I glanced down the slope of the broodmare pasture as we drove past. There were three foals in the field now, a colt and two fillies. One was Virtuous’s—a chestnut filly with dark spectacles that belied her future as a steel gray. Her dam was Surfrider, which made her a half to Virtue and Vice. She already had the solid, sturdy legs of a turf horse. Virtue had been winning—an allowance here, an restricted stake there. If Virtue made it as a stakes horse, and this filly did the same some day… the connections were there. Maybe Virtue and this filly would be Virtuous’s redemption. Maybe he still had a shot at being a desirable Florida stallion. Maybe, if Alexander would just be patient, we could breed our own instead of bringing in outsiders. If that was his plan. I still hadn’t asked.
“So you’ll ride him this afternoon?”
“Huh?” I had been lost in contemplation. Imagining the race career of a week-old filly, now there’s a mistake! I pulled up in front of the garage and put the golf cart into park. “What now?”
“You’ll take out Tiger this afternoon. If you need a field, have the grooms bring in the yearlings early. They can do some mane-pulling.”
They’d just love that. But if I was riding, I didn’t have to sedate babies and yank their manes into submission. Even a bucking bronco was more fun than that. “Okay, I’ll ride him. But first, coffee.”
So much coffee.
While we sat at the breakfast table, sipping strong black coffee and flipping the pages of old racing magazines, the tall windows we faced slowly filled up with light. By the time the antique clock in the front hall had worked its laborious grinding way to chiming the noon hour, the fog had completely burned away at last, leaving behind one of those cerulean blue skies that was so deep and clear that all proportion was drained from the landscape. While summer skies were crowded with puffy clouds and mountainous thunderstorms that seemed to float bare inches above the treetops, these empty expanses of blue that dominated the winter season were dizzyingly high. Everything seemed to shrink beneath that vast emptiness, retreating from the eye as if a camera was forever slowly panning out.
I had never cared for these featureless skies, preferring the tumult and wild beauty of summer storms, but I had to admit it was better than fog. Energizing, even. I had been contemplating the problem of the neighbors, and now I stood up so quickly that the table trembled and Alexander put down his copy of Florida Horse.
“You’re going to ride right now?” He was pleased.
“Not yet,” I said. “First, I’m going to find out who is next door.”
“How are you going to do that?” We had never been next door. There was no house visible from the road; massive old live oaks and a dense thicket of underbrush hid the property from view, and the dark driveway that tunneled through the oaks disappeared over a rise before any buildings showed themselves.
But there was a mailbox, and the mail delivery was right around noon. Right around now. I had a very good excuse to drive down to the road and park my truck there. No one who knew us would think anything of it if they happened to drive by, and the neighbor’s mailbox was just down the road…
“I’m going to look at their mail,” I decided. “I’ll wait in our driveway until the mail lady goes by, and then I’ll just sneak a peak at whatever they get.”
“I think that’s illegal,” Alexander said mildly.
“It’s the perfect crime,” I replied, pulling on my paddock boots and zipping up the fronts. “No one gets hurt, no one’s the wiser.”
I took the truck instead of the golf cart. That way, I could zip right down the road to raid the neighbor’s mailbox after the mail lady’s car disappeared around the next bend. Plus, I’d be less recognizable. If someone I knew saw me sitting in the golf cart, they were liable to stop and try to have a chat, and I might miss my chance to get to the mail before the neighbors did. In the truck, I could have been anyone—Alexander, a groom, Kerri.
The black gate swung closed behind the truck and I parked right there in the center of the driveway, where the concrete bridged the drainage ditch that ran alongside the county highway. It was just about the same spot where I’d hit the news reporter almost three weeks ago. I remembered how panicked Kerri had been, the way she had looked at me as if I was a crazy person, and wondered if that was when she had started to actually question my judgement, wonder whether or not I was losing it.
