A distant, muted rumble of thunder punctuated my words. A nervous whinny sounded from inside the barn, along with hooves shuffling over hard earth.
“Why do you have Nelly?” Boomer asked.
“I found her in Jennings. I’m planning to take her back to R-n-R, but I have to make sure Heart’s okay first.”
The wind picked up, making the treetops sway. Another strained whinny echoed from the other side of the door.
The world had become tinted with the odd yellow-green light that sometimes precedes a storm.
We didn’t have much time.
“Boomer, please. We have to blindfold the horse. If we don’t, he’ll panic and hurt himself.”
“Blindfold, with what?”
“I was going to use this.” I motioned to the windbreaker I’d tied around my waist.
Heart snorted and uttered a louder, more agitated squeal.
The fear started radiating from him in cold, shivering waves. I pressed back with soothing thoughts, and he calmed, but I knew it was tenuous.
“Please,” I said to Boomer.
The man reached into his pocket and tossed me his keys. I handed him the end of Nelly’s lead, unlocked the doors, and pulled one side open. In the eerie light, Heart looked like a phantom emerging from the shadows. A Ringwraith’s fell steed.
Boomer limped inside, turned on the lights, and the horse was transformed into the beautiful animal I’d been looking for.
“Heart.” I was so relieved, I wanted to rush forward and fling my arms around his neck.
Heart’s ears pricked at the sound of his name. I felt his flutter of hope and anticipation—then his eyes adjusted to the light and the feeling faded.
He’d seen my dark hair and for a moment thought I was Jasmine.
“Sorry, handsome.” I’ll get you together soon, I promised, then untied the windbreaker. “First, let’s take care of this, okay?”
Heart shied as the first drops of rain began to fall. I reached out with soothing thoughts to calm him. As quickly as possible, I folded the lightweight fabric and, with Boomer’s steadying hand on Heart’s halter, tied the jacket over his eyes.
The horse calmed almost instantly. I let out a pent-up breath and gave his neck a gentle pat. Then gave him a quick, mental once-over to check for any physical issues. He was fine and dandy.
“How did you know?” Boomer asked.
“I told you, his owner was worried about him.” I’d turned to look at Boomer and give him the full story when I noticed something unusual.
We were surrounded on three sides with hay bales. They’d been stacked like giant bricks to form a wall.
The brick-laying pattern started by one door, stair-stepped up and went all the way around to the other door. With both doors closed, the structure became a temporary horse stall in the middle of the barn.
A more thorough look around told me why the makeshift corral was necessary.
To the left, the stalls had been converted to chicken, or in this case, Guinea coops. The wall to the right was covered with various gardening tools. Several polo mallets were mounted above, and a few dangled from a hook.
A workbench and shelving lined the back wall, packed with an array of tools, paint cans, extension cords, and various other items sure to get a curious horse into trouble if given the chance.
The gap above the base where the hay wall started was large enough for a person to step up and over, providing access to the rest of the barn.
“I like the hay idea,” I told Boomer, turning to face him.
“You know horses,” Boomer said, still eyeing me a little warily. “If they can get into something, they will.”
I nodded. “Not as bad as goats, though.” As if to prove my point, Nelly bounced up the pass-through opening to stand on the wall of hay.
Goats.
The rain and wind picked up and Boomer went to close the doors against the strengthening storm. I noticed he’d set the ax in the corner, which I took as a good sign.
Without any prompting, he turned to me and said, “I wasn’t planning on keeping him.”
“What happened? Why take him in the first place?”
“Our mare, Lucy, was getting over a mild colic. I’d been checking on her every few hours. I knew Parnell wouldn’t bother.”
“Because he wants to sell R-n-R?”
“I didn’t know that at the time, but he’d made it clear he didn’t care much about the animals. When Nelly got out, he just shrugged. Asked me how long it would take to fix the fence.”
“It was up to you to check on Lucy.”
He nodded. “It’s quicker to cut across the back field than it is to get in the truck and drive all the way around. Mess with the gate, you know.”
I remembered seeing how close his house was to R-n-R’s barn on the aerial map. I also remembered a fence.
“How do you get onto the property?”
“There’s a gate to access the riding trails.”
I hadn’t remembered seeing a gate, but I hadn’t been looking.
“It was after midnight,” Boomer continued. “That time of night, things are usually real still and quiet, but when I headed across the field I saw a car parked by the office. As I got closer, I could see there were a couple of people in the front. At first, I thought it was Hunter with one of his friends sneaking a beer or something. You know kids.”
“But it wasn’t Hunter.” I had a good guess who it was.
Boomer shook his head. “One of them lit a cigarette and I saw his face. There was something about him. I can’t say what, but it didn’t feel right. We didn’t have anyone scheduled to stay—and the gate should have been locked, so they weren’t turned around or lost.”
“Why not call the cops?”
“Couldn’t. They’d have seen me if I tried to get to the office. I went as far as the shed so I could hear what they were saying. One of them had an accent—he said, ‘We need to cut him open. We can’t just shoot him.’ The other said, ‘Why not? Ortega can take care of the fallout. What does he care about a dead horse as long as he gets his money?’ And I knew I didn’t have time to make it home to call the police, either.”
