by Alison Mello
I knew for a horse kick to kill someone outright, it would have to be really close, and if not, they would definitely have to be shod to achieve maximum damage. Considering I was a stranger, Nelson was perfectly fine with me in his personal space.
I began to wonder if his behaviour towards Tim was something deeper than Tim made out.
I grabbed his head-collar, which hung up outside his stable. He thrust his head into it before giving me a gentle shove towards the door. This horse wanted out, and after glancing round his stable, I couldn’t blame him. The rancid smell of ammonia had already crawled up my nose, making my eyes water. Dried piles of manure heaped up on top of one another left me in no doubt Tim hadn’t even been in here to clean him out. His water bucket was also nearly empty and his food bowl had been licked clean.
Despite this, he remained with perfect manners as I led him down the aisle, not rushing or barging into me once. As we broke out into the fresh air, Ash, Ben, and Paul were just making their way towards us. Tim was up near the house, rummaging around in his truck. Nelson held his head up high and took in a deep breath before he sighed and then visibly relaxed. I led him over to the nearest patch of grass lining one of the paddocks and let him eat. His head was down before he’d even approached the grass, his neck stuck out in eagerness. He snatched at the lush grass with vigorous shakes of his head, cramming his mouth as full as possible. In less than a minute, a mushy green froth had formed around his lips. The poor chap was starving.
“What are you doing?” Ash said.
“This is the horse that supposedly killed Mum.”
“So you’re handling it because…?”
“Touch him.”
“What?”
“Touch the horse, Ash.”
Ash stared back at me as if I’d just announced I was an alien or something. Thankfully, Paul took the lead and strode forwards, walking around Nelson’s back end with a wide berth. He approached his other side and started stroking his neck. Nelson never battered an eyelid.
Eyeing me curiously, Ash followed Paul’s footsteps and tickled Nelson’s withers. He flicked his ears back and forth, acknowledging their presence, but otherwise continued munching on his grass, ignoring the men fussing over him.
Ben followed suit, his nerves all but clear as he stood at arm’s length, his fingertips just brushing Nelson’s back.
Just in time, Tim shut his truck door and turned around, a look of shock and terror spreading over his face.
“Careful,” I said to the trio around me. “You might want to move.”
Tim strode down the gravelly hill towards me, his whole face darkening and his eyes gleaming with fury. The men quickly evacuated themselves from Nelson, leaning back against the wooden fencing a few feet away.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Tim shouted, still a good hundred yards away.
I kept my eyes on Nelson, watching as his ears flicked towards the approaching person.
“He needs fresh air, and his stable is disgusting,” I said. “I thought you could muck him out whilst I keep him amused with some grass.”
As Tim closed in the last twenty feet, Nelson grunted, and launched himself forwards at the horrid man. He spun himself around in a full on attack—ears pinned back, teeth bared, and heels kicking.
The lead rope snapped to its full length, nearly snatching me straight off my feet as he lunged at his target. Tim jumped back with inches to spare, fear leaking across his features. Nelson’s feet had barely touched the ground again before he took another aim, this time coming dangerously close to Tim’s head. Tim scuttled backwards a good few feet, enough to keep Nelson relatively calm.
I took the length of the lead rope, closing the gap between us and patted his neck, soothing him with my voice at the same time. He snorted and pawed at the ground, his shoulder muscles quivering with excitement. He was pumped with adrenaline, ready to go, and part of me was tempted to let him loose.
“What the hell was that?” Ash said, walking up behind me. “What’s your point, Ky? That the horse can kick and that’s how he killed Mum?”
I turned to Ash, shooting him a withering look. “No, you idiot. This is my point.”
I marched back towards Tim. As expected, within a matter of feet, Nelson hurled himself at Tim again. The noise that left him was nothing short of animalistic—a screeching cry of something that wanted its death match. I’d only ever heard something like this between two fighting stallions in the wild.
