by Karis Walsh
“One thing in Hargrove’s favor,” Rachel said. “She told me to hire Cal to train us. She didn’t do that for Alex, and if she really wanted us to fail she would have left me alone.”
“So, now what?” Billie asked, after a pause.
“We keep training,” Rachel said. “We’re riding on the Fourth, no matter what else happens. But I think we need to find another place to board the horses. I don’t want to put Cal and her family in danger.”
“No,” Cal said. “I’m part of this, too. The horses have been fine out here. Maybe someone only wanted the property, and now they can have it.”
Rachel sighed. She had learned not to argue when Cal got that stubborn look in her eyes. “Okay, but we should take turns sleeping in a stall near the horses until we know what’s really going on.”
“I’ll stay tonight,” Don volunteered.
Billie and then Clark added their names to the rotation. Rachel would stay every fourth night. She had been torn between wanting to stay on the farm, to be close to Cal, and wanting to avoid it for the same reason. At least she’d have a few nights to prepare for being in such close proximity to Cal, and her bedroom.
“What else can we do?” Clark asked. “How do we find out if there really is something going on with the property?”
“I was down at the County-City Building this morning, looking into the property and the zoning laws,” Rachel said. She could have done most of the research on her computer, but the laws were tangled at times. She had spent over an hour with a clerk, asking questions and taking notes. “All I really discovered is that the idea is plausible, but there’s no proof it’s happening. Why don’t we each do some investigating on our own. Check out the other condos in the area—who’s winning bids, who’s selling properties, whatever we can dig up. Maybe a name will jump out. We can compare notes when we meet for lessons.”
She stood up. The team looked stressed and preoccupied. She wanted to get them back to work, but they didn’t seem ready to be a steadying influence on the horses right now. “Why don’t we go back to the cage and let Cal finish the polo lesson she was giving you when I got here,” she said. She winked at Cal. “I’m anxious to see if Clark can actually hit the ball this time.”
Chapter Nineteen
Rachel jogged into the moonless night. The darkness breathed over her like a sigh as she released the tensions of the day and concentrated on the sound of her light running shoes. The squish of damp grass, the crunch of pine needles and dirt, the slap of pavement as she crossed the Five Mile Drive. The shock of impact reverberated up her legs and her spine and disappeared into the cool black park.
The lesson at Cal’s had gone surprisingly well, given the tense discussion beforehand. She felt as if the whole team had something to prove now, not just her. They had spent a hilarious hour in the practice cage and then had ridden out to the large polo field and tried the various mallet swings while on horseback. The training was good for the horses, as they grew accustomed to having the mallets slice through the air near their bodies and heads and having the balls drifting underfoot. The riders benefitted, as well. They relaxed and had fun because the work was disguised as play, but in reality they were learning to lean and move in the saddle, to balance and counterbalance. Rachel and Cal had raced each other as they fielded balls from the wayward swings of the inexperienced players.
The rest of Rachel’s day had been less physical and much less satisfying. Hours in front of the computer screen, staring at lists of people involved in the waterfront expansion and searching for any relevant information in a vast sea of unfamiliar names. She had been so excited by her epiphany and hopeful the person behind the attacks on the unit would be easily spotted. But she had only researched two of the new buildings, and she had several more to go. She hoped one of the other team members had been more successful.
Rachel hopped over an exposed tree root and jogged across the pavement without slowing down. The sudden rev of an engine startled her and she stumbled to a halt, staring into the dark. Like a deer in the headlights, only there were no lights. Just the screech of motor and tires as an unseen vehicle accelerated toward her.
She snapped out of her frozen state and ran toward the shoulder, feeling a rush of air and heat as the car missed her by inches. She dodged off the trail and into the trees so the car couldn’t come after her. She heard the slam of doors and muffled voices before the noise of her passage through the branches and shrubs drowned out everything but her own flight. They’d come after her, of course. There was nothing random about the attack—someone had been lying in wait. Anticipating the jog she took every night, all alone in the park.
