by Nora Roberts
favorite had the lead, with the colt from Arkansas pressing close to the rail. The pack was hardly more than a blur of color and pounding legs, but he never lost sight of number three. Cunningham’s filly ran valiantly, clipping the lead down to a neck by the first turn. But already Virginia’s Pride was bursting out of the pack, eating up the light, spewing up turf.
Rich nodded slowly, a smile beginning to curve his mouth. Double won the rail and streaked up the inside on the backstretch. Even the thunder of hooves was lost in the wild cheers of the crowd. For an instant, one of those gorgeous photographic moments, three horses were neck and neck, strides almost in unison, silks blazing.
Then Pride drove forward, a nose, a neck, a half-length. They crossed the wire within fractions of a second, Virginia’s Pride, Double or Nothing, Big Sheba. Win, place, show.
Rich tossed back his head and laughed. “Honey, I’ve hit the big time.”
She pouted, swirled her beer. “Number three didn’t win.”
Rich laughed again, fingering the ticket for the thousand dollars he’d put on Pride’s nose. “That’s what you think, darling. Old Richie’s hunches always pay off.”
“Oh, God.” Kelsey still had her hands covering her mouth. Toward the end she’d nearly given in to the urge to place them over her eyes. “He did it! He won!” On a whoop of laughter she tossed her arms around Naomi. “Congratulations! It’s just the prelude to the Derby. I can feel it.”
“So can I.” Naomi squeezed back hard, ignoring the sudden intrusion of cameras and press. “Come with me to the winner’s circle. I want you with me.”
“You couldn’t keep me away.” She swung back to Gabe. For someone who’d just lost by half a length, he looked awfully pleased with himself. “Your colt ran a good race.”
“He did. Yours ran better.” He tugged the braid that rained down her back. “This time. See you at dinner.”
The victory glow wasn’t allowed to distract anyone from the job at hand. They’d stay in Kentucky until after the Derby, moving from Keeneland to Churchill Downs.
Dawn still meant workouts, clockers, black coffee, and trainers watching from the backside rail.
Only this was the Derby. Workouts were no longer a private affair. Even as exercise boys roused themselves from bed, reporters were setting up equipment. Television, newspapers, magazines all wanted features; all wanted that definitive interview, that perfect picture.
Kelsey knew what hers would have been.
The soft dawn, that most magical time for horse and horseman, with mist rising, blurring color, muffled sound. And the signature twin spires of the track spearing up through it. Tubs of hot water added steam. Birds sang their morning song.
Spring had come to Louisville, but there was still a vague chill at this hour, bracing, exciting. It touched off more white steam from the flanks and shoulders of horses returning from a gallop. Pampered and pushed, they slipped through the mists as magically as any Pegasus rising from hooves to wings.
But they were athletes. It was easy to forget that these half-ton creatures balanced on breadstick legs had been born to run.
Of the thousands of Thoroughbreds foaled every year, only a few, a special few, would ever walk through the morning fog at this track, on this week. Only one would stand on Saturday with a blooming blanket of red roses over its glistening back.
Grooms carried the tubs and the wrappings, moving through the thinning swirl among the horses while the sun streamed softly, burning away the dawn, turning dew to diamonds. A cat meowed, boot heels crunched. And then the sound of hooves on dirt, eerily disembodied at first, then growing, swelling as the grayish mists parted like water, a colt swimming through them.
That was her picture, the memory Kelsey would take with her, quiet and comforting amid all the colors and the pageantry.
“What are you doing?”
Kelsey said nothing at first, simply took Gabe’s hand in hers. She should have known he would walk into the scene and make himself part of the memory. “Taking a picture. I don’t want all this to get lost with the parties and the press and the pressure.”
“You’re up early for someone who couldn’t have gotten to bed before two.”
“Who can sleep?”
In answer, Gabe nodded toward a stableboy who was leaning back against the barn wall, dozing. She laughed and took a deep gulp of air, swallowing the scents of horse, liniment, leather, manure.
“It’s too new to me. I saw your jockey working Double this morning. They looked good.”
“I saw you, leaning on the backstretch rail. You looked good.”
“I don’t know how you have the energy to flirt with all that’s going on. This is like Mardi Gras, a Kiwanian convention, and the Super Bowl rolled into one.” She began to walk. “Parades, hot-air balloon races, owners’ dinners, trainers’ dinners. That steamboat race yesterday. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“I won five thousand.”
She snorted. “Figures. Who was foolish enough to bet against you?”
He grinned. “Moses.”
She tugged down the brim of her cap. “Well, with his ten percent of Saturday’s purse, he can afford it.”
“You’re getting cocky, darling.”
“I’ve always been cocky. You’re going to the museum for the draw, aren’t you?”
“Wouldn’t miss it.” He hadn’t missed the drawing of the field in five years. His presence, or lack of it, would make no difference as to which position his colt was assigned, but it was his colt. “There’s breakfast in the old paddock before. Hungry?”