Trying to hide my smirk, I let the lead rope go, delight taking over as Tim literally ran for his life. He hooked a sharp left and dove for the paddock fence, desperate to escape Nelson’s bared teeth.
Unfortunately for Tim, he wasn’t too nimble getting over the fence, and Nelson managed to sink a flesh piercing bite in his upper thigh as he straddled the top of the post and rails. He screamed in pain before he fell off on the other side of the fence. Nelson snorted and pawed at the ground as he kept a watchful eye on the howling man rolling around on the grass.
I didn’t doubt for a second that Nelson would jump the fence if he wanted to but he didn’t, he just stood there, keeping a watchful eye on the spiteful man. He snorted and continued to stomp the ground, nodding his head with impatience.
I walked to him, talking softly as I took hold of his dangling lead rope. He calmed almost immediately as I led him back to the three gobsmacked men who were leaned up against the fence.
“Have I made my point?” I asked Ash.
He was so white, he looked like he’d just seen a ghost. “Yes,” he said. “A point well made.”
I nodded and led Nelson towards an empty paddock to let him have some freedom at last. I couldn’t help but laugh at the irony here—I could read a horse’s hatred for someone killing my mum within seconds, but I couldn’t read my boyfriend and my best friend being at it for months. Maybe that was the point though—you always saw the impossible before the possible.
Chapter Forty-Five
Paul and Ben picked Tim up and took him back inside the house. Ash waited for me to come back from the paddock before he started his jumbled mix of apologies and questions.
“You’ll see soon,” I said.
“You still haven’t told me what happened on Saturday night.”
“I’ll tell you when all of this is over and done with.”
We walked back to the house in silence. Stepping inside the kitchen, Tim’s curses floated down the hallway from the bathroom making us all smile.
Hearing the bathroom door unlock, I whipped my phone from my pocket and set the voice recorder to record. Tim marched back into the kitchen clutching at his thigh with a thunderous look on his face.
“I don’t know what the hell you think you’re playing at, young lady, but this is not a good way to stop me from suing you for slander.”
“Sue me all you like—I have nothing to give you unless a hundred grand house back in England is of any use to you?”
He scowled at me as he realised we didn’t know about the money or the will yet—or rather he didn’t know I knew about them yet.
“Speaking of which, why would you sue your dead wife’s daughter? That’s not very family spirit now, is it?”
“And accusing your step-dad of coming on to you at his wedding to your mum is family spirit, is it? Coming over here, staying at my ranch, and accusing me of trying to rape you is good family spirit also, is it?”
I fixed him a steely stare. “But I didn’t accuse, did I, Tim? Because you actually did attempt it, didn’t you?”
He laughed. “You’re crazy.”
I smirked. “Really? Am I that crazy that I also discovered some tales about Mr. Tim Bycraft and Mr. Tim Roker?”
His face paled instantly, a look of terror flashing through his eyes.
“Mr. Tim Bycraft from New York. Under investigation for a series of rapes and the rape victims’ bank accounts being emptied. Mr. Tim Roker who happened to marry three unfortunate women in Florida who died in
tragic circumstances, disowned their children, and left all of their millions to him before he, too, vanished. And then we have Mr. Tim Masters, which is you, I believe, who assaulted his now dead wife ten days ago over a row which ensued because she had changed her will the day after pulling her shares in and left her ten-million-pound fortune to her two children whom she had previously written out of her will. And then we have the same Mr. Tim Masters who attempted to rape his step-daughter, called her a liar, and was going to sue her for slander. Doesn’t it all seem to fit a little too nicely?”
Ash choked on his own breath and glared at the man stood next to him who was trembling from head to foot.
“Tell me,” I said, swallowing a lump in my throat. “How did you do it? How did you kill Mum?”
His mouth flopped open and closed like a dying goldfish as he hesitated for words. Nothing was truer than the saying knowledge is power, and right now, I was revelling in my newfound power.
