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“Spooky was a six-month-old filly, and Justin led her over to the fence. He was only about four years old, and he climbed the fence, got on her back, and took off like a bat out of hell. Emily yodeled for me, she was so scared he’d fall off and break his neck, so I had to leave my client, get up on a horse, and take off after him. You were going at a pretty good clip, buddy.”

Justin roared with laughter, although he’d heard the story at least a hundred times before.

Grimacing, Dave shook his head. “The last time I rode Spooky, she tried to take me and dump me miles from Maggie’s place.”

“She did not,” Justin said, still laughing. “She only knows the way to get here.”

“Nah, she was taking me back where the swamp people live. I saw a still, and if I’d had my piece on, I’d have arrested the moonshiners. Oh, and also, if the horse would have let me off, but she wasn’t stopping for anything.”

The men laughed at poor Dave’s expense.

“It sounds to me like if you have Davie around ponies or foals, he’d climb on and ride, just like his daddy,” Justin said.

“Yeah, but nowadays you need to have a helmet on your kid or CPS will take them away from you.”

“This is delicious,” Dave said, taking another taco out of the pan. “I told Katrina I’d bring dinner, but I might eat everything here.”

“There’s more than enough,” Vic said. “How you doing, Justin?”

“I’m about stuffed,” he said, pouring more wine into his glass. He lifted the bottle to his father, who shook his head. “It looks like you brought us together to drop another bomb.”

“I’m so sorry, son.”

“What is it now?”

“Justin, chill,” Dave whispered.

“I’m trying, but I know it’s bad. What else could there be? She was raped; she had a kid. What else, Pop?”

Vic sat back, staring at his plate. “I’m going to ask you both a few questions first. For my knowledge, if you’ll agree.”

“Okay, sure,” Justin said, obviously trying to stay calm.

“What stands out in your mind about your mother?”

“Okay, what stands out in my mind,” Justin said, “is that she was always alone. I have vivid memories of her, but she was alone. You were off to the side, Pop, like you were allowing her to be front and center, but front and center of what? Us. Dave and me. Another memory that keeps coming to mind lately, probably because of Maggie riding Dale, is of Mom taking off on the trail into the woods on horseback.”

Silence fell over the table.

“That’s what she wanted us to believe happened,” Vic said, looking up at his boys. They were young when she died. Dave had just graduated high school and Justin had been away at college. The pain had been so great at that moment. If it hadn’t been for the death investigation and the paper trail for Dave to find, Vic never would have brought it up. “What does that mean?” Justin asked, his jaw set.

“It wasn’t an accident. She’d taken an overdose of butorphanol, and rather than have me find her in the house, she went off into the woods with Mojol, not Dale, thankfully. Mojol was on her last leg. I had to put her down a week later.”

“What’s butorphanol?” Dave asked, pale as milk.

“A synthetic opioid we use for pain. For horses,” Justin said, looking stunned.

That was all Dave could take, and he bowed his head, sobbing. “She killed herself? I don’t get it.”

Vic looked at Justin, who sat still, tears streaming down his face.

“I’ve studied the long-term effect of PTSD from sexual assault, and the depression is devastating. I couldn’t force her to get help. Justy, I know you blamed me for it, but I tried. The only reason I bring it up now is because I was afraid with all her other secrets being exposed, thanks to Bridget Benoit, that Dave would look at her death record and find out it was suicide. If she had used something we had in the house, it could have looked accidental. But she went into the clinic, into the narcotic box, altered the count sheet, and took the drug.”

“Is it injected?” Dave asked.

“Back in those days, we used a nasal spray. It was easier to use on the horses. She might have used it back in the woods. No packaging was ever found, but they didn’t scour the entire woods, either.”

Justin held his head in his hands. “Give me a timeline, Pop.”

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