by Meg Gardiner
The truck’s headlights swelled. The horse broke into full flight, with Jo hanging off its left side, one foot dragging on the ground. The horse was powerful, bunching and stretching, racing across the field. If she lost her grip on the saddle horn, she’d fall with her foot caught in the stirrup, and she’d be dragged. Her arms ached. Her hands were wet from the rain. The truck roared across the field.
She smelled leather and the strong, dusty scent of the horse and ozone from the lightning. With a shout, she hauled herself up and threw her upper body across the saddle. She thumped up and down. The horse was running, simply running from the truck alongside the barbed-wire fence.
The truck had not chased Autumn. It was coming after her.
It scattered the cattle and plowed across the field, bucking almost worse than the horse. The horse’s head bobbed as it galloped across the pasture. Jo jammed her foot securely in the stirrup and held on to the saddle horn and, teeth gritted, grabbed its mane. For a moment she bounced, out of synch. Then she found the rhythm. She got her balance in the stirrup and swung her right leg over the saddle.
She pressed her knees into the saddle and against the horse’s flanks. Behind her the headlights dipped and rose, like a boat on a crazy sea. The truck’s suspension crunched.
Fence posts raced along to her left. The night ahead swallowed the view. The headlights caught her, swung up, down, centered again.
Straight ahead, the fence made a ninety-degree turn to the right. It turned in a neat rectangular corner, like the land grant plot it probably had been back in Gold Rush days. Adrenaline flooded her system, scalp to fingers to toes. The horse was blowing. She bent to make herself as tight against it as she could. They raced across the ground, the horse’s mane hitting her in the face.
The headlights threw the horse’s shadow ahead of Jo, stretching toward the barbed wire, the wire now gleaming and rain slick in the lights.
Then the truck slowed and the lights veered away, to the right, sweeping an arc across the pasture and the night. Jo let out a cry.
The driver had seen the fence. He was anticipating that she would turn. And he was going to cut her off by turning first.
By turning inside her, he would put the driver’s window side-on to her. And by doing that, he would give himself a big, unobstructed field of fire. He had the rancher’s shotgun. And as an old hunter once told her, the best thing about a big shotgun was the margin of error.
She kicked the horse. She whipped it with the reins and screamed out loud, and she aimed straight at the fence.
34
Under the amber lights in Jo’s kitchen, Tang punched numbers on her phone. She said, “I need you to connect me to the Tuolumne County Sheriff’s Office.”
Tina paced like a frantic cat. Evan couldn’t get the young woman to slow down. She took up pacing with her.
Tang squinted out the French windows as, apparently, the call was connected. “This is Lieutenant Amy Tang of the San Francisco Police Department. I need to speak to the watch commander. It’s urgent.”
A moment later, she said, “Sergeant, I need you to check on a possible missing person.”
She laid out the basics quickly and aggressively. Evan could barely hear the Tuolumne County sergeant asking questions. From Tang’s face, he seemed to be asking the right questions.
“Dr. Beckett is investigating a murder. She hasn’t been seen since reporting from her foray on foot to the abandoned mine.” She gave him Jo’s last-known coordinates. “Thank you. I’ll be on this number.”
She hung up. “He’s on it.”
Tina finally stopped pacing. “What’s he going to do?”
“Send a deputy to the spot where Jo most likely parked.”
Tina tipped her head back. “Why couldn’t Jo have a quiet psychotherapy practice, like a normal shrink? Why does she have to put herself on the line?”
Tang said, “We’re doing everything we can.”
Tina nodded and caught her breath and put her hands to her eyes. “Okay.”
Tang glanced at Evan and nodded her into the living room. The cop moved with sharp economy. In black, with the elbows and spiky hair, she reminded Evan of a stealth fighter. Swift, quiet, giving nothing away.
She crossed her arms and faced the bay window. “Finding Jo is mission critical. But it’s not my only concern.”
“The issue isn’t only where Jo is. It’s where Ruby Kyle Ratner is,” Evan said.
