“Chief O’Connell, ma’am. He said I should do everything for you.”
“Really?”
“Yes, ma’am. The horses are fed and watered.” Brandon parked the wheelbarrow in front of a stall. He picked up the pitchfork leaning against the wall and went inside. A forkful of manure landed in the rusty tray. “I have a couple of more stalls to clean. Then you’ll have to tell me what else you need done.”
What the hell? How presumptuous was the cop going to get? Even with Lady’s sale, Rachel’s cash flow didn’t warrant hired help. The retainer for Sarah’s attorney was due that afternoon. She owned the property free and clear, but there were taxes, insurance, utilities, and operating expenses to pay. Her truck was a MacGyver special. Plus, she had Sarah and the girls to support. Growing kids couldn’t live on Pop-Tarts and Ramen noodles. “Brandon, I’m sorry. I can’t afford you. I’ll pay you for the hours you put in this morning, but you’ll have to go home.”
“I can’t do that, ma’am. Promised the chief I’d stay.” More dirty straw hit the wheelbarrow. “He already paid me for the week. You don’t have to worry about that.”
“Do you do everything the chief says?” Rachel was torn over Mike’s meddling. On one hand, he was bossy and presumptuous and controlling, three personality traits she found highly annoying. And yes, she was perfectly aware that she exhibited all three of those behaviors on a regular basis. On the flip side, the knowledge that he cared brought back that melty feeling.
Dammit.
“Yes, ma’am.” He stopped, planted the tines of the pitchfork into the dirt at his feet, and leaned on the handle. He leveled warm, honest brown eyes at her. The gaze was too sad and old for his youthful face. “I was in some trouble last year. Totally fu—messed up. Quit school and did some other things I’m not proud of.” He stared at his worn Timberlands for a few seconds. “If it weren’t for the chief, I’d be in jail right now. So if he asks me to stay here, I’m staying.” He went back to cleaning the stall.
Any irritation she’d felt for Mike drained like water from a bathtub.
Brandon pushed the full wheelbarrow out the back of the barn and brought it back empty a minute later. “What should I do after I finish the stalls?”
Rachel’s stomach rumbled. Sarah’s blueberry muffins and a cup of coffee were calling her name. “Can you ride?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“How well?”
Brandon stopped and wiped sweat from his forehead with the sleeve of his long-sleeved tee. “Well enough.” His eyes lit with interest—and regret. “We used to breed quarter horses, before we lost our farm. I did a lot of reining and roping”
“Miss your horses?”
“Every day.” He tucked his thumbs into the front pockets of his threadbare jeans.
“Think you can make the switch to an English saddle?”
“Don’t see why not. Grew up riding with no saddle at all.”
Hot damn. If the kid were going to work his butt off doing all the cruddy farm chores, Rachel was going to make sure his day was balanced. He missed horses? He was going to get his fill of them.
“In that case, I have a couple of horses that need to be exercised. I’m going to grab some breakfast while you finish up here.” Rachel grinned. “Then we’re going to have some fun.”
Sarah wasn’t in the kitchen when Rachel poured coffee and grabbed a still-warm muffin. She sank into a chair. Bandit put his shaggy paws on her knee and begged. How long had it been since she didn’t have a to-do list a mile long?
Sarah had her purse over her shoulder and her keys in her hand when she walked back into the kitchen. “I have to go.”
“Oh, that’s right. You’re meeting the lawyer this morning. Do you want me to go with you?”
“No. I need to handle it on my own. Blake’s lawyer seemed pretty sharp over the phone.” Except for the cast on her arm, Sarah looked almost back to normal. The swelling on her face had receded, and she’d covered the fading bruises with makeup. “The girls are still at preschool. Mrs. Holloway will bring them home at noon. Betty from King’s Saddle Shop called. That bit you ordered is in. How’s your shoulder?”
“Not bad.” Nine hours of sleep had worked wonders.
Sarah left. Without all the noise of the alarm installers, the house was uncomfortably quiet. Rachel drank coffee and ate another muffin. She looked down at Bandit, who was licking a crumb off the floor.
