Steve Cline Mysteries - 01 - At Risk

by Kit Ehrman

  I sank farther down behind the log and tried to control my breathing. As long as I stayed still and didn't make any noise, they wouldn't find me. Just as that thought crossed my mind, the beam caught me full in the face. I stopped breathing.

  The light moved off to my left, and for a moment, its afterimage was all I could see. I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to clear my sight. When I opened my eyes, the men had moved past the trailer's bumper. The glow from the taillights bathed them in red. They were no longer wearing masks. The one with the flashlight gestured aggressively, barking commands I couldn't hear. When the other two wheeled around and took off down the road, the skin on the back of my neck tingled. Though I doubted they knew where I was, the image of them sneaking up behind me was overpowering.

  I scrunched deeper into the leaves, pressed my shoulder against the log, and waited. When I next heard voices, I lifted my head and squinted toward the road. The two men had returned with the escape door and were loading it through the opening.

  Light flashed in the woods to my left.

  He was part way up the hill with his damn flashlight, shining the beam across the wooded slope behind me and to my left. If he moved much farther uphill and swung the light to his left, he'd see me. I watched as he ducked under a tangle of tree limbs and came closer. Another thirty feet, and he'd be level with my hiding place. He moved off to the right, toward a downed tree. As he crept around the base of the stump, light glinted off his gun.

  If I ran, he'd see me, and he was too close to miss. But if he checked behind my log, I was as good as dead.

  The cone of light cut across the ground just beyond my head. I waited for it to refocus on me. Waited for the shouts. When neither happened, I cautiously lifted my head. The flashlight was out, and as I listened, I realized why. A car was approaching. The engine's whine dropped a notch or two as it slowed to pass the trailer. After the car moved off, he switched on the flashlight, studied the hillside above my head, then turned and started back down the slope.

  I kept my head down until I heard noises by the trailer. The one with the flashlight swept the beam in broad tracts across the asphalt, and I wondered what he was up to. Twice, he reached down and picked something up.

  "Son of a bitch," I whispered.

  Evidence. He was making sure they didn't leave anything behind. He found the third shell casing along the shoulder of the road. A pickup sped past as they climbed into the cab. Doors slammed, the truck dropped into gear, and they drove off. They probably figured they didn't have much to worry about, and they were right. I couldn't identify them. Even without the masks, it had been too dark.

  As I watched the taillights fade into the distance, the thought of what I had narrowly escaped made my stomach do a quick one-eighty. I began to shake and not just from the cold. I stared at the vacant road, and pain I hadn't noticed since I was free of the trailer reawakened with a vengeance. Ribs, face, head.

  I pushed off the log and stood up. My jeans were stiff and unyielding. They had begun to freeze. I'd be next if I didn't hurry. I turned my coat collar up with fingers that felt as if they belonged to someone else and stumbled down the slope. The drainage ditch was too wide to jump, so I waded through the icy water and climbed the embankment. I started walking.

  A vehicle rounded the bend in the road ahead and accelerated toward me. I stood, frozen in the bright headlights. I hadn't noticed whether it was a car or a pickup or a dualie pulling a horse trailer. I staggered into the woods and dropped to the ground.

  It whizzed by. A car . . . only a car.

  I hung my head and listened to my pulse pound in my ears. After a minute or two, I stepped onto the pavement and tucked my hands under my armpits. My fingers felt like blocks of ice, and my teeth were chattering so hard, my jaw hurt. The idea of curling up in the leaves and going to sleep seemed attractive, and the fact that I was even considering it scared me. I had to get somewhere warm, and fast. Given the right circumstances, cold could kill as effectively as bullets.

  I kept walking.

  By the time I reached safety, in the form of an all-night convenience store, the sky had lightened into a dull gray. The police arrived, as they typically do, followed by the medics and later, at the hospital, a detective--all of them asking questions, most of which I couldn't remember afterwards. At first, like the convenience store clerk, the cops thought I was drunk and had upended my car in a ditch somewhere. But the ER doctor told them that hypothermia did that. That they shouldn't be surprised that my speech was slurred, reactions nonexistent, memory faulty.