“Well, now I’m sitting in a truck waiting for the opportunity to spy on my neighbor’s mail, Kerri, so you might be right,” I said aloud, hopping out of the truck. I checked the farm’s big black mailbox, large enough to comfortably house fat sales catalogs and the weird things horse-people and farmers sometimes sent and received via unsuspecting postal workers, like envelopes full of hair for DNA testing, or samples of horse-friendly paving stones. Since a day didn’t go by where the farm didn’t receive a small mountain of mail—bills, invoices, stallion show announcements, real estate agents seeking listings, Jockey Club correspondence, horse show fliers, incentive fund applications, tack catalogs, racing magazines, donation requests for fundraisers, thank you cards for donations to fundraisers, offers for free samples of synthetic racetrack footing—the empty mailbox was a sure tip-off that I hadn’t yet missed the mail. I clambered back into the truck, turned on NPR, and waited.
And dozed off.
I sat up very quickly when there was a rap-rap-rap on the driver’s side window.
I blinked confusedly at the person just outside—a round, red face with frizzy henna-colored hair and faded blue eyes was grinning at me. I realized she was the mail lady. I’d never seen her out of her station wagon before.
“Ma’am!” she shouted, in an accent so Appalachian it could strip paint off a wall. “Ma’am, I have mail for you!”
I furrowed my brow—wasn’t that why we had a mailbox in the first place?—and hit the window button to lower it, a procedure which was carried out very slowly and with lots of squealing and complaints, like any good farm truck that has been subjected to too much hay and dust in its time. “Can’t you put it in the box? I’m waiting for something.” For you to leave.
“No, ma’am,” the mail lady said emphatically. “This here’s a big load a’mail. You want, I can throw it in the truck bed here.”
“That’s fine, thanks.” I sat back weakly, still groggy from the cat-nap, and waited as she stumped back to her station wagon, the “mail carrier” placard sitting dusty on the dashboard. Mail carrier, that was the word. Not mail lady…
She emerged from the rear hatch of the station wagon with a massive canvas mailbag, hoisted it in her arms like the week’s garbage going to the curb, and duck-waddled back to the truck. The bag was lumpy, with hard corners pressing against the canvas from within. Envelopes? A nervous flutter wavered in my stomach as an idea of what those envelopes might contain popped into my brain.
The mail lady—I mean mail carrier—grunted as she flung the sack into the truck bed. “Woo!” she hooted, rubbing her hands together. “That’s some special delivery! Lemme just get the reg’lar mail for ya now.”
She made the trip between truck and wagon again and presented me with a more reasonable selection of mail. Then she grinned again. “Pop’lar gal, huh?” The southern breeze tugged at the tight curls of her fading orange hair. “Now I gotta git join’. Late today.” She raised a paw in farewell.
“Wait!” I blurted. We had a funny kinship now, this mail carrier and me. Maybe she could just tell me. “Who lives next door?”
The mail carrier cocked her head. “Now honey, ya don’t know yer own neighbors? Although I guess they did just move in. I can’t give out names, though. You’ll just have to drive over and say howdy.”
I nodded, disappointed but not terribly surprised. “I’ll do that,” I promised, while thinking not a chance in Hell. “Thank you.”
I realized that now it wouldn’t be noticeable or surprising if she happened to catch me driving up the neighbor’s lane, so there was that. I resolved to wait longer before I
went over there, in case she suspected my game and doubled back. I wouldn’t want to be caught with my arm halfway up the mailbox when she went cruising by again.
When she’d been gone a good ten minutes I made my move, throwing the truck into gear and easing out onto the county road. I passed a quarter mile of black board fence and a thick shield of old-growth oak trees before the next driveway appeared, a ribbon of rutted gravel cut through the trees and spit out through the brown grass and dry ditch to meet the road in a small canyon of potholes. The truck banged down onto the driveway as I turned, and I bounced on the seat, nearly rapping my head against the window. “That’s why you should always wear your seatbelt,” I reminded myself. Then I put the truck in park and looked around carefully. The highway was deserted.
