by Valerie Tate
Alex and Jake went for the money the next morning. Parker met them at the farm with the trackers and the plan was put into action.
“It’s just like a heist movie,” Alicia said as they packed the packets of bills into a duffel bag, but reality set in when Chris and Jake climbed into the truck, shotgun in hand. Alex had wanted to go with Parker in the police car but had to be satisfied with his assurance that they would keep in touch by phone. The three women watched from the verandah as the men drove off.
Concession Seven stretched ahead of them, a ribbon of heat shimmering in the morning sun. Pools of shade from trees that lined the road provided some relief from the glare as they searched for the Patterson mailbox.
“That’s it,” Jake said, pointing to a box just ahead on the left. “The hollow stump is on the other side of the drive.”
Chris slowed to a crawl as they surveyed the area ahead. No cars, no people in sight. Nothing moving.
“You can see why he picked this spot,” Jake went on, shifting the shotgun as he looked around. “Completely flat in all directions. No place for police surveillance.”
“Makes you wonder where he is. How will he know we’ve made the drop?”
“Perhaps he’s having coffee with the Pattersons, watching us from the window,” Jake quipped.
Both men peered at the weather-beaten farmhouse at the end of the driveway. No sign of life there either.
Chris pulled the truck up onto the gravel shoulder beside the stump, opened the window and stuffed the duffel bag in the dark hollow interior. Not surprisingly, no one appeared to take it. As much as he hated to do it, he then rolled up the window and pulled back onto the road and drove away.
“Well that was anti-climactic.” Jake said, feeling rather foolish and wondering why he had felt he needed the shotgun.
“Just what I was thinking,” Chris agreed. “Let’s hope the tracker works. Call Alex and let them know we’re going to meet Parker.”
Jake placed the call. “Hi, Babe.”
Alex jumped on the phone when it rang. “Yes?... And you’re both okay? Good. Call again when you get there. And Jake, don’t call me ‘babe’.” She turned to the others, “They’re both fine. They made the drop. Didn’t see a soul. Now they’re on their way to where Parker is waiting.”
Relief that they were safe gave way to surprise and curiosity. Alicia looked at her friend, “Okay, what gives?”
Alex wouldn’t meet her eyes. “What do you mean?”
“ ‘Don’t call me babe.’?”
“I don’t like being called babe or baby. You know that.”
“I do. But Jake calls you that all the time and you have never said anything. Why now?”
The brave, confident facade crumbled. “‘Gorgeous girl,’” she quoted softly.
“What?”
“Gorgeous girl. That’s what he said about Claire. Gorgeous girl.”
Alicia was about to snort derisively at the beautiful, talented, successful Alex being undone by an off-hand comment but remembered a time not that long ago when she had felt just as insecure and said merely, “Jake is crazy about you. Anyone can see that. You have nothing to worry about. When we have them back, you need to talk to him about it. Right now, all that matters, is their safety.”
Julie looked sadly at her daughter. For a girl who had everything, she had a surprising lack of self-confidence when it came to men. Money could be a mixed blessing, she thought.
“I always call her ‘babe’,” Jake said, looking at the phone as if it was somehow responsible for the unexpected comment.
Chris shrugged. “It seems she doesn’t like it.”
It would take a few minutes to get where Parker was waiting with an officer, one concession road over. Jake suddenly asked, “Have you noticed that Alex has been acting strange lately?”
“Do you mean strange for someone who’s the victim of fraud and theft, whose dog has been poisoned and whose barn has been torched, who’s been receiving threatening letters and phone calls demanding money for information?”
Jake laughed. “Ya, strange for someone like that. Seriously, every time I mention business she gets all quiet and broody. She knows I work, that I only do the horses part-time.”
“Do you think she sees your work as a threat? Something that will take you away?”
“That’s partly the reason I want to buy the breeding farm. It will give me a business in the area.”
“Maybe she hoped you would help run the farm.”
“I can’t see that. It’s a well-oiled machine. I’d only be in the way.”
Chris pulled the truck up behind Parker’s unmarked car. “Sorry, I have no other ideas. Perhaps you should ask her.”
Parker and a young officer were watching a computer screen when they climbed into the back seat.
“Anything?” Chris asked, peering over the seat to get a view of the screen.
“Not yet,” the detective replied, eyeing the shotgun that Jake hadn’t wanted to leave in the truck. Without a word, he popped the trunk and Jake, feeling even more foolish, was happy to get the weapon out of sight.
It seemed an age that the four of them sat there, staring at the screen. So long, that they almost didn’t notice when the two small dots began to move.
“That’s it!”
“He’s got it.”
“He’s heading north.”
“Let’s get him!”
“Wait! Look!” One of the dots had started moving, in the opposite direction.
“What the hell?”
“What do we do now?”
Parker hesitated, weighing the possibilities. There was no other option. “You two go north. Bob and I’ll go south. Don’t take any chances. If that’s our guy, don’t try to take him. Just follow him.”
Chris and Jake leapt out of the car and ran to the truck. Chris made a screeching u-turn that put a satisfied grin on his face and took off north to the line that would take them back to Conc.7. Behind them, Parker’s car tore up the gravel shoulder as they headed south.