They wouldn’t need night-vision goggles to find her, since the sound of her crashing through the brush would keep them right on her heels. Her only hope was to outrun them, get to safety before they reached her. She tried to formulate a plan, figure out which direction to go, while part of her mind had to concentrate on each step. She stumbled over a large boulder and managed to catch herself against the trunk of a tree before she fell. Her eyes had adjusted to the dark night, but she was unable to make out more than shapes and shadows. A twisted ankle was not an option.
The park covered over seven hundred acres of peninsula, and Rachel was deep inside, close to its point. She could head to her right, her normal route. Try to get down to Owen Beach or across the grassy bowl to her apartment. To roads and people and civilization. But an easier and more open route for her would also be easier for her pursuers. Maybe she could continue to run through the woods, trying to shake them in the dark. A shot echoed through the night, and she heard the thud of a bullet in a tree close by. The woods were definitely out. She couldn’t get far enough ahead to be safe, or to hide.
A large pine branch smacked her in the face, a stinging blow against her cheek and left eye. She swore silently and kept one arm in front of her as she ran, shielding herself as much as she could. Her breath was growing shallower, burning in her throat and lungs as she gasped for air and grasped for some avenue of escape. She was near the Bridges Viewpoint, above Salmon Beach. She tried to reconstruct the geography of the area in her panicky mind. Unlike the Owen Beach side of the peninsula, with its steep but manageable bluffs, this side had cliffs over two hundred feet high. She had been on several calls over the past few years, watching as search-and-rescue teams plucked stranded people off the side of the cliff. Idiots who tried to scale the steep precipice.
She heard the whine of another bullet and made up her mind. She’d have to go with idiocy. She had only a vague idea of her location, but she thought she could veer left, follow the cliff for another hundred yards or so before she plunged over the side. If she was correct, she’d be on a section of the bluff with more vegetation, hopefully enough to break her fall. If she was wrong? She’d rather die falling off a cliff than let these bastards shoot her.
The trees were thinning in front of her. Open sky, the end of her run through the forest. She wanted to slow to a walk, control at least her first steps over the side, but she couldn’t take the chance. She heard her followers but couldn’t accurately gauge their closeness because of the racket she made as she struggled through the undergrowth, fought to breathe.
She couldn’t stop her startled shriek as one moment she was on solid ground, and the next her foot sank through the air. She managed to twist her body as she slid, grabbing the edge of the cliff long enough to break her fall. And then she let herself go.
She had picked the right spot, heavy enough with trees and brush to slow her downward progress. She tried to be grateful as she skidded from trunk to branch to shrub, dropping down the bluff as if she were in a pinball machine. She had a brief moment of worry as she descended, wondering if the tide would be low enough for her to safely land on the beach. But as she scraped through a thick berry bush, its thorny tendrils wrapping around her legs and lacerating her skin, she decided drowning would be okay as long as it meant her bruising fall was at an end.
; She couldn’t see more than a few feet in front of her—when she wasn’t shielding her eyes from another sticker bush—so her sudden thump onto the damp beach came as a shock. She sat still, frozen in place as the concussion of her landing traveled through her tailbone and into her back, knocking the air out of her aching lungs. She battled for breath as she listened for any sign her attackers had followed her down the cliff.
The world was silent, except for the soft lapping water a few yards away from her. There was no way anyone could sneak down the cliff—her own tumbling progress had been accentuated with gasps and yelps. She had been helpless to stop her involuntary cries, but the crash of brush had rendered any attempt to be quiet completely useless.
Rachel collapsed onto her back, waiting for her diaphragm to relax enough for her to breathe normally again, but a sweep of light, probably from a high-powered flashlight, arced over the beach. She scrambled backward, pressing against the cliff face. She still wasn’t safe. She needed to move.
