Wait, UNASSUMING? That’s what people thought of me? I was unassuming?
Laura stepped out of my tack room, and I was relieved to see no knife. My saddles might be okay.
That’s when I registered the gun. Well, my bad plan just got worse. Good going, Lark. What was I thinking, again? Oh, I had to save my mare. And my saddles. If I got out of this, I needed to look into my priorities. Again.
“Drop the phone.” Shoot. I hadn’t called anyone. Maybe she wouldn’t notice me placing a quick call right then. Without looking at it I pressed unlock and called the first number. Which should be John. Please be John. If it was John, I promised to start calling the police before I walked into suspicious places.
I dropped it. It landed face-down, but I saw it connect right before it landed. Someone was there. Bless the horse gods.
“What do you want?” I asked her.
“I don’t know. Revenge, maybe?” She shrugged as if it was nothing. Was she demented? Had we all missed some sign of mental illness? Who brought a gun to someone’s place of work for ‘revenge, maybe’?
“Revenge for what?” She started walking towards me and I echoed her movements back. Nope. I was not getting near the crazy lady.
“He asked you out right in front of me, you know. He said it was to cover up our relationship. That it would be weird if he didn’t ask out the hottest girl in town.”
He thought I was the hottest— that was not important at the moment.
“He did it twice, but he flirted with you every time you came in. And you! You didn’t care. Didn’t even notice. I loved him! I worshiped him! And he wanted you. And you didn’t even care!” she continued.
Huh. The body parts might have been meant for me after all. Fascinating.
Oh my god. I was going to die because I kept getting distracted in the middle of life-or-death situations.
“I’m sorry?” Okay, some psychology training would have been helpful. How to talk down the scorned murderer of a guy who liked me. Maybe that was a class in college. My dad might have been right, then. Maybe I should have gone after all.
“You will be!” Her scream hit a high note and I cringed, expecting the shot. Instead it seemed to surprise her, and she pulled herself back, trying to compose herself. “You and those other bitches. Fiona will be caught red-handed with evidence while breaking into your house tonight.” She smiled at me and swung the gun around carelessly in her hands. “Gina already got what’s coming to her, that faithless bitch. Do you know she knew about me and Bryan? We were friends. Or so I thought. Until I saw that photo on Lindsey’s blog. Then I was drinking in The Pub when I saw him with that skank. Becky. She looked so happy. So clueless. Just like me. I thought about just sending her a note. Telling her everything. But she slept with him. He let her stay over at his house. Did you know that? He was with her at night after her shift. We never slept over.” Her gun was swinging again as she used her hands to talk.
I swallowed. Plan—I needed a plan!
“I had to face the fact that I was like the others. He slept with Fiona to get better drugs to sell. He slept with me to keep his job and so I would turn a blind eye to his drug dealing. He slept with Gina for access to the resort. Only Becky didn’t have anything to give him. He just liked her. And you. You were his dream girl.”
Oh, no…
“What did you do to Gina?” I asked. She was almost standing on my phone. At least someone else will hear her confession.
“I visited her before I came here. She won't be stealing anyone else’s man again.”
Oh, god.
“But I wasn’t supposed to be here.” Why would she come here if I wasn’t supposed to be here?
“Part of the reason he liked you was your job. Working with majestic horses. Owning your own business. Being so successful in San Francisco. I was just a cafe owner. I just took my cafe over from my parents. Not as impressive as you.”
“So, you were going to ruin my stuff.” Brat.
“The lock on your tack room is pathetic. One little snip with bolt cutters and I was in. But then you showed up. And now I’ll have better revenge.” She had moved into the center of the barn and was so focused on her rant that she wasn’t paying attention to the horses. Most had sensed my panic and reacted like the prey animals they were. Bob was watching me while pacing in his stall. Twice had fallen silent for once, waiting for me to tell her what to do. Great. The mare fought me at every stage, but now she was willing to listen…
“So now you’re going to kill me? Because Bryan liked me? How cliché.” Think, Lark, think. I needed to push her. “I expected better than this from you, Laura. This is more something that Lindsey would do. Brash. Impulsive. Tsk, tsk. I mean, the body drop thing was okay. It would have been better if you had set me up for the murder. Killed two birds with one stone. Why didn’t you?” I had slightly moved into her space, pushing her towards Twice. The mare, true to her personality, flattened her ears at the intruder. Hold, girl. Hold. I tried to send confident vibes, just like I did when she was a baby and we were trying to catch her in pasture. I am the leader. Follow my lead, you overly aggressive monster.
