Page 15 of Trigger Happy

“Not much.” She swirls a beet through the whipped cheese. “But she sends a recurring payment called goatsgoatsgoats to Stan’s Dope Goat Soaps every Wednesday.”

I pause my water halfway to my mouth. “What?”

“Stan’s. Dope. Goat. Soaps,” she repeats. “I looked it up, and it’s a booth at the farmers market. I figured we could start there. Talk to Stan and see if he knows anything about Bobbi.”

“That’s not a bad idea.”

She kicks my foot beneath the table. “Your compliments could use some workshopping.”

“That’s a not-bad idea.”

The waiter drops off my spiced maple mocktail while she continues going through everything from Bobbi’s cell records to her horseback riding schedule. I’m missing the familiar burn, but Sabrina’s a decent enough distraction. She’s already done more research for this job than I’ve done for any job.

I don’t want to be an underachiever, so I pull out my phone and scroll Arch’s socials. I’ve never seen so many pictures of trout. Fish. Fish. Beer. Fish again. Khruangbin concert? Now that’s something I can get behind. I tap on the screen, and—

“Oh, fuck me.”

“Only if you were a billionaire,” Sabrina says automatically, then her eyes widen when she sees I’m not messing around. “What’d you do?”

“I liked Arch’s photo from 2016,” I groan.

She comes around to my side of the table. “Which one?”

I try not to inhale her hair, but she’s right there. It smells good. Like flowers or something expensive. “The one of him smoking out of a wiener dog–shaped pipe at a Khruangbin concert.”

“What did these people do to get on someone’s naughty list?” she says.

“You tell me, Santa.”

I watch her stare at the screen, analyzing the picture with the eerie calmness of someone who knows their last resort, killing, will always solve the issue. It’s impressive. My brain’s always bouncing around between a million thoughts, most of them useless. Like right now, I can’t stop wondering if I let Carnitas out of the pigpen.

She finally goes back to her side of the table. “It’s fine. You liked it under your alias account, and this gives you something to bond over. Listen to a few Khruangbin songs and talk to him about it.”

Of course she’s got a plan.

My phone buzzes on the table. Ma. I set down my fork and hold it to my ear. “Hey, Ma.”

“Hi, hun.” Her warm voice comes through the line. “What are you up to?”

I eye Sabrina across the flickering candle. If Ma knew I was out with Chastain, much less staring at her lips, she’d disown me, but it’s four weeks. I can handle Sabrina for a month. Get my money, some answers, and then leave her.

“I’m getting tortured by a woman force-feeding me whipped ricotta,” I say.

Sabrina kicks me under the table. I flinch. God-damn. What’s she doing in her spare time? Lifting planes?

“I really don’t need the details of your sex life, Lawton,” Ma says.

“That’s not—”

“I’m teasing you,” she cuts me off. “I know you’d never answer my call if you were in the middle of sploshing.”

“What’s…” Never mind. I don’t want to know.

Sabrina’s already googled it, flipped her phone around, and shoved an online definition in my face.

Sploshing (noun): To splosh. A fetish where you cover yourself or your partner in lots of food.

“Jesus, Ma.” I pinch the bridge of my nose. “I’m hanging up now.”