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ChapterNine
Grant
Iheard Moira and Day arrive, the front door to my house shutting behind them as Day’s excited footsteps pattered over the floorboards and into the living room. I caught a glimpse of him as I turned from the coffee pot, his curly brown hair flying out behind him as he slid across the floor on his knees toward Jenny, who’d been napping under the archway between the kitchen and dining room. Moira was talking to Day, telling him to behave like usual as she set his backpack down on one of the couches.
Her eyes met mine, then she quickly looked away.
We’d been walking on eggshells with each other for the last month, ever since I’d burst into the bunkhouse with my rifle thinking the worst.
That night, I’d gotten a text from Moira letting me know Jenny was in the bunkhouse, but I’d been dealing with the filly and hadn’t gotten back to the bunkhouse until just after 2:30 in the morning. We’d had to call the large animal vet to the property to help, then track down the owners of the horse, which took hours.
I’d been walking home when I heard Jenny losing her fucking mind in the bunkhouse. She didn’t bark like that unless something was very, very wrong.
I’d grabbed my shotgun out of my truck and ran, thinking Moira and Day were getting attacked, and found Moira sitting on the floor, trembling and unable to catch her breath.
But the talk I’d said we’d have never happened. She’d danced around the subject, giving me no information about why Day said she had nightmares sometimes.
This went beyond nightmares; I knew that much.
So, for the last month, I’d been teetering on the edge of believing Moira’s background was, in fact, my business, or leaving it be.
But that had been weeks ago.
“When does the contractor get here?” Moira asked as she followed me up the stairs to my office, shuffling her notes in her hands.
“Around one,” I answered, holding the door open so she could pass through. She didn’t even look up at me as she walked into the office and sat down in her usual space on the other side of the desk. We’d fallen into this routine over the past month. We’d meet in my office in the morning, discuss the order of business for the day, and then she’d go off onto the property to assist with whomever she’d called in to help with the investigation into the barren area at the far end of the property.
We’d spent countless hours combing through the old paperwork I’d been given when I bought the property, putting it up against the EPA report and looking for any leads into what actually happened, and why. I’d even driven her into town on multiple occasions to look through the archives at the local library, but nothing came of it.
All the while, Day had set up camp every day in the living room, playing with Jenny.
And today, to start out a new week, I had a contractor coming to discuss digging the piece of the property up to not only look for old drainage systems long buried, but to start developing what would eventually be a new pond that could feed back into the dried-up ravine.
That should appease the EPA, hopefully.
But if we found old drainage systems, especially if they routed water off of my property… that meant I’d be getting my neighbors in trouble, and that was the last thing I wanted.
“Well, they weren’t very friendly about me asking questions,” Moira said after I brought the point up for the third or fourth time. “All we need to know is when this area split, and who owned what before that.”
I leaned back in my desk chair, watching her sip her coffee and scroll through her email on her phone.
“They don’t want to answer your questions because you’re pushy,” I added.
Her eyes darted to mine, narrowed. “I am not pushy,” she argued.
“Well, that’s up for debate.”
She rolled her eyes and looked back down at her phone, her brow creasing.
“What?” I asked, leaning forward and resting my elbows on the desk. “Rather play on your phone than talk to your boss?”
“I just got an email,” she said with force, handing me her phone. “From a history professor at Montana State. He can help us.”
I pursed my lips, reading over the email which mentioned a meeting on campus set for tomorrow.
“I got the auction coming up, I can’t go tomorrow—”
“I’ll go,” she said, bringing up her phone map.