“You won’t think anything when you’re dead.” Her face contorted, her upper lip jutting out to meet her scrunched-up nose. It wasn’t a pretty look on her.
“See? Cliché. Do you want me to wait while you come up with something better? No, no hurry. It might take you a while.” I tried to seem unconcerned as I slipped slightly closer to her, driving her back into Twice’s stall. Twice had her head as low as it could get while still hanging out the door. Her ears were pinned so tight they looked like a part of her neck, and her upper lip was curled. I could even hear the angry swish of her tail as she jerked it back and forth. She was ready. Now I just had to push her over the edge.
I screamed.
That was the last straw. Laura, her back towards the stall, never saw the mare coming. Twice, true to her temperament, attacked, biting into Laura’s gun arm. Good girl. Perfect aim. And that was why you didn’t mess with chestnut mares. Booyah.
Laura dropped the gun, and I dove for it as she tried to shake off the stubborn mare attached to her arm. Diving through the air, I was almost to the gun. My fingertips were so…close….
No.
I missed.
The gun hit the ground and discharged. Fiddlesticks! I hit the ground, frantically praying that none of my horses had been hit. All were fine. Well. Most were now bucking and freaking out like someone just fired a gun next to them, but that was to be expected. My roof now had a bullet-sized hole, though. Fudge buckets.
Laura managed to pry her bloody arm out of Twice’s mouth and was turning to try and attack my horse as I looked at her. Oh, hell no.
I surged up from the ground, pulling my arm back to punch her. “Leave.” Hit. “My.” Hit. “Horse.” Hit. “Alone.” Laura dropped to the ground, crying and holding her face. I waited until I was sure that she wasn’t getting back up before I assessed my hand. Which hurt. A lot. Sweet cheese and crackers! I should have asked Brecken how to punch people when I first realized I had no idea. Oh, god that hurt.
Focus. I needed to tie up Laura. Horsewoman style. I grabbed my phone on the way to the feed room.
“Hello?” I said into the phone. I did call John. Go me.
“Lark? Thank god. Brecken is minutes out. We’ll be there soon.” John’s voice jumped out of the phone, and I breathed out in relief.
“Take your time. I got this.”
A minute later, Laura was tied up in baling twine with her hands behind her back and her feet tied together. Just like I had seen in the movies, and I was proud of myself. I sat back to take in my work when my brain went to my next problem.
“John? I don’t suppose anyone will pay to fix my roof?” He laughed. That wasn’t comforting. I stared at the hole. I mean, it was small. And it wasn’t like we got that much rain. Then again, I did not want puddles in the middle of my walkway. Sigh. More money. Being the distraction
for a murderer was expensive. Or killers. I still wasn’t clear on that. I looked over at Laura. Well… we did have the time.
“So was Fiona in on it, or not? I’m a little confused on that point.” Laura scowled, pressing her lips together. She wasn’t talking. Too bad. “That’s okay. I’m sure Fiona, or Fee, will talk once she learns you set her up.” Yeah, I connected those dots. She had mentioned Fee with Shifty at the coffee shop. I might have just connected them a few seconds ago when I said Fiona’s name out loud, but Laura didn’t need to know that.
“Bitch.” Laura spit at me.
I didn’t think I needed a clarification on who. It didn’t matter.
