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And why was he released?
She had her shoulders hunched under her jacket, maybe against the chill wind, maybe not. “That deputy guy said not to leave town.”
“You weren’t going to anyway, were you? Not right away.”
“I suppose.” With her fear for her father under control, she was much less forthcoming.
“What’s all that about?” Diana asked her, sliding her eyes toward the duo at the tack room entry.
“I dunno.”
“Don’t you?” I asked mildly. “You said your dad could offer Wendy a lot of money, but what would she do with it if she didn’t have the ranch.”
Wary but unsure where the danger stemmed from, she acknowledged slowly, “I guess I said that.”
“But you know what she’d do with a lot of money if she had the ranch?”
She relaxed. “Sure. She’d pay bills, get rid of debt, fix up things she’s put off.”
I tried to imagine Wendy Barlow confiding those details to Robin Kenyon. Especially last summer when everyone — including Robin — agreed she had not endeared herself to anyone at Elk Rock Ranch. “How do you know?”
“My father told me.”
My brain jammed even worse trying to imagine Wendy sharing such information with Randall Kenyon. “How did he know?”
“He started researching after he got the idea to buy the ranch.”
“When was that?”
“Last fall.”
“When you gave Keefe the computer, followed by the DNA test.” An example of Randall’s timing in angling for an ally?
Did Robin participate knowingly?
She ducked her head. “To thank him. It... What happened when I was here changed my life. Not just getting hurt. But... Do you know what happened. I mean what led up to it?”
“I heard some.”
She smiled. At least that’s the best term I can think of. It had a foundation of a saint’s patient lifting of lips for the foibles of a sinner, combined with a self-directed grimace of that sinner.
“I bet you did. About me running Rio and staying out late and slipping the wranglers. That’s when they said I had to leave. I couldn’t believe it. I was so angry. And it was only after Wendy said I’d have to go on the next van to the airport that I realized I liked it here. I didn’t want to leave.”
As she spoke, her voice sped up. On those last words, I heard an echo of petulant entitlement. As if she were not simply remembering events, but reliving them as the person she’d been.
“I was supposed to stay in my cabin until someone drove me to the airport the next day. I slipped out and started up the trail on Rio. Alone. Breaking rules again.
“And I was crying. A lot. So I didn’t hear the group ahead of me. Not until there was no avoiding them. Keefe was at the back. He spotted me, but didn’t say anything. It was all Brenda, shouting how horrible I’d been to Rio and I shouldn’t be allowed on another horse the rest of my life, with those other people staring at me. I tried to get past them, to get off by myself. I...”
We waited a long time for her to continue.
“Rio didn’t throw me. I lost my balance and fell. Onto rocks. Broke a bone in my leg. Bad break. Hit them just wrong... Or maybe just right.”
“Must have hurt like hell,” Diana said.
“Not really. Not then. In fact, I didn’t believe them that it was broken. Tried to get up. I couldn’t. I couldn’t move my leg. I couldn’t do anything. I don’t think I passed out, but when they splinted my leg, it was like... like I went calm sort of. I could hear all the voices deciding what to do, but from very far away, and talking about someone else.
“Then they were all gone and it was Keefe and me. He put a jacket under my head, got it so a roll supported my neck and it felt like all the muscles in my neck just... let go. Like I’d been holding my head up forever, but in that moment I didn’t have to.
