It was almost dinnertime when we got back to the hotel. I was tired and slightly sunburned. And I’d devoured more bourbon balls in the previous hour than any sane person should eat in an entire lifetime.
I was looking forward to a shower and maybe a short nap. So when a knock came at the door shortly after Aunt Peg, Faith, and I entered the room, I decided that Aunt Peg, who was still brimming with energy, should be delegated to deal with whatever had come up now.
If only things could ever be that easy.
I was shucking my sweater off over my head a moment later when Aunt Peg stepped back from the doorway and invited Daniel inside to join us.
“Sorry to interrupt,” he said. Then he stopped and stared at Faith. “Do you know there’s a dog in here?”
“Yes,” I told him. “I’m well aware. That’s Faith. She’s a Standard Poodle.”
Daniel’s expression brightened. “One of Miss Ellie’s?”
“No,” I said firmly. “Mine.”
“Oh.” He turned back to Aunt Peg. “You might find this interesting. There’s been a development.”
She waved him toward a chair near the window. “What kind of development?”
“Billy just called. He wants to meet with me.”
“That doesn’t sound unexpected.” Aunt Peg sat down opposite him. “Is it?”
“Not the meeting part, no,” Daniel allowed. “Billy and I have spoken at least once on some pretext or another every day that I’ve been here. I think it’s his way of keeping tabs on my activities and making sure that I’m not looking into other opportunities that don’t include him.”
“So how is this different?” Aunt Peg asked.
“He and I already had a plan in place for tomorrow morning. We were supposed to meet in the grandstand at Keeneland at nine-thirty to watch the works. But now Billy thinks we should get together before that. He asked me to meet him at the training track at his farm at seven A.M.”
“That’s early,” I said.
Daniel shrugged. “Horse people. They have no appreciation for the joys of a warm bed. I think everybody in this whole state rises at the crack of dawn.”
“Are you going?” asked Aunt Peg.
“Of course I’m going,” Daniel replied. “And I think you should come with me.”
Chapter 25
“You want me to come with you?”
Had the request been directed to me, I’d have been surprised. Not Aunt Peg. She sounded positively delighted.
And—along with the other interesting developments I was busy making note of—Daniel had reached across the space between them and taken Aunt Peg’s hand. I just thought I’d mention that.
“Yes,” he replied. “Definitely yes. And we need to think about how to make it work.”
“Or why it should happen at all,” I said.
As if they’d forgotten I was even there, Daniel and Aunt Peg both turned their heads to gaze in my direction. I was half tempted to waggle my fingers in a wave. Deciding that was too juvenile, I tossed my sweater onto my suitcase, and plopped down on the bed instead. Faith quickly hopped up to join me.
“The why is easy,” said Daniel. “At this stage of the game, I don’t want to make Billy suspicious that something might have changed by refusing to meet with him.”
“That explains why you’re going,” I pointed out. “It doesn’t tell us why you think Aunt Peg should join you.”
“Two reasons. First, because I want there to be a witness to whatever is said between Billy and me. I’m well aware that this plan is being played out on Gates turf and that Billy definitely has a home field advantage. If things should get messy later—or if something happens that I’m not anticipating—I don’t want the situation to turn into a ‘he said/she said’ impasse.”
“I can certainly see that,” Aunt Peg agreed.
“The second reason,” said Daniel, “is that I didn’t enter into this arrangement on my own. Miss Ellie and I were working together as a team. When things came up, or when I had questions, we bounced ideas off of each other and decided how best to proceed. Her feedback was enormously valuable. Obviously that’s a resource I no longer have access to.”
“Quite right.” Aunt Peg gently disentangled her hand and pulled it back to her lap. “When it comes to reasoning things through, two brains are always better than one.”
I looked at her pointedly. “Especially if one of those brains is an expert on horses. Which you most definitely are not.”
“No, but I do like to think that I possess a good understanding of human nature. Under these circumstances, that might prove to be an equally useful skill.” She turned back to Daniel. “What did you mean when you said that we need to figure out how to make the meeting work?”
