But when she did become aware of him, she went very still and her eyes went wide.
“What are you doing here?”
At least she didn’t pretend that she didn’t know who he was.
“I wanted to meet the woman pulling the strings face-to-face—the one responsible for everything.”
“I think you’d better leave before I call the authorities.”
“Call them.” He indicated the telephone. “They’ll want to hear what I have to say.”
Shaking, she sat on the chair at her make-up table. “I don’t know what you think you know—”
“Timothy Brady talked…before he died.”
“You?”
“Surprised?” He shrugged. “So was I.”
“What is it you want from me?”
With a gloved hand, he pulled the gun from under the pillow where he’d found it.
“To let you know that enough is enough.”
HER FEELING OF uncertainty growing, Jane paced the length of the house. She couldn’t sit around and do nothing, but what choices did she have?
The shrill of the phone scraped her spine.
Fumbling, she picked up the receiver to find the sheriff at the other end.
“Biggs, I thought you were on your way.”
“Had a little detour. More bad news. The Singleton-Volmer woman is dead.”
“Dead?” Jane echoed, sitting. “How?”
“Looks like she killed herself rather than face the music. Shot herself in the heart through one of them fancy pillows off her bed.”
“You’re sure it was suicide?”
“Not officially, not until we check the prints on the gun. We do know the gun was hers, though.”
“Dear Lord.”
Jane heard the rest through a haze. Something about his having a chat with Mukhtar Saladin and Holt Easterling. If he could find them.
Hanging up, Jane wished Curran were there so she could talk to him, tell him about Phyllis, discuss whether Saladin or Easterling was more likely to be her partner in crime, but he was off with that reporter Harris.
As had been the case for the past months, she was drawn to seek out Finn, her partner in emotional pain. Working with the stallion would make her feel better…would relieve her mind, at least for a while.
Convinced of that, she grabbed her cane and set out for the stables.
The farm was exceptionally quiet. Everyone seemed to have gone for lunch at the same time. Not that she minded. Without distraction, she was able to focus on the smells of newly mowed grass and the nickering of mares to their foals.
She was reminded of why she loved Grantham Acres so much. Of why her heart would break if she lost it.
Simply put, the farm was part of her soul.
As was Finn.
They would have their own connection always, Jane thought, as she let him out of his stall and walked shoulder-to-shoulder with him into the paddock, where she set her cane against the fence and put the stallion on a lunge line. If she lost the farm, he would be auctioned off to the highest bidder.
Thinking she would be lost without him, she touched his scarred nose. For once, instead of bobbing his head and pulling away, he pushed the soft velvet into her hand, just the way he had when she’d first bought him.
“That’s my lad,” she murmured, touching his forehead with hers. “We’re a pair, you and I.”
She let out the length of the line and began working him. He stretched out his long legs, his chestnut hide gleaming in the afternoon light.
So much beauty almost destroyed, she thought.
Turning in place with the stallion working in a circle around her, Jane closed her eyes for a moment and breathed in deeply. She felt the change first through her fingers when the lunge line went slack.
Immediately she flicked open her eyes. The stallion had set his ears back slightly and his nostrils flared and his flesh quivered. His squeal shot up her spine and made her flesh crawl.
“What is it, Finn?”
Jane sensed the man’s presence before she even turned. The bright sun made her blink and squint for a better look as he hopped over the fence and landed in the paddock.
Finn squealed again and pulled the line from her suddenly numb fingers.
It couldn’t be…
But there was no mistaking that auburn hair or those green eyes.
“Hello, Jane. Surprised to see me, are you?”
“Gavin! You’re alive—”
Her head went light and she swayed. Then she caught herself and mustered all the strength she still possessed as she saw him pull a tire iron from his waistband and she realized the terrible truth.
Gavin Shaw had come to finish what he had started.
He meant to kill her.
Chapter Fifteen
Curran was just leaving Lexington when a wave of unease washed through him.
He tried to ignore the sensation, put it to the stress of his romance with Jane gone sour and him without a clue.
But the feeling nagged at him and he couldn’t rid himself of the idea that something was terribly wrong. It was the same sensation that he’d had when Jane had been locked in the curing barn.
Worry erased the bitter memory of their argument and her coolness toward him afterward. He concentrated on Jane, wondering if she would once more block him.
A wave of nausea washed through him…
Curran!
Jarred by the unexpected quickness of the connection and the intensity of Jane’s emotions, Curran pulled himself back to the now in time to see that he’d crossed into the oncoming traffic. He swerved to avoid a truck, with only seconds to spare. Then, heart pounding, he pulled his vehicle to the side of the road and threw on the brakes.
“Come on, Jane, what’s wrong?” he muttered, focusing inward once more.
Focusing on fear…anguish…despair…
A length of metal in a man’s hand…
Heart pumping…stomach knotting…
Curran, please!
It took him a moment to register the sensations. To realize that was no pipe in the man’s hand and this wasn’t a replay of Hudson Valley. Whatever he was imagining was actually happening now.
