I don’t know what to say beyond it’s terrible. ”
Sebastian led us to the back of the house, a stunning open space with floor to ceiling windows overlooking a small fenced garden and beyond that farmland and countryside as far as we could see.
A big L-shaped couch was off to the right, in front of a stone fireplace that ran up to the ceiling.
Dramatic glass light fittings hung from the rafters, and a mezzanine encompassed it all.
A kitchen was tucked off to the left. Sebastian pulled a jug from the refrigerator and set it and a trio of glasses on the kitchen island, indicating we should take the tall stools while he poured us icy cold drinks.
“Did Jessica tell you she had any worries?” I asked, taking the glass from him, optimistic at his hospitality and warm and open demeanor.
“She did, but she wasn’t suicidal, if that’s what you’re wondering.”
“No, we didn’t get the impression she was. She came to see me before she died. She thought someone was trying to kill her.”
He nodded. “She implied as much to me. I said she should go to the police and she did but they didn’t do anything.
So, I said she should leave the farm and stay here with me, but she said she couldn’t do that.
She couldn’t leave everything she’d built.
We argued about it.” He gulped and looked down.
“Our last conversation was an argument,” he added softly.
“How so?” I asked.
Sebastian sucked in a breath, thinking. I gave him his space to consider what he wanted to say. Finally, and with a flash of his hand, he said, “You may as well know I told her Joel wasn’t good enough for her and he never was.”
“Why did you say that?”
“I saw something…”
“Between Joel and Yvette?”
Sebastian’s forehead crinkled. “What do you mean?”
“They were having an affair.”
“What?!”
It was my turn to be surprised. “Jessica didn’t tell you?”
“No, she did, but that wasn’t it. She told me that much later.
No, I saw Joel taking a fat envelope from a loan shark about six months ago.
I work in finance. Accounting, actually.
I recognized the guy and he was not someone you’d take a loan from unless you’re stupid and desperate.
I brushed it off at the time because I thought there was no way Joel could be that desperate even if he was stupid but then…
” Sebastian trailed off. He pulled out a stool and sat opposite us, clasping his hands on the island.
“But then I saw him again, six weeks ago coming out of the back room of a bar looking like he’d been hit by a ton of bricks. ”
“He looked upset?”
“Probably, but it was the black eye and cut lip that caught my attention. I went over to ask if he was okay and he backed me up against his car, stuck his finger in my face, and said if I breathed one word about this to Jessica, I was dead meat!”