“Think about it,” he said. “It’s not as if the two of us can simply show up together. Especially since the first time you and Billy met, you tried to tell him that he was steering me toward the wrong horse.”
“Perhaps not my finest moment,” Aunt Peg allowed. Her eyes narrowed. “Even if I was correct in my assessment.”
Daniel ignored that gibe. “How you would feel about a little undercover work?” he asked.
I groaned under my breath. Everyone ignored me except Faith, who laid her head across my lap in a silent gesture of support. Thank God I wasn’t the only smart one in the room.
“A clandestine assignment?” Aunt Peg said with relish. “That sounds like a brilliant idea.”
Daniel chuckled. “I’m afraid I wasn’t thinking of anything that exciting. Rather I was hoping you’d be willing to serve as unseen backup. Actually under cover, as it were. You’ve been to the training track. Do you remember the layout?”
Aunt Peg and I both nodded. Once again, I don’t know why I bothered. Nobody was paying any attention to me.
“Billy and I are supposed to meet in the parking lot. What he won’t know is that you’ll be concealed in the back of my SUV. When I get out, I’ll make sure to leave all the windows open. Even though you won’t be visible, you should be able to hear everything we say.”
That sounded much too simple to actually work. I asked the logical question.
“What if Billy takes you somewhere else?”
“I’m pretty sure he won’t. Don’t forget, I’ve spent the last week with him. Billy Gates is a talker, not a walker,” Daniel said. “Also, there shouldn’t be anything in the barn or on the track that he wants to show me. The horses we’re interested in are all over at Keeneland now. I’m betting that Billy and I won’t move even ten feet from our starting point.”
“It’s too bad he’s already seen me,” Aunt Peg mused. “Otherwise you could pass me off as your cousin from Connecticut who loves horses and wants to invest money, too.”
“Because this plan isn’t already wacky enough?” I said drily.
“Melanie’s right,” Daniel concurred. “We should keep things as simple as possible. That way there’ll be less chance of anyone slipping up. So you’ll help?”
“Of course,” Aunt Peg confirmed. “You couldn’t keep me away.”
The two of them looked inordinately pleased with themselves. How could I be the only one among us who was harboring doubts about the wisdom of this harebrained scheme? And another thing. What were the chances that Aunt Peg would actually follow Daniel’s directions?
“I’m coming with you,” I found myself saying into the silence that followed.
“You,” Aunt Peg told me pointedly, “were not invited.”
“Tough luck,” I said. “Daniel’s plan has a much better chance of succeeding if I come along to make sure that you don’t decide to improvise.”
“Fine with me.” Daniel said with a shrug. “I have an SUV. I’ll put the seats down.” His gaze drifted over to Faith. “You can even bring the dog if you like.”
He laughed at his own joke.
He wouldn’t be laughing tomorrow when I took him up on it.
* * *
My life is filled with
reasons to get up early. A cranky toddler, school bus schedules, and distant dog shows all drag me out of bed before I’m ready to face the day. So rising at six the next morning was easy for me. Less so for Aunt Peg, who was grumbling as she dragged herself off to the shower when Faith and I were on our way out the door for a walk.
By the time we returned, Aunt Peg had made a remarkable recovery. She was dressed and ready to go, waiting outside the hotel next to Daniel’s SUV. There was still almost an hour until sunrise and the morning air was both damp and chilly. When Daniel emerged from the lobby a few minutes later, his fingers were wrapped around a steaming cup of coffee.
“I was kidding about the dog,” he said, casting us an unhappy look as he used his key fob to open the locks.
“I wasn’t.” I’d had to leave Faith behind too many times in the last week. I wasn’t about to do so again. “Don’t worry. She’ll behave.”
“She’d better,” Daniel muttered.
Moisture rising from the area’s numerous creeks and streams contributed to an early morning fog had come down like a low blanket to settle over the outskirts of Lexington. By the time we reached Midway, I could barely see the road ten feet ahead of us. It felt as though we were driving through a silvery cloud. Even with his fog lamps on, Daniel had to slow the SUV’s speed considerably.