“How did you know the ‘him’ they were talking about was Heart?”
“Scout is the only other horse it could’ve been, and he’s been at R-n-R for years. Why would anyone want to cut him open all of a sudden?”
“So you took Heart before they could hurt him.”
“I’ve lost horses before. Working with them as long as I have it’s bound to happen. But the last time—” He shook his head and looked away. “The last time, I swore: never again.”
Thunder boomed loud enough to rattle the walls. We all jumped. Boomer and I both looked at Nelly, who had thankfully decided to lie down atop the hay and was in no danger of falling over. Heart shied but no more than any other horse might and as soon as the thunder rumbled past, he was still.
I cast my mental feelers out to Moss. He wasn’t afraid of storms the way some dogs are, but I wanted to check in, anyway.
You okay, big guy?
Okay. Dinner?
Yep, he was fine.
Soon. I apologized for the late dinner and promised to make it up to him. He settled in to enjoy the white noise of the pounding rain and dream of the clucky, fluttery things he’d smelled when we had first driven up.
I looked past Heart toward the coops, where I could see the dark, speckled forms of the guineas as they roosted. Even over the pounding rain, their squeaking honks and soft whistles were audible. Guineas were renowned for raising the alarm if they spotted a threat. Real or imagined.
“What did the guineas think of their new barn mate?” I asked Boomer.
“Fussed a little when I brought him home that first night.”
“Why didn’t you call t
he police once you got back?”
“I was going to,” he said. “It took some time to get him settled. Once everyone was quiet, I went back to see if they were still around, but the car was gone. I figured it could wait. The next morning I went to talk to Mr. Parnell, you know, tell him what happened. When I got to R-n-R, there was a man already asking questions. Said he was a cop named Ortega.”
Tony had pretended to be a cop? It was almost laughable.
“I remembered hearing the men the night before saying someone named Ortega would take care of things.”
“You thought they knew a dirty cop who would cover for them.”
He nodded. “Parnell didn’t want anything to do with it. Too worried about selling the place, I guess. So I tried to figure out what the hell was going on. Why anybody’d want to cut up a horse? I figured Lily Earl might know something but by then, I was neck-deep in this mess, didn’t want to drag her into it.”
“You’re the one who stole her paperwork.”
“And a fat lot of good it did me. Everything on it was fake. I called the contact number—no answer. I tried looking up his registered name. Nothing. I didn’t know what to think, except someone wanted to hurt him, and I wasn’t going to let that happen.”
I looked at the dust-covered polo mallets and thought of the decals on Boomer’s truck from Wellington. One had been from 2009.
Suddenly, I understood.
“You were in Wellington when . . .” I didn’t have to explain; Boomer knew I was talking about the day over twenty polo ponies had suddenly, mysteriously died. It had turned out to have been an accident, a mistake with a vitamin dosage that ended in tragedy.
“That was one of the worst days of my life,” Boomer said, voice rough. “They died. One after the other, and none of us could do anything.”
My nose stung. My vision made hazy by the sudden tears. I couldn’t imagine.
“I’m sorry.” My voice was low and so thick with emotion, I was surprised he could understand me.
He nodded, blinking hard as he looked away.
“Nothing to be done about it, now,” he said. “And trying to change that fact only leads to trouble. Believe me. Here I was, with a stolen horse and no idea what to do. I went over what I’d heard that night a hundred times but all I can figure is—these guys must have been smuggling something, so I looked him over.”
“And?”
“Couldn’t find anything. Until you came poking around. I talked to Lily Earl. She said you were looking for a gelding, but I had a stallion.”
I felt my eyes widen. “Wait, you’re saying . . .”
Boomer smiled. “Yep.”
It made a crazy sort of sense. I knew there were companies that made testicular implants.
“So he’s . . . augmented?” I asked.
“Not anymore.”
“You took them out?” I asked, stunned. “How?”
“I’ve been working with horses longer than you’ve been alive and then some.”
I had nothing against giving credit where credit was due but, really? No way.
“And he didn’t mind?”
“Nah. Scar tissue made it painless.”
I started to check with Heart to verify the story but remembered I’d already given him the psychic once-over and had detected no aches or pains. Besides, there was something I really wanted to know.
“What did you find?”
“I’ll show you.” Boomer got up and motioned for me to follow as he slipped through the person-sized gap in the hay wall and walked along the path he’d left to serve as both a walkway and a buffer zone to keep Heart clear of the wall of garden implements.
Boomer stopped before we reached the workbench and pointed up. Like you find in many barns, there was a loft and now that I was looking, I could see that what I’d thought was just the side support for shelving was really a ladder.
Before I could protest, Boomer started to climb.
“Hey,” I said, “be careful.” The ladder was a structural part of the barn’s shelves but that didn’t keep me from grabbing the sides in a pointless attempt to hold it steady.