“I’m bored.”
Unconcerned, Bandit stretched out in a sun patch and closed his eyes. She should emulate the dog, but rest and relaxation weren’t her strengths. Brandon wasn’t going to be finished for at least an hour. Plenty of time to run down to King’s and pick up that bit. She stopped at the barn to let Brandon know she’d be back in half an hour.
“I could do that for you later,” he offered.
“No thanks.” She turned toward the truck. “I might as well make myself useful.”
“But—”
Rachel waved off his protest, drove into town, and cruised down Main Street. She glanced in the rearview mirror. A monster truck was right on her bumper. The sun reflected off the truck’s windshield, obscuring her view of the driver. She tapped her brakes, but the truck didn’t back off. She made a quick left onto Fourth Street. The truck continued down Main with the roar of a powerful V-8.
Rachel passed the large restored colonials near Westbury’s miniscule business section. Houses were less fancy as she drew away from the town center. She made a few more turns onto a deserted side street. The tack shop occupied the first floor of a tall, narrow two-story in need of a complete renovation. In the less affluent outskirts of town, the lots were too small and the houses too close together for driveways. Vehicles lined the street. She parked at the curb half a block down and walked back to the store. Less than ten minutes later, she was back at the pickup, bit in hand.
She dug in her purse for her keys. A hand on her arm spun her around. “Ow.” Pain shot through her shoulder.
“Hello, bitch.”
Her smart retort never left her lips. Rachel’s back slammed into the side of the truck. The breath left her lungs in a hard whoosh. Her leather purse hit the asphalt with a jingle.
“Hey,” she yelled. “Get off me.”
A hard male body pressed her flat against the cold metal. Will Martin’s angry navy blue eyes glared down at her. He pressed his palms against the roof of her truck on either side of her head and used his hips to pin her in place.
A surge of anger helped Rachel recover the ability to breathe. “What do you want?”
“Just conveying a message.” Will’s upper lip curled like a pissed off, ugly version of Elvis. “You mess with my pal. You mess with me.”
“Really?” Rachel squirmed, trying to open up some space to maneuver between their bodies. She glanced around, but the small side street was empty. No one had heard her shout.
“Really.” Will ground his erection into her belly. He glared down at her, dark blue eyes full of malice and excitement. “You’re going to be sorry for what you did to Troy.”
Mike parked his truck outside the county morgue. He squinted against the morning sun that glared off the glass doors of the Lark County Municipal Complex. He really hated visiting the morgue. The place gave him the creeps, taking his phobia of all things medical to an exponential level.
Greg was already in the autopsy suite. Mike donned gown, booties, and mask, then pushed through the glass door. The skeleton was bare bones, but the smell of raw meat lingered in the autopsy suite, mingled with the sharp sting of formalin that never failed to make Mike’s stomach dry-heave. He never came here with a full belly. He hadn’t even risked water this morning.
Mike kept his eyes off the array of morbid tools behind glass-doored cabinets. The bones were laid out in a disjoined human shape on a stainless steel table. A few gaps represented pieces not recovered. Standing over the remains with a clipboard, Greg looked more mad scientist than doctor behind a plastic face shield
.
“Hey, Greg.”
“Mike.” Greg stepped back and made a notation. “We found about ninety-five percent of him. Missing some of the small bones. That’s not bad, considering the evidence of rodent activity in the area.”
Mike banished visions of mice stealing fingers and toes from his head. He also made a mental note to put some mousetraps in Rachel’s basement. “So, what can you tell me?”
Greg pointed a gloved finger at the pelvic cavity. “The victim is an adult male, as shown by the narrow pelvis and thick skull, no pun intended. The pubic junction straightens with age. From the degree of curvature, I’d cap his age around fifty, probably a bit less.” Greg tapped on the skull. “Caucasian. Had a decent amount of dental work, so probably not homeless.”
He moved lower, to the femur, and indicated the lower end of the thigh bone. “Growth plates are completely closed, and with the pitting of the ribs, he was at least thirty at time of death. He has one healed fracture of the left tibia.”