Chapter 16
It took Brecken and the cops about five more minutes to get to the barn. We both heard them coming, and Laura made one more attempt at breaking the baling twine, which ended with swear words and probably a little blood. I wasn’t sure. It wasn’t my problem, and I was still sore over the hole in my roof. And my swollen hand, which I had wrapped in one of the horse’s ice packs as we waited. I was pretty sure I hadn't broken it. I hoped I hadn’t, at least.
Even though I knew they were the rescue team, both Laura and I winced as they came through the door. Guns out and searching for a target, men in uniforms and vests flooded my barn. The horses, most of whom had just settled down from the gunshot, were now spooked again. Except Twice. She nickered at Brecken and preened as if she knew she was the hero and wanted him to come praise her. Shameless flirt.
What was worse was that he went over there and rubbed her. And she let him! It didn’t matter that she had just saved my life, I wanted her to greet me like that! I wouldn’t turn down him greeting me that way, either. I would be lying if I said I couldn’t use a few strokes right now.
That was when the last of my adrenaline gave out. I was so tired. I slumped, praying they didn’t need anything. But… manners...
“Hey, guys. Laura is there. Do you need a knife to cut the baling twine?” I wasn’t going to bother getting up, but one of the boarder’s horses decided he’d had enough and started kicking their stall door. Ignoring the cops as they started cordoning off my barn with police tape, I went to the horse and calmed him down before checking for any injuries. He was fine. Good. I didn’t need to call—
Son of a Monkey. I had to contact all the boarders and tell them what had happened. This was not going to look good. I turned and took everything in. “Dagnabit. I’m not going to be able to work tomorrow, am I? Can I at least come and turn out the horses? They’re going to go insane if they don’t get to blow off a little steam.” Brecken gave me a long look, using what I was now calling his ‘police face’: expressionless and professional. I was expecting a sarcastic ‘no.’
“I think we can manage that.” My hero. I collapsed against the wall, giving him a thumb-up gesture, and waited for them to need me again. After I was seated, it occurred to me that I might have just contaminated their crime scene. Oh well. It was too late now.
Brecken nodded, and went to talk to another cop. After they were done speaking, he drifted over to me. “You can go home now. Everything is safe and your house is fine. Fiona was just lying in wait for you to come home.”
Yeah, that was comforting. Not.
“Okay. Do you want me to leave your car here and go home with one of the other cops?” He looked at me for a second, studying my face before he spoke.
“No, you take it and go home. I’ll come pick it up tomorrow morning.”
“Okay.” I started to pull myself up when his hand was suddenly dangling in front my face, offering a lift. I looked up in surprise, but his face was still in professional mode. Well, okay then. I took his hand, letting the heat of his warmth sink into me before he pulled me up. He didn’t say anything once I was on my feet, even though I hesitated to give him the chance. It wasn’t until I was a few feet away that he said anything.
“Lark?”
I turned so I could see him, although he was still looking away. More specifically, he was just standing there looking at the ground. Why?
“I’m glad you’re okay. I’m sorry we didn’t protect you better.” Oh. He felt guilty.
“No one could have known that Laura would go off the rails today. It wasn’t your fault.” I turned and left. Honestly, I was tired, and unless he was going to tell me how pretty I was and that he couldn’t live without me, I wasn’t interested in whatever he had to say. I spent the drive back going over every stupid decision I had made, starting from not calling the cops when I found the door open, to going in to save a horse that ended up saving me, to my blind rush when I thought my saddles were in danger. Seriously, I needed to rearrange my priorities.
***
The next morning, I slept in, waking at eight o’clock before calling Blake and asking him when I could pick up Hailey. She still wanted to go to the festival, but Sunday worked out just fine. Ten minutes of talking to her reassured me that she was happy, healthy, and still loved me. I hung up, relieved. I was alive (albeit barely), and Hailey was coming home. Life was good.
Twenty minutes later I had changed my mind. I had two boarders threatening to pull their horses out of the barn. I didn’t really blame them. Bullets would be my line in the sand, too. In my attempts to reassure them, I ended up promising one that I would show her warmblood in third level by the end of the show season. He was barely at second. I guessed I was still channeling some of the stupid from last night, because that would be near impossible. I had a lot of work to do and very little time to do it. The next few months were going to be hectic. I had just gotten off the phone with the last boarder when Brecken knocked on the front door.
