Show Me (Thomas Prescott 4) by Nick Pirog (best ereader for textbooks .TXT) 📗

bus from the back, jumping down into the thick brush, then clambered toward us.

“You get everything?” I asked.

She patted the radar gun looking device in her right hand, which was actually a parabolic microphone she often used to listen in on Walmart Guy and his girlfriend’s dates, and said, “Yep. Got it all.”

Chapter Twenty-Nine

“They’re beautiful,” Bree said, her face pushed up against the back window.

“They’re called quarter horses,” I said. “Race horses. This lady breeds them.”

We’d driven directly from Simon Beach to Page Ranch and it was closing in on 6:00 in the evening.

I glanced at Wheeler. She’d been out to the ranch just three days earlier to remove a nail from one of the horse’s hooves. She fidgeted in the passenger seat.

“Is that why she stole so much of the money?” Bree asked. “To help pay for her breeding program?”

Wheeler locked eyes with me.

Neither of us had disclosed our theory to Bree, but to her credit she had been listening to the entirety of the meeting at Simon Beach. Still, to put this together was nothing short of astonishing.

“She’s like a genius or something,” I said.

Bree laughed from the back.

I parked between the house and the stable.

“Stay put,” I said to Bree, knowing full well she would be over the fence petting the horses the moment we stepped inside the house.

“Sure thing, boss.” She added, “You sure you don’t need me to record this?”

“I’m sure,” I said.

Both Wheeler and I had our phones in our pockets set to record. And I highly doubted Victoria would pat us down.

I told Bree to keep her cell phone on her just in case.

“I’m just gonna be in the car,” she said.

“Your hand is already petting an invisible horse.”

She put her hand down, then opened the door, and sprinted in the direction of the horses, blue hair bouncing.

“I like her,” Wheeler said.

“Yeah, me too.”

A moment later, I knocked on the front door. No one answered, and Wheeler and I headed toward the stable.

Wheeler took the lead, walking through the open door. Victoria Page was inside the second stall. She was brushing the coat of a large brown horse. The horse eyed us, his head swishing lightly back and forth.

“Oh, hi there,” Victoria said, pushing her hat up an inch with her free hand.

Wheeler went up to the horse and rubbed her hand on his nose. “What’s this guy’s name?” she asked.

“Retro,” Victoria said with a smile. “He’s my old man.”

“And how’s Macy?”

I guessed Macy was the horse whom Wheeler attended to three days earlier.

“She still won’t put all her weight on that back foot, but she’s doing a whole lot better.”

“No redness or swelling?”

“I checked on it a few hours ago and it looked pretty good.” She turned to me and said, “Is that why you guys are here?”

Wheeler and I glanced at one another.

I said, “Actually, it’s about something else.”

She nodded, gave Retro a few last brushes on his side, then exited the stall.

“Why don’t we go inside and have a drink?” she offered.

We followed her from the stable toward the main house. At one point she stopped and asked, “Do you guys see a blue haired girl out on the fence?”

Bree was straddling a black post, petting one of the horses. I said, “Yeah, she’s with us.”

“Oh good. Just wanted to make sure I wasn’t seeing things.”

I forced a laugh.

Wheeler didn’t.

We made our way into the living room and Victoria excused herself to fix us some drinks. Several minutes later, she entered the room with a tray. She set two martinis on the coffee table near where Wheeler and I were sitting, then gingerly lowered herself onto the couch opposite us with her own glass in hand.

“That hip giving you some trouble?” I asked.

“No more than usual,” she said, then took a sip of her drink. She set it down, then said, “You still looking into those murders?”

I nodded.

“I figured that would be the only reason you two would be here together.”

“We have a couple more questions.”

She looked at Wheeler and said, “I’ve told you before how brave your dad was those last few minutes of his life. You should be proud.”

Wheeler moved her hand to mine and gripped it. At first I thought she was doing it to keep herself from crying, but she wasn’t. She was doing it to keep herself from leaping across the room and burying her fist in Victoria’s face.

“That night,” I said, “you went to the Save-More to get butter for some cookies you were baking.”

“That’s right, macadamia nut and white chocolate chip.” She gave a slight grin at the mention of her famous cookies.

“But that’s not really why you were there.”

Her grin vanished. “Yes, it was. I ran out of butter.”

“No, you were there for the meeting.”

“What meeting?”

“The meeting that Neil Felding called.”

She set the martini glass down. “Neil Felding? Why would I be meeting with Neil Felding?”

“Because he was about to blow the whistle on a twenty-year cover-up?”

“A cover-up? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“We just had a long chat with Chief Eccleston, Greg Mallory, Mayor Van Dixon, and David Ramsey.” I glanced toward Wheeler. “We know everything.”

Victoria’s face fell.

I said, “Mayor Van Dixon told us how, as town comptroller, you stumbled on a secondary account that the Mayor was keeping. You knew it was something illegal, but instead of turning her in, you told her that you would be quiet about it if you got the same payoff. The Mayor contacted David Ramsey and made it happen. You then convinced the Mayor to let you control the payoffs, that you would launder them through the town budget and into a series of different bank accounts and trusts. Eventually, you convinced Dr. Lanningham, Greg Mallory, Odell, and Chief Eccleston to also let you control their payoffs, and pretty soon all that Lunhill money was coming directly to you.”

Victoria Page’s chin moved down slightly.

“But after a year, you got greedy. You decided to approach David Ramsey on your own. You got him