by Kit Ehrman
* * *
The phone's ringing brought me slowly back to consciousness, like mist rising off the surface of a lake. I had been dreaming. A nice dream, too. I opened my eyes and at first couldn't remember where I was, or why. Couldn't tell, from how I felt, whether I had been asleep for minutes or hours.
Marty's voice, thick with sleep, drifted through the open bedroom door. "Steve, it's for you."
I reached over the armrest and picked up the phone.
"This is Larry Oaks from Eastfield Security. There's something wrong with one of the horses."
His voice sounded hoarse, and I wondered if he'd been asleep. "What do you mean?" I mumbled.
"It keeps trying to get up but can't," he said, "like it's stuck."
"Shit. Which horse?"
"I don't know. A brown one."
Each stall was numbered, information cards hung on every stall door, and he didn't know which one. It figured. "Which barn, then?"
"The one with the arena in it."
"Okay, I'll be right there." I hung up. If the horse was simply cast, it would probably be up and fine by the time I got there. But if it had been rolling around in its stall because it was colicky with gas pain and had gotten itself jammed in the angle between the stall wall and the floor, it was an emergency. Even if the horse managed to get to its feet, colic didn't just go away by itself.
I pulled on my socks and yanked my jeans off the back of the sofa. Something thunked onto the floor between the sofa and wall. I checked that my wallet hadn't fallen out, then finished getting dressed. When I walked over to the bedroom door to tell Marty where I was going, he was snoring over the drone of the fan. I left him alone and headed for the front door.
It was pouring, and my truck was parked halfway down the block. I borrowed Marty's poncho off his coat tree and sped down rain-slicked streets with only a moderate try at caution. When I got to Foxdale, the gate was locked. It would be. I had locked it myself. I left it standing open and parked between the guard's car and office door. The clock on the dash read one-thirty. I hadn't been asleep long. No wonder my brain felt fuzzy.
Barn B's lights blazed in the night, and a shaft of fluorescent light streamed through the office door, laying a wide rectangular patch across the wet ground. I walked into the office, but the guard wasn't there. The lights in the lounge were off, the room still. I crossed over to the desk. A half-empty coffee cup sat on the blotter alongside a yellow legal pad. The guard had listed his rounds. The first one was at ten o'clock, and he'd noted my name alongside the time. The next round was at eleven. At 11:55, he'd printed my name and phone number--Marty's phone number, actually--from when I'd called to tell him how he could get in touch with me. The last entry read 12:25 a.m.
There was no mention of his call about the colic. I touched the side of the Styrofoam cup. It was room temperature.
I went back outside and ran down the lane to barn B, avoiding the largest puddles on the way. He wasn't in the aisle. I switched on all the lights and walked quickly down the aisle one. None of the horses looked upset. Some were even dozing. They wouldn't be. Not if one of their own was in trouble. They'd be wide awake and excited. I'd seen it often enough. I cut through the arena and checked aisle two just to make sure. No one there, either. I flicked on the lights on my way out and decided to call Ralston. I jogged toward the office.
I slowed to a walk at the sidewalk, and when I did, I noticed that the light was on in the men's room. That explained it.
I pushed open the door and stepped inside.
"Anybody here?" My voice echoed off the bare walls as a thought nagged at the edge of my consciousness. Something that wasn't right. Something the guard had said, but I couldn't think what.
As I turned to leave, the curtain to the shower stall moved and Robby Harrison stepped into the room.
He lunged toward me, and I briefly glimpsed another figure behind him. My muscles tensed as I grabbed the handle and pulled the door inward.
I stopped. There was nowhere to go.
At the threshold stood Mr. John Harrison, hay dealer, horse trader, and, according to our farrier, "a creepy bastard." He had severely beaten a horse with a whip, and he'd gotten away with it. His arm was outstretched, pointed at my face, and in his hand, he held a gun. Rain drops glistened on the black metal.
Harrison took a step forward. I had no choice but to back up. He directed me backward until my shoulder blades hit the first stall.
I had only glimpsed his face. What held my undivided attention was the small, round hole at the end of his gun. As black and final as death itself.
He latched his fingers around my throat and pressed the muzzle into my scalp above my left ear. Pressure began to build across the bridge of my nose, and the veins in my neck throbbed. It wasn't until then that I clearly saw Harrison's face. His lips were pulled back from his teeth like an animal's, and his eyes were stretched wide and unblinking. In the fluorescent light, they looked black.
I didn't have a chance.
I slid my fingers into my pocket and felt for my knife. It wasn't there. I remembered the thud as something had dropped behind Marty's couch.
Harrison licked his lips. "It's about time you and I got together, Mr. Stephen fucking Cline. You got away from me once, but you damn well won't this time."