I leaned down from the truck window and eased open the rusty old mailbox, and found—
Nothing.
Hmm. This would be an embarrassing story to carry home to Alexander.
I closed the mailbox and frowned.
Sadly, there was only one Plan B, and that just didn’t bear thinking about: driving up the driveway and seeing for myself what lay behind that hilltop. If I’d thought it was going to be the nice old cracker I’d met while he drove along his fences, I would’ve gone up without hesitation. But I didn’t. The cattle were gone, and he didn’t give a fig about horses or horse racing. Someone else lived here now, and driving up overgrown country lanes to spy on strangers wasn’t a great idea. At least, not in north Florida. Supposing the new tenants were survivalist gun enthusiasts. They’d hardly feel out of place in Ocala, even if all these paved roads and grocery stores were probably a little urban for their tastes. Hell, my old farrier had instructed me on the finer points of tinfoil hat construction, concerned that the mind-reading CIA satellites were going to steal all my training secrets. He was clearly certifiable, and he had owned five nice mares and a Florida Stallion Stakes winner. That is to say, he fit in beautifully, crazy as one of those loons on some Discovery Channel reality show, but with racehorses like any good Ocala citizen.
Add the potential for crazy survivalist with firepower to the conviction I held that whoever was lurking on the other side of that ridge was actively trying to kill me, or at least ruin my business, and you had a non-starter of an idea. I shook my head and threw the truck back into reverse. I’d have to figure out who was living there some other way. Going up for a visit just wasn’t in the cards.
I backed onto the road and swung back into my own driveway, throwing one regretful glance towards the distant farm lane I’d left behind before pulling through my own gate.
I saw a truck easing down the ridge, sunlight glinting on its windshield as it emerged from the thick forest.
I slammed on the brakes and sat still, heart pounding, watching the truck. Which way would it turn? Would they be heading to town? They’d have to drive right past me to get there. I could get a glimpse. Maybe there’d be a farm name on the truck’s door…
I squinted as the truck crept down from the tree-line, bouncing over potholes. There were letters on it, all right. In just a second, they’d come into view…
I blinked.
It was our truck.
It was one of the farm trucks. The logo on the side was the same one I saw every day on letterhead, on coffee mugs, on tack trunks. There was no mistaking it.
Or, as the truck came closer, that slim profile, that pixie haircut…
I turned away and accelerated through the open gate, irrationally hoping that she wouldn’t see me. I didn’t want to know that she was involved. I didn’t want to know that she’d lost faith in me so completely. Whoever she had believed, whatever she’d heard or read or witnessed that could make her believe I was a liar, a horse-dumper, a mess on the verge of a breakdown—let that be on her. I had been prepared for Mary Archer. I wasn’t ready for this.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Kerri caught up with me before I even reached the turn-off to the house. I shook my head no when she flashed the farm truck’s headlights, entreating me to stop, but when I turned towards the house and she immediately followed, I knew I had no choice but to get out and listen to her side of the story. I wasn’t taking this to the house. Alexander already thought I was completely overreacting to the entire situation with Kerri and the farm staff. I wasn’t about to have a dramatic girl-fight in front of him.
So I climbed out of the truck, and so did Kerri, and for a few moments we just faced each other in the bright winter sunlight, the breeze tugging at my ponytail and riffling through her bangs.
Neither of us wanted to, but it was Kerri who spoke first.
“I know who it is.”
I hadn’t expected that. “You mean, you’re part of this whole scheme,” I corrected, but even I could hear the uncertainty trickling into my voice. “I shouldn’t be surprised, after the way you talked to me in the barn the other morning,” I went on boldly, determined to hang on to my anger. What else did I have these days?
“Part of this scheme?” To my complete shock, Kerri burst out laughing. She had to lean against the truck’s hood for support, she was laughing so hard. It was really annoying. “God, you really are a paranoid mess, you know that?” she gasped. “Of course it’s not me. And it’s not even a scheme. But the new neighbor is exactly who you would expect. It’s Mary.”
