by Lauren Carr
Donny caught the door before it swung shut. “Where’s breakfast?” Without waiting for an answer, he went about making coffee for himself.
Joshua was making his way up the path from the barnyard to get coffee when he heard the front door open and saw Suellen, dressed in jeans and a blue button-down shirt, step out onto the porch.
With a wave of her hand, she greeted him. “I think I’ve seen more of you in the last two days than I saw in the last decade, Josh.”
“I’ve been getting up close and personal with your horses.” Tossing his head in the direction of the barn, he gestured at his clothes, which were filthy with straw and other evidence of barn work. “There’s a breakfast casserole in the oven. If you don’t hurry, Donny will eat it all and leave you none.”
Declining the offer, she trotted down the steps to join Joshua on the path. She watched J.J. lead the man applying for a job as a horse trainer to the pasture where most of the horses were grazing. Though he had a large beer belly, he was dressed in clean blue jeans and a fresh plaid shirt. He was wearing a shiny brass buckle on his thick belt and a black Western-style hat. “I want to meet this trainer. It’s very important that we get the best trainer possible to make sure that Captain’s bloodline continues.”
Joshua stopped walking toward them when the man in the plaid shirt turned around for introductions.
“Cliff Harmon, this is my father, Joshua Thornton. Dad, Suellen, this is Cliff Harmon.” J.J. went on to explain that Cliff was a trainer with a prestigious quarter-horse farm in Pennsylvania.
Upon seeing Joshua, Cliff’s smile stiffened. Standing upright, he turned away to shake Suellen’s hand and to greet her in a loud, forced upbeat tone. “So you’re the owner of these fine horses. You know, I met your parents.”
“You did?”
“Saw your mother show Captain Blackbeard at the Quarter Horse Congress about fifteen years ago.”
“What’s wrong?” J.J. mouthed to Joshua as Suellen led Cliff toward the fence and to the palomino mare with no name, who had come up for a drink of water.
“He’s a drunk,” Joshua whispered. “Two DUIs and a drunk and disorderly. Check his references. I think his current owners want him to leave.”
“I thought his aftershave was awfully strong.”
At the barn, Cliff reached over the fence to touch the mare, who jerked her head up, splashing water on the trainer’s fresh shirt.
“Damn you!” he said, cursing the mare, who then reared up onto her hind legs and sprinted away.
“No one has been able to touch her,” Suellen said. “She hasn’t been touched by human hands since she was a colt.”
Tagging along with them, Izzy climbed up onto the fence and hung her arms over the top of it. “You should give her a name. Then she’ll know we care about her. Everyone needs to have a name.”
With a scoff, Cliff rolled up his sleeves and glared at the horse with no name, who was eying him with her head held high. “Give me ten minutes, and we’ll all be touching her.” He stamped over to his truck, opened the driver’s side door, and reached behind the seat.
“What are you going to do?” Izzy jumped down from the fence.
After slamming the door shut, Cliff stormed over to the gate. In one hand he was holding a rope, and in the other, he was holding a long stick that made Suellen scream.
“What’s that?” Izzy asked.
With a question in his eyes, J.J. turned to Joshua, who said, “That’s a cattle prod.”
“Don’t you dare!” Suellen tried to climb up over the fence, but Joshua grabbed her by the arms and pulled her down. “No one’s ever used a cattle prod on any of my mother’s horses, and no one ever will!”
Drunk on alcohol and rage, Cliff was already in the pasture. He tucked the prod under one arm and unraveled the rope and shaped it into a lasso.
As he was younger and more agile than Cliff, J.J. had managed to scramble over the fence to go after him. “The lady said no!” He yanked the cattle prod out from under Cliff’s arm.
Seeing that his chance at the job was gone, Cliff decided that he had nothing to lose. His pride was then gone. Whirling around, he swung his fist at the side of J.J.’s head only to hit air when J.J. ducked, turned, and delivered a side kick to Cliff’s abundant beer belly.
