“How long have you been married?”
“I’m not.”
“You said you have an eighteen-year-old son.”
“I do.”
“So you’re divorced.”
“Nope.”
“What are you, then, an unwed father?” Exasperation at his failure to give her a straight answer laced the question.
“My wife died fifteen years ago.” No trace of pain or grief colored the words. He made a simple statement of fact.
“I—I’m sorry.” Molly was sobered nevertheless.
“It’s in the past.” Seemingly unconcerned, Will guzzled his milk.
Molly said nothing more. She had not stopped to think that he might have his own wounds, and she had certainly not meant to touch on them.
The sound of a motor coming steadily closer across the fields was a welcome distraction. Sheila nickered sharply, wheeling and bolting away from the fence with her head high and tail streaming, showing the form that had once made her a champion racehorse. With a smiling glance at Will, Molly put down her soft drink, got to her feet, and headed toward the fence.
A black Jeep Cherokee rolled to a stop where Sheila had been. A big man wearing a tan Stetson, jeans, cowboy boots, and an open duster coat got out of the driver’s side of the vehicle, a large handgun, barrel pointed toward the ground, in his hand. The other man was around thirty, handsome and dark-eyed, with pale skin and straight, jet-black hair. He rolled down the passenger-side window and stuck his head out. Both men focused on Molly.
14
“Yo, Molly,” the big man said by way of greeting. He was in his late twenties, beefy rather than handsome, with a florid, coarse-featured face and shoulder-length dirty-blond hair.
“ ‘Beauty is power; a smile is its sword,’ ” the black-haired man quoted, casting his companion a sideways glance before bestowing an ironic smile on Molly.
“Yo, J.D. Hi, Tyler.” Molly ignored that cryptic utterance, which she suspected was a jab at both herself and J.D.
“You okay?” J.D. glared menacingly at a point just beyond her. Glancing around, Molly realized that that look was directed at Will, who was coming up behind her, and grinned. J.D. made two of the FBI man, and it would be ridiculously easy to sic J.D. on him. Not that she would do anything like that, of course. Still, it was fun to think about.
“I’m fine, thanks, J.D. This is Will Lyman. Will, J.D. Hatfield, Tyler Wyland.” Having joined her at the fence, Will replied to the introductions with a nod. J.D. replied with a grim jerk of his head, his expression just a hair short of a scowl. Tyler Wyland nodded too. Wry amusement curled his lip.
“I don’t think Mr. Lyman’s a threat, J.D., either to the horses or to Molly,” Tyler chided gently.
“Something’s been spookin’ these here horses these last few nights,” J.D. said, reddening but stubborn. “I was comin’ by to ask you, Molly, if you seen or heard anything out of the ordinary.”
“No, I haven’t.” Molly shook her head, and barely stopped herself from smiling. A local boy, J.D. had had an outsize crush on her for years. For all his size and intimidating appearance, he was gentle as a kitten, and Molly was loath to hurt him. She treated him as a friend, and ignored his hints that he might want anything more. J.D., to his credit, had never tried to force the issue.
“Well, I just thought you might’ve.” J.D. shot another lowering look at Will. “Guess I better get back to work. You keep your eyes and ears open, Molly, and if you come across anything out of the way, you let me know.”
“I will,” Molly promised.
J.D. climbed back inside the Jeep with a flourish, slid the handgun into its accustomed place above the dashboard, and shifted the vehicle into reverse. With a bellowed “Hang in there, y’all!” and a wave, he wheeled the Jeep in a sharp semicircle and it jolted off across the field.
“What was that?” Will asked as the Jeep rattled away into the dark. Turning away from the fence, he looked, Molly thought, somehow both amused and a little grim at one and the same time.
“J.D.’s the night watchman. He patrols the perimeter of the farm, and keeps an eye on the horses and barns and that kind of thing.”
“I wonder if he has a permit for that pistol?” Amusement seemed to gain the upper hand. “Probably not. Does he come by every night to ask if you’ve seen or heard anything unusual?”