“This morning mist is nothing unusual around here,” he said. “It’ll probably lift in a couple hours, but for now it suits our purposes perfectly. We won’t have to worry about Billy looking inside the vehicle if he can’t even see it.”
As we reached the perimeter gate that led directly to the training track, Daniel pulled over to the side of the road. “Let’s get ourselves set up before we drive onto the farm. Are you sure that dog is going to be good?”
“Positive,” I said. “But I can’t make the same guarantee about Aunt Peg.”
“All we have to do is listen,” she said with a snort. “How hard can that be?”
Indeed.
All four of us got out of the SUV. Daniel and I lowered the backseat to enlarge the vehicle’s cargo area. Aunt Peg climbed in and lay down. Faith and I followed. Daniel shook out a dark-colored quilt and settled it on top of us.
“Everybody comfy?” he asked.
“Couldn’t be better,” Aunt Peg said cheerfully.
“Sit tight and we’ll be there in a minute. I’ll crack the windows open as soon as I park.”
It felt eerie moving along like that in the dark. With nothing to look at, every sound—like the muffled creak of the farm gate as it swung slowly open—was amplified. Divots and ruts in the road caused the three of us to lose our balance and list from side to side into each other. I knew logically that there was plenty of air in the car and we could all breathe perfectly well, but the closeness beneath the quilt felt stifling.
I kept a reassuring arm curled over Faith’s back, but the precaution was unnecessary. The Poodle lay quietly with her head nestled between her front paws. As usual, she was dealing with things better than I was.
“I’m almost at the barn,” Daniel said in a low tone. “Billy’s truck is already there. I’ll pull in next to it. Everybody ready?”
“Ready,” Aunt Peg and I murmured in assent.
I heard a smooth whir as Daniel lowered several of the windows. The SUV coasted to a stop. There was a click as the key was turned and the engine died.
“Mornin’,” I heard Billy Gates say. “Thanks for coming. You need coffee? There’s some in the barn.”
“I brought my own,” Daniel replied. I heard him climb out of the vehicle and close the door behind him. “Where is everybody? Last time we were here, this place was bustling. Now it looks deserted.”
“Most of the horses that were here before are two-year-olds that have shipped over to the sale. Only a few older horses in the barn now. No reason to take any unnecessary chances. We won’t be bringing ’em out to the track until the fog lifts.”
“That’s good,” said Daniel. “I guess we’ll have plenty of privacy to talk.”
“That’s just what I was thinkin’. Because it seems to me that we need to clear some air between us.”
I shifted slightly and stole a look at Aunt Peg. She lifted a brow. We both waited to hear what would happen next.
“I don’t know what you mean,” Daniel said.
“Oh, I think you do,” Billy disagreed. “For starters you should think about filling me in on your relationship with my cousin.”
“Your cousin?”
Daniel Nash wasn’t much of an actor. He was probably aiming to sound confused by the question. Instead his voice rose unsteadily. There was a clear undercurrent of apprehension in his tone.
“A’right then,” Billy replied. I heard a loud creak and pictured him leaning back against the side of his dilapidated truck. “We’ll approach this from another direction. People in other parts of the country sure make a lot of jokes about how everyone in Kentucky is related to everybody else.”
“Umm . . . I guess.” Daniel sounded relieved by the change of subject. He must have lifted his cup. I heard him slurp his coffee.
“The thing is, what makes that joke so funny is that the premise is partly true. Most of the old families around here have branches spreading all over the place. By the time your people have lived in Kentucky as long as the Gateses have, you’re kin to just about everybody.”
“If you say so. Look, Billy, I thought you asked me to come out here this morning so we could talk about horses.”
“Don’t worry, we’ll work our way back around to that. In the meantime, let me tell you about my second cousin, Harriet’s, boy. Name of Elliot. Bright young kid. Doesn’t care much for the horses though. Shame about that.”