  Chapter 2

  Sunday afternoon, my doctor signed my release papers.

  "You're not allergic to any medications, right?"

  "Far as I know."

  "You're employed?" I nodded, and he said, "Take off for a day or two, and when you go back, take it easy for a couple weeks." He pulled a prescription pad from a pocket in his lab coat and began to scribble. "Occupation?"

  "Barn manager . . . at a horse farm."

  He looked up, his pen hovering over his paperwork. "Better take off a full week, then start back slow. Give the ribs a chance to heal."

  I didn't tell him I couldn't afford to, that there was just too much to be done, not to mention the fact that I needed every penny I earned.

  He saw what I was thinking, tore up the prescription, and wrote a new one. "This will give you more relief. If you have any questions or problems, get in touch with your family physician." He tried to suppress a yawn as he initialed the chart. "You do have a family doctor?"

  "Err, no, actually."

  He shook his head. "Well, find one, will you?" He straightened and tucked the pen back into his breast pocket. "Have the police finished with their interviews?"

  "Last night."

  "Thought so. You weren't very coherent when they brought you in."

  The entire police thing had been more tedious and involved than I ever would have imagined and something I would just as soon forget. Besides requiring a more detailed statement, they had taken my fingerprints--for elimination purposes, they'd said. And they had photographed my injuries. Need to have proof an assault happened, you know? The only thing they still needed, and were unlikely to get, were suspects.

  He dropped the prescription on the bedside table. "Good luck." He grinned. "And stay out of trouble."

  I watched him stroll out the door, then I called the farm and arranged for a ride home.

  For the next two hours, I stared out the window at a dreary expanse of black rooftop, thinking unproductive thoughts while the relay switch in the heating unit clicked wildly. At a quarter to five, Marty slouched into the room, and it was only from long acquaintance that I noticed the brief hesitation in his face as he took in the bruising and the gown and the bandages around my wrists.

  He called over his shoulder. "He's in here."

  Dave, Foxdale's handyman, appeared in the doorway as Marty hitched a hip on the footboard.

  "Tell all," Marty said.

  Since I'd started at Foxdale, Marty and I had become best friends. An unlikely union as we were more opposite than alike. He was easygoing and coarse, vulgar at times, and seemingly without ambition. "You first," I said. "What's happening at Foxdale?"

  Marty shrugged. "What you'd expect. Phone ringing off the hook. Outrage, paranoia, tears." He grinned. "On the boarders' part, that is. 'Cause the guys are thrilled to death having seven less stalls to muck out."

  "That won't last."

  "Suppose not. But some folks'll be afraid to trust their horses to us now that somebody's taken off with a trailer full. So give with the details. Whatju run into?"

  I sighed. It was going to be a long week.

  He waved his hand. "Come on, man. The cops were crawling all over the place yesterday. You'd of thought you were dead," he glanced around the room, "or dying."

  "It's true," Dave muttered but kept his gaze on the floor. He'd been checking out the pattern in the tiles ever since he'd walked into the room.
r />   "Anyway," Marty said, "the boys in blue had Mrs. Hill holed up in her office for about an hour, and when they finally hightailed it out of there, she was madder'n hell. But, Mrs. Hill being Mrs. Hill, she wouldn't tell us a goddamn thing. And, get this. A fucking reporter showed up this morning. Mrs. Hill sent him packing, though," Marty added, and it was clear the thought amused him.

  I just stared.

  "So, what happened? Rumor has it, the shits who took the horses took you, too."

  "That's right."

  "Fuck, man. How'd you get away?"

  "I just did. So, why'd Mrs. Hill send both of you?"

  Marty stood and stretched. "She thought you might be wantin' your truck, so we dropped it off at your place when we got the clothes you asked for."

  "Oh," I mumbled.

  "What were you--"

  "Marty, shut up," Dave said. "Let Steve get dressed so we can get outta here." He handed me the paper bag he'd been holding which I saw contained a fresh change of clothes.

