by Tegan Maher
“Erol’s a friend of ours,” Bobbie Sue said. Good thing one of us could think on our feet. Or without sticking our feet in our mouths.
I told the story as we wandered up the yard to the house, where we opened up a couple bottles of wine and started the evening.
By the time everybody left, I was exhausted. Hunter came up behind me and rested his chin on my head as I waved goodbye to Shelby and Emma, who were staying at Camille’s that night. “Are you as tired as I am?”
“At least,” I said, turning around and wrapping my arms around his waist.
I was asleep before my head hit the pillow.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
I WOKE TO THE SUN JUST starting to peek through my window the next morning, and when I reached for Hunter, his side of the bed was cold. I hoped that meant there was already coffee made.
Putting my nose in the air, I sniffed as I padded toward the bathroom, then scowled. Nuttin. Nada. No caffeine-scented air whatsoever. I took care of business and brushed my teeth, then plunked down the stairs to the kitchen. There was coffee in the pot, but it was lukewarm.
I shrugged, reaching for my cup and yawning. I was a witch. If the worst thing life was gonna throw at me that day was lukewarm coffee, I had the world by the tail.
After I heated up the coffee and drank it, of course.
Once I had a hot cup of caffeine in my hand, I headed toward the front door, starting to wonder where Hunter had gone. I couldn't imagine that he would have left without leaving a note, but my truck was gone. I looked around, but didn't see a soul. Something strange caught my eye—Gabi's trailer was still there.
She should have left before dawn in order to be to the show on time, considering it took almost two hours just to get to the show grounds. She'd been running on little sleep due to picking up extra hours, and when you threw the stress from the murder on top of it, it was likely she'd overslept.
I went back upstairs to her bedroom to wake her up, dreading her disappointment; she'd been so excited, and there wasn't another one for more than a month.
When I got to the top of the stairs, I was surprised to find her door ajar. She always slept with it closed. I pushed it the rest of the way open. Her bed was rumpled and when I took a peek into her closet, her show boots, chaps, and hat were gone.
Scrunching my forehead, I tried to reach out to her with my mind, but got nothing. I tried Shelby.
Knock, knock, I thought to her as I headed back downstairs and out the door.
It took a minute for her to answer, and when she did, I could tell I woke her up.
What do you want? What time is it?
Have you talked to Gabi?
Why would I talk to Gabi? I'm at Emma's.
I know. Her truck and trailer are here, but her show stuff's gone. Can you try to feel her?
Shelby's telepathy had grown at least as strong as my own and though it was a longshot, I was worried.
Sure, she said with a definite lack of enthusiasm, then a few seconds later, I’m not getting anything from her.
I'd made it to the barn by then, and the tail end of a green truck bed caught my eye. I peeked around the corner, and the mystery truck we'd been searching for was parked where Matt's truck usually sat.
Shel, there's something not—
The clank of metal smashing into the back of my head was the last thing I heard before everything faded to black.
SHELBY'S VOICE YELLING at me in my pounding head was like fingernails on a chalkboard.
Noelle Elizabeth! Answer me right now!
I groaned against the mental assault.
I'm here.
What the hell's going on? You were talking, then just cut off mid-sentence. It's been ten minutes. We're on our way but there was a wreck halfway there blocking the road. We had to turn around and take some back roads.
I opened my eyes and took stock of my surroundings. I was crumpled in the middle stall of Gabi's trailer, my face half-buried in sawdust and my arms tied behind me. My feet were tied together.
My foggy brain tripped to the vision of Marcus's face buried in horse poop and a hysterical giggle bubbled to the surface that I'd at least been lucky enough to avoid that.
Gabi was lying toward the back of the trailer, unconscious and tied up the same way I was. The thump of hooves a few feet behind me startled me, and I rolled over to see Mayhem's legs in the front stall. He was pawing and shifting his weight, causing the trailer to rock.
My head was clearing and my head thwacked hard against the floor of the trailer as we hit a bump; we were moving.