“Maybe he’ll change his mind,” Daniel offered weakly.
“Doubt it,” Billy said. “Kid’s workin’ his way through U.K. right now. Biology major, industrious as all get-out. Elliot knows how to keep his eye on the main chance. And how to take care of his own. You wouldn’t want to hazard a guess as to where he might be workin’, would you?”
“I have no idea,” Daniel sputtered. “How would I know something like that?”
“The thing is, you probably wouldn’t,” Billy said with satisfaction. “Which was kind of a lucky break for me. You see Elliot’s puttin’ himself through school by workin’ nights bartending over at the hotel in Beaumont Centre. That’s the place where you’re staying, isn’t it?”
My head came up. I smothered a startled gasp.
Aunt Peg reached over and poked me with her thumb. My eyes were accustomed to the darkness beneath the blanket now and I could see the expression on her face. It was every bit as horrified as my own.
My thoughts sped back to the conversation we’d had in the bar on the previous evening. And to the attentive way the bartender had kept an eye on us while we huddled around his back table, talking. At the time I’d thought he was merely doing his job, watching so he’d know when our drinks needed replenishing.
But now I realized that the first time I’d noticed the bartender paying attention to us was right after Daniel had mentioned Billy’s name. He must have tuned into our conversation and listened to everything we said after that.
Holy crap, I thought. That was really not good.
My stomach clenched; I felt my insides turn over. Harriet’s boy, Elliot, with his eye on the main chance, must have left the bar and brought that damning information straight to cousin Billy. Taking care of his own indeed.
“This is going to be a problem!” Aunt Peg whispered furiously.
“You think?” I hissed in return.
“Come on, Daniel, walk with me,” Billy said in a genial tone. “You and I, we have some more talkin’ to do.”
“Walking?” Aunt Peg’s eyes opened wide. “They can’t leave now. There wasn’t supposed to be any walking!”
“I have a feeling none of this is going to go the way we hoped,” I said grimly.
We listened to the cru
nch of departing footsteps on the gravel driveway. Within moments the fog had obscured even that sound, and quiet descended once more. Still lying shrouded, I felt a shiver slip down my spine. The total absence of sensory input from outside the car gave the situation a seriously spooky vibe. I’d had nightmares that were less creepy that this.
Then suddenly I remembered the dream I’d had just before we left for Kentucky. With startling, dizzying clarity those buried sensations came flooding back. Once again I saw myself racing through swirling mists on the back of a fleet-footed horse. The sound of hoofbeats pounded in my ears.
I blinked my eyes and shook my head and the vision abruptly vanished. Good riddance, I thought. That damn dream better not have been an omen.
“Now what?” Aunt Peg flipped back the edge of the quilt and poked her head out. “We can’t just let them go off on their own. You heard what Billy said. He knows that Daniel intended to double-cross him. We have to do something.”
Cautiously I raised myself up and looked out through the nearest window. Outside the SUV, the quality of the light had changed. Though it wasn’t visible, the sun must have been rising over the horizon. Here, however, a bank of dense, low-lying fog still covered everything. The big barn was only a hazy shadow in the foreground. I couldn’t see the training track at all.
“Doing something wasn’t part of the plan,” I said.
“Obviously the plan has changed,” Aunt Peg snapped.
I fumbled in my pocket and pulled out my phone—and was presented with the downside to all that pastoral beauty. I had no bars at all. Not even one.
“Maybe we should wait for them to come back,” I said.
“What if they don’t come back?”
The ominous thought hung in the damp air between us.
“How dangerous do you think Billy is?” I asked. I wasn’t at all sure that I wanted to hear her answer.
“How dangerous do you have to be to shove an old lady to her death?” Aunt Peg retorted. She was already drawing her legs up and reaching for the door handle. “The whole Gates family seems half-cracked to me. Billy’s already removed one obstacle from his path. I can’t see him hesitating to remove another.”
Live and Let Growl Page 24