Page 24 of The Perfect Hosts

“And how long of a drive is it to Rick’s from the café?” Jamie asks.

“Hey!” comes a shout. “We got something!”

Jamie moves quickly toward the wreckage. The crime-scene techs are working in two-by-two-foot areas looking for evidence by using screens to sift through the debris.

The tech points to a spot on the barn floor where debris had been cleared away. The wooden planks are charred and covered in large rolling blisters that resemble alligator skin. The burn pattern along the wood floor indicates a rapid heat buildup. Not a clear indication of arson, but it looks that way. “Is this where the victim was found?” Jamie asks.

“No, she was found just outside the barn,” Ostrenga says, his mouth set in a grim line. “It looks like she tried to run but barely made it past the door when the barn went up.”

Using a gloved hand, the tech holds up a jag of metal. “Looks like it used to be a double-head nail. We found a whole bunch of them along with some ball bearings.”

“An IED, then?” Jamie says, and the tech nods.

“And this,” says another tech. “PVC piping and duct tape.”

“So whoever did this would have a working knowledge of explosives,” Jamie says.

The first tech nods again. “But you can find out a hell of a lot about bomb-making from a Google search.”

“True,” Jamie says. “Let me know the minute you find anything else.”

Jamie knows he has one of the best post-blast identification teams here. In a matter of a few hours, they will be able to determine the type of explosive and its components and come up with a solid theory of what happened.

More evidence needs to be collected, and an autopsy has to be conducted. Cases involving improvised explosion devices can take days to process and months, even years, to investigate. All the evidence will be packed up and sent the ATF lab in Maryland. But at first glance, it appears that whatever killed Johanna Monaghan was no accident, and because of his experience in munitions and his arrest record, Dalton Monaghan is at the top of Jamie’s list of suspects.

Chapter 10

Madeline

Madeline looks through the wall of windows at what once was her beautiful backyard. A black hole sits in the middle of the meadow with the gnarled remains of the old Dodge strewn throughout the tall grass and soot-covered wildflowers. It’s unbelievable, she thinks, that just yesterday, Johanna was here, reassuring Madeline that all would be well.

She presses her fingers to her mouth, trying to hold in the sobs that racked her body all the way home from the hospital. Then there was the shock of finding her sister standing in her living room. Madeline still can’t believe she slapped Lucy. That was definitely out of character. If anyone was going to throw punches, it was Lucy. She still has a few scars from their childhood tiffs.

The lawn is littered with traces of yesterday’s party, and there’s little left of the old barn. Crime-scene technicians and law enforcement have descended across the property, and yellow crime tape is stretched tautly around the yard, a flimsy barrier but somehow more intimidating than any electric or barbwire fence. There is a sudden flurry of activity at the foundation of the burned-down barn. She watches as the ATF agent from yesterday and several others rush toward one of the investigators. They’ve found something. The cause of the fire? Another body? Madeline shudders, fights the bile that rises in her throat.

A strange whap-whap sound fills the air, like a thousand bird wings beating. Madeline presses her face to the glass trying to get a better look. A helicopter hovers high above the meadow, the rotor blades a blurry swirl against the blue sky. Emblazoned across the side of the helicopter is the logo for the news station out of Cheyenne. The media is here. Another spasm of panic runs through Madeline. Of course this would be big news—over-the-top gender reveal turns deadly. The media will have a field day, and Madeline knows that one helicopter is probably only the beginning. The Drake family is high-profile, and everyone likes to see the wealthy and privileged fall hard and spectacularly.

Madeline tries to push the thought aside. She thinks of the tense interaction Wes and Dalton had in the hospital last night, and she needs to talk to her husband about it today. Madeline feels like she should reach out to Dalton—he must be in agony—but Wes told her under no circumstances was she to call him. He also told her that she needed to rest, but she’s too keyed-up, beyond exhausted. Instead, she passes quietly by the kitchen where Wes is still talking with the sheriff and into the mudroom where she keeps a barn jacket and a pair of tall rubber muck boots. The morning air is cool but holds the promise of a warm, pleasant day. Once outside, she registers her mistake. The news helicopter that has retreated to a far end of the property is returning and would get the money shots they were looking for. Her pregnant belly and the stitches in her lower back make it impossible to move quickly, but Madeline keeps her head down until she reaches the stables. Wes will be irritated with her for going outside, will say that it will be her own fault if her face ends up plastered all over the news.

Once inside, Madeline is met with the familiar scent of sweet hay, dust, leather, sweat, and the wet-dog smell of Pip who, tail wagging, comes to her side. Madeline pauses to rubher head and then moves directly to Blackjack’s stall, where he snicks and stomps at her arrival. A twelve-year-old ebony Arabian with a white comma in the middle of his forehead, Blackjack is the horse that helped her win the gold in dressage at the Pan American Games before she gave up competition and married Wes.

“Hey, sweet boy,” Madeline says, running a hand along Blackjack’s muzzle and offering him a sugar cube.

“You know Dad would say you are spoiling him,” comes Lucy’s voice from behind.

Madeline’s spine stiffens, but she keeps her gaze firmly on Blackjack. “I can’t deal with you right now, Lucy,” Madeline says, her voice shaking. “My best friend died, I could have lost the baby, and my yard is crawling with police. I thought we agreed the last time we were together that it was best if we didn’t see each other for a while.” Blackjack’s muscles are tense beneath her fingertips. He can sense when she’s stressed out, has always been able to read her.

“We need to talk,” Lucy says. “You know we do.”

Intent on ignoring her sister, Madeline makes her rounds in the stable, stopping at each stall, while Lucy lingers next to Mathilda, one of the dozen horses that Lucy’s father left to Madeline when he died. He also left Madeline half his estate and put the other half in a trust for Lucy. Lucy wasn’t known for her financial acumen and went ballistic when she learned that her stepsister held the purse strings and controlled the money.

Madeline didn’t have to take the horses when she left after the funeral; she and Wes had plenty of their own. If she’d had access to the money, Lucy would have continued to expertly care for them all as she had throughout their father’s illness, but if Madeline is being honest, at the time it felt good to take the herd from her sister. Lucy’s father, who Madeline came to think of as her father too, was a practical man and must haveunderstood that Lucy was in no position to care for them. Taking the horses was almost the only thing that seemed to crack a piece of Lucy’s notoriously hard heart.

“This is just so like you,” Lucy says, moving next to her stepsister and leaning her elbows atop the stable gate. “You’ll do anything to avoid a fight.”

“And you’ll do anything to provoke one!” Madeline cries. “You shouldn’t be here right now, and you know it.”

“Mathilda is looking a little on the thin side,” Lucy says, sidestepping Madeline’s comment. “Is she eating okay?”