Moaning, she pressed a hand to her stomach. “I’ve done more grazing than a holstein since I got to Louisville. I think I’ll skip it. If you . . .” She trailed off, noting his attention had wandered. No, she realized; it was more than that. It had focused, frozen, beamed in like a laser on something back at the shedrow. “Something wrong?”
“No.” For an instant he’d thought he’d seen his father. That familiar swagger, the pastel suit so out of place among denim and cotton. But it had been only a glimpse. And surely Rich Slater wouldn’t be wandering around the barns at Churchill Downs at an hour past dawn. “No,” he said again, and shook off the automatic dread. “If you don’t want to eat, come watch me.”
He didn’t think any more about it. Before the morning was over, Gabe was busy analyzing his colt’s number-three position with Jamison and his jockey.
“We got the rail.” Kelsey stood with Boggs in the barn, nibbling on one of the apples she had in her pockets while the old groom hooked wraps on a line. “It’s a sign from God.”
Boggs took one of the clothespins clipped to his pant leg and meticulously hooked a royal blue wrap. “I figure God watches the Derby, like everybody. Probably got His favorite.” He ran his fingers over a saddle, well worn, the irons rubbed and polished by his own hand. “I might just put some of these dead presidents I got in my pocket down on that colt.”
“I thought you never bet.”
“Don’t.” With the same slow care, he draped a blanket over the line. “Not since April ’73.”
He shot her a look to see if she realized that was the year her mother had killed Alec Bradley. When there was nothing in her eyes but mild interest, he continued.
“Was at Keeneland, too. Over to Lexington for the Stakes race. Three Willows had a Derby hopeful then, too. Fine colt. I loved that colt more’n I ever loved a woman. Name was Sun Spot. I guess I got me a fever, ’cause I put a month’s pay on him. He came out of the gate like a whirlwind, like he could already see the wire. At the first turn, the colt beside him stumbled, bumped him hard. Spot went down. Knew as soon as I saw him go he’d not race again. Shattered his near foreleg. Nothing to do but put him down. Your ma put the gun behind his ear herself. Was her colt, and she cried when she did it, but she did what had to be done.” He sighed, gustily. “So I ain’t never bet since. Maybe it’s bad luck if I do.”
She put an arm around Boggs and toget
her they studied the tools of his trade, the drying wrappings, the blinkers, the blankets and cotton padding. “Nothing’s going to happen to Pride.”
He nodded, taking the apple Kelsey offered him. “It’s a mistake to love a horse, Miss Kelsey.” He polished the apple on his shirt and handed it back to her. “They break your heart one way or another.”
She only smiled, tossed the apple up, caught it. “Is this for me, Boggs, or for Pride?”
His gummy grin split his face. “He does like his apples.”
“Then I’d better go give it to him.”
When she started out, Boggs shifted, then scratched his throat. “You know, I saw somebody today I ain’t seen in a while. Somebody I knew back in that spring of ’73.”
“Oh?”
Stalling, Boggs took the apple from her and twisted it in his gnarled hands so that it came apart in two neat halves. “Mr. Slater’s old man.”
“Gabe’s father? You saw him here?”
“Thought I did. But my eyes aren’t what they were. Funny he’d be here. I recollect he was around the day Spot went down. Kicked up a fuss, too, like as if Miss Naomi had planned to lose the race and the horse that day. ’Course he was drunk. But Rich Slater’s persuasive. They checked the horse for drugs.”
Kelsey stood, the sun at her back, her face in shadow. “And what did they find?”
“They didn’t find nothing in that colt. The Chadwicks run clean. But they found them in the colt that bumped him. Amphetamines.”
“Who owned the colt?”
“Cunningham.” He spat on the ground. “Funny, isn’t it? Fingers pointed at Cunningham at first, but it turned out the jockey’d done it. Benny Morales, damn good rider he was. Left a note that said so before he hung himself in Cunningham’s tack room.”
“God, that’s horrible.”
“There’s plenty that don’t smell so sweet around racehorses, Miss Kelsey. Rich Slater, he had it figured that the Chadwicks bribed Benny to drug his horse, so’s even if he won, he’d be disqualified if’n they found out. That’s pure shit, of course, but a man like that’s got to point the blame at somebody. Thing was, most everybody lost that day. Probably wasn’t him I saw, but I figured if it was, you might want to keep your distance.”
“I will.”
Rich Slater had no intention of crossing paths with anyone from Three Willows. He was there as a spectator. And although it would certainly have been wiser for him to be well away from Louisville on Saturday, he wanted a front-row seat.
He was on a roll. A wad of bills in his pocket, a willing woman in his bed, and a raucous round of parties at his fingertips. He’d made it, finally, to the big time. And the best part, the sweetest part, was the people who would go down as he went up.
He had to admit, he was brilliant—and he made sure he didn’t get drunk enough to share that opinion with anyone but himself. Not only would he pay off an old debt and slap down his ungrateful son, he would also make a small fortune doing it.
And really, he was doing nothing at all. He’d simply put the right instrument in the right hands.
