Ms. Calculation. Danica Winters
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He dipped his chin in the direction of the bleach jug that sat in the corner near the front door.
She looked in the direction and frowned. “I dunno. People have been coming and going ever since your crew came through and took the body out.” She turned to Gwen. “I’m sorry for your loss. It’s always hard losing someone you love.”
Gwen nodded in acknowledgment. “By chance, did anyone see a bag around here?” She stuck out her hands in measurement. “It was black, about yea big?”
“I didn’t see nothing. I ain’t been around here too much. Just saw your car out front and Winnie was munching on the candy. Put two and two together and thought I’d come say hi.” She shrugged. “If you’re looking for something specific, you might want to ask your mom, Wyatt. She’s been poking around in here.”
It didn’t surprise him that his mom would have been spending her time in here after everything had gone down—of all the folks at Dunrovin, she’d taken Bianca’s death the hardest. She had a soft spot for the vet.
“I’ll chat with her,” he said, all too aware that in the next conversation he had with his family he would have to tell them what direction the investigation had headed.
The news wouldn’t come without blowback. And that was to say nothing about what the death would do to the tourism that kept the ranch afloat. If anyone caught wind that this was a possible murder case, it would undoubtedly hurt his parents’ bottom line.
“Do you know where they dumped the hay from the stall?” Gwen asked, pulling him from thoughts of his family.
“Oh, yeah,” Alli said, her sullen frown returning. “They always take that out to the gardens. It’s high in nitrogen so I’m always making it into compost for the beds. Why?”
Gwen gave him a look, a look that told him that no matter how crappy he thought some of his investigations had been, they were going to be heading to entirely new levels.
“No, Gwen.” He shook his head. “The team already went through the stall before. They didn’t find anything. There’s no point going through...anything.”
“If you don’t want to get your hands dirty, Wyatt, that’s fine,” she said, but her tone told him there would be worse things than horse manure to deal with if he didn’t play along. “But this wasn’t their sister. I need to do everything in my power to figure out what exactly happened to Bianca. You loved her once too. I know. We both owe her to try our damnedest to solve her murder.”
Alli visibly twitched. “Murder?”
No. He hadn’t been ready for the rest of the world to learn what they had started to uncover.
He shook his head violently...almost too hard to be convincing. “No, not murder. Bianca wasn’t murdered.”
Alli raised an eyebrow. “Then what happened to her?”
He took Gwen by the hand and led her toward the back door of the barn and the gardens. “I don’t know yet, Alli...but that’s what we’re hoping to find out.” Even if it meant getting his hands dirty.
They grabbed a couple of pitchforks from the wall of tools and made their way from the barn.
“Good luck,” Alli called from behind them.
He couldn’t blame her for not joining them. Right now, he wished he was anywhere—even the prisoner transfer in Alaska—rather than here and having to do what needed to be done.
As they approached the mound of compost, Gwen pulled a bandanna out of her pocket and tied it over her face in what Wyatt assumed was an effort to save herself from breathing in the scent of manure for the next hour.
“Are you sure that you really want to do this?” he asked, sticking in his pitchfork and flipping through a frozen pile of the detritus. He could think of a thousand things he would rather being doing than going through a pile of compost for evidence they weren’t going to find.
She gave him a glance and her face was pinched tight, as though she was as disgusted by this as he was. “Just look.” She scraped at the pile.
He followed her lead, but all he could think of was how close they were and how much he’d rather be anywhere else with her.
He worked his way through the hay as diligently as he could, given the circumstances. After ten minutes, the cold had started to nibble at his fingertips. They were never going to find anything.
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