I explained my predicament to Shelby.
Get up. Look outside. See if you recognize anything. Her voice was laced with panic.
I managed to sit up, then tried to roll to my knees, but another bump sent me back to the floor. A wave of nausea hit me and I breathed through my nose, trying not to throw up.
When it passed, I scooched backward and put my back to the wall, then used my legs to push me up it. At least the front stall separator was locked into place, running from one side of the trailer to the other, because I could stabilize myself by leaning against it. The other was locked back against the wall, leaving the space between me and Gabi open.
I glanced out the window.
Trees. We're on a back road because it's bumpy. I don't see any buildings, I thought to her as another pothole nearly sent me to my knees again.
Keep looking. Cody knows every back road in twenty miles. If you can see a landmark, he may recognize it. And for God's sake, leave our link open.
Okay.
Gabi stirred and I spoke to her.
"Gabi, wake up."
She groaned and cracked an eye open, then blinked a few times.
"What's going on?" she asked, fear lacing her voice as her senses came back.
"You know as much as I do. What happened to you?"
She struggled to a seated position and pushed herself back so she could lean against the wall. She had a nasty bruise forming on her forehead.
"I was pulling Mayhem out of his stall to brush him down before we left," she said. "It was still dark. The last thing I remember is somebody grabbing me from behind, and jabbing a needle in my neck."
"Well at least you got a needle. I got a shovel." I turned the back of my head to her.
"Noelle, that doesn't look good. Your hair's matted with blood and it still looks oozy."
"Yeah, I don't feel so great either." Another wave of nausea made me gag. "Try to get up."
I glanced out the window again and saw an old barn with the Mail Pouch logo painted in faded yellow letters on the side. I called to Shelby and told her.
She answered after a few seconds. Is it in an open field or sitting in front of a big stand of trees? Rail fence? Logo on the roof, or on the side?
Open field. I moved closer to the window to look at the fence. Barbed-wire fence, logo on the side.
Another few seconds, then, Okay, we know where you are, we think. We're headed your way, but you have at least a half-hour on us. Just hold on.
Yeah, okay. Hurry.
The nausea was getting worse and I was getting light-headed. I sank back to the floor.
"Shelby's on her way," I said, not sure what else to do to get us out of our predicament.
"Can't you just magic us loose?" she asked.
I focused on the ropes binding my feet, but I almost hurled when I tried to untie them. "No," I muttered. "My brains are too scrambled."
I started to pass out, but Gabi snapped my name, kicking me in the leg when that didn't work. "Don't you dare go to sleep," she said. "You stay with me, you hear?"
Even nodding made my world spin. "I hear you." At that point, hearing and obeying were two different things, though.
She kept up a steady stream of chatter for the next fifteen minutes, when the trailer slowed and turned onto what must have been an old driveway or access road. The grass brushing the underside of the trailer made a soothing whooshing noise and my
mind drifted despite Gabi's voice.
Another bump jarred me back to consciousness, then the trailer lurched to a stop. Mayhem stomped and moved around in his confined space, agitated.
Another vehicle shut off behind us and I heard the doors of both open and shut. Voices sounded from outside the trailer—a man and a woman. I didn't recognize either one.
The back doors swung open, and the girl who looked like Gabi poked her face in. "Well lookie who's awake."
CHAPTER FORTY
I SQUINTED TO SEE HER. Up close, she didn't look anything like Gabi, other than her size and hair color. In a passing vehicle, though, I could see where people would make that mistake.
"Clara Thomas," I said.
That startled her. "How'd you know that?"
"You may look like me, but you sure don't have my brains," Gabi said. "Her boyfriend's Hunter Woods, Keyhole Lake's sheriff."
Clara took a deep breath, then blew it out, irritated. "I know that. But nobody from our department gave him that information."
Gabi lifted on shoulder. "Maybe not, but our department isn't crooked, and Hunter had the good sense to double check."
