“Whose genius idea was it to kidnap a pony?”Everett asked.
“Horse,” Sam corrected.“He’s a foal, but will grow to be a full-sized horse.”
“Where are Brenda and Clyde?”I asked.Were they in on this too and just got out of Dodge at just the right time?
“They’re on the mainland for the day.With her cousin who is visiting,” Otto said, the weight of everything finally having settled on him, or so it seemed.He appeared to be retreating into himself more by the second.“Zoo, aquarium.All that.”
“This is all so freaking weird,” Raina said, shaking her head.“A terrible scheme when you really think about it.And one that you had to know wasn’t going to work.So why even do it?”
The front door of the house opened and shut, and the sound of footsteps preceded a man who looked exactly like Clyde, just older.Wild brown hair, a narrow face, thick brows, pale skin.It was like the man had never seen the sun and stared at screens all day—which he probably did.This had to be Jory Whalley.His dark-brown eyes were red and had pinpricks for pupils.
With one look at Vincent, his expression darkened.“What areyoudoing here?”
“Who is that?”the PI asked.
Right, he was still on Gabrielle’s phone.
“Jory,” Avelyn said, her voice soft.
Jory’s gaze fell on Midnight.“Why’s that guy holding a pony?”
“It’s a baby horse,” Sam said, exasperated.“He will be full grown, eventually.”She ran her hand over Midnight’s head.“And magnificent.”
“What is going on here?”Otto exclaimed, finding his sense of pseudo-power again, or at least trying to reclaim it.
“That’s the fucker Avelyn cheated on me with,” Jory said.“Who broke up our family.”
“This is like a freaking soap opera,” Raina said.“Like a telenovela, but in English.”
“Wait, I thought you said Jory broke up the marriage?”Myla asked.
Jory shook his head.“Avelyn met this douche online.I found out.Filed for divorce, but she won’t sign the papers.Since then, I’ve started seeing someone in the gaming community.”
The shred of sympathy I had for Avelyn evaporated on the breeze.She deserved every ounce of pain and suffering, and more.
“Why are you still living with her parents though?”Everett asked.
Jory shrugged.“Times are tough.Rent is free.”
“Top shelf humans all around,” Jagger muttered.
“So, hang on,” Gabrielle started.“Avelyn and Vincent met online, and she started cheating with him.Did he know that she lived next door to the land he wanted?”
Everyone pivoted to face Vincent, and the look on his face said it all.He knew.
Avelyn’s expression fell.She didn’t know.He’d played her.
“For what purpose though?”Gabrielle asked.
“To have easy access to do … whatever he needed to get the land?”I mused.“He’ll stoop low enough and steal a horse, and threatened to burn down the barn.So who knows how low this asshole would go.”
Avelyn, her heart broken, and finally piecing everything together in her bimbo head, came over to the restrained Vincent and smacked him hard across the face with the back of her hand.Her nails were already ridiculous, but she was also wearing a bunch of rings, and boy-oh-boy did all that bling leave a mark.
“I’ll add that Gabrielle and I found two very fresh, very different in size, muddy footprints on the edge of Tom’s land this morning,” Maverick added.“I suspect if you check the soles of Vincent and Avelyn’s shoes that they’ll match the prints.”
Avelyn sighed and rolled her eyes again.Did she not understand the seriousness of all of this?She committed a crime.The police were going to arrest her, and yet she was still acting as though this was all just a big game and we were overreacting.No wonder her child was a monster; the woman was delusional.
“I think we’ve heard enough,” Myla said with a sigh.“Gentlemen, if you’d be so kind as to help us load Mr.Corcan into the squad car, please?”