He was leaning on my neck so hard, I thought I was going to pass out.
"How's that feel Steve? Huh?"
He tightened his grip, and I tried to move.
"Uh-uh." He pressed the gun's muzzle harder against my skin. "Don't try anything. You ain't goin' nowhere. What you are gonna do is learn. You're gonna fucking learn about it tonight. About fear and pain." He laughed. "And I'm gonna teach you."
Bastard.
Without taking his gaze off me, Harrison spoke over his shoulder to the man I thought I recognized from that night back in February. "Rich, hand over the rope."
The guy held the rope out to Harrison.
"Not me, you idiot. Give it to Robby." He gestured to his brother. "Now, go back outside and stand guard."
The guy was nervous, not as comfortable with the job as his buddies, and most ominous of all, he wouldn't look me in the eye.
The door thumped closed, leaving the room suddenly quiet. Harrison turned back to me. "All I hear is Foxdale this and Foxdale that, and I was getting damn sick of it. People leaving my place and comin' here. Saying 'Steve Cline's done this, and he's done that, and isn't the place nice.' Enough to make you puke." He clenched his teeth. "So when somebody wanted me to mess with your precious Foxdale, you think I needed askin' twice?"
No one answered.
He moved his face closer to mine. I could smell his sweat. His breath stank of cigarettes and beer as it slid across my skin. I looked past his face to the door.
"Shit, no," Harrison continued. "I didn't need askin'. Hell, he didn't even have to pay me, you being such a prick and all, checking the hay like it was your own damn money you was partin' with. And if that wasn't enough," his voice vibrated with anger, "I see your stupid little announcement stuck up on the bulletin board like you're some kinda Dick Tracy, and I can't use my truck and trailer no more, and all because of you, you fucking piece of shit. Imagine what I thought," he coughed and choked on his spit, "when I get your fucking stupid letter in the mail."
I didn't say anything.
"I decided, then and there, that I was gonna kill you. Kill you and make you pay. Make you suffer."
Behind him, Robby stood in a wide-legged stance, jiggling the coins in his pocket as he watched me with interest.
"Every day that went by," Harrison said, "it was all I could think of. Getting my hands on your scrawny neck and making you pay."
He let go of my throat and backed up. I could still feel his fingers on my neck.
"Lie on the floor, face down."
I took a shaky breath as Robby coiled the rope in his hands. He was wearing gloves. They both were. No fingerprints. No clues. I wondered if I'd end up in the w
oods, too.
"I said, 'lie down,' damn it!"
I wouldn't have a chance, not tied up.
"Lie down, or I'll shoot you right now." He raised the gun and pointed it at my face.
I got on the floor.
"Robby, make it tight," Harrison said. "I don't want him getting out of it this time."
Robby . . . Robert. Same as my father, same as my brother. Ironic. If they killed me--when they killed me--I wondered if the old man would somehow blame me. "He should have stayed in school, gotten an education and a good job, then none of this would have happened."
Robby was going to make sure this time. He yanked the poncho off and roughly tied my hands. When he was finished, he stood up and rubbed his hands together.
Harrison jammed his knee into the small of my back, grabbed a handful of my hair, and pulled my head off the floor.
Something touched my throat. It was cold and thin and sharp. I hadn't seen it coming. Maybe it was just as well. I closed my eyes. He pressed the knife harder against my skin. I tried to move away from the pressure but couldn't.
Blood trickled down my neck and soaked into my shirt.
Without warning, Harrison loosened his grip on my hair, and the blade cut deeper. I groaned with the effort of keeping my back arched. If I lowered my head, the knife would cut deeper. He shifted more weight onto my back. I gritted my teeth and grunted.
The bastard. I couldn't hold it much longer.
"Say something," he growled.
I wouldn't. Not if I could help it. He was going to kill me anyway. I would not give him the satisfaction of hearing me beg . . . or cry.
"You should of heard Peters," Harrison said as if he'd read my thoughts. "He cried like a baby, didn't he Robby? And boy could he scream. Screaming and crying for me not to hurt him, the old fart. Guess he shouldn't have reported me, the stupid son of a bitch."
Harrison took the knife away, and my face smashed against the cement.
He moved his face close to mine and whispered, "You're going to beg for mercy, scream for it, before the night's out."
My back and shoulder muscles trembled uncontrollably as the chill of the cement seeped into my sweat-soaked skin. I clenched my fists to stop the shaking.
Robby said, "Let's get going. It's not safe here. Anyway, you can take your time with him at the farm."
I closed my eyes and felt sick.
"Yeah, well . . . I want him to beg." Harrison kicked me in the ribs. The blow knocked the breath out of my lungs. He nailed me again, this time on my shoulder.
