She unzipped her coat, shrugged it off, and threw it on the bed. She wasn’t wearing the forbidden shirt, but the one she had on was just a scrap of a thing—low-cut, tight, and high enough to show glimpses of her belly.
“Where did you get that?” Cole said, stunned but thoroughly aware that she’d never worn this shirt before; he wouldn’t have missed it even during his most unconscious days last summer.
The tears had stopped, and she faced him with all the defiance she could gather. “I borrowed it from a friend.”
“Exactly which friend loaned it to you?”
She clamped her jaw, thinning her lips.
Cole felt his anger build. “Tomorrow morning, you’re going to show me what you have on before you leave this house.” He turned to go but stopped when another thought struck him. “And I’ll want to inspect your backpack, too.”
“Fine,” she said. “You’ve spent some time with us; you can go back to work now.”
“I don’t want any back talk either, Angela. Show some respect.”
Cole escaped from her bedroom before she could retort. Mrs. Gibbs looked up at him from the bottom of the staircase with a frown of concern on her face, not even trying to hide that she’d been eavesdropping. Belle waited there beside her, giving him one slight tail wag before stopping altogether and standing rooted in confusion.
“I didn’t know you were upstairs with Angela just now, so I was going to ask her if she wanted a snack,” Mrs. Gibbs said.
Cole stomped down the stairway, brushing past her. “I’ll be back around six,” he said as he grabbed his coat and left the house. He climbed into his truck and slammed it into gear.
What the hell? What was going on with Angela? Why was she acting like this all of a sudden? What was all this running away or dying talk about? He thought of the conversation he’d had with Mattie during their night up on the mountain. Maybe she had a good point after all. Maybe he needed to enlist the help of a good counselor.
He drove to the clinic where he greeted Tess and kept himself busy until his first late-afternoon client arrived. Sometime during his final hour of office visits, Cole took a call from Mattie between patients.
“I was thinking of you earlier,” he said as a greeting.
There was silence for a few seconds before she spoke. “Oh?”
“Yeah, I had a fight with Angela. She’s saying things I just don’t get. Maybe I should talk to that school counselor after all.”
“I recommend it . . . for sure. I hope you will.”
He paused, thinking her voice sounded tired. “Well, you didn’t call to listen to my problems. What can I do for you?”
“We have some information that tells us Adrienne might have been working with horses shortly before she was killed. We’re looking at your list of horse clients to see if any of them are close to the trailheads that led to her gravesite or the car site. Could you take a look at the list, too, and tell me if any of them have ever crossed your radar as either violent or cruel with animals?”
“I can tell you right now, I’m sure none of them have. The very fact that they were willing to have Adrienne do massage on their horses tips them into the kind and caring category. But I’ll have Tess call you with those located close to the trailheads.”
“Okay.” She paused. “You’re working late.”
“I am. I have a client up in a remote area, Dark Horse Stable, and it’s wreaking havoc with my schedule.” He had a thought. “It’s not even close to the areas you’re looking at. This woman is a new client, so I didn’t refer her to Adrienne. She’s just a very nice lady with a real sick horse.”
This time the pause was so long that Cole began to wonder if Mattie was still on the line. Finally, she spoke. “I appreciate your time.”
“Mattie . . . is everything all right?”
“Why do you ask?”
“I don’t know. You sound tired or something.”
“Everything’s fine. And I am tired. I’ll try to get some sleep tonight.”
“Didn’t you get a chance to catch up last night?”
Again, there was a pause. “Something came up. Look, I’ve gotta go. Thanks for your help.”
Her voice sounded strained, and if Cole didn’t know her better, he’d think she was fighting tears. But the Mattie he knew didn’t cry. He was able to slip in a good-bye just as she disconnected the call.
Mattie sat at her desk, struggling with the pain in her chest. She placed a hand over her heart.
Cole’s words about his new client had set up a wave of emotion she didn’t know how to deal with, but they couldn’t be what caused this turmoil. Could it have been what her brother had said? Why was she such a mess?
Soon Tess called, giving her a list of three stables, none of which were owned by people she knew. Tess vouched for all of them, saying these clients were the “salt of the earth,” but Mattie still thought they should follow up. Since Adrienne’s clothing indicated she’d been working with horses the afternoon she’d been killed, she didn’t want to drop all the leads and focus only on Ramon Vasquez. Even though the evidence was stacking up against him, it was too early in the investigation to do that.
She went to join Stella in the office that Sheriff McCoy had assigned her. The detective was going over phone records, texts, and e-mails that they’d received from Adrienne’s service providers. Although Mattie’s shift had ended an hour earlier, she wanted to see if Stella thought she should follow up with the list of stables tonight.
Tapping on the door, she entered Stella’s office, Robo padding behind her.
Stella’s brow shot up when she looked up from her work. Nudging her reading glasses down on her nose, she peered over them and focused on Mattie’s face. “Your little scuffle this morning earned you a pretty good shiner.”
Mattie touched her bruised cheekbone gingerly. “I’ve had worse.”
“Sheriff McCoy said he sent Brody home, but he can’t afford to suspend him. He’s too short handed.”
“We have a lean team here. We need every man we’ve got.” Mattie felt that Brody’s behavior was out of line, but there was a small part of her that understood how upset he was. “I have three stables that are near the trailheads we’re looking at. Both Dr. Walker and Tess say these owners don’t classify as people you’d suspect as killers, but we might still want to follow up. Do you think I should do that tonight?”
Stella frowned, glancing back down at the pile of papers in front of her. “No, I want to talk to them myself. I have a few more phone numbers that I need to cross match and connect with names. Do you have phone numbers assigned to that list of clients?”
“I do.”
“Great. I can use that,” Stella said, taking the list from her. “The TracFone number that our anonymous tipster called in on doesn’t appear on her phone call history. But there are still a lot of numbers here that I’m trying to assign names to.”
“Do you want some help?”
“No, not yet. If I need another set of eyes, I’ll keep yours in mind.” She squinted one eye. “That is, if you can still see out of that one.”
Mattie shook her head and offered a thin smile. “The call to Green Thumb Organics didn’t net anything. Jack Kelly wasn’t working today. I tried a home phone number, but no answer.”
“Will he be in tomorrow?”
“Supposed to be.”
“Try again in the morning,” Stella said.
“All right. If you don’t need me for anything else, I should clock out.”
“Yeah, that’s fine. But I have a favor to ask. I’ll be here at least another hour. Could I crash on your sofa for the night? I need to be back here early in the morning.”