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Authors: Fern Michaels

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BOOK: Kentucky Sunrise
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“Nope. Why?”
“I was thinking it might be nice to drive to California and cross the border. You want to go for it?”
“Hell, why not. I don't have anything else to do. Okay, here's my car,” he said, pointing to a classic Cadillac with a pair of Texas longhorns attached to the front grille. “I filled it up earlier this evening. You want to drive?”
This is too easy,
Willow thought.
Either that or I'm even better than I thought.
“Sure. Why don't you curl up in the backseat and sleep off all that booze. I'll pick us up a bottle and wake you. You okay with that idea, Lute?”
“Sounds like a
suuuperbbb
idea,” Lute said, crawling into the backseat.
Willow settled herself behind the wheel, adjusted the seat, and fixed the rearview mirror to her liking. She looked around to see if anyone was following her, then pulled into traffic slowly, her eyes going from the rearview mirror to the side mirror. She paid careful attention to the road, knowing how the Vegas cops operated. If there was one thing she didn't need, it was to be stopped by a cop. She felt her adrenaline kick in. She was on the run again. She started to laugh. It sure beat sitting in a dirty police cell.
Hatch was right about one thing, the police were going to arrest her in the next few days. At least now she knew what was going on. With no other suspect, she was going to be their prime target. It didn't matter that she'd told the truth. They would never give her bail, never in a million years, and there was no way she was sitting in jail for the rest of her life. She'd been on the run before, and this time was no different. She could get lost in Mexico and live well with her stash in the backpack. She could hide out there for years and years. For the rest of her life if she had to. She still had three identities she'd never used. Life was suddenly looking a lot less stressful.
 
 
Willow looked at her watch when she drove across the bridge to Tijuana the following day. Lute was still sleeping in the backseat, snoring loudly. He would probably be fresh as a daisy when he woke, and she'd be whipped. She also needed to ditch the pimpmobile she was driving. Lute would pitch a fit, but life was tough sometimes. There had to be chop shops all over the area. Maybe all she needed to do was park it and cross her fingers that someone would steal the flashy Caddy.
She stopped the car in front of a cantina whose windows were so fly-specked you couldn't see inside. The entire street smelled of grease and urine. She climbed out of the car, glad now that she'd stopped along a lonely stretch of road to change her clothes just before dawn. She now wore flowered slacks with a matching blouse. Her hair was piled high on her head under a curly red wig. She looked like all the other bargain-hunting tourists walking up and down the street.
Inside she bought a bottle of root beer and asked for directions to the nearest realtor.
Lute was still sleeping in the backseat when she slid back into the car. She was careful to follow the directions to a real-estate office that was just as dirty as the cantina. A weasel of a man with greasy hair and a pencil-thin mustache said he had just what she was looking for in the way of accommodations. For $250 she could get a four-bedroom house fully furnished and for another $50 a month his sister would keep house for her. “Cash,” he said, rubbing his hands together.
Willow nodded. “No lease. I'll pay cash for one month. If I like it, I'll stay. Drive us to the house and show me what it looks like. We'll leave our car here.”
Outside, she opened the back door and shook Lute's shoulder. “Wake up, honey. This nice man is going to show us a lovely house, but we're going to go in his car. Step lively.”
In a daze the pretend cowboy climbed out of his car and into the Chevy Nova that groaned and sputtered all the way up a steep winding road.
Willow took one look at the long sprawling ranchlike house and opened her purse. She would be safe there from the long arm of the law. At least for a while.
“I'll come by for the car later today. Is that all right?”
“That will be fine,” the realtor said, pocketing the cash. “When I get back to town, I will tell Rosa she is to keep house for you. She will arrive in the morning to cook you breakfast. Will that be satisfactory?”
“Yes. Come on, honey, let's see our new home. We just got married,” she whispered to the realtor.
“Ah, yes, honeymooners. Very good,
señora.”
“So, Lute, what do you think?” Willow asked.
“Who are you?”
“Your brand-new wife. Don't you remember? We got married last night in Vegas and drove here,” she lied with a straight face. “We're on our honeymoon.”
 
 
Hatch crawled out of bed the minute he hung up the phone from his wake-up call. He immediately dialed Willow's room number, knowing there would be no answer. He swore under his breath.
He showered, shaved, and dressed and was on the fourteenth floor thirty minutes later. He looked up and down the hall to see if a maid was anywhere near. He turned when he heard the service elevator doors open. The floor maid worked her cart until she had it free of the doors, then looked up at him expectantly.
“Can you please check on the guest in Room 1409. I'm not sure if the guest checked out or not. I'll wait here,” he said when the little woman looked at him suspiciously.
“There's no one in the room, sir. The bed hasn't been slept in, and the towels haven't been used.”
