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“I don’t have my phone on me,” she said, snapping the crossties on the horse’s halter.
“You don’t know your boss’s number?”
“Who memorizes phone numbers?” Izzy asked with half a laugh. “This ain’t 1995. Anyway,” she said, picking a stiff brush off the cluttered shelves and setting to work on the horse, “I deal with Tulsie more than Cody.”
“How long have you worked for them?”
“ ’Bout nine months.”
“Are they good people to work for?”
“I’m still here.”
“I was out here on a call a while back,” Annie said. “I didn’t see you.”
Izzy shrugged. “Must have been my day off.”
“Did you actually see Tulsie get hurt yesterday?”
“Nope. Happened before I got here.”
“So it happened early in the morning, but you didn’t bring her to the ER until afternoon?”
“She didn’t want to go. I had to talk her into it.”
“Do you think it happened the way she said?”
“Why wouldn’t I believe her?”
“Those bruises look older to me,” Annie said.
“Maybe she did it Sunday night at night check,” Izzy suggested. “I wasn’t here then.”
“Maybeshedidn’t do it at all,” Annie suggested.
The girl bobbed her eyebrows up but kept to her task, brushing the horse. “I don’t know. It’s not my place to ask.”
Annie said nothing, weighing the question of how far to go. Izzy Guidry didn’t seem the gossipy type, and she was clearly loyal to Tulsie. Would that mean glossing over Cody’s faults because that was Tulsie’s preference? And if they weren’t that close, was it Annie’s place to feed her suspicions about her boss? It was one thing for her to confront Tulsie, but to drag her employee into the conversation…
“You get along with Cody?” she asked, deciding to feel her out.
Izzy shrugged but didn’t look up. She ducked under the horse’s neck and disappeared around the other side. “Well enough. I don’t see that much of him. He works most days.”
“Works elsewhere? What does he do?”
“His dad’s a contractor. They do remodels and whatnot. He gets home about the time I’m getting done feeding in the afternoon. He rides after supper, after I’m gone. When he’s around, he don’t have that much to say to me. I just do my job, stay in my lane.”
“I get the impression you don’t care for him,” Annie said. “Why is that?”
“It don’t matter,” Izzy said after a moment’s consideration, carefully choosing her words. “His checks cash fine whether I like him or not.”
Annie stepped around to the other side of the horse and back into Izzy’s line of sight. “I’ve only met him the one time. He strikes me like the kind of man who needs to be right even when he’s wrong.”
A bitter little smile twisted the girl’s mouth. “Aren’t they all?”
“True that,” Annie said, pulling a business card from her pocket. “Hang on to this. In case you ever need it…for any reason.”
Izzy took the card, looked at it, and stuck it in the pocket of her jeans.