“No,” Molly replied with a look designed to squash any teasing in its infancy. “Probably he just wanted to impress Tyler with what a good job he’s doing. They’ve been friends for years, but Tyler’s sort of his boss, you know.”
“I don’t think it was Tyler he wanted to impress,” Will said dryly. Molly fell into step beside him as he headed back toward their log. He glanced sideways at her. “Poor kid, I think I cramped his style.”
Molly bristled. “Look, J.D.’s a nice guy, and a friend, but that’s all.”
“If you say so.”
“I say so!”
“I’m not arguing,” Will pointed out mildly. With the wind thus taken out of her sails, Molly was left with nothing to say. Sitting down on the log, she eyed him for a moment without speaking.
“Tyler Wyland—is he the poet?”
Surprised that he recognized the name, Molly nodded. Scuttlebutt on Tyler Wyland had it that his work was gaining an international reputation, but Molly was just a tad skeptical about that. It didn’t seem likely that a homegrown Woodford Countian would turn out to be a writer of real caliber. Besides, she had read a couple of his poems out of curiosity, and they didn’t seem all that great. But then, she wasn’t a big fan of poetry, so she guessed she really couldn’t judge.
“He’s good,” Will said thoughtfully.
“You’ve read his poems?” Molly couldn’t keep the surprise out of her voice.
“All in the course of a day’s work, so don’t fall backward off that log,” Will said. “When I’m conducting an investigation, I always make it a point to find out as much as I can about the people connected with it. Saves time and trouble in the long run.”
“You checked out Tyler Wyland? You can’t possibly suspect him of being involved in this. He doesn’t even go to the races. I don’t even think he’s interested in horses. He told me once he drives around with J.D. at night to get inspiration for his poems.”
“He’s a member of the family who owns one of the stables under investigation. So I checked him out, just like I checked out everybody else with any type of link. Although I must have missed J.D.” This last was said with a flickering smile.
“You checked me out,” Molly said, unsmiling.
He looked at her. “Yeah.”
There was no apology in his voice, or his gaze.
“Then why ask me questions?” she flared, her fists clenching against the log at the idea of him methodically uncovering her past. “If you already know everything about me there is to know, why ask me anything?”
“Background checks deal in facts. Date of birth, educational history, criminal records, things like that. Just the facts, ma’am. That’s all. Not a thousand-page exposé of the intimate details of your life.”
Blue eyes looked steadily into her own. Despite his reassurance, Molly felt exposed, vulnerable, hideously naked—the idea that he knew all about her was insupportable. Just the facts, ma’am—but what, exactly, did the facts reveal?
“Did you have a reason for dropping by, other than to bring pizza?” Molly asked coldly.
“I had a reason.” He looked down at her for a moment. When he spoke again, his manner was businesslike.
“The first race tomorrow is an eight-thousand-dollar claimer. I want you to check out these horses before the race. If one of the numbers doesn’t match, let me know.” Will withdrew a business card from the breast pocket of his jacket and passed it to her. The front advertised Lawn-Pro Turf Professionals, John Murphy, proprietor, with a phone number. On the back were scribbled the names of three horses.
“What am I supposed to do, call you o
n my shoe phone?”
“I’ll be around.”
“Great.”
“If one of those horses should win, you need to check his ID number immediately afterward.”
“How can I do that? The winner is always surrounded—I’m not going to be able to just run into the winner’s circle and yank down the horse’s lower lip.”
“That’s for you to figure out. But do it. And don’t let anybody catch you.”
“Easy for you to say,” Molly said under her breath, reading the names with some difficulty through the gathering gloom. All the horses were from different stables, of course. Had she really expected this to be simple? “Why these horses?”
“They all have odds of twenty to one or better.”
“Do you really think one of them is going to win?” A germ of an idea entered her mind. As it took hold her annoyance abated. To be angry with an FBI agent for doing a background check on his informant made about as much sense as being angry with a bird for flying. It was the nature of the beast. She’d been foolish not to have expected it.