Hatch thanked her and handed over a ten-dollar bill. Willow was gone, and he knew it.
He didn't bother with coffee. Instead he walked outside and grabbed the first cab he saw.
“I hope you're not in a hurry, mister. Traffic's a bitch at this time of morning. I'll take all the back streets, but it's still going to be thirty-five minutes.”
“It's okay. I'm not in a hurry.” Hatch leaned back into the seat. His job there was over. There was nothing more he could do. He felt relieved. Now he could go back to Kentucky and Nealy.
The driver was as good as his word. Thirty-eight minutes later, Hatch paid him and got out of the cab. He felt a hand on his shoulder almost immediately. “Detective Sullivan. I was about to go inside to look for you. My client seems to have disappeared sometime during the night. If you didn't have a tail on her, she's gone. Don't look at me like that, Detective. I'm her lawyer, not her keeper. I warned her not to leave town. For whatever it's worth, I don't think she killed Junior Belez. She knows you're going to try to pin the murder on her. She's not a stupid woman.”
Hatch watched as police officers of every size and description walked from the parking lot to the front steps of the station house. He looked down at his watch. Almost seven. Time for the good guys to start catching the bad guys.
“Son of a bitch!” the detective seethed. “I knew this was going to happen. My guys were about two minutes too slow last night. They picked you up the minute you got in your cab, but your client was already gone. They did some pretty fast scrambling, but they screwed it up. We'll put out an all-points bulletin on her. You staying or returning to, where was it, Kentucky?”
“No point in me hanging around here. If I hear from her, which I don't think I will, I'll call you.”
The detective held out his hand, and Hatch shook it. It was so civilized he wanted to puke. He offered up an airy wave before signaling for a cab. While waiting for a cab to stop, he pulled a pair of sunglasses out of his breast pocket and made a production out of putting them on.
“Hey, hold on a minute.” Four long-legged strides brought the detective next to Hatch. “We have the warrant to seize Miss Bishop's car,” Sullivan said.
Hatch shrugged. “If you have no objection, I'd like to be there when the police check it out.”
“I don't have a problem with it. Check with the locals when you get back. I've got your card. Let's agree to share information.”
“Sure.” Like he was really going to have information to share. Oh, yeah.
What mattered was calling Nick to fill him in on the latest developments.
The forty-minute ride to the airport allowed him the time he needed to call Nick, who listened until Hatch finished speaking. When there was no response on the other end of the line, he said, “Say something, kid.”
“Do you think she did it, Hatch?”
“No, I don't. She ran because she knew they were going to arrest her. She couldn't face being locked up, so she took off. They're going to issue an all-points on her. I don't know how much good that will do. She seems to be an expert at going to ground and hiding out. There's nothing we can do, so I'm on my way to the airport to catch a flight home. Try and put it out of your mind. She has no hold on you, Nick, other than an emotional one. No one can help you with that but yourself. I'll call you when I get home and if anything comes up, I'll call you first.”
Hatch's cell phone snapped shut. He leaned back in the seat and closed his eyes.
7
It didn't look like a doctor's office, but it was and she knew it. Even though Dr. Ian Hunter wore beige twill shorts and a white tee shirt, he was still a
shrink.
And he was waiting for her to bare her soul. This particular session had been scheduled for outdoors on one of the many flower-decked patios but at the last minute, Ian, as he liked to be called by the patients, said simply, “We're going to talk indoors today.”
Emmie looked around Ian's lair, as she thought of it. His diplomas and certificates lined one wall. The opposite wall held watercolors painted by his patients. Some were beautiful and some were downright ugly. She fixed her gaze on one that was full of vivid splashes of orange and yellow. She didn't know why she was drawn to it, she just was. From where she was sitting she couldn't make out the initials scrawled across the bottom.
She hated it there, resented being in his office, resented being told what to do and when to do it. What she really hated, though, were the words:
cooperate, join in, accept.
She wished she could cry, but all her tears had been shed when she first arrived. There were none left.
She waited for the session to begin.
“What is it about this room you don't like, Emmie? Be as specific as you can.” Ian's pen was poised over a yellow tablet, ready to record her response.
“For one thing, I don't like those pictures on the wall. They're the result of an illness, a disease or . . . something. Don't ask me to make one. I don't like all the bookshelves, and I can't understand why you have to turn on the lamps when there's bright sunshine coming in the windows. Most of the patients here can't hold a book or a magazine, yet you have them all over the place. I don't care why. You could at least look professional. Wearing docksiders, shorts, and tee shirt makes me think you're trying to con me into something. You're a doctor, so look and act like one. You asked me a question, and I'm answering it.” Emmie spoke in a cool, detached voice, a voice that clearly said I don't give a damn about this office or about you either, Doctor Ian Hunter.