  "I knew you were weird," Marty said. "But goin' to the barn naked?"

  I grinned. "My clothes got soaked. The medics cut them off."

  "How'd they get--" Marty said as Dave pushed him out of the room, "wet?" he finished as the door swung shut.

  It was after six and dark by the time Marty swung his old Firebird round the parking lot behind the loft and jerked to a halt at the base of the steps. He looked over at my Chevy parked under the dusk-to-dawn light. "We couldn't find your keys. Hope you got a spare. And you'd better check your battery 'cause it was dead. You left the door open, and the dome light was on."

  But I had closed it. I distinctly remembered how loud it had sounded. "Then how'd you get it over here?" I said.

  "Jumped it."

  "But--"

  "He hot-wired it," Dave said from the back seat, and I thought I heard a hint of disapproval in his voice.

  Marty turned in his seat and grinned at me.

  "Well, who'd of thought." I levered myself out of his low-slung car, then watched Dave struggle out of the back seat and plop thankfully into my spot.

  Marty ducked down so he could see me through the passenger window. "Need help with anything?"

  I told him I'd be fine and waved him off, but by the time I made it to the landing, I was doubtful. By the time I reached the deck and walked into the kitchen, I knew I had lied. I was exhausted and hungry, but too tired to bother with it. I swallowed some pain pills, turned off the lights, and crawled into bed.

  * * *

  I was running down a long dark tunnel. Running as fast as I could and getting nowhere. There were no footsteps. No sound.

  I came to a door. Didn't open it. Didn't want to.

  Just the same, I ended up inside a room. A room without walls.

  The ground felt solid but somehow wasn't. With dread, I looked at my feet. The floor was liquid. It didn't make sense. I looked closer. Not water. No, it wasn't water.

  It was blood.

  Ripples lapped against my boots as something moved on the edge of my field of vision. I tried to turn my head to see what it was but couldn't.

  Couldn't move. Couldn't breathe.

  I forced myself to look. It was a head. A horse's head. Others floated past in the current, rising to the surface like huge, hideous bubbles. One drifted past my feet. I could see the dull, lifeless eye staring up at me.

  Tight bands constricted around my chest, and my heart was pounding so hard, I was afraid it would explode.

  Someone cried out.

  The sound woke me. Though the air was chilly, I lay trembling between sheets soaked with sweat. The pain medication had worn off.

  I sat up, braced my hands on the edge of the bed, and worked to slow my breathing. One of the cats leapt onto the bed and leaned against my arm. Her purring sounded loud in the quiet dark. Ignoring her play for attention, I nudged her off the bed and stood up.

  I walked stiffly into the kitchen, washed down a pill, and set the glass on the counter. It had snowed, and I could see quite easily into the night. Dark shapes were scattered on the hill above the lake. I picked up the binoculars and adjusted the focus. Deer, six of them. In the muted light, the fencing rose and fell like a roller coaster, enclosing pastures that were otherwise empty, their inhabitants snug in the barn below. On the frozen lake in the south field, the snow was even and stark.

  I glanced at the clock on the stove. Three-ten. I had slept for a long time. I walked into the bathroom and switched on the lights. The plush expanse of teal and navy wallpaper and matching carpet seemed foreign after the cold sterility of the hospital. The loft seemed different somehow. Nothing tangible, but a change nonetheless. Or maybe it wasn't the loft that was different but my perspective of it.

  I turned on the shower and looked in the mirror. Despite the fact that I had two impressive shiners and my cheek was mottled with purple, black, and yellow, the swelling around my eye had improved considerably in the last twenty-four hours.

  When I took off my clothes, the view there wasn't much better. Under the bandages, worse still. Deep red grooves dug into my wrists. In places the skin was raw and oozing.

  Bastards.

