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“I’m done, Mama!”
I glanced down at my phone. “Wow, fifteen minutes exactly. What was your score?”
“One hundred percent, of course. Can I go outside and play?”
“Yes, just don’t get in the way of anyone, okay? Don’t go over to Grant’s and bother him about playing with Jenny, either. I don’t think he’s home—” The screen door in the kitchen slammed shut, and I sighed, picking at the rim of now flat diet soda. I rose from the couch, padded back over to the dining room table, and picked up the folder of documents pertaining to the ranch Grant had given me earlier in the day.
It was early evening now, not much to do besides tuck in and start some research.
I leafed through the documents, pulling out anything that seemed interesting. Nothing, in fact, was interesting. Grant had bought the property in cash; he’d had inspections done on all of the buildings and a surveyor had mapped the boundary lines. The buildings were rebuilt, everything up to code.
But then the EPA started sending him letters.
I pulled those out, noticing a name repeated on all of the letters. Shelby Francis. Shelby Francis.Shelby Francis.
She was a local, according to the letter from the EPA, who had been calling them and complaining about Grant’s property. First, it had been noise complaints about the construction, which seemed odd given that the property was almost half an hour outside of town. Then, she’d complained to the EPA about the greenbelt on the edge of his property, how she’d noticed what she called “vandalism” to the greenbelt. Trees had been cut down, according to her, but the EPA found no evidence of it.
But they did find evidence of a water source having been rerouted.
I pulled out my phone and looked Shelby’s name up, finding a few social media profiles.
She was young, roughly my age, with bleach-blonde hair and a pretty face. She had an active life online, nothing private, and appeared to be some kind of rodeo queen, if that was such a thing.
There was nothing on her profiles about rampant conservationism. In fact, several of her pictures were of her posing on the hood or the bed of trucks bigger than the behemoth Grant had parked out front.
“What do you have against Grant?” I murmured to myself, setting my phone down and reading over the letters from the EPA again, where Shelby was listed as a “concerned citizen.”
I set the folder on the dining room table again and walked outside, my hands tucked in my pockets as I looked around.
“Holliday!” I hollered, then whistled loudly. I watched as Day’s scrawny form came bounding around one of the warehouses, Jenny jogging beside him. “Where’d she come from? You didn’t let her out of the house, did you?”
“No, Mama. She came and found me!”
Day ran up to the porch of the bunkhouse, panting as he leaned against the railing. I wrinkled my nose, reaching out to pluck a few pieces of hay from his hair.
“You need a bath,” I said, patting his back as I led him inside. “Right now.”
I hadn’t realized Jenny had followed us inside until she trotted past me and settled on the couch in the living room, sighing with relief.
“Can Jenny take a bath with me?”
“Of course not!” I laughed, ushering him into the bathroom.
He frowned but started running a bath. I shut the door and left him to it.
“Well, what am I going to do with you?” I asked Jenny, who groaned in response. I sat down next to her on the couch, scratching her behind the ears.
* * *
“Don’t touch me,” I pleaded, backing into the refrigerator as he stalked toward me, his face cast in shadow. “Get out! You’re not supposed to be here—”
His open palm met my cheek, slapping me so hard I saw stars and pressed myself into the fridge.
“You think you could hide that little bastard from me, Moira? You think runnin’ could’ve stopped me from finding you?” He grabbed my arms, shoving me into the fridge so hard the cereal boxes on top fell to the ground, scattering cereal all over the floor.
“I’m calling the police!”
Another blow to the face had me sinking to my knees, my nose spurting blood. I crawled away, cereal pressing into the palms of my hands as I clambered toward the hallway.
