At Risk (7 page)

"I already have." I rubbed my face. "I didn't
see enough or hear enough to be a threat to them. They took me
anyway, and I learned more because of it." Though what good it
would do, I couldn't imagine. "Once I was out of the trailer, I
could see them better. The leader had light brown hair, maybe
blond." I licked my lips and turned to face him. "So, if they
wanted to kill me," I paused and hoped he couldn't hear the tremor
in my voice, "why didn't they just do it here, on the farm? When I
was out?"

He closed his notebook and slid the pencil
through the channel formed by the spiraled metal wire. "These guys
are smart. In the first place, their timing would have been perfect
if you hadn't interrupted them. Under normal circumstances, they
wouldn't have been disturbed. In the first incident, in Carroll
County, it was just pure luck that we got a description of the
truck and trailer, as vague as it is. Howard got zilch when they
canvassed this neighborhood. Montgomery County didn't do any better
at the location where you escaped. Whatever they used to hit you
with, they took with them. They didn't leave fingerprints. The
ground was too frozen for tire tracks. You saw how careful they
were after you got away from them. That's rare. I'm surprised they
didn't double back after they lost you in the woods."

I groaned.

Ralston compressed his lips and studied me
with an otherwise dispassionate expression. "And what do you think
would have happened Saturday morning, when the rest of the
employees arrived to find seven horses missing and you nowhere to
be found?"

I looked at him and didn't think I liked the
implication.

"Your boss and fellow employees might have
been certain you had nothing to do with it," he said. "But sure as
I'm sitting here, the police would've been looking for a suspect,
not a body. If these guys were really smart, they would have gotten
rid of your truck. Then you would have been on top of our list,
without question. Not until the connection was made between the two
cases, would we seriously have considered that you'd been abducted,
and by that time, we would've been lucky to find your body. In the
other case, we never found the murder scene. We were damn lucky to
find the body, and after a month's exposure in the heat and
humidity we had last summer, much of the forensic evidence had been
destroyed."

I shifted in my seat. Such a casual
discussion of inhumanity was more than a little unsettling.

Ralston reached inside his jacket. "Here's my
card. Call me if you think of anything else, no matter how
insignificant."

He dropped the gear into reverse, and as I
put my hand on the door latch, it occurred to me that they had
tried to move my truck. I told him how Marty had found it. That
they must have been unsuccessful because the starter was acting up.
That I was certain I hadn't left the door open, which had drained
the battery. I refrained from telling him about Marty's hot-wiring
capabilities.

He tossed his notebook into the briefcase and
lowered the lid but left it unlatched. "You need to be careful when
you come here outside normal business hours."

"Why?" It came out high-pitched. I cleared my
throat. "Why would they come back?"

"I doubt they will. As long as they stay
smart they won't, but . . ."

"But what?"

He shrugged. "Just a thought."

"Oh, great." I shoved his card into my jeans
pocket. "Who was the man who was, eh . . . killed?"

"James Peters. Ever heard of him?"

I shook my head.

"He and his wife owned and operated a horse
farm. Hunter's Ridge. He went out to check on a sick horse and
never came back."

I climbed out of the car and watched Ralston
drive off. With him went any confidence I'd been able to scrape
together in the past week.

The lane was deserted now. All the horses had
gone inside for their lesson, out of the wind, out of the cold. The
glare from the sodium vapors was taking over in the fading
daylight, and after the warmth of the car, the air felt bitterly
cold. I pulled my collar up around my neck, got back on the
tractor, and drove to the implement building on auto pilot.

I parked next to the manure spreader and
didn't bother unhitching the drag. Someone else could do it in the
morning. I stopped alongside Dave's workbench and smoothed my
fingers across the expertly-sanded wood. The sweet aroma of
freshly-cut lumber still hung in the air.

He never came back
.

My legs buckled, and I collapsed onto Dave's
chair. I wrapped my arms around my waist and hunched forward to
keep from shaking. I felt like I had when I was a kid. Felt as
helpless and as scared and alone as I had the day my old man
dropped me off at a dude ranch in West Virginia a week after my
eleventh birthday. I'd stayed the entire summer. Learned more about
horses than I'd thought possible, and that seemed to piss off my
father even more. The following year, I'd gone off to soccer camp,
then lacrosse. Being on my own like that, I'd learned how to take
care of myself. By the time I was thirteen, I had grown used to the
routine. Actually looked forward to it. Hell, it was better than
staying at home with him, with them, where I wasn't wanted, both of
them too caught up in their own lives to parent.