Certain that Jane was in trouble and sending him a distress signal, Curran put the car in gear, stepped on the accelerator and took off for the farm like a madman. As he drove, he kept seeing the metal tool in the man’s hand—another potential instrument of death.
Jane couldn’t die. He loved her. He wouldn’t let it happen.
If only he could get there on time…
“WHY, Gavin?” Jane asked as she stared disbelievingly at the man who should be a ghost. “Why did you pretend to be dead? I did nothing but care about you.” She wouldn’t say she loved him, not even to save her own life, not when she finally knew what love was. “Why did you set me up?”
“I had no choice.”
“We all have choices.”
“It was my life or Finn’s,” Gavin said, glancing at the fear-stricken horse with what Jane swore was a look of regret. He turned back to her. “You know what debt is like. But you have Grantham Acres. I had nothing to save me.”
“Which I don’t understand,” she said, keeping her tone even, to keep him settled. She would run if she could, but of course he had seen to that. “You’re a successful trainer.”
“But not a successful gambler.”
“Gambling debts?” Surely Curran would return any time now, Jane thought. All she had to do was keep Gavin talking. “That’s what all this terror has been about?”
“It’s been about my not having my legs broken. About my staying alive. I didn’t want to do any of it, Jane, I swear to you. I cared for you, I really did. That’s why I called you about buying Finn mac Cumhail in the first place. I thought it was a way out of debt for you. And maybe for me, too. But it all went wrong. No sooner did we transfer title than the blackmail started. I thought I could get away with it, that you would never know what I did to
Finn. I vowed to stand by you and make it up to you somehow.”
Jane stared at him aghast. “You’re saying you had feelings for me?”
“I still do…not that it matters anymore. I’m a changed man. Trying to break Finn’s legs just about killed me…you about killed me.”
Oddly, there was no rancor in his voice at the accusation. As if he didn’t blame her. Why, then, had he been trying to murder her?
“I thought I had killed you,” Jane said. “And I didn’t know how I was going to live with myself after that.”
And she could see that Gavin couldn’t live with himself, either. Not with the man he was—a weak man, perhaps, but one with a heart and soul. What he felt he’d been forced into had made him some kind of monster. That he’d been blackmailed didn’t excuse him. And yet she remembered his drunken desperation that night in Hudson Valley, and despite everything that had happened since, she almost felt sorry for him. Almost.
“But you did live,” Jane said, again trying to call Curran with her mind while she kept Gavin talking. “You survived both a pitchfork and a horrible fall.”
“No vital organs involved,” Gavin explained. “The water was cold enough to slow the bleeding. And the current carried me to the bank downstream. It took me most of the night to crawl to the closest house. It was locked up, but I broke in to use the telephone.”
“To call Tim Brady for help?”
Gavin nodded. “Smart lass. He was the conduit for the whole thing. I never did give you enough credit, Jane. You might have figured out what happened to Finn even if you hadn’t caught me trying to break his legs.”
Recognizing the serious note of regret in his voice, Jane wondered if it was for Finn and her or for himself.
Drawing one last time on her own pain, she asked, “When you murdered Tim, did that nearly kill you, as well?”
Gavin’s expression changed subtly. “Not at all.” His voice grew cold. “He’d been riding me for months. The person who bought my debt had been using him as a go-between. I got the details, including her name, from Timothy before I evened things up between us.”
“Phyllis Singleton-Volmer.”
“Aye. The bitch was the marionette mistress and we were her puppets. When she got wind of our plans for entering Finn mac Cumhail in the Thoroughbred Millions, she was determined that he would not run against Stonehenge. She bought my debt from a loan shark to control me. Only I didn’t know it then. Not until I got it out of Timothy before he passed on.”
A way of avoiding the word murdered, Jane thought. “So you killed Phyllis, too?”
Her pulse began to rush as Gavin stroked the tire iron. Where was Curran? Had she driven him away, severed the connection for good? Surreptitiously, she looked for an escape even as she kept up the dialogue.
“I had to kill her,” Gavin said. “She knew too much about me.” He shook his head and again softened his voice. “Just as you do.”
Panic was setting in. When Gavin stopped talking, she was done for, Jane reasoned. With her bad knee, there was no escape for her. She couldn’t run. Couldn’t climb the fence. Couldn’t fight a man Gavin’s size. She had no weapon. Except…she looked past a nervous Finn to where her cane lay propped against the fence.
“You don’t have to kill me, Gavin.” Jane made herself sound more reasonable than she was feeling. “I know you don’t want to. That’s not who you are.”
“Were,” he quickly corrected her. “I’m a changed man, Jane. I don’t want to kill you, but I must. Now that my debt is paid, I plan on reclaiming my life. And you’re the only one who can still stop me.”
“I won’t stop you. I promise,” she lied. “I can help you, get you money to start over.”
“How, when you have none yourself?”
Jane glanced at Finn, huddled against the fence nearby, his sides heaving. “When Finn wins the Classic Cup, I’ll have more than enough,” she said. “It was your idea to save Grantham Acres, remember?”
“Aye, and it was a good one…until certain people interfered and made me into what I am. Look at him now. Do you really expect you can even enter him in a claiming race? Classic Cup—don’t make me laugh!”