“Why?” Something about her tone must have alerted him. He looked at her suspiciously.
“Because I just might want to place a wager. With those odds, a twenty-dollar bet to win would pay—four hundred.”
Will reached for the empty pizza box. “Any winner that was found to be fraudulent would be disqualified. So if I were you, I’d hang on to that twenty dollars.”
He smiled at her as he picked up his empty milk carton and balanced it on top of the pizza box. “I’ve got to go. Come on, I’ll walk you to the house.”
“I don’t need you to walk me to my house. I’m perfectly capable of getting there on my own.”
“It’s almost dark.”
“What, do you think a bogeyman is out here in the dark somewhere, just waiting to catch me by myself? This is Versailles, Kentucky, not Chicago.”
He shrugged. “So humor me. I need you around to check horses’ mouth tattoos tomorrow. Anyway, your friend J.D. said that somebody’s been spooking the horses.”
Molly snorted. Will grinned, and Molly realized that she had just confirmed that she, too, doubted J.D.’s story. Like Will, she thought J.D. had made the whole thing up as an excuse to come see her. The glance she sent him was not friendly.
“I think I’ll sit out here for a little longer, thanks.”
“Suit yourself.” He shrugged again, and sat down on the log beside her, pizza box in his lap. Seeming quite contented, he steepled his fingers in front of his nose, and gazed off into the distance.
“What are you doing?” Irritation edged her voice.
“Waiting.”
“For what?”
“You to be ready to go in. I’m not leaving you out here alone in the dark.”
“You’ll be sitting there a long time, then,” Molly said with an icy smile.
Will shrugged. Molly said nothing more. For several minutes the two of them sat on the log with about two feet of space between them, staring into the gathering night. As the dozens of chores that awaited her inside ran through her mind, Molly grew increasingly restless. Will, on the other hand, seemed prepared to sit there forever. In fact, he appeared lost in thought.
She was going to have to go in. It was ridiculous to sit on a log on an increasingly cold, damp night just to prove that she could.
She stood up. “I’m going in.”
He glanced up at her as if he had, momentarily, forgotten who she was. Then he got to his feet. “I’ll walk you to the house.”
“Fine,” Molly said through her teeth, and started off.
“Molly,” he called after her softly. From his voice she could almost swear that he was laughing.
“What?” She whirled to face him, spoiling for a fight. But he appeared perfectly straight-faced as he nodded at the ground by the log.
“Don’t forget your Coke can.”
The bright red metal shone through the darkness. “To hell with my Coke can,” Molly said with perfect civility. Turning, she headed down the hill, back stiff, head high.
After the briefest of delays, she heard him following. Though she refused to so much as glance around, she would be willing to bet a month’s rent that he had retrieved the can himself.
Of course he had. Mr. FBI man would never, ever litter. He was far too perfect for that.
“See you tomorrow,” he called softly as she reached the front steps.
Her dander rose, but what could she say? If he wanted to, he would.
Molly walked with regal dignity into the house, and slammed the door.
15
October 13, 1995
The noonday sun was hot on Molly’s back as she cinched the girth on Winnebago’s saddle and let the irons down. Chattering crowds swirled around the edges of the unfenced paddock, watching as the horses scheduled to run in the first race were saddled. To Molly’s left a flashbulb popped. Winnebago, a six-year-old gray past his racing prime, stood placidly amidst the commotion, apparently not minding it a bit, or objecting to having a stranger saddle him in place of his own groom. Molly rewarded his docility with a scratch behind the ears. He was the last horse on the list of three that Will had given her the previous night. Like Winnebago, the other two had checked out negative. No ringers here.
Winnebago belonged to Cloverlot Stables, which had been in disarray since the suicide of Howard Lawrence two days before. Molly’s offer to “help out” by walking Winnebago to the paddock and saddling him had been gratefully accepted by Lawrence’s harried replacement. Having memorized all three ID numbers, Molly needed only a quick glance inside Winnebago’s lower lip to ascertain that this horse, too, was the genuine article. Winnebago was definitely Winnebago.