“Hello, Detective. Would you like some coffee?” Or dinner? Maybe a real date? Not to leave?
Reel it in, Lark.
“No, thank you. I’m good.”
Well, that seemed to have answered all my questions nicely. My stomach seemed to drop about three inches. That had to be the first time I was disappointed to hear that phrase.
“What can I do for you?” This earned me an eyebrow in the air. Oh! Right. The car. I lifted my hand to stop his answer and went to get his keys. He walked in the house as I retrieved them, and I met him in the entryway to give them back.
“Thank you for letting me borrow it.”
“Anytime.” Which meant never again since he was going to be in San Francisco soon.
“Anything else?” I had plans. Some ice cream eating. Maybe even a romantic cry movie. I took him in one more time. Maybe some chocolate, too. And a beer. Two. Definitely two.
“We got most of her confession on tape from the phone. Is there anything that we missed?” He shifted his weight as he asked, and I turned and led him into the kitchen while I answered. Maybe I would have some more coffee.
“No. Pretty much everything was verbal. She made the mistake of getting too close to Twice. Took a chunk out of her arm.” I fiddled around the kitchen before taking a seat at the kitchen table, looking for something to fiddle with. Anything to distract me from how I was fearing this conversation would end.
“Interesting. I didn’t know horses were aggressive animals.” Brecken followed close on my tail and took a seat next to me at the kitchen table.
“Any animal can be aggressive when threatened. But she might have been encouraged by my scream. Who knows? Bite isn’t a command I teach.” Yeah, that was how to get a man. With sarcasm and snipes. I guess we knew why he was leaving.
“And the wounds to Laura’s face?”
“She turned and tried to punch Twice. So, I punched her. A few times. Not sure how many. It was so fast.”
“Got it.” He put down his notebook and looked up at me. “Are you ready for everything?”
“Probably not, but let’s go for it anyway.”
“We were right. Fiona Miller was the redhead with the red mustang. She’s a member of a drug syndicate that had been selling drugs to Bryan for years. A few months ago, he approached her with a plan to increase sales th
rough the hotel. He outlined a plan that would allow him to get close to the night manager at the resort. He told Fiona that the manager was resentful of the owner and wanted to get back at her, so the manager was jumping at the chance to help him. Fiona had doubts. She wouldn’t give him more drugs unless he could prove the buyers were real, so he seduced her instead. Fiona insisted that she thought he loved her until Laura found her and told her the truth. They confronted him at his house, and it got out of hand. She says Laura struck the fatal blow, but we’ll see what Laura has to say.”
“And Gina?”
He looked down at his notes and then away before meeting my eyes again. “She didn’t make it. John called in a wellness check when he heard Laura mention her. They found her dead from a gunshot to the chest.”
“Doesn’t seem worth it, does it?” Why didn’t I have coffee? I needed coffee.
“What?” He looked up at me in confusion, and his gaze held me still.
“She loved him. I’m guessing she never stopped. That’s what made Laura such an easy target. She wanted the love story she didn’t get the first time. Doesn’t really seem worth it.” Jaded, party of one. But it was true. Love left you vulnerable. It left you open to hurt. The kind of hurt that caused two women to kill their lover in a fit of rage. The kind of hurt that made a person wake up to what they were missing and then watch it go back to the city.
“Hey! Don’t go blaming love for this.” Brecken reached over to put his hand on mine, making me look at him. “Fiona isn’t exactly innocent. We ran her prints. We already have three requests for extradition. This isn’t even the first time she’s been implicated in murder. And Laura had a history of mental illness. You’re right. She had never gotten over her crush in high school. Started seeing a therapist soon after. Her parents were livid when they found out she gave him a job, but she said she was over him, and this was her way to prove it to them. As the years passed, they started to believe her. I think seeing him cheating on her again was too much.”
“Wow.” That was a lot to take in. Especially with his hand on mine.
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