“I will soon.” Sophia was glad the couple’s horses carried them away quickly and left her with her serenity.
Once past them, Gypsy settled into her calm gait again.
“Good girl.” Sophia again patted Gypsy’s warm neck.
Sophia enjoyed breathing in the wet, cold air as she rode along the trail. Ahead, she heard motors revving. She saw two helmeted boys riding dirt bikes down a well-worn hill to the trail. As they approached, the revving got louder and Gypsy got nervous. The dirt bikes were on her bad side. They crisscrossed noisily down the hill and skimmed past each other, almost colliding.
“Whoa. Settle down, girl.” Sophia calmed Gypsy with her voice.
She guided Gypsy off the trail onto a rocky area dotted with trees to get away from the bikes. It was a mistake. Each branch that touched Gypsy’s haunches made her side step away into more branches opposite as her hooves slid on the loose rocks.
Sophia quickly went back to the trail, just past the boys and their noisy dirt bikes. She saw the creek up ahead and trotted toward it.
The sky suddenly became grayer. She pulled her reins back and Gypsy settled into a quick but steady walk. The two had spoken enough body language to understand each other. Sophia felt at one with her.
She took Gypsy gingerly over the creek. It was a trickle now, but wouldn’t be after the rains came. Then they approached a wide meadow thick with green grass. Sophia looked at the graying sky and then the long dirt trail through the meadow. She decided to ride on.
“Come on, Gypsy.” Sophia petted the horse’s neck once more, now hot and damp with sweat. “A little rain never hurt anyone.”
Sophia took Gypsy to a canter by squeezing her legs into her sides.
Gypsy bolted at the freedom and her desire to run.
“Settle down.”
Sophia held her back gently at first, and then more forcefully with the bridle fighting at the mouth of the excited horse. It was controlled combat.
Sophia prevailed, and Gypsy smoothly cantered across the meadow as the cold wind hit Sophia’s face and whipped her hair around her neck. She felt the pre-rain moisture fill her lungs. She was happy and forgot all her problems at that moment, except the irritating short stirrup. She adjusted her seat in the saddle and her balance to accommodate it.
In the wooded area after the meadow, the trail narrowed with scattered gravel and large rocks along the side
“Whoa.” Sophia pulled Gypsy down to a trot and then a walk.
Gypsy protested by shaking her head in an excited volley up and down, splattering frothy spit from her mouth back onto Sophia.
“Hold on,” Sophia laughed.
The sky was darkening, and became more heavily overcast. Sophia knew the rain would hit soon, but didn’t care. The reins felt good in her hands. She was happy in the saddle, happier than she had been since she sold Taffy.
⌘
Chapter 96
The Left Stirrup
Sophia was at peace riding alone in the cool fall air. The wind was rustling through the leaves and the trees reached up cathedral-like into sky. It made Sophia recall the reverent smallness she felt every Sunday as a girl when her family attended the gold-gilded St. Sophia Greek Orthodox Cathedral. The Greek choir was world-renowned and she felt special because her mother always told her the Cathedral was named after her. And Sophia had actually believed it for a time.
“Good girl.” Sophia leaned over and stroked the prancing mare on her sweaty neck to calm her down from the canter across the meadow.
Even with the cool wind whipping her, Sophia was warm from excitement and the canter. However, she was getting more annoyed at the uneven stirrups and the lazy stable hand. She looked for a place to adjust it before she took Gypsy to a canter again. It was at least a notch too short.
Around the next bend, she saw a turnout just up the trail. It was rock-studded and strewn with leaves and small broken branches, but large enough.
“Come on,” Sophia urged Gypsy.
Thunder began sounding in the distance as they walked into the turnout. The sky churned grayer with the storm and night was setting in. A few scattered raindrops fell on the dirt path as they stopped.
“Whoa, girl.”
Sophia lifted her knee forward and rested her leg up over the saddle’s pommel. She wrapped the reins firmly around the horn and leaned down to lift the short left stirrup and adjust its buckle underneath. As she did, she smelled the delicious mixture of horse and leather.