Checking out the other two horses had posed even less of a problem. She had simply walked into their barns and, under the pretext of rubbing one’s neck and feeding the other a carrot, pulled down their lower lips. The fact that they were claimers made it easy. Security focused on the stars and up-and-comers, not the has-beens or never-weres.
Molly wondered if she would still get the promised five thousand dollars if Will never found his ringers. She wondered if maybe he had got hold of the wrong end of the stick entirely, and there were no ringers to be found. As long as she got paid, she hoped that proved to be the case. It would do the mighty FBI man good to be taken down a peg.
“All set?” Steve Emerson, the jockey, appeared, his diminutive body resplendent in the green and gold silks of Cloverlot Stables. Molly nodded, passing the shank over to the pony rider as the jockey climbed aboard. From the track, the bugler announced the post parade. It was just a few minutes before 1:00 p.m. The first race of the day would soon begin.
Like the other horses, at the sound of the bugle Winnebago was away, off toward the track and one more shot at glory. Molly watched him pick his way through the thinning crowd for a moment before turning to head back to Barn 15. The spectators had a race to watch. She had work to do.
Will, elegant as always in a navy sport coat and khaki slacks that stood out against a shifting backdrop of butterfly-bright ladies’ dresses, stood watching her from the edge of the crowd. He waited near the path that led to the barns, a rolled racing form in one hand, in the lee of the chest-high boxwood hedge. It was the first time she had seen him that day, and his presence was totally unexpected.
Molly spotted him without warning. While sweeping the thinning ranks of onlookers with casual curiosity, her gaze simply caught his and held. To her surprise, her initial emotion upon discovering him was not dislike, or aggravation, but a warm burst of pleasure. Unlikely as it seemed, she realized with a sense of shock that she was actually glad to see him.
Will’s arms were crossed over his chest, his eyes narrowed against the sun that turned his hair to gold and his skin to bronze. He looked distinguished, she thought. Even handsome. For an old man of forty-something, of course.
To her surprise, she found that she was smiling at him.
/> Will smiled back at her, slowly, his eyes crinkling at the corners. There was something about that smile—a kind of intimacy, a declaration that the two of them shared a special bond known to no one but themselves. His acknowledgment of their relationship took Molly aback. Then she remembered: Their association wasn’t a secret. Only his identity was.
As she headed toward him, her smile widened, and warmed. For whatever ridiculous reason.
“Good golly, it’s Miss Molly!” A pair of strong male arms snatched her off her feet from behind, whirled her around, and set her back down again. As soon as her feet touched the ground, Molly yanked free of those imprisoning arms and turned to confront her tormentor.
“You grooming for Cloverlot now?” Thornton Wyland grinned down at her, not one whit abashed by the anger sparkling in her eyes. “After you told Simpson where to go I figured you’d never work in the horse business again.”
“Then you figured wrong. I’m still working for Wyland Farm.” Thornton Wyland was about her own age, a handsome, black-haired stud who had had practically every girl for miles around panting after him for years. Since he’d dropped out of Cornell University (the fourth college he’d attended) the previous March and returned home to Wyland Farm, he had made the pursuit of happiness his full-time occupation. Molly tried her best to avoid him, but it wasn’t easy. He thought he was God’s gift to women, and couldn’t understand why Molly wouldn’t just give up and fall into bed with him like everyone else.
Molly smiled at him, but it wasn’t a sweet smile. “And if you ever put your hands on me again, I’ll chop them off at the wrists. I swear to God.”
He laughed, his hazel eyes twinkling. “You’re somethin’, Miss Molly, you know that? How about going out with me on Friday? I’ll take you somewhere fancy.”
“No way in hell,” Molly said pleasantly, and turned her back on him. Walking toward where Will still waited—his expression was impossible to decipher, but his smile was gone—Molly half expected to be the recipient of a slap to the posterior, which was one of Thornton’s favorite methods of riling her. Apparently Thornton wasn’t totally stupid, because today he refrained.
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