As Cliff stumbled backward, his feet hit a fresh pile of horse manure. His feet flew up into the air, and he landed on his rump in the same pile of horse manure.
Because of the two men fighting nearby and Suellen’s screams, the frightened mare whirled around and bolted toward the fence.
“Dad, look!” Izzy screamed. “They’re scaring her!”
When she came to the white five-foot-tall fence, the mare reared up and jumped over it. As soon as her feet hit the paved driveway, she turned and ran toward the main road.
“No!” Suellen screamed. “She’ll get killed.”
It took all of J.J.’s willpower to not use the cattle prod on Cliff, even though he wasn’t sure he knew how to use it. “You’re fired.”
“You have to hire me before you can fire me.”
Throwing the cattle prod down at the man, J.J. cursed and ran in the direction that the palomino mare had bolted in. Suellen, Izzy, and Joshua were running toward the driveway to chase after her.
“What’s going on?” Donny asked as he came out of the house after finishing his breakfast.
“J.J. kicked the stuffing out of the trainer, and the horse with no name escaped,” Izzy yelled while running down the driveway after J.J. and the horse.
Donny ran to the barn to grab a rope and then gave chase.
At the end of the driveway, Clyde Brady pulled his old pickup truck in and made his way up to the house. Seeing the mob running in his direction, he stopped his truck and leaned out of the driver’s side window. “One of your mares is loose,” he said to J.J.
J.J. kept on running without slowing down.
At the end of the driveway, the mare turned right and headed for the Pennsylvania state line, galloping down the middle of the road. A car swerved and barely missed the horse coming straight at it.
Afraid that the anxiety would be too much for Suellen, Joshua grabbed her in a bear hug and urged her back up to the porch. “We’ll catch her. You sit here on the porch, and we’ll bring her home.” After he had helped her settle down on the swing, he saw that the horse was almost out of sight.
Cliff was trying to clean himself up before climbing into his truck when Clyde sauntered over to him. “Looks like you got into an argument with that crazy mare and lost, Cliff.”
“Thornton shoved me! If he had just let me alone and—I’m gonna kill him!” After shoving the old man out of his way, Cliff climbed into his truck, gunned the car, made a U-turn, and drove away.
Chuckling, Clyde joined Joshua and Suellen up on the porch. “I was afraid Captain Blackbeard and those horses would be too much for that young fella.” He turned to Joshua. “Has he ever been around horses before?”
Joshua wanted to tell Clyde to shut up, but seeing Donny running out of the barn with a rope, he opted to join the posse trying to capture the runaway horse first.
Snorting and bucking, the frightened mare ran down the rolling country road. She galloped over a rise at the edge of the farm as a dark-green truck hauling a long horse trailer and a camper crested the next rise. Seeing the runaway horse, the driver turned the steering wheel. The truck and camper swerved, blocking both lanes of the road and cutting off the horse’s escape.
The mare halted, reared, whirled around, and ran back several feet. Hearing a whinny, she stopped and turned back to the horse trailer. After turning on her emergency blinkers, the driver climbed out of the truck, went around it, and stood in the middle of the road facing the mare. Holding her head high, the palomino horse eyed the redheaded woman clad in an emerald-green button-down shirt and
riding boots. Her gold belt buckle shone in the sun.
In silence, they stared at each other.
“There she is!” Izzy screamed from behind the mare.
The horse bolted forward toward the woman. The redhead threw up one of her hands in a sign to stop and uttered a loud shush.
With J.J. and Izzy behind her and the woman and the truck in front of her, the mare was trapped. She trembled with fear.
Afraid of what the panicked horse might do, J.J. grabbed Izzy’s arm and backed her up so that they’d have room to jump out of the way if the terrified animal charge toward them.
The redheaded woman gently shushed her again. Slowly, she squatted down to make herself small and eyed the horse, who was big enough to run her down.
Seeing that she had nothing that she could use to capture the horse, who wasn’t wearing a halter, J.J. held out the rope he had taken from Cliff. “I have a rope,” he whispered.