He crossed his arms over his chest. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Really? Shall I ring Lisa’s children?” I made a move towards my phone but he stopped me with his words.
“It’s not what it looks like,” he whispered.
“What the fuck is it, then?” Ash asked, jumping from his chair and sending it sprawling across the floor.
“Lisa did genuinely die whilst I was out of town,” he said.
Ash’s mouth dropped open. “But what? The convenience of it all gave you an idea?”
He remained silent.
Ash stepped towards him with his fists clenched. “What were you planning to do? Move from state to state until you’d got more money than you knew what to do with?”
“I had nothing when I was a kid. How is it fair those brats get millions to piss up the wall and blow on hookers when I genuinely needed it to start a business? How can you entrust a kid with millions of pounds? It was better off being spent wisely.”
“That’s what trust funds are for, you idiot,” I said. “Instead, their mothers are dead and they think they didn’t mean a damn thing to them because you made them write them out of their wills.”
“So what about me and Kyra?” Ash said, shoving him in the chest. “Had you just got greedy by this point?”
“Why should that little cow get anything?” he said, looking at me. His top lip curled back as he snarled at me. “Do you know how much shit I got after your little revelation at the wedding? If it hadn’t been for you, then maybe your mum would still be alive.”
I felt like I’d been stabbed in the heart upon hearing those words. Ash let his anger overrule him and punched Tim in the face, sending him flying backwards down the hallway.
Bounding after him, Ash roared curse words in his blind fury, raising his fist to give him more. Ben scrambled up from his seat and attempted to pull Ash off him but it was too late—blood was already splattered everywhere from Tim’s newly broken nose.
Paul wrapped his arms around me as I struggled to breathe, those words going round and round in my mind like a carousel. Was he suggesting it was my fault she went snooping? I struggled to hold back my tears as my legs gave way beneath me. Paul pulled me down to sit on his lap, his arms warming through my numbness.
“How did you do it?” Ash said, now trapped in a bear hug from Ben. “How did you kill Mum?”
“She’d been kicked in the face a few hours before by one of the mares. It wasn’t hard to whack her over the head during her late night checks and finish the job off, blaming it on that stupid horse of hers.”
I broke out into uncontrollable sobs at hearing his confession. It was one thing thinking something, but was quite another to hear it. I kept replaying the scenario over and over in my head. A little voice in the back of my mind reminded me of Nelson’s splintered doorframe.
“He broke the door down to get to you, didn’t he?” I said.
Ash squirmed inside Ben’s hold as he tried to get loose on the despicable man confessing his murder of our mother to us.
Tim’s wild eyes locked onto mine as his face spread into a wide devilish grin. “That fucking horse will be the death of me,” he said. “If it hadn’t been for you, then none of this would have happened. None of this.”
I turned and buried my face in Paul’s shoulder. He massaged the back of my head as he kissed my hair and held me tighter.
“You have two options,” Paul said, his authority vibrating through every inch of him. “You hand yourself in or we put you in the paddock with that horse. Your choice.”
Tim laughed and then bolted for the door.
Ben released Ash, the pair of them following the murderer out of the door. Paul set me down in the blink of an eye as he, too, ran outside after Tim.
I stood up, making my own way outside. Ben rugby tackled him to the ground before Paul and Ash grabbed his arms and legs and dragged him towards the paddock. I walked down after them, smirking as they pulled him, kicking and screaming, into the paddock.
Nelson’s head sprung up instantly at hearing Tim’s voice and he bolted towards the gate as Tim screamed in fear.
In years to come, I knew I could look back at this comical situation and laugh, but right now, I could do nothing but grit my teeth and wish for Nelson to mutilate the asshole to death. Unfortunately, he screamed his agreement to handing himself in—just as Nelson reached him, teeth bared, ready for round two. He clamped his vicelike jaws around Tim’s upper arm as he let out a high-pitched squeal, snapping at him like a rabid dog.