Ian Hunter had had his share of difficult patients before, but Emmie Coleman had been front and center this past month. He'd been treating her for five weeks with absolutely no results. He had yet to see a spark of interest. He leaned back and took a deep breath. “Okay. That was a good, detailed response. Now it's question and answer time. Before we start with the questions, let me say, again, that I know your history, but it was given to me by your other doctors and by your mother. I would really like to get your response to what I already know, so today the questions will deal with those facts that I do have.”
Emmie grimaced as she looked down at her hands. Most of the swelling in her hands and the rest of her body had gone down, but her joints were still inflamed and painful. She could actually walk a little now and even hold things in her hands, but it had taken her two long months to get to this point. No quick fix, the rheumatologist had said. She nodded, indicating that Ian should ask his first question.
“If you could be anywhere in the world right now, right this minute, where would you like to be?”
Emmie looked at her watch and didn't hesitate for a second. “Back home in the barn, getting ready to exercise Hifly.
If
I ever get back there, he's not even going to know me.”
Ian sat up straighter in his chair. Was this the spark he'd been waiting for?
“I'm the first to admit I know nothing about horses but why is that?” he asked. “Don't horses know your scent? Surely, they'll recognize you when you return home.”
Emmie fixed her gaze on the window to the right of Ian Hunter's head to stare at a vibrant blue hibiscus bush. She carefully shifted her weight and her lips narrowed into a thin straight line. “Don't you mean
if
I go home? They
might
recognize me, but it's too late now for me to train Hifly. My
mother
took over that job, and Jake is in training to be a jockey, thanks to my
mother
and her little swap deal. She agreed to take on Jake and train him so I could come here. No one wanted that horse but me. Now they're going to train him for the Derby. That was to be my decision. I was the one who was supposed to do it. Just in case you don't know who Jake is, he's Sunny Thornton's son. I keep forgetting what her married name is. Her mother built this center. She probably pays your salary, too.” She wanted him to look impressed, but he didn't.
“Are you at odds with your mother over the horse, Emmie?”
“That's really a stupid question and I'm not going to answer it,
Doctor
Hunter. My mother has nothing to do with my condition other than the genes she passed on to me.”
“I think your father might have passed on a few genes himself. You can't hold your mother totally responsible for the gene pool.” Ian paused for a moment. “Tomorrow is Visitor's Day. Are you ready for company?”
“No, I'm not. I told them I didn't want any visitors. You people can't force me to have visitors.”
“Don't you want to see your daughter?”
“No, I don't. She's happy up there on that super-duper mountain that my mother arranged. There's no need to have her see me here like this.” His expression told her he wasn't quite convinced. “I'm not going to change my mind, so don't even try.”
Ian made a steeple with his fingers before he propped up his feet on an open desk drawer. “Let me throw out a question, Emmie. If your mother, your daughter, and Hifly were in peril, and you could only help one of them, which one would you choose to help?”
Emmie switched her gaze to the orange-and-yellow painting on the wall before she sucked in her breath. “That's another stupid question. You people drummed into my head from the day I got here that we don't deal with what-ifs. It is or it isn't. Don't try to trick me. That is one ugly picture,” she said, pointing to the orange-and-yellow painting.
“I'm not trying to trick you. Add that question to the list that you will have to answer before you leave here. By the way, Sunny is the one who made that particular orange-and-yellow drawing. Do you have any idea how hard it was for her to do it? You saw her hands. It took her hours and hours to make those slashes of color. Painful hours. She didn't give up till she filled the paper. The colors represent the sunrise on the mountain where your daughter now resides, and where Sunny grew up.”
“I'm sorry,” Emmie said.
“No, you're not sorry, but you should be. Sorry is just a word some people use when they don't know what else to say. Furthermore, I wasn't trying to trick you. You're on the defensive, and that has to make me wonder why. Your mental health is as much in jeopardy as your physical health. Until you face your problems, you won't heal. You refused visitors at the beginning of the month and you're refusing them again. That will go on your overall evaluation. You cannot leave here, Emmie, until all the doctors on your case sign off on you. You're fighting me, and I want you to stop it.”
“Yes, sir, Doctor, sir!” Emmie said smartly. “Actually, I'm getting to like this place. When you people aren't poking and prodding and drawing blood and making me pee in bottles, it isn't half-bad. The food is actually delicious, and the bed is comfortable. With my mother's connections and money, I can probably stay here for the rest of my life. Now, what other questions do you have for me? We still have twenty-five minutes to go.”
Ian Hunter wanted to haul off and give his patient a good swat. Until he saw the tears in her eyes. He looked away, pretending not to see.
“Talk to me about the horses. You grew up with them, didn't you? Just ramble, say whatever comes into your mind. Think of it as educating this equestrian ignorant mind. I consider myself ahead of the game if I learn one new thing each day.”
