If You Ever Tell

by Carlene Thompson

  “What should I do?” Mac hissed in her ear.

  “You don’t have to whisper, but keep your voice subdued,” Teresa muttered. “And don’t make eye contact with the horses. Staring into their eyes can make them nervous.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “Don’t sound so shocked—humans are the same way,” Teresa said softly. “The horses are upset already, Mac. Don’t make any loud noises; walk casually and keep your head down. Just act like nothing is wrong. There is a phone on the wall to your right. The Gibbses’ SUV is gone, but their cottage lights are on. I’m going to call. We need Gus or Josh to help us.”

  But the phone rang four times until the answering machine clicked on to inform her that no one was home, but her call would be returned as soon as possible. Teresa felt hope pop like a bubble within her. The Gibbses only left one small lamp burning when they were both gone. Lights glowing in more than one room always meant that at least one of them was home. Except for tonight.

  She hung up and turned to Mac. “No luck. I don’t know where they could be in weather like this.”

  “The storm blew up fairly fast,” Mac reminded her. “Maybe they haven’t had time to get back yet.”

  “If that’s true, I hope they arrive soon. We need the cavalry. Until then, it’s just us.”

  With Mac trailing carefully behind her, Teri moved forward toward the tack room. The smell of horseflesh and fresh hay washed over her, along with the smell of fear—the fear of the horses snorting, stomping, kicking, and whinnying.

  “It’s all right, Conquistador. Good girl, Cleopatra. You’re safe now, Sir Lancelot. Teri and Mac are here to take good, good care of you,” she crooned. The soft, lulling tone she’d learned from Gus and Josh usually calmed the horses, but tonight it had no effect. Teresa understood why. Deep within her, she felt that awful, intangible sense of wrongness she’d felt once before. She knew without a doubt that there was something menacing in this barn, just like something menacing had been in her home eight years ago when she’d awakened to find death in the house.

  Teresa tried to force the memory from her mind. The barn glowed with lights now. She’d turned on every one. No one was lurking around, slinking through a dark hallway carrying a bloodied knife. But someone had let out Eclipse—her horse. Had that been a coincidence?

  She looked toward her horse’s stall. The stall door stood half-open but undamaged. Every good horseman knew a horse could kick open a door hooked shut by a latch fastened with screws. That’s why Teresa had insisted sturdy bolts be attached to the stall doors. Gus had taught Josh never to be careless about making sure every bolt had been slid solidly into place after a horse was placed in its stall. Checking the bolts had become second nature with them, and a quick glance around assured Teri that all the stall doors remained bolted shut—all except for one.

  “Do horses get loose often?” Mac asked close to her ear.

  Teresa looked up and saw the crease between his eyebrows, the concern in his hazel eyes. “It never happens here. Gus and Josh are utterly dependable. I just don’t understand…”

  The sorrel Morgan, Bonaparte, let out a loud whinny and kicked forcefully against his stall. Both Teri and Mac jumped. “Oh, God, Bonaparte is always the most fretful of all the horses,” Teri said. “That’s why I keep him beside Conquistador, who’s one of the calmest. Horses pick up on each other’s moods, you know.”

  “No, I didn’t. All I know about horses is that they have four legs and they’re big,” Mac muttered.

  Teresa checked the bolt on Bonaparte’s stall door, and went back to Mac. “I think he’ll settle down as long as Conquistador stays cool.”

  They walked to the back of the barn until Teresa reached for a doorknob. “The tack room,” she said, opening the door. Before them stretched a long room containing horse equipment arranged with almost military precision on shelves and racks. The floor was spotless, the two large windows so clean they looked transparent except for raindrops hitting them like a steady stream of bullets. “Gus keeps this place as clean as an operating room,” Teri said as she quickly lifted a bridle from a rack. She looked at Mac. “Ready to corral a panicked horse?”

  They hurried through the barn and stepped out into the hard, sweeping rain, closing the barn doors behind them. Eclipse still ran, splashing through rapidly forming puddles, once coming dangerously close to the fence surrounding a ring. Teri drew in a frightened breath and almost called the horse’s name. She caught herself. The key was to remain calm. She knew if she got upset and started yelling, Eclipse would only run faster and farther away from her.

  “What do we do?” Mac asked, standing beside her and wiping rain from his forehead.

  “The most important thing is to not chase her. Eclipse is still running, but she seems to be slowing down. Maybe if she was spooked badly, the sight of me has reassured her a bit.”

  “Is that why you’re not putting up your hood?”

  “Exactly. She’s not used to seeing me wearing a hood. I want her to recognize me. In the meantime, we’ll just stand here and not try to approach her as long as she still seems jumpy.”

  Teresa knew she shouldn’t take her gaze off Eclipse, but she was so afraid the beautiful horse was going to meet with disaster, Teri closed her eyes. She began slowly counting to twenty. She’d reached eighteen when Mac nudged her. “She’s stopped running,” he murmured.

