Through my laptop screen at the Four Seasons, I watched Scott bolt upright in bed, tangled in the scratchy wool blanket, his hair standing at angles that defied physics. The sound was magnificent.
Not just one rooster, but an entire symphony of roosters I’d mixed together, amplified to concert levels. “Is that the actual volume?” Ruth asked, wincing as Patricia’s scream joined the chorus from the next room.
“Oh no,” I said sweetly, adjusting my reading glasses.
“I turned it up a bit. You know, my hearing isn’t what it used to be. I need it loud to wake up.”
The beauty of the system was its persistence.
Every time someone thought it was over, another rooster would crow.
I’d programmed it to continue for exactly thirty‑seven minutes with random intervals, just long enough to ensure no one could fall back asleep. By five, the exhausted group had stumbled into the kitchen, looking like extras from a zombie movie.
Ashley’s hair extensions were tangled beyond recognition. Brett had horse manure still caked on his designer jeans.
Maria’s boyfriend—Derek or David—had given up entirely and was wearing a scratchy blanket as a cape.
Scott found my note under the coffee maker. His face as he read it was a masterpiece of evolving horror. “Feeding time?” Connor read over his shoulder.
“What feeding?”
That’s when they heard the sounds from outside.
My automatic feeders had failed to dispense—I’d disabled them remotely—which meant thirty chickens, six pigs from the Petersons’ farm who’d mysteriously found their way through the weakened fence during the night, and my three horses were all congregating near the house, voicing their displeasure. The chickens were the loudest.
I’d specifically selected the most aggressive heritage breeds, including a rooster named Diablo, who’d won three county fair competitions for Most Ornery Fowl. “We’re not farmers,” Madison wailed, mascara from yesterday streaking down her cheeks.
“This is insane.”
“Just ignore them,” Sabrina commanded, trying to maintain some authority.
“We’ll go to town for breakfast.”
Scott’s phone GPS helpfully informed them that town was forty‑three minutes away. One way. The nearest Starbucks?
Two hours.
“I found instant coffee,” Sophia announced, holding up the jar of decaf I’d left prominently displayed. They wouldn’t find the real coffee I’d hidden behind the ten‑year‑old canned pears until much later—if at all.
While they struggled with the ancient stovetop percolator I’d substituted for my Keurig machine, the animals grew louder. Thunder had discovered he could bang the gate with his head, creating a rhythmic boom that echoed across the valley.
The pigs had found the patio furniture and were enthusiastically redesigning the outdoor seating area.
But Diablo—Diablo had discovered he could fly just high enough to land on the kitchen window ledge. The face‑to‑face encounter between Sabrina and Diablo through the glass was cinematic. She screamed.
He screamed back.
She threw the decaf at the window. He pecked at the glass with increased vigor.
“We have to feed them to make them stop,” Scott finally admitted, looking defeated already. And it wasn’t even six a.m.
“I’m not feeding those things,” Patricia announced, settling imperiously into a kitchen chair that immediately wobbled.
I’d loosened one leg just enough to be annoying but not dangerous. “Mom’s right,” Sabrina said. “You’re the man, Scott.
You and the other guys handle it.”
I watched Scott’s jaw clench.
His father would have already been out there—animals fed, probably riding Thunder bareback across the pasture. Adam had grown up on a farm in Iowa, something Scott had always been embarrassed about, preferring to tell people his father was in agriculture technology.
The men ventured out like they were entering a war zone. Through the outdoor cameras, I watched Brett immediately step in a fresh pile of horse manure.
Scout was nothing if not prolific.
Connor tried to open the feed bin, but jumped back, screaming, when three mice scurried out. They’d moved in after I’d stopped storing the feed properly a few days ago. But the best moment came when Derek—or David—approached the chicken coop with the feed bucket.
Diablo, defender of his territory, launched himself at the poor boy with the fury of a feathered missile.
The bucket went flying. Feed scattered everywhere.