Paul and Ash dragged Tim out of the gate as Ben pulled his phone out and rang the cops. I could do nothing but collapse in a heap of exhaustion, relief, and overwhelming emotions as I heard the sirens approaching.
Chapter Forty-Six
The next few days were a blur that I really couldn’t have gotten through without Paul. He was as solid as a rock, never leaving my side, pampering to my every whim and making sure I was okay. He buffered unnecessary people away for the time being, giving me time to adjust and take everything in all in my own time.
It turned out Tim had paid off the local coroner to agree with his version of events and upon having another autopsy done, it was true that the kick on Mum’s face had happened approximately six hours before her death. I could only presume this was why Tim wanted her cremated.
Unfortunately, though, she was still going to have her final resting place out here. There was too much red tape and not enough time to get her back home.
Today was Tuesday, and she’d been buried at the local cemetery yesterday. The funeral was the perfect send off for her. I was surprised to see how many friends she’d made in her short time out here.
The police searched Tim’s house and discovered a stash of GHB underneath his floorboards. I knew this was why my dreams had felt so real yet so dreamlike, and I also knew I wasn’t the first victim. They were going to investigate the previous reports from the female guests who had been here.
Along with that, Tim had also been formally charged with Mum’s murder after our recording of the entire thing on my phone. Paul’s contact had also put his part in and joined several missing dots together to make sure Tim was locked up for good and the key thrown away.
The real twist came in that Mum was Tim’s next of kin for all of his assets and belongings. With us being the beneficiaries to Mum, it meant everything of his was now ours. He had already signed over his rights to everything being relinquished to Mum’s estate. There was a lot of legal proceedings to get through as a lot of it was classed as evidence where it concerned money, but as it had been written into wills that it be left to Tim, it was a tricky area.
Ash and Paul spent the whole of yesterday going through all of his affairs and were immensely surprised to see he had twenty-four million dollars in the bank. Why someone would want more than that was beyond me. I couldn’t understand it.
Paul was going to enter into negotiations with solicitors to see if he could return the stolen money to the children who had been
left behind in Tim’s past. It would still leave us with half of what he had but we planned to give that away to charity if we could. The money Mum had left us would easily set the both of us up for life; we didn’t need anymore.
Ash announced he wanted to stay at the ranch. I didn’t know quite how to take it and presumed it was just a phase he was on. He couldn’t mean permanently, surely?
I was booked onto a flight back to England at nine tonight. As I hugged Ash goodbye and climbed into Paul’s rental car, I found myself smiling for the first time in days as I felt that, finally, maybe things would be looking up.
The flight was long and silent, and I found myself asleep through most of it. I really couldn’t have asked for much more from Paul as he held my hand and said nothing, always waiting for me to speak first. He wouldn’t push me and he knew I would talk if I wanted to.
He surprised me when he drove past my house.
“Where are we going?” I said as he guided his car through the dark back roads.
“To mine,” he replied, smiling. “I’m not leaving you.”
He reached a hand over and rested it on my thigh. I smiled as I took hold of his warm offering and squeezed it. He flashed me a dazzling smile as we continued on. My heart began racing when we approached his driveway.
“Are you sure this is a good idea?”
“I don’t care,” he said.
The impressive house was sheathed in darkness, looking nothing but peaceful as we pulled up to the front door. I got out of the car and went to the boot to get my stuff.
“Leave it,” he said, grabbing my hand. “We’ll deal with that later. You need a decent sleep.”
I smiled at his caring nature as we climbed the stone steps and stepped through the wooden front doors. He led me up the staircase lined with a plush red carpet, turning us left when we reached the top. Leading me through a white door straight in front of us, I stood in awe at the room around me. Dark wood lined the walls, exquisite carvings of flowers and gargoyles detailing the expensive material. A deep royal blue carpet splayed out over the room, a queen-size black metal frame taking centre stage. And to top it off, a fantastic bay window looking out over the splendid landscaped gardens.