  Teresa opened her eyes to see that the horse had settled down to a trot. Then, as if someone had flipped a switch, Eclipse finally came to a complete halt. She stood almost motionless in the rain except for her head, which she dipped twice before turning toward Teri and Mac.

  “Okay, let’s approach her very slowly,” Teri said. “You go to her right side and I’ll go to her left. Still keep your eyes down.”

  As they walked casually toward the horse, Teri mentally begged Eclipse not to panic and begin running again. Luckily, the horse stood still, even when Mac and Teri surrounded her. Teri talked softly to her horse as she quickly slipped on the bridle. Eclipse snorted once and tossed her head. When Teri began walking calmly toward the barn, though, the horse followed peaceably.

  Inside the barn, the other horses had relaxed considerably. They looked with interest at Eclipse, and Bonaparte whinnied, but the black Arabian did not react. Teri, congratulating herself on how well she was managing her horse, tossed a confident smile at Mac, who walked slightly behind her.

  When they reached Eclipse’s stall, Eclipse bucked and whinnied, her eyes rolling. Startled, Teri almost dropped the bridle straps. The horse had been docile from exhaustion just a moment ago. Now she seemed ready for another nightmare race through the field. Mac grabbed the bridle straps and helped hold the horse in place while murmuring the way Teri had done earlier. If not for him, Teresa would have lost control again. After a few seconds, Eclipse stopped bucking. Teresa knew something was very wrong—Eclipse had never been so out of control. With a shaking hand, Teresa pushed the stall door completely open.

  And there lay Gus propped against the wall in the corner, his head tilted back, his jaw gaping, his blank blue eyes wide open, and the long, rigid, razor-sharp metal tongs of a stable fork buried deep within his blood-soaked chest.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  1

  AFTER THE FIRST BLUDGEONING shock of seeing Gus, Teresa became vaguely aware of Mac asking, “Teri? What’s wrong? Teri!”

  “Put Eclipse in the empty stall near the barn doors,” Teri said woodenly, not turning around. “Don’t rush her. Just be casual. Make sure the stall door is bolted.”

  “Teri, what is it?”

  “Mac, just do as I say right now. You’ll know soon enough.”

  You’ll get to see brutal death up close and personal, Teresa thought as she heard Mac leading Eclipse to the vacant stall. You’ll get to see what murder looks like—violent, bloody murder. It’s a sight you’ll never forget.

  Teresa suddenly felt burning hot when just a moment ago she’d been cold from t
he rain. Gus’s head seemed to lower; his eyes seemed to fix on hers with a deep, pathetic plea. And now his mouth was moving—he was trying to say something, to tell her he was in agony, to beg her to help him.…

  Teresa heard the other stall door bolt shoot into place; then Mac stood beside her. He peered into Eclipse’s stall, then muttered a horrified, “Good God!”

  His oath brought Teri savagely back to reality. Gus was not moving. His head was still tilted back, his jaw hanging open and still. He wasn’t trying to speak to her. The thought that he could had been manufactured by shock and nerves, because Gus would never say anything again.

  “Who is that?” Mac muttered as he stared at Gus’s limp, violated body.

  “It’s Gus Gibbs, my stable manager,” Teri explained with remarkable equanimity. She felt as if she were standing outside herself, cold and analytical and oddly unaffected. “That thing in his chest is a stable fork. It’s used to muck out stalls. Some people use plastic forks. I use wooden-handled forks with metal tines. Extremely sharp, sturdy metal tines.”

  They both stood transfixed, staring at Gus’s bloody body for what seemed to Teri an endless time. Soon, though, Teri began to shudder. Even her head bobbed slightly. Still she took a step forward.

  Before she’d taken a second step, Mac wrapped his arm tightly around her waist. “We shouldn’t touch him, Teri.”

  “But maybe we can do something.” Teresa was surprised by her own voice, high and thin like a frightened child’s. “Maybe…”

  “We can’t do anything for him, Teri,” Mac said firmly, turning her away from the body and leading her toward the front of the barn. “I’m going to call nine-one-one. We can’t touch anything. This is a crime scene.”

  “A crime scene…,” Teresa repeated hollowly.

  “Unless you think Gus just fell on that fork, it is. Someone came into this barn, let your horse loose, and killed Gus. I don’t know why; I don’t know who. This is a matter for the police. Now come away from the stall and go with me to the phone.”

  “I don’t want to leave him, Mac. He’s all alone and hurt.…”

  “Teri, he doesn’t feel alone and he’s not hurting,” Mac said gently. He firmly pulled her away from the stall, then turned her and began walking her to the front doors of the barn. Just to the right sat a narrow, padded bench, and on the wall hung a phone. “I want you to sit down here.” Mac’s voice was cool and businesslike. “I’m going to call nine-one-one.”