"Don't kick him in the head," Robby said. "I don't want to have to carry the bastard."
"Say something, damn it."
He kicked me again and again, and in a very short time, I lost count. I gritted my teeth to keep myself from groaning. Maybe I could talk my way out of it. It was worth a try.
I struggled to regulate my breathing and said, "The police know you murdered Peters."
"Yeah right." He punctuated his words with kicks. "They don't know shit."
Each blow seemed to merge with the next. My skin burned, and I could feel my heart pounding in my chest.
I gulped some air. "And they know that you helped Sanders with his insurance swindles. Do you think he's going to keep his mouth shut when they come down on him?"
Harrison became very still. Somewhere in the room, flies droned above the drip of a faucet. He began to pace, and it seemed that his agitation increased with each passing second. His boots scraped across the grit on the cement, and his breathing grew louder, faster, out of sync with the sound of my pulse pounding in my ears.
Maybe I should have kept my mouth shut. He came to an abrupt stop a foot away from my nose. I had a close-up view of his boots, scuffed up cowboy boots with sharply-pointed toes.
"In that case, you're gonna pay. You're gonna wish you'd never been born."
He leaned over, and I felt his breath on my hair. "As a matter of fact, by mornin', you're gonna be in so much pain, you'll be beggin' me to put you down."
Robby laughed.
I closed my eyes and swallowed.
Harrison grabbed my arm, clenched his fingers in my hair, and yanked me to my feet. I could see the knife then. The blade was easily four inches long, a hunting knife.
"If you kill me, it'll be harder for you," I said and hated the tremor I heard in my voice.
"Awh . . . now he's worried about me. Better worry about yourself, you little shit. Where," he waved his arm, "where are they, huh? I don't see no cops round here."
He turned toward his brother. "They don't have squat."
"They know you're Drake's cousin," I said, "and Timbrook's brother-in-law and that T&T Industries has been wanting to buy Foxdale and--"
Harrison snatched the front of my shirt and shoved me against the wall. "It's all your fault."
I didn't say anything, and after a moment, he said, "Beg, damn it. Beg for your miserable life."
The faucet dripped into the lengthening silence.
Harrison looked over his shoulder. "You have something to soften him up, don't you, Robby?"
Robby had been watching us with about as much emotion as I would have expected if we'd been discussing a hay shipment.
Harrison yanked me off the wall and shoved me down the aisle toward the back of the room. He turned me to face the last stall.
"Kneel."
Oh, God. It can't be-- I thought back to the guard's phone call. Why had I assumed it was him.
I stiffened.
"Kneel down," Harrison screamed. His words echoed in the tiny room.
He kicked the back of my knee and pushed down on my shoulders, forcing me onto my knees. In my peripheral vision, I saw the knife in his right hand, his fingers curled loosely around the handle.
"Robby, open the door."
A slow smile spread across Robby's face. His eyes were curiously blank as he watched my face. He pushed back the stall door.
The security guard was slumped in the narrow space between the wall and toilet.
I swallowed and clenched my teeth.
His throat had been cut, and his head hung at an angle that could only be achieved in death. His eyes were open, staring without sight at the top ledge of the door frame. The stall walls above him and to his left were streaked with a spray of blood.
Bastards.
Movement caught my eye. Every muscle in my body tensed. Something crawled across the glistening white cartilage where his trachea had been severed. A blowfly. Another crawled along his uniform's sharply-creased collar. Others buzzed above our heads and bumped against the ceiling. Saliva flooded my mouth.
Fucking bastards! A scream in my mind.
Harrison grabbed my hair and pulled my head back so that I had to look. I closed my eyes, but it didn't make any difference. I could see him clearly in my mind, every detail.
That was it. What I'd missed. The guard wasn't a horseman. He wouldn't have known that the riding area in barn B was called an arena. It had been Harrison or Robby on the phone, not the guard.
I wondered how he'd felt when they'd marched him in here and thought I already knew. My stomach heaved. I swallowed hard and tasted bile at the back of my throat.
"Johnny," Robby said, "his eyes are closed. Think he's asleep?"
"Let's wake him up." Harrison leaned into me and placed the knife under my ear. "This is how Robby did it." He drew the blade across my throat. "Just like that. Shit, Cline, you're shaking so much, you made me cut you." He chuckled. "Next time it's gonna go all the way in, got it?"
"I think he's got it," Robby said.
Harrison pulled me to my feet and shoved me against the wall. He stuck the point of the knife under my chin and squinted at my face.
I forced myself to hold his gaze.
"Say something, damn it."
"Fuck you."