Boomer reached the top, pulled himself onto the loft, and disappeared from view. A few minutes and some scraping sounds later, he returned, holding up a pair of what looked like plastic Easter eggs.
I squinted at them. Felt my brows arch.
They were blue.
“Oh, come on.”
Boomer grinned and dropped one egg down to me. I twisted it open. Inside, a diamond necklace glinted, catching the light as only diamonds can. I lifted the necklace partly out of the egg. I was no expert but I was sure even one of the large stones would be worth a small fortune.
Mouth agape, I raised my eyes to Boomer. He shook the second egg, making it rattle like a maraca. Eyes twinkling, Boomer tossed it down, too. I’d started to open the second egg when I heard Moss let out a warning howl-bark.
Reaching out to connect with his mind, I became aware that someone had pulled in to park behind Bluebell.
I froze. The rain and distance may have masked the sound of the pickup truck, but it was obvious that the men who climbed out of the vehicle were trying to conceal their approach to Boomer’s house.
Shhh, Moss. I urged him to stay quiet and alert.
He did, and I edged a little more closely into his thoughts to listen and watch through my dog’s eyes.
The night was brighter. Shadows less dense.
One of the men paused to look in at Moss. Thanks to Moss’s wolf-eyes, the man’s features were clear. I’d seen him before—in one of the photos from Morocco.
It was the security guard. The one standing off to the side in the photo of Jasmine wearing the real LaPointe jewels.
A faint, clinking ring came to me through Moss’s ears.
Mr. Jingles.
There was a split second of disbelief, followed by a rapid-fire ping-ponging of thoughts.
Mr. Jingles and Cowboy were here. They must have followed me—but how?
I’d talked to Jake no more than an hour ago. They couldn’t have gotten out of jail.
No time to worry about specifics. I wasn’t sure how it was possible, or how everything fit together but I knew I didn’t have time to worry about it now.
Thanks to Moss, I could track the men’s movements. Mr. Jingles headed to the house; Cowboy was walking straight toward the barn.
I blinked the world around me back into focus. Boomer had turned and was moving to start down the ladder.
“Boomer, wait!” The fear in my hushed voice made him stop and glance over his shoulder at me.
There was no way to explain how I knew what I knew. There would barely be enough time for me to tell him to hide.
I touched my finger to my lips and sprinted down the pathway to the barn door. Opening it a crack, I peered out into the light rain.
Cowboy’s figure was backlit by the wan light from the back porch. He was about fifty feet away.
No time to run—Boomer wouldn’t even make it down the ladder.
I pulled the door closed and rushed back to the loft, gesturing frantically.
“Hide!” I hissed.
“What?”
I met Boomer’s gaze and mouthed, Hide, with an urgent wave. For a moment, it looked like he would protest but Boomer was smart and wary enough to take my advice.
He eased back into the shadows and disappeared.
Cowboy had to be getting close to the barn. I thought about Boomer’s heavy, double-sided ax but knew I could never hope to use it, or any of the other tools for that matter. How much good would a weed-whacker be against a gun?.
I needed to think.
Easier said than done in situations like this.
One thing was certain, I didn’t want to draw attention to the loft’s ladder,
obscure as it was.
I grabbed a bucket of grooming tools from a shelf and rushed back to where Heart stood.
As I set the bucket beside him, I realized I was clutching the eggs to my chest. If I handed the gems over, I was a goner.
I scrambled to where the water bucket sat on the hay bale, opened each egg, and dumped the sparkling contents into the water.
A rustle of footsteps sounded from just outside the door. I tossed the empty plastic shells to the far end of the makeshift stall and grabbed a brush out of the bucket.
The footsteps paused. Cowboy was probably peering through one of the cracks.
As calmly as possible, I began brushing out Heart’s glossy, black coat.
A cool head would win over blind panic. These men were murderers. I was no match for them in the skill or ruthlessness department, I had to think.
What did I know about these men? They’d killed Dr. Simon. That fact didn’t help in the anti-panic department, so I shoved it away.
Think. Think. Think.
What else did I know?
I remembered something I’d overheard while hiding in the closet with Roscoe.
I don’t do bad business—that was what Cowboy had said. To him, murder was just business. Could I play on that? Find a way to appeal to that sensibility? Convince him I was just as ruthless and jaded?
If you’d asked me a couple of months ago to rate my lying prowess I would’ve put myself just north of the two-year-old-caught-with-a-forbidden-cookie level.
However, for better or worse, my skills at deception had improved. Not greatly, but I’d learned one important key to telling tall tales and getting away with it: commitment.
You had to become the lie.
A whisper of an idea formed in my mind. When the barn door creaked open, I was ready.
I kept up the brushing for a few strokes then glanced over my shoulder. Feigning mild surprise, I smiled and turned to face him.
“I thought you boys had already left town.”
Cowboy didn’t respond; he just glared at me with cold, dark eyes.
I didn’t flinch or look away. One of the benefits of coming eye-to-eye with some of the scariest creatures known to man was that I was not easily cowed with a glare.
Horse of a Different Killer (A Call of the Wilde Mystery Book 3) Page 27