  I stood under the spray of hot water, and as the tension in my muscles drained away, I thought about the horses. They had been chosen for one characteristic and one characteristic only. Size. The larger and heavier, the more money they would command at slaughter. I thought about Shrimpy with his huge, intelligent eyes. I had watched him in a jumper class once, when he had slipped going round a turn. He'd regained his balance, zeroed in on the next fence, and jumped it without a rub. His rider, all the while, had been grossly out of position, simply struggling to stay on. The horse had a heart of gold, and now he was heading down a frightening path to annihilation.

  I braced my hands against the wall and watched the water swirl down the drain, thinking I could have met the same fate.

  I stayed in the shower until the hot water ran cold.

  * * *

  I spent most of the day in bed, listening to music and trying not to think. Not about the horses, or the men, or what they had done. Around four in the afternoon, I got the coffee machine going, made some toast, and sat on one of the barstools. I slid a magazine across the counter and leafed through the pages until I came to an article on pastern lameness.

  Behind me, someone banged on the kitchen door. My hand flinched, and coffee sloshed over my fingers and spread across the page.

  "Damn."

  I wiped my hand on my sweats and walked across the cold white tiles. My landlord was standing on the doormat, blowing on his hands and shifting his weight from one foot to the other.

  He looked up when the door creaked open. "Oh, man."

  "Hi, Greg."

  He closed his mouth with a snap. "Marty said you'd tangled with them, but I didn't think . . ."

  Cold air and a couple of snowflakes eddied in through the open door. I backed up. "Come in."

  He stepped into the kitchen and stood just inside the door while the snow on his boots melted and formed an irregular brown puddle on the tile.

  "Susan knew something was up," he said. "She saw someone drop off your truck Sunday afternoon and thought that was kind of weird, especially when we didn't see any lights on last night. You know how she is, the motherly, overprotective type."

  Motherly would not have been my first choice when describing his wife. Beautiful, yes. And sexy. Motherly? No way.

  "Then Foxdale's my first stop this morning, and I hear about the horses." He ran his fingers through his light brown hair. "What happened?"

  As I told him, I thought that I should have handled the situation differently. Should have gone back to the truck and driven somewhere else to call the police. Put up a better fight. Hell, I didn't put up any fight.

  Greg rubbed the back of his neck. "Jesus. Are you all right?"

  "Yeah, I'm okay." I gestured to the coffee pot. "Want some?"

  He glanced at his watch. For answer, he o
pened the cabinet door closest to the phone.

  "Next one over," I said.

  Greg let the door thump closed and opened the one beside it. He took down a mug and filled it, then sat on one of the stools and rested his elbows on the counter. He had the loose-limbed build of a basketball player, and at six-foot-three, he had a good three inches on me. He kept his hair layered and long in the back, and he had what many considered Hollywood good looks. But being a horse vet was about as far from glamour as it got. He'd once told me he might have reconsidered his career choice if he'd realized it meant spending half the day with his arm buried to the shoulder in a horse's rectum.

  "What they did," Greg said. "I've been thinking about it all day."

  "How's Sprite's eye?"

  Greg raised his eyebrows. "You sure like to change the subject, don't you?"

  I smiled.

  "The cornea's healed," he said. "No thanks to your crew. No one's bothered to medicate it. You must've treated it aggressively in the beginning, like I told you."

  "Yeah, I did."

  He unbuttoned his coat and cupped his fingers around the mug. "Doesn't anyone over there do medications besides you?"

  "No."

  "Two hundred horses, and no one else does medications?" Greg shook his head. "What are they going to do when you go on vacation?"

  "You assume a great deal."

  He shot me an amused glance, then took a tentative sip of his coffee.

  I sighed. "Nobody else takes the initiative, and management cuts corners wherever they can, whenever they can. As long as the boarders won't notice." I dropped two more slices into the toaster. "How often do horses get stolen around here, anyway?"

  "I'd bet it's more prevalent than any of us realize. They don't always make the papers, but I hear about them on my rounds sometimes. Foxdale's more vulnerable than most operations because no one lives on the premises." He smoothed his fingers through his hair. "Someone out there doesn't mind taking risks for what I would have thought was a small profit."