“Right.” Tang stared out the window. In the low light, her reflection was a dark wisp, backlit in gold. “We need to presume he’s a factor in the death of Phelps Wylie. An active factor.”
“He killed him, you mean.”
“And he may be a continuing source of momentum and entropy.”
Evan eyed her. “You think there’s some game going on, and he’s an active player.”
“That’s my fear.”
“Mine too,” Evan said. “ ‘Punishment.’ That’s the term the carjacker used. And it didn’t sound like a spur-of-the-moment thing.”
“Think Wylie was murdered because of something he had going with Ratner? Personal? Business?”
“Maybe. Or because of something Wylie had going as part of . . . call it a larger concern.”
“Because there’s no record of Ratner being a client of Wylie’s.”
“None,” Evan said. “Wylie’s firm handles corporations, financial entities, venture capital and hedge fund clients, and high-networth individuals. That doesn’t fit Ratner, unless his mother’s cowboy figurines are rare collectibles.”
Tang thought for a moment. “We need to find out where he is.”
She gave Evan a tart look.
“Yeah, I figured as much,” Evan said. “We’re going back to Ma Ratner’s hoedown, aren’t we?”
“The operative word being we.”
“You’ll be armed. But you want me to ring the doorbell.”
Tina walked in. “Open the trunk.”
She pointed at the steamer trunk that served as a coffee table. Evan removed a stack of books and magazines and opened the lid. She nearly laughed in surprise.
“Thanks, but I think I’ll rely on my ability to jump into the bushes while Lt. Tang holds Ma Ratner at bay with her service weapon.”
“Think about it,” Tina said.
Inside the trunk, resting on a blue silk cloth, was a Japanese samurai sword. It was sheathed in a black lacquered scabbard that looked exceptionally old.
Tina walked over. “Tokugawa era. Our grandmother bequeathed it to Jo.”
“I have no doubt it would do the trick,” Evan said.
Evan wanted to say, Who is she? Who was Jo Beckett, who kept books on psychoanalytic diagnosis on her coffee table, beside her Outside magazines. Who had a katana within quick reach. And she decided that Tina’s words had a double meaning: Think about it. Think about Jo. Think about honor and about fighting all the way to the end.
On the mantel were framed family photos. One pictured Jo and Tina with a young man who had to be their brother. Another pictured a couple in their late fifties she took to be their parents. They had California tans and wore flip-flops and aloha shirts. The mom looked slightly more Asian than her kids. The dad looked slightly more Mediterranean. In another photo, Jo sat on a picnic bench, looking relaxed and sun splashed. Sitting beside her was a man in his early thirties, with strong looks and a grin that seemed both loving and watchful. He looked—Evan stared for a long, solid chunk of seconds—supremely fit. Deceptively relaxed. Cut from some sleek and polished brand of stone. He didn’t look proprietorial toward Jo, but there was no doubt they were together. Swimmer’s shoulders. That confidence. And something beneath the affable, “it’s cool, bro” smile.
“Is that Jo’s partner? The guy she’s with today?”
“Gabe Quintana,” Tina said.
Tang’s smoked-glass, mirrored gaze, which let her see out without letting others peer in, slipped for a moment. Her face registered a strong burst of emotion.
Tina’s expression thinned. “That’s the situation you think they’re in?”
Tang’s mask came back down. “If they are, Jo couldn’t be in better company.”
Evan held her counsel. The strength of feeling in the room could have registered on a Geiger counter.
Evan had her little sister, Georgie. And she had her brother, Brian, a naval aviator. She adored them. She would do anything for her family.
Tina’s fear was naked on her face. So was her sense of helplessness. The not knowing was unbearable. Evan understood that sensation too.
She closed the lid of the steamer trunk. “Anybody who cares for a sword so lovingly has my vote. Tina, you keep it close. The lieutenant and I will try to find out more information.”
Out the door, she and Tang jogged down the steps.
“You really think Gabe and Jo are all right?” Evan said.
