Page 80 of Ambush

“I have to admit I’ve never heard you laugh like a hyena before,” Blake said in a deadpan voice.

Paradise put her hand over her mouth and giggled. “Blake, stop. Your mom would never sound like a hyena.”

“You didn’t hear her tonight. I thought she dropped thirty years off her age the second we got inside that school.”

Jenna’s gaze darted from him to Paradise before she laughed. Her belly laugh rang out in a way Paradise had never heard before, and she giggled again. Then Blake’s bellowing laughter joined them. After so much tension it felt good to be able to let it go.

Chapter 38

Dawn barely reddened the sky when Blake stood with Paradise and Nora at the corral fence line on the Dillard Ranch, and he caught a whiff of impending rain on the wind. He nodded at the brilliant color spreading in the east. “Red sky at morning, sailors take warning.”

Roger, a big man with grizzled hair and sloped shoulders inside a red-and-black-plaid flannel shirt, put his foot on the lowest rung of the fence. “Got a bad one coming in. Glad I found this spot before the rain washes it away. It’s already been almost a month since the poor lady died, but this drought maybe saved your butt, Blake.” He jabbed his finger at Nora. “If your friend here can find anything.”

Nora gestured to the padlock. “Could you show us the spot, Mr. Dillard?”

Roger took out a key and opened the padlock. “It’s on the back side of the hayfield. I only noticed it because I was out here to see how much hay needed to be taken to the barn before the storm hits, and I saw some stacks of bales had been moved. I poked around and saw the brown stains. Looked like blood to me, butI didn’t want to disturb too much so I didn’t move them back into place.”

Nora was the first one through the gate. “Smart move, Mr. Dillard.”

Blake and Paradise followed her across the dry grass toward the stacks of hay bales on the back side of the corral. Horses grazed on the other side of the fence in the last corral. It was a low-lying area, and Blake imagined it flooded. There would have been no evidence left.

They reached the piles of large bales and Roger pointed out the stain. “I nearly missed it.”

“I would have,” Blake said.

Nora squatted at the stain and opened her backpack. She laid out a sheet five feet away. “It’s going to take a while, guys. Blake, would you put on booties and nitrile gloves to lift off the hay bale covering most of this? Lay it off to one side because I’ll need to examine it as well. I want to see how much blood we’re talking about before I go any further. If it’s the possible crime scene, I’ll need to call in help from my team.”

He donned the booties and gloves she handed him before grabbing the twine binding the hay bale. Moving slowly and carefully, he lifted it and deposited it a few feet away on the sheet she’d spread out. His gut clenched at the sight of the massive amount of brown staining the dry grass and weeds. This had to be it.

Nora pulled out her phone. “I’ll need help. All of you stay back, and in fact, feel free to leave the site to me and my team. Once I’m done I’ll let the sheriff’s department know we were called to the site. Mr. Dillard, there may be pushback from Greene that you called Chief Dixon instead of him.”

The big rancher turned and ambled back toward the gate. “Ican handle Creed Greene,” he said over his shoulder. “He’s a gator looking to bite, but I’ve dealt with his kind before.”

Blake didn’t want to leave, but they were in the way, and he wanted to talk with Roger, who was away when the murder happened. He suspected the old guy had some insight into the events. He and Paradise walked a few paces behind the rancher, who went to grab the halters of two horses in the next paddock over.

“Roger may know more than he’s told anyone,” he whispered to Paradise.

She nodded. “He let the activists camp on his land. Let’s find out why. Was it because he’s a nice guy, or did he know someone in the group?”

Blake took her hand and they quickened their pace until they were jogging after Roger, who led the horses, one halter in each hand, toward the big barn. Once they were a couple of feet behind, Blake slowed to a more leisurely stride and held back as Roger opened the barn door and got the horses settled in stalls.

“I should be readying the park too,” he told Paradise.

“What do you have to do there?”

“Get all the animals in their shelters and set out sandbags in areas I suspect might flood, especially around the house and the food barn. Make sure we have enough food to last for at least a week, just in case it’s bad. Make sure I have enough fuel for the generator to at least run the well pump.” He examined the sky with no sign of clouds yet. “Though we might have a little longer than initially thought. It might hold off until tomorrow.”

She walked into the barn beside him and inhaled. “I know it’s crazy, but I love the smell inside a barn—the hay and the straw on the dirt floor mixed with the scent of the horses and theirleather. There’s nothing like it. It reminds me of being a kid. I learned to ride starting at five, and my mom would bring me to the stables here where I took lessons with his daughter Abby. It feels like home somehow.”

He slipped his arm around her, and they watched the old rancher feed a sugar cube to each of the horses. “Those were the good old days, but I think the future is going to be just as good. We’re going to get through this—together. And why do you need a horse now when you’ve got a whole park full of exotic animals?”

She leaned her head against his chest. “I like how you think.”

Roger glanced up and nodded when he spotted them. He plodded toward them in his old brown work shoes. “You need me, kids?”

“The activist group camped out on your back pasture. Did they move in and you didn’t want to kick them off, or did they have permission?”

The older man pursed his lips. “My granddaughter asked if they could stay there, and I can’t tell her no. Abby’s daughter, Quinn, who’s ten. She was doing a school project on zoos and wanted to hear what they had to say. They filled her head with all kinds of nonsense. I suspect she let them into the back paddock where we found the crime scene. Not sure why, and she isn’t talking.” He gestured toward the house. “She’s inside if you want to talk to her.”

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