Page 26 of The Perfect Hosts

“Bute,” the agent repeats. “What’s that?”

“Phenylbutazone,” Lucy says. “It’s used as a pain reliever for horses. Sully Preston uses it to trick horse buyers into thinking a lame horse is healthy. And acepromazine can make a badly trained horse appear safe.” The Prestons could have made a mint duping potential buyers into spending tens, even hundreds of thousands of dollars under the pretense that the horses they purchased were potential superstars. Luckily, Dix caught on and the partnership was quickly dissolved.

“I just have a hard time believing that Sully could kill someone over this,” Madeline says, regretting having told Lucy about the whole mess. “We parted ways with the Prestons last fall. It’s not an issue any longer.”

“But they showed up at your party uninvited?” the agent asks. “Isn’t that odd?”

It’s very strange, Madeline thinks. Over the last eight months, she has been doing everything she can to avoid running into Sully and Mia Preston—not an easy feat considering how small Nightjar is. So far she has been mostly successful.

“Yes,” Madeline admits. “There’s no love lost between us.” And hadn’t Mia Preston acted like they were practically best friends at the party? It was almost like she was putting on a show. But for who?

“I’ll talk to the Prestons,” Agent Saldano says. “Is there anyone else you can think of?”

“You had those animal activists running around here, didn’t you?” Lucy asks, and Madeline brushes the comment away with the shake of her head.

“What about Johanna Monaghan? How long have you known her?” Saldano asks.

“We’ve been best friends for nine years,” Madeline says. “We met at the coffee shop in Nightjar and just clicked.”

“Can you think of anyone who might want to do her harm?” he asks.

“Johanna?” she asks in surprise. “No, everyone loved her. All she ever did was help people and bring babies into the world. I can’t imagine anyone hurting her.” Lucy has grown bored with the conversation, and Madeline watches as she moves down the aisle, stopping in front of Blackjack again.

“And Johanna’s marriage? All good on that front?”

Madeline hesitates. Like the Prestons, Madeline couldn’t see Dalton killing his wife, but there were problems. “Johanna and Dalton had their issues,” Madeline finally says.

“What kind of issues?” the agent presses.

“I don’t know,” Madeline says. “They argued. But what couple doesn’t? Dalton has a temper, but I can’t believe that he would do something like this.” Even as she says this, there is a wisp of doubt. She loved Johanna like a sister, but Dalton? Not so much. And hadn’t Johanna increasingly complained about how erratic Dalton could be?

“What do you mean bytemper?” Saldano asks.

Madeline scans her memory for examples. “Johanna told me how, one time, one of their neighbors planted some trees just on the other side of the property line and in their backyard. Dalton freaked out. He started yelling at them and ran over the seedlings with their John Deere mower.”

“Seems over-the-top,” Saldano agrees. “Anything else?”

“Dalton was, I don’t know, overprotective of Johanna. Too much so. He didn’t like that she had to go out at all hours of the day or night to assist with a birth. He didn’t get that this went with the job. Johanna told me Dalton insisted on havingLocation Services enabled on her phone, which makes sense, right?” Saldano nods. “But Dalton took it further, and Johanna found one of those little tags in her car.”

“A GPS monitor?” the agent asks.

“Yes,” Madeline says. “Johanna was so angry that Dalton didn’t trust her.”

“Any reason Dalton would have good reason not to trust her?”

Reluctantly, Madeline responds. “Johanna never right out told me she was involved with another man, but I think she might have been. She was secretive—even with me. And more than once asked me to tell Dalton that she was with me when she wasn’t.”

Saldano continues to stroke Sonnet’s withers. “You have no idea who the other man might be?” Madeline shakes her head. “What about her other—would you call thempatients? The women she helped give birth. Any issues with them?”

Madeline shakes her head. “Johanna didn’t really talk about her other clients, not specifically anyway. She was careful about their privacy. But as far as I know, everyone was happy with her care. Everyone wanted Johanna to be their midwife.”

Agent Saldano seems satisfied. “If you think of anything, no matter how small it seems, please let me know,” he says.

“I will,” Madeline says, then adds, “Wait, have you heard anything about Dix? No one seems to know where he is. We’ve called the area hospitals but haven’t had any luck.”

“No, but I’ll be sure to check for you. Does he live nearby?”

“Down the road a few miles, but his truck is still here. We figured he was taken by ambulance to a hospital.”