“If they’re not, I’ll personally gut Ruby Kyle Ratner like a rotten fish.”
Evan gave her a look.
“Long story. But I owe them. Owe him. It’s complicated.”
“No, it’s not,” Evan said. “It’s friendship. That’s enough.”
She hoped it wasn’t life and death.
35
The horse pounded across the pasture at a hard gallop, a half-ton of muscle racing straight at the barbed-wire fence.
The headlights of the pickup truck spotlighted Jo’s path. Behind her the engine revved and dropped and the truck’s suspension squealed as it chased her. Cattle ran in all directions. A flickering white trail of light, of hope, of nightmare, stretched ahead of her. The fence loomed.
She’d jumped horses a couple times as a kid—over fallen logs. It was about balance. Staying centered over the horse. She could do this. Because, if she fell, she’d be roadkill. The truck would have no trouble crashing through the fence and running over her.
She urged the horse forward with her hands against its neck. “Go,” she shouted.
The horse bunched and launched itself into the air without breaking stride. Jo felt a huge shift in momentum, smooth and powerful and shocking, as the animal leapt, fearful and intent, into the air.
Don’t hit the barbs. Don’t fall. She saw the wire fly by beneath her.
She leaned back. The horse came down, its head stretching forward. She heard the truck shift gears, the engine lift. It was slowing.
The horse landed. It landed hard, its head dropping low.
Jo was gripping the reins tight. Too tight. As the horse’s head swung down, her hands jerked down with it.
Slingshot. She catapulted forward. The horse regained its balance and gathered itself to keep running. Jo hit its neck and lost her grip. Her feet came out of the stirrups.
The horse continued running and Jo felt herself slide sideways, catastrophically.
She told herself to hang on to the reins. If the horse got away she was toast. Adios.
“Ow—”
She pounded into the damp earth with a thud. The breath crashed out of her. She saw sparks.
But she held on to the reins. She slid along the ground over pinecones and rocks, shouting, “Whoa.”
The horse pulled up.
Back in the meadow, on the far side of the fence, the truck braked.
Jo slid to a stop at the edge of a ditch. It was an eroded gully where roots of fifty-foot pines had been washed out during a storm, and turned into an eight-foot-deep trench by rocks and runoff. The horse spun, uncontrollably spooked now.
If she hadn’t fallen, they would have run full speed into the gully.
The headlights veered, barely catching her now. She realized the driver had turned the truck at an angle to her.
And there was only one reason he would do that. He wanted an unobstructed view. Down the barrel of a shotgun.
She scrambled to her feet. Holding the reins, she got up to run. She was limping. She was muddy and bruised.
She looked back. It was a mistake. She saw the barrel of a long gun work its way out the window of the truck. And she and the horse made a huge target. The veritable side of a barn.
Her first impulse was to let go of the reins and slap the horse on the rump. The second, which shamed her, was to duck to the horse’s far side and use it as a shield.
That’s what she did and ran toward the trees.
The driver fired.
The roar of a shotgun is terrifying. It sends a shock through you, down to your bones, that says, Get the hell out of the way. Up close, it’s the blare of death.
He missed her, and the horse, but hit the trees. Wood flew; chips of bark. The horse whinnied, frantic. It tossed its head. The bridle clinked. She ran deeper into the trees, keeping the animal between her and the pickup. She heard the truck’s transmission grind. Heard the engine whine slowly. The headlights danced and their cones of light diminished. It was backing up.
Because the driver wanted to take a good, long run at the fence, to get up some speed before he bashed through it.
She pulled the horse to a stop, tried to get it to quit wheeling. She grabbed the stirrup and stuck her foot into it. She could barely get her leg up. Finally she pulled herself back into the saddle.
She paused, just for a second, pinned by the headlights. Yeah. Right here. Get a good, long look.
The truck revved.
She turned the horse, hands trembling. “Don’t dump me, boy.”
She kicked it toward the hills.
The truck roared and crashed through the fence. She heard the barbed wire twang as it tore, heard the fence posts rip from the ground and barbs scrape over the hood of the truck. The engine blared. It came straight at her.
