6

Rachel’s little car bounced over ruts as she inched down Cherrywood Lane. The suspension didn’t seem built for this. A great bubble of relief welled up when she spotted Ann’s truck parked under one of the trees near the stable. Surely, if something had happened to Ann, the other workers at Cherrywood would have noticed her truck parked here and put out an alert. So she must be fine.

Moments later, Ann herself stepped from behind the main barn, saddle braced against one hip and her other hand dangling a bridle. She made it halfway to the tack room before looking up and spotting Rachel stomping across the grass toward her. She halted and hitched the saddle higher. “What in the world,” she called across the yard, sounding half amused, half annoyed. “I thought you hated coming out here.”

“I do hate coming out here.” Rachel wobbled as one of her heels sank into a soft spot in the dirt. She yanked it out and took three more steps to bring herself over to Ann. Her stiff right ankle twinged. “But you haven’t been answering your phone.”

Ann handed Rachel the bridle and switched the saddle to the opposite hip. “What’s wrong now?”

“I just told you. You weren’t answering your phone.”

Ann swiped at her forehead with her free hand, leaving a streak of sweat and dirt. “And you thought—what? That someone had murdered me? That’s your delusion. Not mine.” Ann started toward the tack room. “Bring that,” she said, gesturing toward the bridle in Rachel’s hands.

“I didn’t think you were murdered, exactly.” Rachel minced after her sister, her affectionate worry fully replaced with annoyance. “But what if you’d fallen and broken a bone—”

“Again, that’s your thing—”

“Or had been thrown from a horse and knocked unconscious out in the paddocks or…or had fallen into the well.”

Ann stopped and stared at her. “What well?”

“You know. A well.” Rachel gestured her free hand grandly to indicate the entirety of Cherrywood Farms. Surely there was a well somewhere on the property.

“What if I wasn’t here?” Ann asked. “What were you going to do next? Check the carriage house?”

“Yes. And then the hospitals, and then the morgue.”

Ann rolled her eyes. She stepped into the tack room and flopped the saddle over a saddle rack. She took the bridle from Rachel, smoothed it out, and hung it on a hook labeled Echo.

“Why didn’t you call me back?” Rachel tried not to sound peeved. This was the sort of behavior she was supposed to change. She had to act as if she were at least trying. Which she was.

Ann swiped both hands down her face and brushed bits of hay from her shoulders. “My phone quit holding a charge two days ago. Now it’s totally dead. I need to get another battery when I have time this weekend.” She stepped out of the tack room and headed toward the wash racks. “If you want to talk to me, come over here. I have to rinse Echo before she gets turned out.” Standing in cross-ties, a beautiful bay thoroughbred with a star and two socks waited to be hosed down.

Rachel picked her way behind Ann, trying to keep her heels from sinking too far into the muck. “This weekend? What if someone needs to contact you before then?”

Ann picked up the hose and began to spray down the horse. Rachel lurched sideways to avoid backsplash and stepped directly into a wet, steaming pile of horse poo. While Ann continued hosing down the horse, Rachel attempted to remove some of the smeary poo by turning her ankles and swiping the sides of her shoes against the grass. Her right ankle, still as inflexible as ever, sent a stab of pain up her leg.

Ann looped the hose around the post and picked up the sweat scraper. “So what do you want?”

Rachel blinked at her. “I told you. I came to see if you were OK.”

Ann pulled the scraper across Echo’s back. Echo flicked her tail, showering Rachel with droplets. “I’m fine.”

“Well, do you want to grab some dinner?”

Ann gazed at the sky, considering the light. “Well, let’s see. I have two more horses to work before it gets dark, and then I promised I’d drag the arena and set up feed for tomorrow morning because the morning crew has to load six horses to be ready to go to the hunt club by five. But I guess we can get dinner after all that…if you want.”

“How long until you’d be ready to go?”

“I don’t know. Like around nine?”