Though at that point, I wasn't sure what good that would do him.
The man yanked the other door open. "Our department's straight as an arrow," he said. "Well, mostly. I'm the only one who fed your man bad information."
"The upstanding Sheriff Custer, I presume?" I tried for sarcasm, but considering I was trying to keep my stomach from turning inside out, I'm pretty sure I missed the mark.
He jerked his head in a sharp nod.
"But why?" I asked.
"Money," Clara said.
"Karma," Custer said at the same time, then scowled at her.
Gabi cocked a brow. "You better be careful slingin' that K-word around. Looks to me like you're losing some serious points in that arena."
"Marcus Sturgess was a worthless womanizer. He had more than most of us ever dream of," Clara reached in and grabbed Gabi by the shirt. "He promised me the moon," she said, as she pulled a struggling Gabi toward her.
"And gave her the back of his hand," Custer said. "Clara told me about the note he found in your stuff at the ranch."
So that's how Marcus had gotten it; he'd gone through her things before she picked them up.
"You're not exactly one of my favorite people. My boy was kicked off the football team just for bein' a typical kid when you called the law on him."
"Typical kids don't destroy property and throw rocks at horses," Gabi said as Clara jerked her out of the trailer. She landed in a heap in the grass, but rolled quickly to her knees.
Custer curled his lip at her. "And you wonder why I didn't mind you takin' the fall for the murder. My little sister here"—he jerked his head toward Clara"—"was so convinced he was gonna keep her in style that I'd had it. I couldn't talk her out of it, then when I saw him with another woman, that was the final straw."
He reached in for me and any token struggle I tried to put up failed miserably. My vision was tinged black around the edges and I was struggling to stay awake.
"I didn't plan it that way, though. I was just gonna follow him, and snatch him when I could catch him alone. When he pulled up to that farm and I recognized the truck, though ... I couldn't resist the two-fer."
"What was he doin' at the farm, anyway?" Gabi asked.
"He was gonna steal your trailer and tear it apart to find whatever the old lady left you. The creditors were about to start breakin' bones," Clara said. "He was already hitched when we pulled up."
I managed an eye roll, but regretted it because my stomach rolled right along with them. "He wouldn't have found anything, I said. "He hooked to my trailer, not hers."
Clara snorted. "Why doesn't that surprise me? He paid so little attention to that farm of his mama's he didn't know what the trailers looked like."
Gabi shrugged a shoulder. "They're similar, but no. He was clueless."
Clara's gaze shot to Gabi. "You found the treasure!"
"No," Gabi said, "I didn't. I have no idea what she was talking about."
The other girl studied her for a minute, apparently trying to decide if she was telling the truth. She shook her head and focused on pushing Gabi toward an old, crumbling outbuilding.
"So what," I said after he steadied me on my feet. "You just killed him and left him there?"
"Yep," Custer said. "I watched him go through the trailer, hopin' he'd find something, and waiting to make sure there wasn't anybody home."
He pushed me toward an old outbuilding.
"When he started hitchin' up the trailer, I knew he didn't find anything, so I went in the barn and grabbed the first thing I saw—the spurs hangin' on a peg beside a stall." He shrugged. "He was such a pretty boy, he wasn't even a challenge. It was over in five minutes. I drug him to the back stall and shoved him in." He smiled. "When he landed in that horse pile, I figured it was fitting."
"My only question, though, is how you knew about my truck," Clara said. "Big brother used it because his was in the shop. Dirk's been driving it since I got mama's car when she passed."
"Yeah," Custer said. "If it weren't for that, you wouldn't be here right now. We didn't even know you were home this morning. Our plan was to sneak into the house and drug her while everybody was asleep—nobody around here locks doors—then get rid of her, and tear the trailer apart ourselves when we could. When we found her loadin' the horse up and saw your truck was gone, it was the perfect scenario." He shoved me to the floor and I ground my teeth together to keep from crying out.