Finn had reverted to the way he’d been when she’d first brought him to the farm. He was pawing the ground. Squealing low in his throat. Foaming. His bright chestnut coat had gone dark with sweat.
“Everyone knows this horse is crazy,” Gavin said, hitting the tire iron against his open palm. “No one will really be surprised that he killed you. Then he’ll be put down. And I can return to Ireland and work as a trainer with my reputation intact.”
He was so deluded, Jane realized. Too many people now knew about him. Not that she was about to be specific lest she put someone else in danger.
“The authorities here know that you’re supposed to be dead,” Jane said instead, carefully backing away from him toward the open barn door. Perhaps if she could get inside…“They know about Tim and Phyllis.”
“They think Phyllis committed suicide, and they’ll come to the conclusion that she killed Tim to protect herself. I’m afraid they’ll never know the whole story, and if they figure it out, it will be too late. There is no extradition treaty between Ireland and the United States.”
Gavin quickly stepped toward her and grabbed her arm to stop her from getting away. Even as she struggled to free herself, Jane gave trying to alert Curran one last try. She closed her eyes for a second to focus and sent out a silent cry for help.
Finn’s answering scream of fury ripped through her like a knife.
Jane opened her eyes to see him stop pawing the ground and charge Gavin, who let go of her. He raised the tire iron to ward off the stallion. Even as Jane scrambled back, Finn reared on his hind legs.
And even as she had come to his rescue, the stallion now came to hers. Finn struck out with his front hooves and caught Gavin’s arm.
Gavin screamed in pain and the tire iron went flying.
And, seemingly out of nowhere, Curran came flying into the fray and knocked Gavin off his feet. Finn leaped over them both, mindlessly racing himself around the perimeter of the paddock.
The two men rolled over one another, sending up a cloud of dust, punching at each other, mostly ineffectively. Gavin’s arm might be hurt, but it didn’t seem to be broken, Jane noted. He gave as good as he got.
Quaking with relief and the fury that she hadn’t yet expressed, Jane pushed herself to the fence and grabbed her cane. She looked to Finn who’d stopped at the other side of the paddock and was whinnying nervously. She held out her hand and whistled softly. Circling the men, the stallion came straight toward her and stood at her side, his flesh trembling.
When Finn allowed her to touch his neck with no more than a shiver in reaction, Jane whispered words of thanks. All was not lost with the stallion, at least.
But both she and Curran had to come out of this alive.
At the moment, he was her main concern. She breathed a sigh of relief as he landed a punch square to Gavin’s jaw and then pinned him to the ground.
“Get out of here, Jane!” he yelled. “Go call Biggs. Now!”
The moment’s inattention was a mistake. Her wily former lover had been faking that he’d given up. He suddenly rolled and switched positions. Landing on top of Curran, he backhanded the man she loved, knocking him senseless.
The next thing Jane knew, Gavin had his hands around Curran’s throat and was strangling him.
“Gavin, don’t!” She cried. “Curran!”
As her focus involuntarily shifted, she gasped.
No breath…black spots swam before her eyes…her vision faded…
Before she herself passed out, Jane forced herself back out of the connection.
She stumbled forward, screaming, “Gavin, stop, please!”
If she didn’t do something, Gavin Shaw would kill the man she loved. Then he might as well finish her off.
Pure instinct drove her to raise her cane as a weapon. When she s
wung, she didn’t hold back. The silver horse’s head connected with Gavin’s and it was his head that gave with a visible snap.
His hands left Curran’s throat and raised to touch the blood spurting from his temple. He fell to one side, releasing Curran, who lay there like a man already dead.
Looking up at Jane, Gavin whispered, “Now you’ve gone and killed me,” as his eyes fluttered and his body went limp.
Jane ignored the body twisted back on itself and flew to the ground and Curran. Her knee sang but she celebrated the pain. She was alive. And so must he be.
“Curran,” she whispered, and felt for a pulse in his neck. She found one. Barely. It was weak and thready.
Continuing to touch him, she concentrated on him, on his spirit, on focusing.
Pain…and then a great sense of emptiness.
Panicking, she pushed back with positive images.
In the grandstand at Churchill Downs, they looked out on Finn mac Cumhail as he crossed the finish line, beating Stonehenge by a neck…
She visualized Curran turning to her, pure happiness lighting his beloved face as she smothered it with kisses.
I love you, Curran, I love you. Stay with me.
Stay with me always…
“That all depends.”
The softly croaked words threw her out of the connection. Curran’s eyes fluttered open and she could see he was trying to focus on her.
Jane’s heart raced as she cradled his face with her hands and asked, “Depends on what?”
“Whether or not you’re willing to declare your love to the whole world.”
GAVIN WASN’T DEAD, after all—he’d merely suffered some blood loss and a concussion.
Jane was more thankful than she could say. No more guilt. At least there wouldn’t be once she’d told Curran the details she’d hidden from him.
She waited until after Biggs had Gavin taken away and had told them that their more detailed accounts of what had gone on could wait until they’d had time to take care of Finn properly and get themselves cleaned up.
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