“Damn!”
“What?”
“The shotgun is in Parker’s car,” Jake said, turning to watch as the unmarked car disappeared from sight.
“Damn!”
“Do you think I should call Alex?” Jake asked.
“If you dare.”
Jake called and filled them in as they flew west towards the concession road. He agreed to keep the line open so the women would know what was happening.
Just as they reached the intersection of Conc.7, a Jeep roared past heading north.
“That’s got to be him.”
Chris pulled out and took off after the Jeep. The powerful truck was slowly gaining on the Jeep when, out of nowhere, it turned off the road onto a tractor path and headed across the fields. Another screeching turn and the truck was following, bouncing over ruts and through holes trying to catch the all-terrain vehicle.
“I think he knows we’re after him,” Chris said dryly.
One particularly large hole sent them careering into the corn as Chris fought to hold the wheel and keep them upright. “I hope Alex’s insurance covers following suspected felons.”
“Now I know what these are for,” Jake said, holding tight with white-knuckled fingers to the handle above the door.
Chris found the breath to laugh. “Do you still have your teeth?”
“Barely!” Jake grinned, then added, “He isn’t going to stop, you know. Not until he loses us. And he has the advantage of knowing the area.”
“The thought had occurred to me, but what other choice do we have?”
Just then, the other choice presented itself. Sirens could be heard coming towards them from the next concession road. Whoever was in the Jeep heard them too, made a turn into the corn, hit a large bump and flipped. The cruiser reached the wreck first and uniformed officers were pulling the driver out when Chris and Jake pulled up.
Chris looked at the man who was, surprisingly, unhurt, and
said, “I know him.”
“Jake! Are you all right?” Alex shouted frantically into the phone, hearing only the screeching of tires, the sickening sound of crumpling metal and finally sirens at the other end.
Alicia paled. “What’s happening?”
“I don’t know. Jake!”
A breathless voice replied, “We’re okay, babe...er, honey. They’ve got him. We’re going to follow them to headquarters. Meet us there.”
Alex took a shaking breath and mentally gave thanks. “Okay. We’ll be there in a few minutes. And Jake, you can call me babe.”
Fred Skinner. It was Fred Skinner. Chris had recognized him from the news report on the raid on his farm.
“Animal abuser and all-round slime-ball,” Alex commented when she heard the news, her composure regained once they’d made sure the men were unhurt.
Parker had allowed them to watch the interrogation through the two-way glass of the interview room at police headquarters. Skinner’s reaction to the suggestion that he had been involved in the barn fire was surly and defiant.
“Hell no, I didn’t start that fire. I heard about it at the feed store and I saw a way of getting some of the money that bitch cost me when they seized my horses.”
“So you knew who the whistle-blower was.”
“Sure, I knew who done it. I’ve got a mate at the OSPCA. He told me. She should’a minded her own business. Somebody else thinks the same as me. Whoever started that fire’s sending her a message she ought’a listen to. But it weren’t me.”
Parker filled them in on the rest later in his office. “Unfortunately, he has an alibi for the time of the fire. He was meeting with his lawyer on the abuse case. We’ve charged him with attempted extortion.”
“Who was he working with? Who had the other tracker?” Chris wanted to know.
“That was surprisingly ingenious. No one. He found the decoy tracker and threw it in the back of a passing pick-up truck. The driver of the truck had no idea what had happened.”
“So where does that leave us?” Alex asked wearily.
Chapter 26
“Where does that leave us?” Alicia dispiritedly echoed Alex’s question back at the farm later that day. It seemed that all of their leads had fizzled. No one had killed Dean or Jon. They were both still alive and well and this had all been a bad dream.
It was the opening Jake had been waiting for. “Do you remember the questions I had about the business side of King Valley?” Alex bit her tongue and didn’t blurt out the thoughts that had come unbidden to her mind about business and gorgeous redheads and really who cared anyway about who owned the land and whether he could get it for a good price. “I’ve been thinking and I have an idea of how we can answer those questions.”
Alex couldn’t help herself. “Why don’t you just ask Claire? I’m sure she’d be happy to help you if it meant keeping the clinic open.”
Jake looked quizzically at Alex’s closed face before answering. “Claire’s already said she couldn’t answer my questions. And yes if I wanted to buy the business, ultimately they would have to show me the books, but do we want to wait that long for answers?”
“So what is your idea?” Alicia asked.
He looked around at their dubious faces before dropping the bomb. “We go there tonight, sneak into the office and go through their records.” The bomb fizzled. Expecting, at least, shock, he was disappointed by their total lack of emotion.
“Sorry, Jake. Been there, done that, bought the t-shirt,” Chris explained, as if it were a common-place occurrence, and filled him in on their previous break and enter.
“Okay, but were you looking for financial records?”
They admitted they weren’t.
“Then I say it’s time to revisit their offices, this time looking for their books. If they own the land then even without Jon the business is worth a lot – perhaps more with him dead if he was the one who killed Dean. It gives Marci a really good motive for killing him.”
“And makes it an even better deal for you.” Alex added, feeling wretched. It was as if some power beyond her control was driving her on.