Hanging, head down, Sophia grabbed the stirrup. As she started to lift it, she heard crunching leaves in the meadow she had crossed. Someone was approaching fast.
Gypsy’s ears perked and turned. She stiffened and snorted as she fought to loosen the reins looped around the horn. She wanted to take her head and run from the noise.
“Whoa. Whoa, Gypsy.” Sophia tried to get back up.
As Sophia struggled, she glanced back. She saw a cyclist peddle from the meadow up the dirt trail, kicking up dust. He was tall, dressed in black, with a ski mask over his face. He raced up the dirt trail easily, as if the bicycle was on hard asphalt.
Gypsy began to prance nervously. Sophia dropped the unadjusted stirrup, moved her leg down off the pommel, and grabbed for the saddle horn to get up. Just as her hand touched the pommel, the cyclist swerved off the trail, swinging a long stick.
Gypsy lurched to the right and fought with her head wildly to loosen the reins wrapped around the horn. Sophia’s grab for the horn failed. She plummeted down, head first, grasping at the side of the saddle and then the air to break her fall.
Gypsy snapped the reins loose from the saddle horn and when Sophia’s shoulder hit Gypsy’s flank, Gypsy bolted.
Fear gripped Sophia and her every muscle braced for impact into the rocky ground below. Then a deep pain shot through her right hip and ankle. Her foot was caught in the right stirrup. She frantically twisted her ankle to release it. It didn’t budge. She prepared to be dragged and pummeled by Gypsy’s hooves. Then the stirrup mercifully released Sophia’s foot, and she dropped head first to the rocky ground.
She hit hard.
Sophia’s head landed on a large rock as her left arm found the ground and then gave way with a crack. Her head burst into pain and the rest of her landed with a thud, her rib cage snapping like popcorn. Sophia couldn’t catch her breath and couldn’t move. She was dizzy, disoriented, and unable to think.
On the ground through blurred vision, she saw the cyclist had stopped further up the path. Gypsy galloped past him with her head high and her tail up in alert. The cyclist threw a long object into the trees.
“Help.” Sophia gasped weakly, struggling for breath as thunder rolled above her.
The cyclist watched her.
“Help.” Sophia mouthed between strained shallow breaths.
The cyclist removed his head guard and then his ski mask. As the lightning lit the darkening sky over him, he turned his head to look up and down the path. Sophia saw a hazy but distinct profile. Roger? But no, she thought, he couldn’t have gotten here from his golf foursome that quickly. Nonetheless, in pain and a little afraid, she didn’t call out again.
Sophia lay still and quiet. Her head hurt with sharp excruciating pain, pain that raced through her neck and down into her shoulders. With every breath, her ribcage ached. Sophia knew she was in trouble. At the very least, she knew she had broken her collarbone, snapped her left arm, and cracked some ribs. Her foot that had twisted in the stirrup along with her knee and hip were all throbbing.
As Sophia lay helpless, it started to rain. She felt warm blood flow down across her face and tasted it in her mouth. Vomit started to well in her throat, but she swallowed hard. She couldn’t move, so she couldn’t afford to vomit.
Her heart sank when the bicyclist slowly pedaled towards her. She hoped he hadn’t heard her pleas for help. If he had, she knew he would finish the job.
Sophia shut her eyes slowly, narrowing them to a slit so she could just barely
see through her eyelashes. She was defenseless against this man, this probable murderer. She decided the only way not to be dead was to play dead, much as she had when playing cowboys and Indians as a child.
The bicyclist stopped near Sophia and got off his bike.
“Sophia?” He called in his distinctive raspy voice. “Sophia. Are you all right?”
She knew now that it was indeed Roger. He had purposefully hit Gypsy with whatever he threw away. And she would soon be dead if he thought she was still alive. She didn’t move. She held her breath and shut her eyes. She lay still with her body in agony from her torn up ankle to her battered head.
“Sophia?”