She kicked the horse uphill and yelled, “Come on.”
The horse lunged up the hill, digging into the soft earth. The truck’s engine spun up. Its lights veered from side to side as its suspension rebounded from crashing through the fence. Come on. Ratner poured on the speed.
And ran straight into the gully.
The truck’s headlights dropped as if they’d been slapped down. Its grille smashed hard into the far side of the trench. Its back end lifted into the air, carried by momentum, and smacked back down again. The engine continued roaring.
The horse kept lunging up the hill. Jo held on. Branches swept across her face and shoulders, cold, glistening with raindrops. They scratched her neck and left the sharp smell of pine resin in her hair.
She urged the horse onward, waiting for the roar of the shotgun. One more glance behind. Down the hill, the truck’s headlights were dimmed brown by swirling dust and steam from the busted radiator.
The door of the truck creaked open.
After that, she didn’t look back.
36
The horse was blowing hard, and lathered like soap. Jo crested the ridge where, an hour earlier, she had climbed out of the gorge. She heard, beneath the wind and downpour, the rushing of the river at the bottom. She nudged the horse through the trees, staying low against its neck. She knew she’d outpaced Kyle, knew she was out of range of the shotgun—but only for the moment. He was coming.
Thunder banged from the night sky, and the rain finally let loose. It poured down, rattling through the trees, soaking her. Her hair flattened and stuck to her head in strings. The hill steepened. She nudged the horse.
Despite its fatigue, it faithfully responded. She patted its neck. After all this, she couldn’t keep calling it Horse.
“Faithful,” she said. “That’s you.”
The rock came out of the darkness. It just appeared in midair, flung hard, and hit her in the forehead.
Pyrotechnics flashed in her field of vision, electric red and yellow against the night. The pain echoed through her head, dull but shocking.
She was barely aware that somebody had jumped out on the trail ahead of her. A shrill voice cried, “Stop. Stop,
horse.”
The horse dug its feet into the soft ground and hauled up. Jo grabbed for the horse’s mane even as her butt headed sideways and south.
She hit the dirt and heard a girl’s voice. “Crap.”
Jo looked up, her eyesight pulsing with light, and saw Autumn’s sleek riding boots gleaming in the rain. The girl was trying to mount the circling horse. It was an awkward jittery dance, Autumn hopping on one foot as the horse pivoted away from her.
Jo couldn’t believe it. “You’re horse-jacking me?”
“No. I goofed.” Autumn got one foot in the stirrup and held on to the saddle horn. The horse kept circling. “Get on.”
Head throbbing, Jo bumbled to her feet. “Don’t you dare leave me.”
Steadying herself, Jo cautiously, reassuringly, raised her hands to the horse and said, “Whoa.”
Like magic, the animal stopped spinning. It tossed its head and blew out its nostrils and stood still.
Jo grabbed the reins. She couldn’t keep the outrage from her voice. “Why did you throw a rock at me?”
“I thought you were him.” Autumn grunted and pulled herself awkwardly into the saddle. “Hurry.”
Jo pushed Autumn’s foot from the stirrup, painfully lifted her own boot in, and struggled her way into the saddle behind the girl.
“I’m not him. And you’re lucky.” Squashed behind Autumn, she swung both arms around the girl. “He’s coming. We have to get back to the Hummer and get everybody out of there.”
Autumn was breathing heavily. The altitude and the run through the forest were taking a toll. Jo clucked Faithful into a walk.
“If I’d known it was you I wouldn’t have thrown the rock,” Autumn said.
Jo’s head throbbed. “Okay.”
“I thought it was me or him. Better safe than sorry.”
Autumn’s voice had a thread-line crack in it. She twisted and looked behind them. Nothing was visible in the darkness.
“Where is he?” she said.
“Coming.”
Jo nudged the horse in the ribs. Faithful broke into a trot.
“I seriously didn’t mean to hit you with the rock. It’s . . . I was taught . . .”