I'd thought I could handle anything. Until
now.

After a while, I squinted at my watch and
waited for the numbers to come into focus. I was late for evening
feeding. I wiped my face, blew my nose, and hoped no one had missed
me. As I hurried down the rutted lane, I saw that the horses had
already been brought in for the night. The winter day had come to
an end.

Marty was standing in the middle of the feed
room, staring at the cart. He turned with a start when I walked
through the doorway. "Where the hell've you been? I was I' ready to
grain the horses myself."

"I'll do it."

"Good. I don't know how you stand it. All
those damn supplements." He squinted at me. "Hey, you don't look so
good, Steve. You comin' down with somethin'?"

"No, I'm fine." I rubbed my face. "Any
problems this afternoon?"

"Nope. Everything's done. Was that a cop you
were talking to?"

"Uh-huh."

"What'd he want?"

I glanced at Marty then looked down at the
feed cart. "Nothing much."

When I said nothing further, Marty said,
"Well, seein' as you're gonna do the feeding, can I leave now?"

"Sure . . . have a good night."

"I always do. Jessica's off," he added with a
grin that could only be described as wicked.

I chuckled. Marty had the pursuit of
happiness down to an art form. The pursuit of sex, more like.

"You sure you're all right, Steve?"

I told him to get the hell out before his
girlfriend found a replacement and watched as he strolled out of
the feed room, whistling under his breath.

* * *

Saturday afternoon, when the last batch of
private turnouts were in their paddocks, I went into the feed room
and lifted my clipboard off the shelf above the workbench. I leafed
through the pages until I came to the medications list. There were
no wounds to clean, medicate, and bandage, no eyes to apply
ointment to, no injections to give. I was caught up until it was
time to grain. I replaced the clipboard and walked up to the
office.

The last lessons of the day were winding up,
but the farm was busy as usual. I grabbed a magic marker off Mrs.
Hill's desk, pulled some paper out of the printer, and printed in
bold black letters: NOTICE. A white or light-colored dualie and an
older dark-colored, six-horse gooseneck were used in the horse
theft at Foxdale Farm on February 24th. If you have any information
regarding the identity of the rig's owner, or know anything about
the theft, contact Steve Cline. I added Foxdale's phone number and
my home number in the lower right-hand corner and made a couple of
copies. I thumbtacked a sheet to the bulletin board in the office
and walked into the lounge.

I tacked a copy squarely in the center of the
cork board by the soda machine. Across the room, Maryanne, Sheila,
and Mrs. Curry had pigeonholed Mrs. Hill by the coffee machine.
Because of the horse theft, they were planning another boarder
meeting. I left before they drew me into what I knew from
experience would be a long conversation and headed back to barn A.
I stopped at the cork board in the aisle near the wash rack,
rearranged some advertisements, and pulled off several outdated
announcements. I pinned up my notice.

"Cline, tack up Bethany for me."

I turned around as Whitcombe, one of
Foxdale's trainers, looked over my shoulder. As his gaze flicked
over the wording, I noticed a momentary tightening around his eyes.
His thick, curly red hair, which he had the good sense to keep cut
short, was damp with sweat from his last ride, and his freckled,
weather-wrinkled skin reminded me of a prune.

"Fall off a horse?" he said, referring to the
faded bruising under my right eye.

"No." I edged past him and started down the
aisle toward the tack room.

"I'll be in the lounge," he called after me.
"And, Cline?"

I stopped and pivoted around. "Sir?"

"I want a dropped nose band and a Dr. Bristol
bit, and this time get it right."

Get it right? Who was he kidding? I turned
away from him and wondered when he'd grow tired of his stupid
little control game and give it up, always asking for one thing,
then telling me I'd gotten it wrong when I hadn't. Trying to make
me look stupid. Maybe he wouldn't stop until I reacted. Got myself
in trouble.

"Cline?"