Roger leaned closer and waited. She was afraid he could sense her terror. Sophia heard him remove his glove. She felt him test for a pulse near her Omega watch on her shattered left arm. His small touch shot pain though the arm. Her head filled with cottony dizziness and she started to see black. The sound of revving dirt bikes approaching made Roger release her wrist.
“Leave now,” Sophia screamed silently in her whirling head. “I have to take a breath. I have to breathe. Oh, God, I have to breathe.”
She heard Roger putting his glove and headgear back on.
“Hurry,” Sophia yelled in the silence of her mind.
As she heard Roger’s bike depart over crunching leaves not yet wet, she was confident she had fooled him. Thunder mercifully rolled nearby and she gasped for air and yelped with pain. Her cracked ribs tortured her relief. She squinted her eyes open and saw Roger ride through the trees toward the resort. He had not heard her gasp for air or yelp with pain.
The dirt bikes raced by not ten feet from Sophia but did not stop. She heard them fade into the distance. She wished she had stopped on the main trail.
* * *
Sophia laid still in silence. She began to shake and her skin broke into a cold sweat. Thunder sounded again, even nearer. There were more scattered raindrops.
She thought back to her friend who was dragged by his horse and died on that stormy Sunday alone. Sophia was afraid. She wondered how long her friend had lain there hoping for help. She wondered if she had sealed her own fate by telling Roger about her friend’s death at that fateful San Francisco dinner with Roger and Frank. She wished she had listened to Detective Rutger, to Steve, and had not come on the retreat.
Salty tears slid from Sophia’s eyes and trickled together with the fresh rain and blood down her temples to the wet ground.
⌘
Chapter 97
Left Lying
Sophia fought to stay conscious, but was losing the battle. Her thoughts were muddled and her head splitting with pain. She struggled to think, but a haze of fear overwhelmed her and her eyes welled with tears.
She knew her cell phone was in her back jeans pocket, turned off. She tried to get to it using her one good arm while the other lay limp and shattered. As she did she began to lose consciousness from the overwhelming pain shooting through her body, from her neck and shoulders down through her hip and ankle.
“Oh, God.” Sophia lay still again.
As darkness came, the wet and cold penetrated every part of Sophia’s body. She knew her only chance at survival was rescue. She hoped Gypsy had kept running all the way back to the stable and had not stopped to eat grass or take shelter from the storm under a tree. She also prayed that the stable hand was not too beered-up to realize that Sophia had not returned with Gypsy. She hoped Tricia or Paul would miss her at the cocktail party or, at least, by dinner. By now, she had no expectation that Taylor would.
* * *
The rain fell hard as Sophia went through the best- and worst-case scenarios. A birch branch with yellowed leaves protected her at first from the drops, but once saturated it deluged streams of funneled rain water down onto her. Her tears and blood mingled with the pouring rain.
As Sophia got colder and colder, her pain subsided more and more. She knew that was not good; she was simply slowly sinking into hypothermia. However, with the freezing cold “medicating” her pain away, Sophia decided to go for her cell phone again. Now was the time, possibly her last window of opportunity before the puddling rain fried it.
Sophia took a deep breath and shifted to get the phone out from under her hip.
“Ahhhh!” The pain from her ribs made her scream in agony.
Sophia stopped and then shifted again. She fought through the deep piercing pain all over her body as her right hand reached and got a tenuous grip on her cell phone. She gently pinched the phone from her pocket, but, as she lifted it out, another blinding bolt of pain shot through her neck.
She lost consciousness. Her cell phone lay in the mud and rain, and so did Sophia.
The thunder rolls and claps, now directly above her, were loud, but she didn’t stir from her unconsciousness. The sky, dark from the storm, was blacker yet with nightfall. Yellow leaves falling with the weight of the rain blanketed Sophia. The cold froze her toes and fingers, then her feet and hands, and began to creep up her arms and legs.