“He was about five-nine, give or take an inch.” The coroner scanned the skeleton. “Bones on the right side are slightly thicker, so he was likely right-handed. Slight to average stature. You probably have femurs the size of tree trunks.” Beneath his clear plastic mask, Greg’s eyes laughed. “Not that I ever want to find out.”
Mike wiped his palms and suppressed the image of himself on Greg’s table. “Can you tell me anything else about the remains?”
Greg pointed to a groove in one of the lower ribs. “This nick here could be the fatal injury. Knife to the gut. Or not. It’s really impossible to tell. I see no other signs of unhealed trauma on the bones. I’m sending the bones to Dr. McCall, the forensic anthropologist at the university. She’ll be able to give you more information and a much better estimate on how long he’s been down there. I’ll let you know when the report comes in, or if I get any results on the testing of the plastic sheet or the soil and bug samples.”
Those reports could come back in a month or a year. Remains this old didn’t get top priority at the hopelessly underfunded and overloaded labs. “What about identifying him?”
“I have X-rays on file if you can come up with any dental records to match. Teeth and large bones are in excellent shape, so mitochondrial DNA is another possibility, but again, you have to have something to match. If all else fails, we have facial reconstruction, real and virtual.”
“So you dragged me all the way down here to tell me my victim was a middle-aged, average-sized white guy who’s been dead an unspecified number of years?”
Greg flashed him a wicked smile. “Well, this might come in handy.”
The coroner produced an evidence bag. Nestled inside was a ring. Mike bent closer and squinted at the engraved words surrounding a deep red stone. Well, that narrowed things down significantly. He pulled out his cell phone and snapped a picture of the ring.
Westbury High School. Class of 1973.
His victim was a local.
Chapter Twenty-One
Back in his vehicle, Mike headed back toward Westbury. A few miles outside town, his phone buzzed in his pocket. The number on the display was the disposable cell he’d given Brandon that morning.
“What’s up?”
“Chief, I’m sorry.” Brandon hesitated, and Mike’s heart lurched. “She left.”
“What do you mean, she left? I told you to keep her there.”
“She kind of does what she wants, sir.”
“No kidding.” Mike stepped on the gas pedal. “Where did she go?”
Five minutes later he braked in front of the tack shop. Will Martin’s oversized ego of a pickup was parked at the curb. Mike cruised down the street and spotted them ahead. Will had Rachel pinned to the side of her truck. His hands caged her in. Her feet were trapped between his widespread cowboy boots. Rachel had something silver and shiny in one hand. Will was rubbing his crotch up and down obscenely against her stomach.
Fury, fresh and hot, gathered in Mike’s chest. Finally, he was a witness to the creep’s crime. If Will hurt her…
Mike floored his SUV and called for backup. The big ape moved one hairy hand to squeeze Rachel’s breast. Mike’s red-edged vision tunneled down to the two figures. He reached for the siren just as Rachel swung out with a right hook. Silver flashed in her hand. Will clutched the side of his head and staggered backward two steps. Her front snap kick caught him right between the legs. Will dropped to the ground like a hairy sandbag. His hands fell from his head to his groin.
Mike stomped on the brake and slammed the gearshift into park. He jumped out of the truck. His own testicles crawled up inside his body as he watched a gray-faced Will heaving on the concrete.
“You fucking bitch!” Will made a sick retching sound. “I’ll get you. I know where you live.”
Rachel leaned on her truck. Freckles stood in stark relief on a face as pale as skimmed milk, but those eyes were brimming with fire.
Mike cuffed the groaning man in the street, then stepped up to Rachel. He wanted to pull her into his arms. But he couldn’t, not in public, especially not with Will as an audience. “You all right?”
“Yeah.” Despite the jutting chin and fiery glare, her voice shook.
“Did he hurt you?” Mike glanced back at Will, who hadn’t moved from his fetal position.
She was going to say she was fine. He knew it. “Let me rephrase that. Do you need to go to the ER?”
She shook her head.
“Would you be willing to press charges against him?”
