Out of nowhere, I flashed on Emily’s purse. If I recalled correctly, her Michael Kors tote bag had rope handles. Could she have used the handles to strangle her husband? No. Not a chance. Too short. How about the leather-and-rope belt she’d been wearing over her riding pants when she’d arrived on the scene? She could’ve unhooked it, strangled Mick, and re-hooked it in less than a minute. “Emily—”
“You don’t quit, do you?” Rodriguez jeered. “You have to stop. You—”
Summers silenced her with a glance. “What about Mrs. Watkins?”
I felt my cheeks warm. “Nothing.”
“Tell them,” Fiona urged.
No. They wouldn’t listen to anything I said. Rodriguez had shut me down. Mine to know; yours to find out, I thought and said, “Good day.”
As Summers and Rodriguez left, I couldn’t help thinking of my father. Summers reminded me of him. Direct. Plainspoken. When on the job, all business. I’d often felt nervous around my father, as if he’d discounted my opinion because I hadn’t had enough life experience to warrant speaking up. That ended now. One more thing to add to my ways-to-improve-myself list. I was thirty. I’d traveled to China alone. I’d hitchhiked through Europe with Meaghan without repercussions. I’d opened my own business. My voice deserved to be heard.
Emboldened, I texted Dad and asked him to meet me for tea one day soon. I wanted to apologize for defying him about the security guard and thank him for the attorney, even if in the long run she wasn’t able to help me, although I didn’t write any of that in the text. Given the chance, my father would make a gigantic banner of my apology and hang it on the side of his house. Okay, he wouldn’t make a banner, but he’d tease me for days.
Chapter 15
Faeries, come take me out of this dull world, for I would ride
with you upon the wind ...
—William Butler Yeats, The Land of Heart’s Desire
Joss gripped my arm and said, “Spill. What didn’t you tell the police?”
I detailed my theory about Emily and her rope-style belt and the fact that the staff at the Equestrian Inn couldn’t corroborate her alibi. I said, “She could’ve driven back, killed Mick, and returned to the inn for the night. The trail guide wasn’t the sharpest tool in the tool kit.”
“Ha!” Fiona said.
“Emily could’ve duped her and made her think she was on the ride. In fact, what if Emily has taken the ride before and knows the spiel, so if she’s questioned, she could retell each aspect of it?”
Joss said, “The police need to know this.”
“I agree,” Fiona chimed.
“The police told me to butt out.”
Joss brandished a hand. “Maybe if you looped in your father—”
“You heard the police. Dad has been off the force for years. They don’t want his opinion.”
I hugged Joss and thanked her and Fiona for their support, and then set about business. First, I called my realtor to inquire about my lease. It turned out we could negotiate a renewal every year. However, if Logan wanted to throw me out for cause, I had no say in the matter. Next, I called my attorney to check in. It was Sunday. I didn’t expect her to return the call.
And then, for an hour, Joss and I discussed the various ideas we’d had about new programs for the shop. I wanted to do a children’s fairy tale reading hour. We would share fairy tales and other fairy-related writing like Shakespeare’s poems. Joss suggested we offer a workshop during which customers could make fairy homes, easily accomplished by inserting battery-operated twinkling lights into mason jars.
Giddy with inspiration, I coasted through the rest of the morning. Late in the afternoon, I supervised a craft session with a pair of teenaged girls who wanted to make matching fairy gardens. They weren’t twins, they told me, giggling, but they had been joined at the hip since preschool. Over the course of our two-hour-long session, I tried to dissuade them from the notion of making identical gardens. Each fairy garden should reflect its maker, I advised. I didn’t add that teens invariably found better friends after high school, like Meaghan and I had. One girl with whom I’d gone to elementary school had turned into a major diva—aka mean girl—in high school. But my students were adamant. By the end of the session, they had built duplicate gardens and were thrilled with the result. Who was I to quibble?
After work, Fiona accompanied Pixie and me home. Fiona and I didn’t