Rachel hurried through the deep sand, her instinct to run still vibrating through her body even though she was certain she was no longer being followed. She hurt everywhere, and her already injured shoulder was so painful she wanted to cut the whole arm off, but nothing seemed to be broken. Thank God, because she still needed to climb off the beach.
After what seemed to be hours, she finally saw the lights and shapes of the community on Salmon Beach. She had been there before, responding to calls. Especially when she had been a rookie, because no cop willingly went to Salmon Beach if there was a newbie to send instead. Originally built by hippies in the sixties, the secluded community was only accessible by boat or by the narrow staircase leading to the top of the cliff. A two-hundred-foot-plus bitch of a staircase.
Rachel walked along the tunnel-like footpath, the neighborhood’s main street. Houses built on stilts loomed next to her—old shacks sitting next to fancy homes costing hundreds of thousands of dollars. She could stop at one of them, ask the occupant to call the police and give her a boat ride back to the park’s marina. But for the first time in her adult life, she didn’t trust the police. Had someone in the department called this hit on her? Had Hargrove sent the car into the park, telling its occupants where to wait for her? Or had Hargrove herself been one of the people following Rachel through the woods and shooting at her?
Rachel didn’t know. But until she found out, she wasn’t calling the cops. She’d get out of here, get back to her home. She felt like a kid again, hiding from the authorities, trusting no one. But it was different this time. She had her team. And she had Cal. The thought of their support gave her the strength to keep forcing her cramping and sore legs to move until she got to the base of the staircase, winding upward in the dark. She reconsidered asking for help, for a nice easy boat ride, but she put her hand on the railing and sighed. And started to climb.
Chapter Twenty
Cal cross-tied her bay, Roman, in the aisle near the stalls where the mounted unit was getting ready for their lesson. She was looking forward to the afternoon. For the first time, she’d be a student and Rachel would be the instructor. They’d managed to convince Jack to play the role of a fleeing suspect, and Rachel was going to teach them how to chase and apprehend him from horseback. She could hear the excitement in the voices of the officers as they groomed and tacked their horses. For her, this would be yet another chance to play cop—a real Mountie this time—but for Rachel’s team, it was finally a chance to learn something associated with their day-to-day job.
“Don’t get me wrong,” Don said. He leaned his elbows on the top of Fancy’s stall door. “It’s been interesting taking lessons from you. And I know the desensitizing and riding parts are important. But it’s parade stuff. We’re not going to be exhibition riders. About time we learned to do some good old-fashioned police work.”
Clark laughed as he stood near Sitka’s door and untangled his bridle. “Come on, Don. We’ve learned to arrest enormous beach balls and umbrellas and raincoats…”
“And don’t forget the pretty little dolly and stroller you brought to the barn,” Billie said. “If we have any infant felons, we’ll send you after them.”
“Ha!” Clark said. “Fancy’d probably step on…oh my God. What happened to you?”
Cal had been quietly enjoying the banter, but she followed Clark’s gaze and saw Rachel striding with a slight limp down the barn aisle. The left side of her face was scraped and raw, and her arms were covered with bruises. She looked furious. Cal felt her chest tighten and grow chill, as if she’d been stabbed with an ice pick.
The officers gathered around Rachel, all asking questions at once. Cal stepped past them, taking Rachel’s arm and leading her into the lounge next to the tack room.
“Sit,” she said, pulling Rachel over to the leather couch. She ran her fingers over Rachel’s cheek, feeling nauseated at the sight of dried blood. Cal had never been squeamish about bodily fluids but this was different. This was Rachel. “I’ll get some ice for your eye.”
Rachel grabbed her hand. “No, I’m okay,” she said. But she kept her fingers wrapped around Cal’s and tugged until Cal sat down close to her. The gesture worried Cal more than Rachel’s visible injuries did. Rachel was always very careful to keep a professional distance between them while they were around the team—although Cal enjoyed challenging her boundaries at times—but today, Rachel seemed to need her close.