⌘
Chapter 98
Time
When Detective Rutger landed at LAX from San Francisco, he deplaned and ran to get his unmarked L.A.P.D. detective’s car. He had driven it there because it was police business. He never brought his baby, the vintage ’64 Corvette, to the airport parking lots. He’d shuttle or cab it if he had to. He was glad he had parked in the expensive close lot, whether or not the city would pay for all of it. He knew he had to get to Sophia. He had called her repeatedly on the flight, but the calls had gone straight to voice mail. He left messages and texts warning her to stay clear of Roger and to call him back. She hadn’t.
The detective got to his car, threw his things in the shotgun seat, and headed straight to Ojai.
As he sped north on the 405 freeway through town, the rain started and then fell in sheets as he headed straight into the storm. He drove too fast through the rain and the dark, but he had no choice.
On the open road, he dug for his cell phone in the seat next to him, knocking off his overcoat and his battered briefcase full of the evidence he had found in San Francisco. He dialed Sophia over and over, but his calls still went to voice mail again and again.
“Damn.”
He squinted into the night and pushed his foot onto the gas and his hand on his horn. His car was not equipped with either lights or a siren. Besides, anything less than a squad car with blaring red lights and a siren couldn’t move these storm-inhibited drivers over quickly enough for him.
“Get the hell out of my way,” he spit at the red taillights slowing him down.
In San Francisco, the detective had found the missing pieces. In his briefcase on the car floor was a statement from the Westin doorman who had been out on sick leave and overlooked in the S.F.P.D. investigation. The doorman had seen Frank and Roger arguing with each other walking towards the intersection. The detective also had pictures from the red light camera at the intersection. The frames were granular, but sufficient to show Roger’s hand on Frank’s back before being obscured by the shifting crowd.
Rutger knew Sophia was in danger.
* * *
By the time he got to Ojai, Tricia and Paul, but not Taylor, were already looking for Sophia. She was not at the cocktail party and not answering her phone. They were at the lobby desk interrogating the manager who had called the stable and gotten no answer. He was now on hold waiting to see if Sophia had returned her golf cart.
“It’ll be faster to drive over there.” Paul reached for his room key to get his car from the valet. “I’ll get the Jag. You get directions and . . .”
“Wait! There’s Detective Rutger.” Tricia pointed.
“Get the directions.” Paul rushed outside where the detective was getting out of his car under the overhang.
Tricia got a map to the stables, courtesy mini-umbrellas, and joined them by the detective’s car.
“Her cart never came back from the stables,” Tricia blurted.
“Let’s go,” the detective said. “Get in. Fast.”
The detective hopped back in the driver’s seat and threw his things in the back seat. Paul took shotgun and Tricia got in the back seat. They headed for the stables through the storm. She knew Jay was still in their room recovering from the day’s golf and wouldn’t miss her—at least until dinner.
On the road the detective filled them in about Roger and his role in Frank’s death.
* * *
“There it is. That’s got to be it.” Tricia pointed from the back seat. “There’s the barn. And there’s her cart by the fence right there.”
Detective Rutger drove through the gates and past the high stack of hay bales topped with a rain-drenched black tarp. The expanse was intermittently but poorly lit by single bulbs nailed on tall weathered posts along the corrals, the barn, and other buildings at places where electricity was easily accessible. The bulbs radiated out a short distance, creating circles of light illuminated with raindrops. Beyond and below the bulbs, the light formed eerie shadows, with trees and ranch paraphernalia strewn about.
“I see a porch light over there.” Paul pointed to the small red house trimmed in white to the left. “And there’s light in the windows.”
The detective parked the car near the large covered porch.
“Come on. Tricia, use my coat.”
Detective Rutger jumped out of the car into the mud and pouring rain. Tricia put on his overcoat, grabbed the three resort umbrellas, and followed with Paul. She was glad she had worn low heels with her evening ensemble.
They walked by the ragged upholstered easy chairs on the porch and a pile of now empty beer bottles.
“Anyone here?” The detective waited and then slowly opened the unlocked door. “Anyone home? We’re looking for someone.”
Lethal Lawyers Page 36