This is safe ground,
Emmie thought. Horses were one thing she could talk about from morning to night. Until that moment she hadn't realized she was perched on the very end of the deep, comfortable chair. She squirmed backward and took a deep breath.
“I was pretty young, but the first horse I really remember was Stardancer. He was the one who threw Maud Diamond off his back and crippled her for life. My mother managed to train that horse, and she loved him dearly, probably more than she loved
anyone.
Then Flyby was born, and she raised and trained him from a colt. She trained him herself and ran him in the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness, and the Belmont. She won the Triple Crown. Flyby's colts sold for millions and millions of dollars. Then along came Shufly, Flyby's son. She gave him to Metaxas Parish as a gift. She trained and ran him in the Derby. She won, and Shufly has a Triple Crown, too. And she raced one of her brother's horses, too. My mother, she's one of a kind. To know her is to love her.” Her voice was so snide, so bitter-sounding, that Ian stopped doodling on his pad to stare at her with wide eyes. She ignored him.
“There was a really bad fire at Blue Diamond Farms a while back. My mother was severely burned trying to save the horses. Flyby got her out of the barn, but she was disfigured. She spent a long time in a special hospital in Thailand and went through many, many operations. She saved the horses at a great cost to herself. We were all brought up and taught from an early age that the horses came first. She has to wear this thick, muddy makeup to cover all the scars. She said the horses don't care what she looks like.
“My brother Nick used to work with the horses, but they weren't his life like they were mine. He went off and became a lawyer. My mother said Nick had
the touch.
But you know what, he didn't
want
the touch. I, on the other hand, wanted it so bad I could taste it. My mother has it. Somehow or other, it skipped me. I know I could have trained Hifly for the Derby. I know it.”
Dr. Hunter leaned across the desk. “Did you just want him to run in the Derby or was it that you wanted to train him to run in the Derby? Does it make a difference?” he asked, a blank look on his face.
Emmie snorted. “Of course it makes a difference. A horse is only as good as his trainer. I would have made a good one. Hifly is mine. I bought him when no one else wanted him. I bonded with him just the way my mother bonded with Flyby and Shufly. I had my jockey all picked out and was going to have him come to the farm and work with Hifly, so he would be comfortable with him on his back. I even gave some thought to riding him myself. I think I'm good enough. Now,
she's
training him and
Jake
will probably end up riding
my horse.
The horse no one wanted but me. My mother actually chastised me for buying Hifly. I wasn't trying to prove anything to anybody when I bought him. I saw him, liked him, and I felt something. At that time I didn't know if he was Derby material or not, and it wouldn't have mattered either way. I fell in love with the horse. That's the bottom line.”
Ian digested the information, scribbled a few notes, and followed up with another question. “If the horse is yours, and you feel so strongly, why don't you tell your mother how you feel? Knowing the circumstances, don't you think she would defer to your wishes? If you don't care, that's something else entirely.”
“You don't know my mother, Doctor Hunter. She made a deal with Fanny Thornton. Jake for this place. Now she has to prove Jake can do it, and the only horse she can do that with is Hifly. Gadfly is a lost cause. He's mean.”
Ian scratched his head. Talk about a crash course in horse breeding. “What makes a horse mean? What's the difference between Gadfly and Hifly?”
“A world of difference. Different mares for one thing. Gadfly never liked me. Maybe I was too hard on him. He's huge. Huge and mean. It was hard to control him. I had . . . to . . .”
“What? What did you have to do to him?” Ian was sitting up straight and literally holding his breath.
“I hit him. I had to hit him. I didn't want to do it. I've never hit a horse in my life. That's the first thing my mother taught Nick and me. No matter what, you never strike a horse. I don't have my mother's sterling record. Hell, I can't even come close to it.”
“Do you want to tell me why you did something so foreign to your nature?”
Emmie paused to marshal her thoughts. “Gadfly did intimidate me because of his size. I tried to overcome the feeling, but I was in pain the first time. I was going to give him an apple and when I stretched out my arm, I had this excruciating pain ricochet down my arm and into my hand and fingers. I dropped the apple. When I tried to bend down to pick it up, my right side seemed to lock up on me. Gadfly pitched a fit because he didn't get the apple. I thought he was going to kick down the door of the stall. No one was around to help me. The pain didn't go away. In fact it got more intense, so intense, I couldn't move. Gadfly wanted the damn apple, and he wasn't about to give up on it, so I used my left hand and whipped it across his face. It was hard enough that he felt it. I think I stunned him, but he did quiet down. Right then, I started to hate that horse. Then I became afraid of him. I just kept whacking away at him. I couldn't seem to stop myself. Listen, I don't want to talk about this anymore,” Emmie said, mopping the perspiration from her forehead.
BOOK: Kentucky Sunrise
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