Page 78 of Guilty as Sin
“Lots,” Lily said. “Enough to talk to me about it.”
“Me, too,” Paige admitted. “I’ve heard from, who? The woman who owns the gym, Jennifer whoever. I need to find out more about her, because the gym seems pretty critical here. But the other woman was there, too. Raeleigh Franklin. They were bothinthe locker room when I went into that cubicle. And the guy at the gas station. He wasn’t there, but he’s another one. Those are just the people I’ve happened to run into, who’ve seen fit to tell me how much they hate my decision-making. Your decision-making. Whatever.”
“You reported all this, right?” Lily asked. “Both things, Jace’s stalker and this? The police know?”
“Yeah,” Jace said, “for what it’s worth. I don’t think Sergeant Worthington has me on the top of his priority list.”
“Oh,” Lily said. “But the gym… well, if itwasJennifer Turner, or if Jennifer was involved somehow, though I can’t believe she’d do that. She has kids. Her daughter’s in college. But if it was…”
“That doesn’t stop anybody,” Paige said. “Mothers can do horrible things. I could tell you stories.”
“I don’t want to hear your stories,” Lily said.
“Wait.” Jace put a hand up when Paige would have spoken. “Lily’s the one who knows these people best. If it was Jennifer, what?”
“Well,” Lily said, “I mean, he’s her brother.”
A long moment, then Jace asked, “Who’s her brother?”
“Chris Worthington. You know. The cop.”
It took a moment to sink in.
“So the police sergeant is the gym owner’s brother,” Paige said. “OK. That could make him more hostile to me, and maybe less likely to follow up, I guess, or worst case, he’d be in it with her, but he wouldn’t have the whole department sucked into that, surely. He didn’t take Jace that seriously either, though.”
“He didn’t like me,” Jace said, “but cops tend not to. Except you, of course, and look how hard I had to work on you. I can look resistant to authority, I hear.”
“But wait,” Lily said. “My animals are OK now, right? Are you sure?”
“They were this morning,” Jace said.
“Oh,” Paige said. “Duh. Ofcourse.If I didn’t have this stupid head knock, I would’ve seen that. See, there again. If people were trying to kick me out, to make me sell, if they cared enough to bash me, surely they’d have gone after my animals too by now. The goats. I was at the hospital for a long time last night. Everybody saw me leave, and that Jace took me. If Sergeant Whatever is Jennifer’s brother, if they were talking, even if she didn’tdothe chickens, even if it was Jace’s stalker, Jennifer would have heard about the chickens and the shop and seized her opportunity. Or told the others.”
“They wouldn’t necessarily go after the goats,” Lily said. “Some people are animal lovers.”
“They hit me in thehead.”
“Doesn’t matter.” Paige recognized that stubborn streak. Lily was sweet and accommodating until she wasn’t. “An animal is different.”
“They let the chickens out to get killed,” Jace said.
“A chicken isn’t a dog or a cat or a goat,” Lily insisted. “I can kill a chicken if I have to. What do you think I do if one of them gets attacked or too sick? Take them to the vet and have them put to sleep while I stroke their feathers? No. I kill them. I couldn’t kill one of my sweet goats.”
“But could you kill me?” Paige asked. “That’s the question.”
“I’m saying they’re two different things,” Lily said. “If the goal’s to intimidate a person so she sells her property, and if the person they’re targeting is an animal lover, they’d go after the goats. The babies arecute.They’resweet.They’rebabies.So either the person’s an animal lover, too, and that’s why they didn’t, or you’re right, it’s Jace’s person, because they hit you and they didn’t hit a goat.”
“Maybe it’s two people. Or three.” Paige’s head was hurting again. Too much thinking. It wanted to shut down. “One could hit me, and one could hit the goat.”
“Except they didn’t,” Lily said. “So see?”
Paige sighed. “OK. I need to call the cops again and see what they know. I need to call…” She blanked on the names.
Jace looked at her sharply. “Time for you to get off the phone and rest,” he said. “I’ll call Worthington and update him. I’ll call Hailey, too.”
Paige wanted to protest, but she’d lost her focus, somehow. “OK, baby,” she said to Lily. “I’m going to…”
Lily said, “I’m coming back. I’ll be there at midnight. I already bought my ticket. Twelve-oh-two in Kalispell. I can get a taxi.”