The others had brought chairs over so they were sitting in a tight cluster around their sergeant.
“Talk,” said Don.
Cal tightened her grip on Rachel’s hand as she described the attack in the park, her flight, her crashing tumble down to the beach. Cal had been to the Bridges Viewpoint many times. The vistas were spectacular, and she had often seen eagles hovering in updrafts where wind blew across the Sound and hit the cliff. She had even spotted a seal once, its tiny head bobbing in the waves, but that was rare because the cliff was so high. So fucking high.
Rachel finished her story with the climb up the staircase and her cautious jog through the residential streets and back to her apartment. “I figured they might guess where I’d have to go to get off Salmon Beach, but I didn’t see any suspicious cars. Maybe they didn’t know about the beach-access road. Or they assumed I was lying on the beach either dead or too injured to move.”
Cal had already conjured up the image of Rachel crumpled on the rocky beach, her body floating out to sea at the next high tide. “Did the police find any clues in the park? Any sign of the car?”
“I didn’t report it,” Rachel said. She disengaged her hand and ran it through her hair. “Don’t look so mad, Cal. I don’t know who to trust anymore.”
“Did you see the car?” Clark asked. “Or the passengers?”
“No. It was so dark. I know there were at least two of them, because I heard two doors shut and they were talking to each other. But by then I was running, and I can’t say if they were men or women.”
“Why now?” Cal asked. “It’s been so quiet since the fire. If you’re right about the rezoning, isn’t it enough that the horses have moved off the property?”
“No,” Rachel said. “The city might rebuild the barn and give us another chance. I guess it depends on how we do in public, whether we can regroup and pull together in time for the Fourth. The land is still designated for the mounted division, even if the horses aren’t actually there.”
“I think you’re right about the fire,” Don said. “It was set to destroy the barn and the horses. But this is personal. Killing you wouldn’t necessarily mean the unit is disbanded. Someone wanted you dead.”
“Maybe someone found out you were snooping around the land-use records yesterday,” Clark said.
Rachel nodded. “If so, it means we’re on the right track. Getting close enough to make people nervous. Did you find anything suspicious when you researched the condos?”
Cal listened vaguely to the talk about dead ends and clueless searches through the water
front high-rise’s records. She hated the matter-of-fact way they were discussing Rachel’s attack as if it were happening to a stranger. The distance between them and the events happening to them—mainly to Rachel—bothered her. She wanted Rachel to feel as close to the crimes as she did. To feel afraid, to back out of this insane mounted division and follow through with her plan to transfer to a nice, quiet spot with the Cheney police department. Better yet, take a nice, quiet desk job.
Jack poked his head around the door. “Are you about ready for me to rob a bank and…Rachel, are you okay? What’s going on?”
“I tripped and fell when I was jogging through the park,” Rachel said. “But, yeah. Let’s get on with our lesson. I’ll get Bandit ready.”
“I’ll take care of him for you,” Jack said. He disappeared, and the rest of the officers followed him.
Rachel stood up. “You coming, Cal?” she asked.
“Are you crazy?” Cal asked, hearing a very unaccustomed note of hysteria in her voice. She fought for her usual control and equanimity. Or at least the appearance of them. “Someone’s tried to barbecue you, to run you over, to shoot you. Don’t you think a normal person would be getting scared about now? Giving up? The mounted unit would be nice for the city, but it sure the hell isn’t worth risking your life for it.”
“Hey,” Rachel said quietly. She sat down and took Cal’s hand again, lacing their fingers together. “Of course I’m scared. And I’ve considered giving up. But I can’t let fear run my life, or I’ll never make it as a cop. Besides, I’ve seen you taking plenty of chances when you play polo. You could be seriously injured out there, but it doesn’t stop you from playing.”
Rachel smoothed her thumb over Cal’s cheekbone and cupped her chin. Cal leaned into the caress even though part of her wanted to clobber Rachel for being so foolhardy.