Now I was the one clutching the truck hood for stability. I mean, of course. I just knew it all along, didn’t I? But I didn’t want it to be true. That proved all my worst fears were true. I was her target. She was trying to bring me down. She was determined to destroy our business and my good name—huh. Wait. I tried to get hold of my own insane thoughts. Kerri might be right, I might be a paranoid mess. “Are you sure?” I asked with what I thought was a reasonable and believable tone of incredulousness.
“Pretty sure. Your very own nemesis!” Kerri smiled brightly. “You’re like a super-hero!”
“Can someone please explain what I did to deserve a nemesis?”
Kerri just laughed and shook her head at me.
“And, in all seriousness, doesn’t this seem like taking things a little too far? Couldn’t she just enjoy watching my career implode from a distance? She has to move in next door and—what? Scare my horses? That’s just a coincidence? Wait—did you talk to her?”
Kerri shook her head again. “Just a groom. He told me she’s got six horses over there. Apparently she owns them all and couldn’t get stalls at Littlefield, so she had to rent her own place.”
“Dennis wouldn’t give his own trainer a couple stalls?”
“I guess Littlefield is full. And he’s had to beg for every extra stall he’s gotten this season at the track. The barn’s on a hot streak and he has clients coming out of his ears. It’s not that crazy, if you look at it that way. He’s too big for his own place, and Mary’s horses are just competing for the same purses that his horses are.”
“Yeah.” I looked across the pastures to the distant training track, nearly hidden by the gentle sweeps of the Ocala hills. A quarter pole stood above one rise, cheerful red and white stripes sparkling in the clear air. “But what’s crazy is that she’s next to us, and that she’s galloping horses right next to our track.” I swallowed. I didn’t want to believe it was intentional, I really didn’t, but it was so hard not to. “Please tell me there’s a rational reason for this.”
“Surprisingly enough… there is. The groom said that’s the only flat piece of land in the whole property. But still—honestly? I think it’s really suspicious that she set up shop right next door. I mean, I’m sure it’s renting cheap because there’s nothing there. A six-stall pony barn, no aisle, no tack room. A mobile home from the seventies that’s basically rotting. An old pole barn full of cow shit. I don’t think the last tenants lived there, but damn they had a lot of cows.”
“They didn’t. They just grazed cattle there. The old guy didn’t like horses. That’s how I knew it wasn’t him.”
“Well, there are cow pie
s everywhere.” Kerri put her hands in her hoodie pockets and leaned back against the truck. “Hard as rocks. The groom said if you trip over it while it’s frozen you’ll break your foot. The place is a mess.”
“I hope none of the horses trip on them,” I said, my concern for delicate equine legs an automatic response. Nemesis or not, I didn’t want anyone’s horses getting hurt. Although we’d had our share of accidents from this little neighborhood kerfuffle. Mary bloody Archer, I thought. This is getting old. I turned my face up towards the sun, closed my eyes, and let the warm light press through my eyelids, crimson red on my retinas. “Do you want to come to the house? Tell Alexander? Then he can tell us there is absolutely no reason to believe that Mary is actively attempting to ruin my reputation and/or kill me.”
Kerri shook her head. “Tempting, but I have to turn a couple mares out once I’m sure they’re awake. The vet took cultures on the open mares and no one wanted to cooperate so they all got cocktails. I think we’ll be able to breed Silly on the next cycle, though. Finally. And then I need to wash tail-wraps and mix evening feed. But come up if you can and we can talk about it.”
I nodded, even though I was supposed to go ride Tiger next. There were a lot of warring emotions here—crazy with worry over Mary, dizzy with relief that Kerri was on my team after all. I wanted to spend the afternoon working with her, just chatting and being silly the way we had done in Saratoga. I wished she’d come back to work in the training barn. She said she wasn’t needed there, but I could have found something for her to do. There was always something to do in a barn. “Are you staying in the broodmare barn?”
Turning For Home (Alex and Alexander Book 4) Page 14