The Chadwick bitch would pay. Naked, he padded over to the honor bar to raid the stingy bottles of liquor. His companion for Derby week was passed out on the bed, her tight little body sprawled on the tangled sheets. He’d proved his manhood there, he told himself, and toasted the reflection in the mirror.
He still had it.
With the glass in his hand, Rich preened in front of the mirror. His vanity was blind to the loose flesh sagging at his waist. He saw the body of a thirty-year-old, trim and tough. The body he’d passed on to his son, who had blown him off with a five-thousand-dollar check.
Wouldn’t let your dad spend a night under your roof? I’ll own the fucking roof when I’m done.
He tossed back the whiskey and watched his throat ripple as he swallowed. The boy thought he was better than anybody. Always had. In a couple of days he wouldn’t be so high and mighty. In a couple of days, the worm would have turned.
He really had to thank circumstances, past and present, for giving him the opportunity. Cunningham was a bonus, one that had fallen beautifully into his lap. Of course the man was a fool, but fools were the best birds to pluck.
And he was going to be plucking Cunningham for many years to come. A nice steady sideline of blackmail would bring in a nice steady income. But the payoff, oh, the payoff would come just before six P.M. on Saturday. A job, he was sure everyone would agree, well done.
He opened another bottle, poured another drink. He wondered if Naomi Chadwick would remember him. If he walked right up to her, took a handful of that pretty little butt, would she remember him? He was tempted to try it, to walk right up and give her a quick squeeze and a wink.
He didn’t like the idea that a woman, any woman, could forget Rich Slater.
He remembered her, all right. He remembered that fancy, spoiled bitch, advertising herself in low-cut dresses or skintight jeans. Strutting around the track like a filly in heat, spreading her legs for any man who could still get a hard-on.
He’d wanted her, bad. Wanted to lift those frilly skirts and dive in. Show her what a real man could do. But when he’d offered, she’d looked at him as though he were something smeared on the bottom of her boot after a walk through the paddock. And she’d laughed at him. Laughed until he’d wanted to smash his fist into that beautiful face.
Maybe he would have, Rich thought, absently pounding one clenched hand into the palm of the other. Maybe he would have if that half-breed Jew hadn’t come along.
“Problem here, Miss Naomi?”
“No, Moses, no problem. Just a track rat. How’s our boy doing?”
She’d sashayed off, flicking her tail, to coo over her prize colt. And Rich had had no choice but to go home to the dingy rooms he’d rented and smash his fist into his wife’s pale, homely face instead.
Thought she was too good for him. She’d cost him his pride that day, but he’d cost her a great deal more later when he’d fixed the race. That hadn’t been his intention, of course. Nobody could have predicted Morales would lose control of his hyped-up horse and knock into hers so hard.
But then again, he thought now. Then again, it had turned out fine. Better than fine, because he’d been smart, he’d been cagey, and he’d used the circumstances against her. He’d paid her back, all right. But he wasn’t through.
The ten years she’d spent in prison had been only partial payment. The rest of the debt was coming due Saturday.
Kelsey passed on the Derby day breakfast at the governor’s mansion. Not only couldn’t she eat, she couldn’t bear the idea of being so far away from the track.
Post time for the first race was precisely eleven-thirty. Like the grooms, jockeys, and trainers, Kelsey was there by six. The idea of going back to the hotel at noon for a nap was impossible. Instead, she stayed with Boggs and some of the other crew, nibbling on the fried chicken she’d bought.
“Still here?” Moses dropped down on the ground beside her and poked in the bucket for a thigh.
“Where else?” She was eating from nerves rather than hunger, and washed down the chicken with ginger ale.
“You could sit in your box. It’s already a hell of a show. The infield’s packed, grandstand’s filling up.”
“Too nervous. Besides, some reporter will just stick a microphone or a camera in my face.”
“You won’t avoid them here, either. Your mama’s got pull. You could hide out in the Matt Winn Room.”
“Uh-uh.” Kelsey licked her fingers. “That’s for businessmen. Might as well be sitting in a boardroom. That’s no place to watch the race. How’s Naomi?”
“Wired. You wouldn’t know it to look at her, but she’s wound tight. Half of that’s you being here. She wants you holding that trophy with her.”
“We could do it, couldn’t we?”
“I’m not going to tempt the gods and say so.” He squinted up at the sky. “Good day. Dry, clear. We’ve got a
fast track.”
“I was out there earlier while they were prepping it. It’s beautiful, all those neat furrows. I was going to watch some of the early races, but it just made me jittery.” Because her stomach still had too much room to flutter, she chose another piece of chicken. “Have you seen Gabe?”
“He’s sharing the box with Naomi. He’ll be back around to harass Jamie and stand in the paddock while his colt’s saddled.”
“Things were so busy yesterday, I barely saw him.” And never alone. “I didn’t know whether to bring it up, since I have a pretty good idea how he feels, but Boggs mentioned that he thought he saw Gabe’s father.”
“When?” Moses asked so quickly, Kelsey was flustered.