“Quiet,” she said.
The horse jumped back. But she was intrigued enough to continue staring at the young woman squatting motionless in the middle of the road. With her ears cocked forward, the horse lowered her head slightly and took a step toward her.
Joshua and Donny drove up. Seeing J.J. motion for them to stay back, Joshua pulled his SUV off of the road, and he and Donny climbed out of it.
“I got a rope,” Donny yelled.
“Forget the damn rope,” the redhead said in a low voice that reeked of annoyance.
“Forget the rope,” Izzy said in a loud whisper.
J.J. motioned for Joshua and Donny to be quiet.
Coming up behind J.J. and Izzy, Joshua asked, “What’s going on?”
“I think she’s hypnotizing our horse,” Izzy said in a low voice.
“Looks to me like she’s using a Jedi mind trick on her,” Donny said.
Again, the redhead shushed them.
“Will you two be quiet?” J.J. said.
The redhead sighed and then spoke to the mare in a low, calming tone. “People are so noisy, aren’t they? Always talking but never listening.”
The mare lowered her head almost to the ground and took a step toward the stranger. The horse was so close to the woman that she could’ve pounced forward and grabbed her by the head. Still, the woman made no move toward the horse.
“I think that’s the closest anyone’s ever gotten to her,” J.J. said to Joshua. “Certainly the calmest I’ve seen her.”
Still squatting in the middle of the road, the young woman slowly raised one hand up and held it out flat so that the mare could sniff it. When the mare didn’t back away, the woman rubbed the horse’s snout. “What’s your name?”
“She doesn’t have a name,” Izzy said in a low voice.
“Everyone has a name,” the woman said as she caressed the mare’s head. She pressed her cheek against the mare’s face. “After God created the heavens and the earth, he created all of the animals of the land, sea, and air. Then, after making Adam, God brought all of the animals to him to name. He wouldn’t have done that if it wasn’t important for everyone to have a name.”
With a wide grin, Izzy turned to J.J. “Told you.”
Moving slowly, the young woman stroked the mare’s neck. She peered into her eyes. “What’s your name, darling?” She pressed her forehead against the horse’s.
“I don’t believe it,” Joshua said.
With a smile, the redhead rose up to her feet. Petting the mare, she said, “Her name is Comanche.” She went around to the back of the trailer and lowered the hatch.
“She told you that?” Donny said.
The palomino mare remained in the middle of the road. J.J. and Joshua weren’t sure whether they should approach her. Since the redhead was opening the back of her horse trailer, they decided to let her load the horse into it and take her back to the farm. Instead, the redhead went inside the trailer. A moment later, she exited with another horse. This one was white with reddish-brown spots. He was clad in an emerald-green coat and a matching halter. She then reached into the cab of her truck and took out a bag of carrots and a black Western-style hat, which she then perched on the top of her head.
She took a big carrot out of the bag, broke it in half, and fed one half to the spotted horse. Like a loyal dog, the spotted horse followed her without her having to use a lead or a rope.
“Is that your farm?” she asked J.J. while feeding the second half of the carrot to Comanche.
Stunned, he only nodded his head.
“I’ll take Comanche home,” she said. “Do me a favor, and get my truck and camper out of the middle of the road, will you? Keys are in the ignition.”
With that, she proceeded to walk along the side of the road in the direction of the farm with the two horses following directly behind her like baby ducks following their mother—without the aid of leads or ropes.
J.J. and Joshua exchanged puzzled looks.
“I like her,” Izzy said. “Why don’t you hire her to take care of Suellen’s horses instead of that nasty old man?” Breaking into a run, she raced up to walk in step with the redhead.
“She’s a grown-up version of Izzy.” Admiring the redhead’s finely shaped butt, which was encased in tight blue jeans, Donny cocked his head with a wicked grin.
Noticing his grin, J.J. jabbed Donny with his elbow and shot him a chastising glare before turning to his father. “Dad—”
“No, Son, I’ve never seen anything like it.”