“By the way,” Gabi said to me, “Hunter and Matt decided to go fishing. I was supposed to put a note on the whiteboard. Though I don’t reckon it matters much now.”
My sluggish brain was sure hearing her say that right then should have been funny, but I couldn’t figure out why.
"I drugged her and tossed her in the trailer," he continued, "and we were just gettin' ready to leave when you came out of the house. So, how did you know about the truck?"
I blinked, trying to focus my swimming vision. "My donkey saw you."
I could barely see their faces in the darkness of the shed as they picked up gas cans and dumped them out over everything.
She tilted her head. "Your donkey?"
A sight for sore eyes—literally—popped into view right then. Addy shouted at them, but Clara just laughed. "That ain't gonna work, old woman," she said. "Our mom's been hangin' around naggin' us for five years. You ain't got nothin' other than a big mouth."
Addy grinned, and it was evil. "I ain't, but they do." She motioned toward the door with her head.
I could see shadows in front of the door, and then they were sucked outward off the hinges. Daylight filled the room, filtering sunshine through the dust motes.
Shelby had her hands held out in front of her, and a gust of wind blew through the shed. Her hair spread out around her and her eyes were icy green. The expression on her face was lethal. She jerked her hands toward her, and Custer shot backwards toward her. She slung her hand down and toward her left, slamming him into a heap several feet away at the base of a tree.
Camille appeared at her side and made a twisting motion with her hands and roots shot from the ground beneath him, wrapping around his whole body. Clara was next.
Shelby rushed to my side and checked my head, lifting my eyelid. "She's in bad shape, Addy. We gotta get her to a hospital."
When she turned to mutter a spell toward the ropes on my feet, I saw the angel-wings mark on her shoulder, glowing golden through her t-shirt.
"Addy, Camille, look." Addy swooped over, and Camille sucked in a breath.
Shelby'd gotten that mark when she was touched by an angel several months before. The angel had said she was meant for great things, and warned her to use it for good.
"What?" she said, twisting around to see what they were talking about. Camille had pulled out her phone and snapped a picture.
When Shelby saw it, she
just shrugged. "I can't explain it, but if it helped me save them, then I'm thankful."
EPILOGUE
I SPENT THE NEXT SEVERAL hours in the hospital, and they insisted on keeping me overnight, only releasing me when I promised to take it easy for the next few days. It wasn't a hard promise to keep, because I felt like I'd been hit with a Mac truck.
Max kept me company and was nice most of the time. We played porch chess on the giant board I'd had made just for him, but he didn't go so far as to let me win.
Gabi and I went through the trailer, finding nothing. We'd given it up and I was shutting the door to the dressing room when the sun glinted off the silver browband of a show bridle. It had a larger heart in the middle, and smaller ones up the V-shaped leather on either side.
I stepped back inside and took the halter of the hook. Behind it was a small door.
"Gabi," I called. "C'mere!"
She stepped into the dressing room and I showed it to her. She pulled the little leather tab at the top of rectangular cutout, and the front fell away, revealing a cubby. There as a small lock-box in there, and when she pulled it out, there was a combination lock on the front of it. Three double-digit numbers.
She bit her lip and looked at me, her hands shaking as she rolled each number to match the tattoo on Mayhem's lip. When she slid the latches, the top clicked open, and inside, on a bed of black velvet, laid a golden horse pendant on a slender chain.
Gabi looped her fingers through the chain and pulled the necklace from the box, the sun glinting off the horse, giving it a near-magical look as it spun on the chain. Tears were running down her cheeks.
"What is it?" I asked. "Besides a necklace, I mean?"
She lowered the chain and caught the pendent in her palm so I could see it. The horse was running, with its mane and tail flowing behind it.
She wiped her eye on her sleeve. "Sylvia never took this off. It's been handed down from mother to daughter in her family for six generations."
"And now she's handed it down to the woman she considered her own daughter," I said softly, putting my arm around her shoulder. She leaned into me.