I knew this wasn’t true. What I didn’t know was if Lauren knew it wasn’t true.
“Have you been by the farm lately?”
“No, why?”
“I have reason to believe that someone is using your family’s land, Lauren. My associate drove out there yesterday and saw rows of healthy crops, fresh tire tracks, irrigation systems running. It looked like a fully functioning farm.”
“What?” She looked gobsmacked.
“So you don’t know anything about this?”
She shook her head slowly, her brow deeply furrowed. “No, I mean, I can’t imagine . . .”
“Has anyone been in touch with you about buying or leasing the land?”
Again, she shook her head. She was clearly thrown off by this information. “No, no one has even mentioned it to me since Mom died.”
She was so obviously surprised by this information that I had no reason to doubt her. Plus, I couldn’t think of a reason someone would lie about farming their own land. It’s not like that’s a crime. “Could I talk to your brother? Maybe he knows something?”
“Sure,” she said, just as the phone rang. She scribbled down his phone number on a Post-it note and handed it to me as she answered the phone. “Smythe and Breidenbach, how may I help you?”
I mouthed a silent thank you and left the office. I had about thirty minutes till I was due at the sheriff’s office, so I ran by Tuttle General to check on Tabitha. On my way over, I left a message for Lauren’s brother, John, asking him to call me back. As I pulled into the visitor lot at the hospital, I saw that Jay had texted me.
R u okay? We need to talk. Can I come by later?
I felt a lump in my throat. I wanted nothing more than to talk to Jay, to let him comfort me after the scare this morning, but I knew I had to be strong. It was obvious he didn’t feel about me the way I felt about him, plus we clearly wanted different things. I ignored the text, chucked my phone into my purse, and walked inside the hospital.
I headed straight for Tabitha’s room. Before I got there, however, I found Thad sitting in the waiting area just outside the third-floor elevators. He was in the same clothes he’d been wearing the night before and looked like he hadn’t slept. In front of him was an empty cup of coffee and an untouched muffin.
“Hey,” I said as I walked up.
He looked at me through bleary, red-rimmed eyes. Thad looked as worn out and tired as I’d ever seen a person. His father had been murdered, he’d been held in jail for days, and then his brother and his fiancée were both hospitalized. That kind of stress would wear out anybody.
“They’ve got her in surgery now. Doc said they should be out soon.”
I nodded. “How’s David?”
“He’s being released today. He’s still weak, but Dr. Cavell thinks he’s past the worst of it.” Thad ran a hand through his hair as he leaned back against the blue vinyl seat. “I’m worried about him going home alone though, so he’s going to come stay at the house with me.”
The last thing I wanted to do was add to his stress, but I felt like he needed to know about the threat I’d received, since he and Tabitha knew almost everything I did about Arthur’s death. I told him all about it as gently as I could and made sure he knew Carl had the note and was looking into Brandon Laytner’s alibi for the night of his father’s murder.
“God, I’m so sorry, Riley.” He shook his head. “I wish I knew what to say . . .”
I felt for him. He’d been through so much in the past few days, and despite everyone’s best efforts, we were no closer to figuring out who was behind it all.
“I’m just glad the prosecutor dropped the charges.”
“Me too—but I won’t feel like any of us are safe until we find who killed Dad and tried to kill David. I’m thinking of hiring protection for us out at the estate.”
“Not a bad idea,” I said, wishing I had the resources to hire some protection of my own.
CHAPTER 38
I walked into the sheriff’s office a few minutes later than expected. The place was buzzing with the kind of frenetic energy brought on by stress, fear, and shared purpose. In Tuttle Corner, an attack on one of us was an attack on all of us, and finding out who threw that hammer was now the priority of everyone in the office.
Gail had the phone crooked between her ear and shoulder and was typing something into her archaic desktop computer at the same time. When I walked in, she nodded her head toward Carl’s office as a way to let me know I was free to go on back.
I walked to the back of the large rectangular room and saw through the window that Jay was in with Carl. My mouth went dry as I mentally calculated if there was any way I could turn and run out of there without being seen.
“Riley,” Carl called to me from his desk. Damn. He looked at his watch. “Give me a minute to finish up with Jay.”
Jay looked at me but said nothing, his face completely unreadable. He was a consummate professional and I knew he wouldn’t try to talk to me about personal issues here. I stepped back out of the office, pulling the door closed behind me.
My heart thumped against my chest wall. Was this going to happen every time I ran into him? I was going to have to find a way to make peace with the fact that we were over, that he wasn’t the man I thought he was.
I pulled out my phone and pretended to be busy while I waited. A couple of short minutes later, Carl’s door opened and Jay walked out alone. He paused in front of me.
“We
