Page 21 of Haystacks and Hoaxes

“We are aware.” Decker speared him with a what-in-tarnation-are-you-doing look.

Rock continued doggedly, “The only reason I’m mentioning it is because he’s the one authorizing the construction taking place at Chester Farm.”

“Construction?” Mila cradled the green glass bottle of sparkling water, looking confused. “What construction?”

Rock described the increasing number of haystack huts in her sketches.

“Now that you mention it,” she mused, “Farmer Monty only had four of those huts made. Between charity events, he stored them in his white pole barn. It’s big enough to park an RV inside.”

Rock had seen it in her sketches, so he knew exactly which building she was talking about.

Gil Remington spread his hands. “No offense, but it’s not a crime to build a few extra huts.”

“Covered with the same half-rotten hay?” Rock asked incredulously.

“Weird,” Gil agreed. “I’ll give you that. Still not a crime, though.”

Rock appreciated the sheriff admitting it was weird, since he was working his way up to a point. “No, but it is a crime to run someone off the road, and the timing of Mila’s run-in with the driver of the white utility truck appears to coincide with her latest visit to Chester Farm.”

“What are you getting at?” It was the first time Gage had spoken during their meeting. The impatience in his voice showed he thought his brother was reaching. He wasprobably preparing a brotherly speech for later on — one that would encourage Rock to stay in his lane as a forensic artist and leave the other stuff up to trained investigators.

“I’m not sure yet.” Rock was still working on his theory. “During my digging, I also discovered the reporter who penned the story about Troy Bentley inheriting Chester Farm is the same reporter who writes the biggest gossip column in Heart Lake.”

Mila squirmed in her seat, which hadn’t been his goal. “Maybe I should spell out what my new boss is too nice to say.”

Her new boss?It was Rock’s turn to wince. He flicked a glance at Johnny and discovered him smirking gleefully. The guy was enjoying her reference to him as her boss way too much.

She seemed oblivious to Johnny’s reaction. “The author of the super annoyingShe Saidcolumn has been the bane of my existence ever since I ended my engagement with Troy. All the runaway bride memes and jokes flooding the Internet stemmed from her heavily embellished retelling of our almost wedding day.” Her lips flat lined. “Since Deck was running for the town council at the time, I filed a complaint with the editors of the Heart Lake Times, but…” she shook her head bitterly, “all I got was crickets. Next, I tried reaching out to the notorious Helen herself, but it turned out to be a pen name. There’s no way to contact her. The coward,” she spat. “Hiding behind the cover of anonymity while she slanders the names of innocent people right and left. It blows my mind that the Heart Lake Times allows it.”

“It’s click bait.” Rock knew exactly why they allowed it. “In the world of digital content, companies rise and fall on their ability to stop the scroll, which brings me to my nextpoint. In Helen’s article about Troy inheriting Chester Farm, she mentioned he was filing to have it declared a sanctuary for some nearly extinct lizard.”

Johnny snorted out a laugh. Nobody joined in. He glanced around the room in surprise. “Oh! You’re serious?”

“Yep.” Rock held his brother’s gaze, wanting to catch his initial reaction to what he said next. “Troy filed for sanctuary status over two months ago. Per a phone call I made to the agency, however, pretending to be a lizard enthusiast, the application is going nowhere until he completes it. Could be something. Could be nothing.”

Gage’s expression didn’t change. “We’ll look into it.” It was his and Johnny’s jobs as private investigators to handle that sort of stuff for their firm.

Johnny snapped his fingers, sitting forward. “I might be grasping at straws here, no pun intended…” Again, nobody laughed. “But maybe Troy is building the additional huts for lizard watching purposes.”

“More like grasping at haystacks.” Gage elbowed his partner playfully in the ribs.

Rock glanced away from them, trying not to let their growing friendship get under his skin. After his stint in the Special Forces, he and his brother had a lot of lost time to make up for — something that would’ve been easier if Johnny wasn’t always underfoot. Rock got that the two of them worked together, but the jokester was constantly dropping by the farmhouse after hours, especially during dinner time.

“Definitely keep digging,” Decker advised. “That’s what we do at Lonestar Security. Our standard is to leave no stone unturned.”

“Or haystack.” Johnny’s upper lip curled like he was trying not to laugh. “We’ll grab our pitchforks and get towork unearthing rare lizards, real or imagined, along with any other nefarious plots that may be underfoot.” He caught Rock’s eye. “While we’re at it, I wouldn’t mind taking a closer look at Helen of Troy’s role in all of this.”

Rock stared back in astonishment. “That’s an interesting parallel to draw.” It hadn’t occurred to him that the link to Helen and Troy might lie in an ancient mythological tale. Maybe there was more to Johnny than he’d given him credit for.

“Eh, I took a mythology class in college.” Johnny shrugged like it was no big deal. “Since Helen is theShe Saidcolumnist’s pen name, she must have chosen it for a reason. And I think we can all agree her gossip seems awfully fixated on Troy as of late.”

There was no way he’d left Mila’s name out of the mix by accident. It was a deliberately compassionate gesture, for which Rock grudgingly gave him another mental point.

Gil nodded, looking as impressed as Rock felt. “Cuba, I’m beginning to see how you wormed your way into private investigating.”

Decker stopped his pacing and glanced toward the door, indicating their meeting was coming to a close. “Just so we’re all clear on our marching orders…” He pointed at Rock. “While Gage and Johnny are chasing haystacks, lizards, and mythological creatures, I’ll need you and Mila lending a hand with the oil drilling equipment robberies I briefed you about earlier.”

He gave his boss a thumbs up, liking the way his announcement made Mila’s features light up.

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