Chapter Nine
Cameron loved nothing more than getting a break in a case—especially a cold case.
The night after Suellen had given her a possible ID of the John Doe found at Dixmont State Hospital, she could hardly sleep. If Suellen’s information were correct, she would have not only the ID of the victim but also a list of suspects with motives to kill him.
Around two o’clock in the morning, Cameron found herself thinking that if this break had come before she’d met Joshua and become a stepmother to Donny and a mother to Izzy, she wouldn’t have bothered going to bed at all. She would’ve been at her desk at the State Police barracks digging deep into the case. She was more than grateful when Joshua climbed out of bed at five thirty and said that he’d wake up Donny and Izzy and go tend to Suellen’s horses in order to allow J.J. to sleep in.
“Is it the horses or J.J. that you’re worried about?” Cameron asked.
“Both,” he said before giving her a kiss.
That was all the excuse she needed to jump out of bed. She was climbing into her cruiser as a wide-awake and enthusiastic Izzy raced out the door to Joshua’s SUV.
“We’re going to J.J.’s to feed his horses, and before we leave, I’m going to pet the palomino if it’s the last thing I do!” Izzy was practically dancing in the driveway.
Behind her, Irving was scowling through the window at his fickle master.
“Did you know she was crazy when you adopted her?” Donny asked Joshua, who was locking the front door.
At the State Police barracks, Cameron had the phone number for the Baltimore detective who had investigated the disappearance of Vendetta, a.k.a. Wendy Matthews, by the time she had finished brewing a fresh pot of coffee. If the detective had worked for a rural police department, she would have waited until eight thirty to allow the office staff members to start their day. But like most major cities, Baltimore had law-enforcement officers on duty twenty-four-seven.
After identifying herself and giving the reason for her call, Cameron sat on hold long enough to think she had been forgotten before a man with a gravelly voice came on the line.
“This is Lieutenant Forrest,” he said. “I understand you’re asking about the Vendetta case.”
“Vendetta, a.k.a. Wendy Matthews,” Cameron said before introducing herself to the detective.
“I was one of the detectives who origina
lly investigated the case. What do you need to know?”
“Was Vendetta positively identified as Wendy Matthews?”
“That was the name on her driver’s license,” he said. “Her husband told us that was her name.”
“Husband?” Cameron asked. “She was married?”
“Nine years,” the police detective said. “He was her manager. Are you a journalist? Every now and then, I get calls from journalists who think this is some sort of mysterious disappearance. If you ask me, it’s just a runaway woman with a wacko husband fanning the flames to keep her famous.”
“I’m investigating the murder of a John Doe whose remains were found in an abandoned state mental hospital a little over eleven years ago. A possible witness says he could be Dylan Matthews, who supposedly left the Pittsburgh area in 1988. He had a sister named Wendy. Last night, I found an article about Vendetta and her disappearance. The writer claims that Vendetta started out as a drummer in Dylan Matthews’ band and she was his sister.”
There was a long silence before Lieutenant Forrest replied. “You said this Dylan Matthews disappeared in 1988?”
“He was last seen on the Fourth of July,” Cameron said. “The article I read says Wendy disappeared exactly ten years later, on the Fourth of July.”
“Hmm,” the police lieutenant said. “Interesting.”
“What do you think happened to Wendy Matthews?”
“Her husband said that someone kidnapped her and held her for ransom,” the detective said. “I think she ran off and killed herself.”
“Why do you think that?”
“Her last song,” Lieutenant Forrest said. “It’s all on tape. She wrote it, and the Fourth of July was the first and only time it was performed. Sounds to me like a suicide ballad. So she very well could have offed herself.”
“A minute ago you said she was a runaway,” Cameron reminded him. “Which is it? Did she runaway or did she kill herself?”
“This is one of those famous missing-person cases with evidence that takes you in a half a dozen directions. On the one hand, some people who knew Vendetta and her husband said that she was unhappy in her marriage and didn’t like being a celebrity—even if she did have only a cult following. They think she ran away to start a new life.”