He pushed the knife in deeper, and I had nowhere to go. I think he would have killed me then and there. It was certainly in his eyes. But Robby yelled, "Don'
t kill him, Johnny. Not yet. We run into the cops, we can use him."
Harrison eased up on the knife.
More blood trickled down my neck.
After a moment, Robby said, "Come on, Johnny. We gotta get outta here."
Harrison wiped his knife off on my shirt and slid it into a sheath on his belt. He reached into his waistband, pulled out the gun, and casually aimed it at my chest. "Don't try anything, Cline."
Robby grabbed hold of my arm and steered me toward the door.
"Robby," Harrison said, "move over. You're blocking my aim. You--"
I swung round in front of Robby, kneed him in the balls, and wrenched free of his grasp. I bolted for the door.
Rich was outside, but I didn't give a shit. I was getting out of there.
As I twisted around to get hold of the door handle, Harrison slammed into me. I hit the wall so hard, my teeth rattled.
"Nice try, Cline." He gripped my chin and turned my face toward his. "But you're not gettin' outta this. Not until I put you in the ground." He shoved my face sideways. "And it ain't gonna be no easy trip, is it Robby?"
Robby grinned, though he was no longer standing upright. "Not for him, it ain't."
"You know," Harrison said, "he's gonna be fun the way he don't wanna give in."
My skin prickled.
He held the gun to my head and waved me outside. Rich spun around at the sound of the door opening.
It had stopped raining. As I stepped onto the sidewalk, it seemed as if time had become suspended, and I was overcome with a feeling of disbelief.
As we turned toward the barns, Robby screeched, "Rich, you stupid sonofabitch! All the time we were in there, and you couldn't think to turn off the lights?"
"But John told me to be a lookout," Rich whined.
"What?" Harrison said. "You couldn't watch the road and turn off the lights?" He shoved me toward the barn. "Jesus Christ. Put out a neon sign, why don't ya? Send out engraved invitations. Before you know it, everybody and his brother'll be down here."
Harrison yanked on my arm, and I stumbled. Rich followed alongside, glancing nervously from Harrison to Robby. He wasn't afraid for me, though. He couldn't care less. His only concern was for his own hide. We walked into the barn aisle and stopped in front of the feed room.
"Go turn off the lights," Robby said.
Rich ran down the lane. The lights went out in aisle two, and he was back in less than half a minute. "Come on, John," his voice was high-pitched, "we gotta get outta here. We've been here way too long and--"
"Shut up," Harrison said. "I'm sick of your sniveling and whining. You should take a lesson from Cline, here. He's gonna be dead soon, and he ain't whining like you." He turned to face me. "Ain't that right, boy?"
I stared at him with what I hoped was an expression devoid of emotion. The longer we were on the farm, the greater the chance someone would realize that something was wrong.
Harrison pulled me into him, then slammed me against the feed room wall. "I want to hear you beg, damn it."
"No."
He leaned into me. His facial muscles were stretched tight, and a fine sheen of sweat coated his skin.
"You will, you know." A thought moved in his eyes, and he smiled. "After you're dead and buried, I'll go visit that cute, little honey of yours. Make her feel better."
Robby laughed.
I felt the blood drain from my face. I pushed against him. "You bastard!"
He swung the gun up hard and fast and broadsided me. I sagged against the wall and closed my eyes. Pain coursed through my head and settled in my eye. I heard a clicking sound--metal against metal--and instinctively knew what it was. I held my breath and opened my eyes. He was holding the gun in front of my nose, and the hammer was cocked.
He pressed the muzzle into my cheek. "Ask me not to."
Whatever I said, it wouldn't make any difference. The longer I held out, the longer I had to live. If I was wrong, if I had misread him, I would never know.
"Screw you."
Harrison looked over his shoulder at Robby.
"You've got his number," Robby said. "He doesn't like the thought of you doing his girl."
Harrison turned to face me. "You done it with her, boy? I can hardly wait to get my hands on her."
"Go to hell!" I choked on the words. Not her. Not Rachel.
Harrison studied my face, then nodded. "It's a start. Let's get the fuck outta here." He pulled me away from the wall, and Rich headed toward the doorway. "We'll drive by his apartment," Harrison said. "See if she's there."
Robby jiggled the coins in his pocket and cleared his throat. "Better not, Johnny. We gotta start tyin' up some loose ends, startin' with him."
Rich poked his head out the door, then jumped back as if he'd been shocked by a cattle prod. When he spun around, his eyes were wide with terror.
"There's a cop car parked outside the office." He almost screamed it.
"Shit." Harrison pushed me against the wall. "You're gonna get rid of him. If you don't, he's dead, and you're dead. Understand?"
I nodded.