his fingers with mine. “But you been crying. You smell like fear, Nell, sugar. Not prey fear, but violence fear.”
“There’s a difference?”
“There is. And you’re cold. Cold as a grave.” He took my other hand and warmed them in his. When I didn’t go on, he said, “We got a circle of standing stones.”
“I saw. Black marble. Stone witch and moon witch?”
“That’s what Lainie thinks. We’ve got a lot of thoughts about suspects, but we ain’t narrowed it down much.”
“Question. Hugo Ames’ wife. Is she from a witch family?”
Occam frowned, a thin line forming between his sandy brown brows. “Revenge is a good motivator. Hugo’s dead. His ex-wife isn’t. Don’t know about his lady friend. Lainie’s trying to narrow down who Hugo was sleeping with. Maybe Hugo was sleeping with Ingrid Wayns? She’s dead. Or maybe it was another one of Stella’s riders? You think his wife mighta tried to kill her rival and him and missed on the woman? Mighta got Stella instead? Hugo ain’t on her list a lovers and he ain’t Stella’s usual type.” He shook his head. “None of the riders read as a witch on the psy-meter, but we ain’t read the wife yet, because we didn’t know she was a factor.” He frowned around his fist, thinking. “What if he was sleeping with Stella’s housekeeper?” he asked. “Or Monica. They’re dead too.”
“Ethel Myer said the woman Hugo was sleeping with was a college girl and rode horses. All the riders fit that description,” I said, pulling my tablet and checking my files. “And everyone at the farm had access to horses if they felt like riding.”
Occam’s brow smoothed. “You mentioned early on about the possibility of the target not being Stella. But Stella . . .”
“Stella is a focal,” I said softly. “The big important person, the victim that drew our eyes. But betrayal and revenge? They cross over all the socioeconomic lines. Those feelings don’t care about stardom or wealth, just getting back, getting even, and killing.”
“Monica didn’t travel the entire tour with the band. She was back and forth to the farm. Plenty of time and opportunity to still be seeing Hugo. The housekeeper, Verna Upton, was young and she didn’t travel at all.” Occam pulled out his tablet and sat on my blanket with me, our sides barely touching. “We don’t have a signal, but I have most of the files here.” I leaned against him, thinking about what I needed to say, as he hunted through the files. “I don’t see a full job description,” he said, annoyed. “All I got is, Verna was taking online college classes. Like half the employees, she fits in with the information we got from the old woman, Hugo’s landlady.”
“If there’s any evidence at his house, it’s decomposed by now,” I said. “And Monica was a recent college grad. She could fit the parameters too.”
“We need to know whose job it was to unpack the swag. Maybe Monica was supposed to have all the deliveries unpacked already. Maybe she was too busy sleeping with Hugo to do her job, and that’s why she dove in when Stella’s body was found.”
Brainstorming was usually one of my favorite parts of this job, but not this time. I was silent. Still processing the bone-wood.
Occam said, “They said Monica was high-strung and had to be doing things all the time. They said she was frenzied, putting swag away, and they couldn’t stop her. They thought she was both grieving and in shock and doing her job.”
I nodded because Occam expected it of me.
“But maybe she saw the box of T-shirts and they were her married boyfriend’s production,” Occam said. “Maybe all sorts of emotions erupted in her, making her unpack the shirts. Could be.” Occam stood and pulled me up with him, my hand in his. He tossed the blanket into the crook of his elbow and took my potted plant in his other hand. I hadn’t explained about the root-wrapped bones.
We wandered through the grass to T. Laine, who was sitting in the center of the old circle, eyes closed, a smile on her face. She was in a yoga position, her legs bent, ankles crossed, hands on her knees. It looked an awful lot like me communing with Soulwood. When she opened her eyes, it took a while to focus on us. When she did, Occam explained our speculation on the latest suspect.
T. Laine pursed her lips, staring around the stones, seeming peaceful. “JoJo’s already started