got him a beer, poured herself a glass of wine. “Let’s take the fierce guard dogs for a romp on the beach before dinner.”
“Rain’s coming.”
Lips pursed, she looked out at the pretty summer sky. “I don’t see rain.”
“You will, but we’ve got a couple hours first.”
Dillon didn’t push—what was the point? But he cornered Red the next morning.
They stood on rain-soft ground in air fresh as a spring daisy pouring feed mixed with raw milk into the pig troughs.
“I never thought I’d get a charge out of feeding pigs, but here I am. Milk-fed pigs at that.” He scratched his ear. “Nice soaker we had last night.”
“We needed it. What do you know about these calls, these recordings Cate gets?”
Red glanced over where one of the seasonal hands fed the chickens. Since it was baking day, both women manned the kitchen.
He’d checked the daily work list, so he knew Julia had assigned others to muck out the stalls, but the horses had to be fed, watered, rubbed down with insect repellant before going out to pasture.
“Let’s talk about this in my office. How’s she handling this one?” he asked as they walked.
“Like it’s no big deal, and it damn well is.”
“You know she’s been getting these calls for years now, so the impact’s bound to fade.”
“That doesn’t make this one nothing.”
When Dillon opened the stable doors, the air filled with horses, grain, leather, manure. All combined into a perfume he’d loved all his life.
Knowing the routine, Red took the first stall on the left, Dillon went right.
“Mic will do what she can, plus she’s got the cop in New York. The FBI’s on it, too. There’s an agent who follows through on these whenever she gets one.”
“How come they can’t trace it back?”
“A lot of reasons.” They both scooped out grain. “Recording’s not long enough, it’s from a drop phone. Whoever’s sending it destroys the phone and battery right after—from what I’m told they figure. It’s always recordings of recorded interviews or movie clips. They’ve actually been able to match some of those. Not the same message every time.”
“Threatening her, scaring her.”
“Yeah, same sentiment, you could say. One of the theories was some nutcase obsessed with Cate wanted attention. But that’s thin now considering it’s gone on for years.”
“Her mother could be behind it. Cate doesn’t think so because it’s shitty quality, and the woman has plenty of money. But that could be a cover, something to make it seem like it’s just some nutcase.”
Red moved to the next stall. Every horse in the stables had its head out, watching. Like, Hurry up, man, I’m starving here.
It never failed to amuse Red.
“That’s been my thought,” he told Dillon. “Cate usually gets one around the time some story hits or Dupont gives some interview that gets a splash. It could be her way, her sick-fuck way, of taking an extra shot at Cate.”
Dillon walked back to get the prenatals for the pregnant mare in the next stall. Once dispensed, he marked the clipboard outside the stall.
“If that holds true,” he said, “it’s not a real threat. Just petty and mean.”
“Charlotte Dupont’s got petty and mean to spare. I wouldn’t put it past her to find someone to cause Cate real harm, but without Cate, she loses the easy lift.”
Red frowned at the clipboard, turned. Dillon already had the horse pill punched into a quartered apple. “He won’t take his med otherwise.”
“I remember.”
“Be sure he doesn’t just spit it out. He’s sneaky about it. What do you mean, ‘easy lift’?”
“When she wants a publicity boost, she plays the sad, repentant mother with the unforgiving daughter. Some quarters buy that act.”
“Because some quarters are idiots.”
Red and the apple/pill-chewing horse eyed each other. “Plenty of idiots in this old world. And I got another on that. I think she likes it, likes thinking she’s tormenting Cate, and the rest of them, too. I don’t see her giving that up.”
Dillon thought it over while they fed, watered, medicated.
“What if it’s not her? Could Sparks pull this off?”
“I don’t underestimate what Sparks could pull off.” And Red believed wholeheartedly he had the scar to prove it. “I don’t know what it gains him, but if there’s an angle to it for him, I think he’d find a way.”
They started the rubdowns, adding the scent of insect repellant to the mix in the air.
“He has reason to want to hurt her, just like it said on the phone. She didn’t do what she was told, and he