Somehow.
“By hook or by crook,” she said under her breath as she reached her SUV. Her daughter, riding on her hip, looked at her quizzically.
“What?” Chloe asked.
“Nothing. It’s silly,” Nikki replied, but she wasn’t really paying attention to the question as she spied a small woman just getting out of a large black pickup parked at the end of the lot. Her blond hair caught the rays of a dying afternoon sun as she made her way to a white Mercedes convertible.
Naomi Kittle.
Jamison’s wife.
And the black truck was the same Ram crew cab that Nikki had spied on the night of Lara Kittle’s sweet-sixteen party when she’d been searching for Pierce.
Then she realized the redheaded girl on the large dappled horse was Naomi’s middle daughter. Shana. A classmate of Phee’s. That’s why Naomi was here. To drop off her kid. But she wasn’t waiting for the lesson to end. As the truck took off, Naomi climbed behind the wheel of her white Mercedes and, within seconds, was following the pickup down the magnolia-lined lane that connected the stables with the main road.
“Odd,” she said aloud, but this time Chloe didn’t comment. She was looking at the field where the alpacas collected near a pine tree and the lone llama, her recent nemesis, stood a few paces off, his head raised, ears pricked forward, silently staring at the two vehicles disappearing around a corner.
Nikki thought about going after the two vehicles, strapping Chloe quickly into her car seat, ordering Phee into the car and hitting the gas, but her niece was nowhere in sight, and the truck and white car were already turning onto the main road. Both in the same direction.
By the time Ophelia did appear, lugging her bag of gear, both vehicles had long disappeared. Too late to follow. However, Nikki couldn’t resist a stab at it. Maybe they’d pulled off a mile or two down the road.
After tossing Phee’s riding gear into the back of the Subaru and ensuring that her niece was buckled in, Nikki drove down the lane a little faster than usual and turned onto the road in the opposite direction from the city. West. Into the sun.
“Where’re we going?” Phee asked.
“Just a little side trip.” Nikki adjusted the car’s driver’s side visor.
“Why?”
“For fun,” she lied, then changed the subject. “So tell me, how was your lesson?”
“Good. You saw,” Phee answered with more than a little pride in her voice. “I got Reggie to jump. First time … I mean for me. Reggie does it a lot with the more advanced riders.”
“Right. Great job.” Nikki glanced in the rearview to catch a glimpse of her niece, who was already taking her phone from her bag.
“I saw one of the Kittle girls, I think it was Shana, riding a big dappled horse and just going for her lesson.”
“Oh, that was Fred.”
“Fred?” Nikki repeated, still thinking of the man in the truck.
“Yeah, we call him Freddie. Beginners ride him.”
Oh. Of course. The horse.
“So you know Shana, right?”
“What?” Phee glanced up from whatever was fascinating her on the cell. “Oh, yeah. Sure.”
“She’s in your class at school?”
“Uh-huh.” Phee was nodding, but still studying the screen. “She started riding lessons later than I did, so she’s in another riding group. The beginners.”
“And her mother drops her off?” Nikki asked, one eye on the road, the other on Phee’s reflection.
Phee lifted a shoulder. “I guess. Yeah, I think so.”
“I saw Naomi there, but she left. Looks like she met a man in a big pickup. A black one.”