And suddenly it was chaos. Chickens swarming, pigs charging over from the patio, and the horses trotting over to investigate.
Scott tried to maintain order, shouting commands like he was still in his Chicago boardroom.
But farm animals don’t respond to corporate leadership strategies. Thunder, in particular, seemed to take offense to Scott’s tone and expressed his displeasure by knocking him into the water trough. Inside, the women weren’t faring better.
The kitchen sink had developed a mysterious leak—loose washer, courtesy of Tom.
The stove took forever to heat—I’d adjusted the gas flow—and every drawer they opened seemed to contain something unexpected: mouse traps, rubber snakes (to keep real snakes away, of course), or my collection of veterinary supplies, including very large syringes for horse vaccinations. “There’s something wrong with the eggs,” Ashley shrieked, holding up a green one.
“They’re defective.”
I laughed so hard Ruth had to pause the video. My Ameraucana chickens laid the most beautiful blue and green eggs, but city folks always thought something was wrong with them.
By seven, they’d managed to produce what might charitably be called breakfast: burnt instant oatmeal, green eggs that Sophia refused to touch, and instant decaf that tasted like disappointed dreams.
The milk was powdered because the fresh milk in the fridge had mysteriously gone sour. I’d adjusted the refrigerator temperature before leaving. “I need a shower,” Sabrina announced.
“A long, hot shower.”
Oh, sweet summer child.
The guest bathroom shower had two settings: arctic blast or surface of Mercury. The water pressure could strip paint or barely drizzle—nothing in between.
I’d also replaced all the luxury towels with those camping ones that absorbed about as much water as wax paper. Sabrina’s shrieks when she encountered the cold water were audible even from the kitchen.
Then the hot water kicked in, and the shrieks went up an octave.
Madison tried the other guest bathroom and discovered that the drain was slow—hair from the horses’ tails that Tom had carefully placed—causing the shower to flood. Meanwhile, Scott was trying to get online to handle what he claimed were urgent business matters. He’d found the router, plugged it in, but couldn’t understand why it wasn’t working.
He couldn’t see that I’d changed the password to a forty‑seven‑character string of random symbols and hidden the paper with the new password inside the barn—specifically, in the middle of the hay bales in the loft.
“Maybe there’s Wi‑Fi in town,” Connor suggested hopefully. “I’m not driving forty minutes for internet,” Scott snapped.
The stress was getting to him. Good.
That’s when they discovered the next phase of my plan: the task board in the mudroom, which I’d titled Daily Ranch Responsibilities in Adam’s handwriting I’d carefully copied.
It was laminated and official‑looking, like something that had been there forever. Muck stalls. 8:00 a.m.
Collect eggs.
8:30 a.m. Wear protection.
Check fence lines. 9:00 a.m.
Move irrigation pipes.
10:00 a.m. Feed chickens again. 11:00 a.m.
They’re on a special diet.
Clean pool filters. Noon.
Clean the pool. Brett perked up.
“Maybe it’s not as bad as it looked yesterday.”
Sweet, naive Brett.
The pool in daylight was even worse. The algae had bloomed overnight into a green carpet. The bullfrogs had invited friends.
Something that might have been a small alligator—but was probably just a large stick—floated ominously in the deep end.
The smell could have peeled paint. “We’re not doing this,” Patricia announced.
“This is not what we came here for.”
“Then why did you come, Patricia?” I said to the screen, though she couldn’t hear me. “For the free vacation?
For the Instagram photos?
To case my property? To see what your daughter married into?”
Ruth poured more champagne. We’d switched from coffee as we watched them argue.
Sabrina wanted to leave immediately.
Scott insisted they couldn’t let the animals starve. The cousins from Miami were already packing.
Brett was googling “Can you get diseases from horse manure” on his phone using what little cell signal he could find by standing on one leg near the chicken coop. Then came the moment I’d been waiting for.
Scott, frustrated and desperate, went to my bedroom to look for anything that might help—a different Wi‑Fi password, contact information for Tom and Miguel, anything.