I slid my hands into my pockets and turned
around. Movement behind him caught my eye. Marty. Marty bouncing
into the aisle, swinging a lead rope in his hand.

"I didn't hear you," Whitcombe said.

I refocused my gaze on Whitcombe's ugly face.
"Yes . . . sir."

He smiled as he spun around and headed for
the exit. Marty suddenly became interested in the floor. As soon as
Whitcombe passed him, Marty looked up at me and grinned, and I
could have killed him. He caught up with me, glanced over his
shoulder, and whispered, "The asshole likes to ride more than
horses, don't he?"

"Marty, don't." I cradled my arm along my
ribs and tried not to laugh. "It hurts too much."

"Awh, Stevie, don't cry."

"Damn it, Marty, stop." I walked into the
tack room and heard his footsteps behind me. "Don't you have
something to do?" I said over my shoulder.

"No."

I spun the combination on the supply
locker.

"I can see it now," Marty said. "One day
you're gonna let 'im have it and get your ass fired."

"Won't happen. He's not worth it." I creaked
the door open and stared at the pile of brushes, curry combs, rub
rags, and cans of hoof oil. "Help me out, Marty. Grooming's a pain
right now."

"Sure."

"Hope Bethany's not too dirty."

"She's turned out."

"Oh, shit. I forgot."

"I'll go get her," Marty said.

"Thanks. Bet that's why he wanted to ride her
in the first place, 'cause he knew getting her ready would be more
work."

"The guy's a genuine, fu—" Marty glanced at
me and shut his mouth. "Be back in a sec."

He ended up doing most of the grooming and
all the tacking up. When he was finished, I led Bethany into the
indoor and waited for Whitcombe. I could see him in the office,
talking to Mrs. Hill and one of the boarders. He saw me but
pretended he hadn't—typical Whitcombe. I was ready to walk over and
tap on the glass, when he pushed out of his chair and walked around
to meet us.

He carried a crop in his right hand and
absentmindedly slapped it against his boot. Bethany moved away at
his approach, subliminally voicing her opinion of who was preparing
to climb on her back. I steadied the mare while he checked the
girth and stirrups, gathered up the reins, and stood next to the
horse with his knee bent, waiting for a leg-up.

Damn. The guy weighed a good one-eighty,
and—

"Give me a leg-up, Cline."

"I can't . . . sir."

"What do you mean, you can't?"

"I, eh . . . hurt my ribs," I said, trying to
keep the distaste I felt for him from showing and conscious I
wasn't succeeding.

"You're stinking useless. Here." He jerked on
the mare's mouth. "Hold her by the bleachers."

Whitcombe stepped onto the plank. I held
Bethany in position, put pressure on the stirrup so the saddle
wouldn't slip, and wished he'd get on with it. The ribs were
hurting more than I cared to admit. Whitcombe grunted as he hauled
himself into the saddle. He swung his leg over the mare's back and
almost kicked me in the face.

I glared at him as I stepped back. He wisely
didn't look at me, but busied himself with getting organized. He'd
done it on purpose; although, to anyone watching, it would have
looked like a careless accident.

I left before I said or did something I'd
regret.

* * *

I went home early, and around eight o'clock,
Marty showed up unannounced at my door with a cardboard box loaded
down with an assortment of booze.

I fingered a cheap bottle of Gordon's Vodka
and whistled. "What's all this?"

"Ale for what ails ya."

He thunked the box down on the counter by the
sink, and I shook my head.

"Contrary to what those boys in white think,
the medicinal qualities of alcohol are highly underrated. This'll
have you straightened out in no time."

"Let me guess. Jessica's at work."

"You fuckin' slay me." He hefted two
twelve-packs out of the box.

"Christ," I said. "You intending to break the
world record for alcohol consumption, or what?"

"Hey, I knew you wouldn't have shit in this
joint."

"Just some wine."

Marty rolled his eyes as he popped the top of
what I determined was his second Budweiser. An empty lay in the
bottom of the box. He'd gotten a head start on the drive over. I
watched as he rooted through the refrigerator and cabinets, found
what he wanted, then grabbed a spoon out of the drawer by the
stove. He dumped a quart of Land O' Lakes sour cream into a bowl,
followed by two packets of dip mix.