A fighter through and through, she pushed away from the truck and straightened her spine. “Of course.”
Satisfaction welled as he took her statement. Mike had been trying to get Will on sexual assault charges for years. Like a true predator, Will picked his victims well, usually choosing women who were too timid to stand up to him. Until today.
She turned toward her vehicle. Mike couldn’t help but admire both the fit of her faded jeans over her muscular legs and the courage with which she’d recovered. With a sigh he turned back to the prostrate Will and hauled him to his feet just as Ethan pulled up in his cruiser.
Mike loaded Will into the back of the police vehicle. “You picked the wrong woman to assault.”
“Is that a threat?”
Mike closed the door. “Take him in, Ethan.”
Rachel climbed into the driver’s seat. Adrenaline ebbed, and her shoulder, forgotten during the moment, throbbed anew. She drove back to the farm on autopilot, cranking up the heat to banish the shakes.
She drove away from town, the isolation and serenity of the green around her soothing. She wasn’t meant to live that close to other people. She needed space. Lots of it. Not just the physical kind.
The truck parked itself by the house. Sarah’s minivan wasn’t back. A glance at her cell told her that the girls weren’t due for another hour. Work was the best therapy.
Brandon had finished cleaning stalls and was repairing a broken section of fence.
Rachel pointed out a sleek chestnut gelding grazing in the pasture. “Why don’t you start with him?”
The well-tempered chestnut greeted the kid with a friendly nose bump before following him to the gate. Rachel inspected every inch of the tack, then took a seat on a bale of straw in the aisle while Brandon brushed and saddled the horse with practiced efficiency. She followed the pair outside and leaned on a fence rail. Once aboard, Brandon’s relaxed posture and balanced seat testified to experience and innate ability. He looked like she felt on the back of a horse. Like that was where he belonged and everything else he did was just passing time. Like climbing on that horse’s back made all the misery in his life fade away. A small pang of loss sliced through her. She would never experience that ease again. For her, riding was tainted by pain, guilt, and worry, and for a few seconds she almost wished she’d never sat on her first pony.
Because you couldn’t miss what you never had.
Which made her think about Mike and the way his
presence and touch made everything easier to bear.
Rachel shook it off. Ninety percent of the good memories in her life were tied to horses. Without them, her youth would’ve been vastly more miserable.
Rachel sent Brandon off to lap the meadow a few times and adjust to the new saddle. She needn’t have bothered. The kid looked like he’d be comfortable upside down or sideways on top of a horse.
She could do something with this kid. So, she would never jump again. The thrill and the rush were a thing of her past. She still knew her stuff. Working with a talented student could be the answer. It wasn’t like she could never sit on a horse again. She just had to be sensible about it.
Dammit, she hated being sensible.
Brandon finished with the chestnut and took the gray out for a spin. Rachel had no worries the horse could get away with any of his shenanigans. Shadow Dancer sensed that he’d been bested while he was being groomed on the cross-ties. With Brandon on his back, the normally boisterous horse behaved like a school pony. By the time Rachel left Brandon cooling the horse out, satisfaction had wiped away the memory of Will’s attack.
Tomorrow she’d see how the kid handled some low jumps. If he did well, Brandon was going to get a big break.
The sound of an approaching vehicle signaled Sarah’s return. Her sister’s minivan turned into the drive and parked by the house. Rachel’s stomach growled. She checked her cell. Lunchtime had breezed by. Brandon hadn’t eaten either.
“When you’re finished cooling him out, come up to the house for a sandwich.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“And I really appreciate all the help.”
Brandon flushed. “I love working with the horses. My schedule is clear until the weekend. The house my family is renting is on low ground. We’re going to stay with some family until the flood risk passes.”
They both glanced at the darkening horizon. Clouds rolling down from the mountain marked the end of the sunshine. A humid breeze rustled through the surrounding woods. Shivering, Rachel zipped up as she strode down the driveway to the mailbox. She opened the metal flap. Something buzzed, and Rachel froze. A swarm of pissed-off bees poured out of the mailbox and hovered around her.
She Can Tell Page 19