“Well, that, too,” Jake admitted with a grin. “I’m going to want a business in this area and if I’m going to the expense of putting up an arena I’ll want to own the land it’s on.”
“An arena?”
“I thought I’d better keep King there. My spins and slides would really wreck your dressage footing.”
Alex felt the cold lump in her heart melt. Redheads be damned! She threw her arms around Jake, who still didn’t understand what was going on with her but didn’t care as long as things were okay.
“What do you think?” he asked, looking expectantly at Chris who had to admit it made sense and, once more seeing his law degree shaking in its frame, reluctantly agreed.
Alicia jumped up. “I’m in!”
Chris shook his head. “Not this time. There’s no reason for all of us to go. It would just attract attention. Besides, someone has to be free to bail us out if we get caught,” he quoted dryly.
The argument went on for some time but on this occasion it was Chris who prevailed.
It was after midnight when, dressed all in black, Chris and Jake parked down the road from King Valley and after leaping the water-filled ditch and vaulting over the fence, headed across the fields to the barn, the moon in the cloudless sky lighting their way.
“Alicia said to watch for cow patties,” Chris warned, peering intently at the ground.
“This is a corn field. No cows.”
The house by the drive was dark as they slipped by in the shadows and entered the barn. Chris lead the way and the equine residents watched with interest their passage through the aisles.
“It’s down here,” he whispered, acutely aware of every small sound.
The door to the office was open. As they approached, the gloom was suddenly pierced by a thin shaft of light. They weren’t alone.
Frozen in their tracks, they exchanged horrified glances. Chris motioned for them to turn back but Jake shook his head and proceeded to creep towards the open door. Back plastered against the wall, he peered into the office. A figure, like themselves dressed all in black, was frantically searching the office records. Books and papers littered the desk and floor attesting to the urgency of the quest. Backing away, he gestured to Chris to take a look.
Chris inched towards the door, barely daring to breathe as they changed places. Then, just as his cheek touched the frame, the figure in the room looked up and their eyes met briefly. In a shocked instant, she had grabbed the only weapon in the room, an ornamental brass letter opener with a wicked-looking blade, and holding it towards them, backed slowly to the open window beside the desk, the same window that Chris and the others had used to escape that same office only days before. As Jake joined Chris in the doorway, she hurled the paper knife towards them, then dove out the window and disappeared into the night.
“Who the hell was that?!” Jake whispered.
“I have no idea,” Chris replied, eyeing the blade that had come close to removing his ear, now lying innocently on the floor.
They crept towards the desk, carefully avoiding the papers on the floor, and examined the open documents.
“It looks like she’s been going through the breeding records. We’d better get out of here before anyone finds us here with this mess. We’d have a hard time explaining what we were doing here and I seriously doubt that anyone would believe there was another burglar going through their files.”
“Not before we get what we came for,” Jake insisted.
“How are you going to find anything in this mess?”
“It won’t be in the mess. It’ll be on the computer. I just hope it isn’t password protected.”
It wasn’t. Jake quickly opened the files, scanning until he found what he was looking for.
“Got it. This is the record for the incorporation. Jon and Marci are the only owners.” He scrolled down through t
he document. “The business is in both their names and they own both the King Valley farm and the one next to it where their house and Marci’s private barn are located. No one else has any interest in any assets but both properties are heavily mortgaged. No wonder they needed the extra income. I’m going to download this to a USB stick. I brought one just in case. Why don’t you take pictures of whatever she was looking at? That way we can go over all of this at Alex’s.”
Chris quickly pulled out his phone and photographed the documents on the desk. “Okay, done, now let’s get out of here.”
Chapter 27
“She? It was a woman?”
They had returned to Avalon to be greeted with appropriate expressions of relief and were now sprawled, exhausted, in chairs by the fireplace nursing Irish coffees while relating their evening’s adventures.
“Yes. It’s the only thing we do know about her. She was tall and slim and dressed in some kind of body-hugging cat-suit sort of thing,” Chris finished lamely.
“She went out that window like a cat, too,” Jake added.
“But what was she doing there?” Alicia persisted.
Chris pulled out his phone and brought up the photos he’d taken. “It looks like she was going through the breeding records.”
Alicia peered at the small screen. “Why would anyone be doing that? Anyone who was defrauded on their breedings has already been contacted by the police. They wouldn’t need to break in to find the records.”
“These were the documents she had on the desk.” He loaded them onto Alex’s laptop but any hopes he had that seeing them again would prove enlightening were dashed. It was merely a series of letters and dollar amounts.
“R $6000. SH $5000.” Alex read part of the list aloud. “Well, whatever it is, if those are the payoffs then they were making a lot of money.”
Alicia continued to the bottom the list. “Look at the last one! D $25,000.” She looked expectantly at Alex who’s eyes widened.
“D for Danzig!” she cried. “And $25,000 is the price paid! This is a list of what they were paid for illegal breedings.”
“And what do you want to bet that our mystery intruder was the one that paid them that $25,000?” Chris said, continuing the surmises. “She wouldn’t want anyone learning who she was. She was there to make sure that her name wasn’t mentioned in any records.”