“Forget it.”

Ann removed the cross ties and led the horse toward the paddocks. “That’s what I figured.”

~*~

Lee texted Rachel Thursday night to let her know that he’d finished the plans for the set. He asked if she wanted to meet up for coffee the next afternoon to look over them. During car line on Friday, Rachel almost asked Sharon Day if she would see her later at The Drip, hoping to angle the conversation so that Sharon would spill the beans on herself and Lee. Since Sharon had just started letting her guard down, Rachel decided to restrain herself. When she arrived at the coffee shop and saw Sharon nowhere in sight, she was doubly glad she’d held her tongue.

Lee pulled a tight roll of papers from his back pocket and waggled them at Rachel before smoothing them out on the tabletop between them. He placed their coffee cups on opposing corners to flatten the plans against the table. Rachel reached for the glass sugar dispenser and exchanged it with the coffee on the edge nearest her. Since Lee had been waiting for a while, she assumed the coffee would be cool enough for consumption. She lifted the mug and took a generous sip.

Lee looked up in alarm as she sprayed coffee. “Too hot?”

“No,” Rachel choked. “There’s cinnamon in this.”

“Oh.” Lee lifted the cup from her hands and exchanged it with the other. “That one’s mine.”

Rachel’s head jerked back in amazement. “You put cinnamon in your coffee?”

“Yes.”

“Since when?”

“For a while now.” He pushed his glasses up and scratched his chin. “So what?”

“So what? Lee, it’s cinnamon.”

“I like cinnamon. I like coffee. I like cinnamon in my coffee.”

Rachel stared at him.

“It’s like drinking a cookie.”

“I don’t know who you are any more,” she said. Considering how shaky their relationship had been lately, perhaps that hadn’t been the wisest comment. She braced herself for the fallout, but whatever demons had been plaguing Lee hadn’t accompanied him that afternoon. He chuckled, picked up his cinnamon-laced coffee, and tipped it against hers in a fake toast. On the table between them, the mockups rolled themselves back up with a whuff.

“Next thing I know, you’re going to be eating asparagus spears with your pinky fingers extended.”

“Maybe I will.” Lee flattened the plans against the table and re-anchored the edges. “But that’s not our biggest problem right now.” He tapped the mockups with one finger.

Rachel considered the sketch, studying the bold pencil strokes and notes scrawled in Lee’s tiny, all-caps writing. “What’s the problem?” she asked. “It looks fairly straightforward.”

“The problem is Agatha’s death scene.” Lee scratched his chin again and frowned at the sketches. “As you know, she’s supposed to fall over the side of the railing from the top of the steps and break her neck when she hits the ground.”

Rachel nodded. “I know that’s impossible. I thought we’d just do a fade-out as she and the police are struggling at the top of the steps. Then we bring the lights back up, and she’s at the bottom, dead. It’ll be like when Shakespeare offs Mcduff offstage in Macbeth—only this time, nobody waltzes in carrying a head.”

Lee, who had taken Rachel’s senior seminar Shakespeare elective and therefore understood most of her allusions, grunted. “Offstage deaths are lame.”

“Do you have a better idea?”

“As a matter of fact, I do.”

“Why do I get the feeling that I’m not going to like this?”

“Trust me. You’re going to like this.”

“It’s going to be dangerous, isn’t it?”

“Acting is always dangerous, Miss Cooper. Remember the year Celia Murphy fell off the stage?”

“That girl never could remember her blocking.” Rachel leaned forward and studied the sketches. “These changes. Will Yolanda approve them?”

“Leave it to me.” He rolled up the plans and waggled them at her. “I’ll take care of it.” He downed the rest of his coffee in one long draught. Lowering the cup, he smacked his lips. Behind the explosion of facial hair, he smiled the old-Lee smile. “Trust me, Miss Cooper. I can do this. And it’ll be safe too. Nobody’s going to get hurt during this play unless they’re really trying.”