  Teresa nearly dropped onto the bench, hitting with enough force to jar her teeth. She hadn’t been sure of exactly what Mac was saying, only that he sounded calm, forceful, and in control. Thank God, she said mentally. Thank God I’m not alone.

  She was vaguely aware of him speaking into the receiver, then sitting down beside her. A wave of sick dizziness overcame her. She closed her eyes and leaned forward, certain she was going to vomit. Teresa felt Mac’s hand on her back, rubbing it as if to comfort her. She concentrated on a point of light behind her closed eyelids, a point of light that became bigger and bigger until that was all she could see. After a moment, she leaned back and took a deep breath.

  “Better now?” Mac asked softly. She nodded and he put his arms around her shoulders again, this time drawing her close to him. “I know you’re cold, but we have to wait here for the police.”

  “I thought you called nine-one-one. Isn’t that just the emergency squad?”

  “It’s central dispatching. I told them what we found. They’ll send the emergency squad and the police. I’m sorry you’re so cold and wet, and we have to just sit here.”

  “You’re even wetter than I am,” Teresa mumbled, her gaze briefly skimming his soggy jeans and the drenched green shirt. She leaned even closer to him and laid her head on his shoulder. He took her hand in his and rested his cheek on her head. They used to sit the same way at night in the park when she was a teenager, and she slipped into the old position as if she’d been doing it constantly since those faraway, innocent years. “You’ll catch a cold in these wet clothes, Mac.”

  “I’m okay,” Mac said. “It’s a warm evening. I’m not going to catch a cold. I never catch colds.”

  “I remember now. Your mother used to brag about that.”

  Mac chuckled. “Oh, God, that was noteworthy, wasn’t it? Any mother would be proud of a son impervious to the cold virus.”

  “She had other reasons to be proud of you. Many, many reasons.” Teresa lifted her head and looked into his eyes. “I’m so embarrassed, Mac. After hearing Byrnes say he didn’t kill Dad and Wendy, you came to me to offer support. And what did I do? I told you your mother thought you were capable of murder. Then I came to apologize to you, and I ended up slapping you.”

  “And I was coming to your house to apologize for the way I so graciously accepted your apology in my office, and we end up chasing down a runaway horse and finding a dead body.” Mac shook his head. “No one can say we’re a boring couple, Teri.”

  Their faces were so close together, Teresa could feel Mac’s warm breath on her cheek. The world seemed to fill with his gold-flecked hazel eyes with their laugh lines and that irrepressible twinkle that had always made her feel as if she were drowning in his gaze. She’d felt that way at sixteen. She realized she still felt that way at twenty-six. Quickly, she lowered her eyelids and put her head on his shoulder again, afraid that if he didn’t kiss her, she would kiss him.

  They sat quietly for a moment, listening to the horses breathe loudly, still excited, still uneasy because they could smell blood. Gus’s blood, Teresa thought. Dear Gus, who would never smile at her and call her Miss Farr again.

  After what seemed an endless time, Teresa said softly, “Gus used to be in love with my mother.”

  “What?” Mac blurted.

  “He told me just this morning.” She sighed. “This morning. It seems like a month ago. Anyway, he used to work at the town stables and Mom had a horse boarded there. A black Arabian just like Eclipse. Isn’t that odd? Gus thought I’d bought Eclipse because she was like Mom’s horse, Cassandra, but I didn’t even know Mom ever had a horse. She never mentioned it. I never saw any pictures of her with a horse.”

  “So Gus got to know your mother at the stables,” Mac said, his arm tightening around her shivering body. “Did he tell her he loved her?”

  “No, but she probably guessed.”

  “Did he say if your mother returned the feeling?”

  “He said something vague about her looking at him a certain way. I guess about that time Dad appeared in her life—”

  “And she fell head over heels in love with the charming devil.”

  “Let’s just say the devil. Afterward, her parents sold the horse and Mom stopped coming to the stables. Then Gus saw her engagement picture in the paper.” Teri paused. “There was tenderness in his voice when he talked about Mom. I know he was always loyal to his wife, Sarah—who definitely disliked me, by the way—but I don’t think he ever stopped loving his Marielle.”

  “She was like her daughter,” Mac murmured. “Of course he didn’t stop loving her. He couldn’t.”

  Teresa was glad Mac couldn’t see her flush, knowing Mac was saying he couldn’t stop loving Teri any more than Gus could stop loving Marielle. But Teri was still afraid of Mac’s ability to hurt her, the emotional power he held over her, and she didn’t want to betray her weakness now, just because she felt weak and frightened and lost.

  Suddenly, in the distance, Teri heard sirens. The police were coming. The emergency squad was coming. None of them could do anything for Gus. They would just pull that awful rake from his chest, put him on a gurney, and take him away. Or rather, take away the lifeless shell that had once held the warm, gentle spirit of Gus Gibbs.

  As the ambulance pulled up to the barn, Teresa remembered talking to Gus about her mother. The last thing he’d said about her was, “I worry about her and I pray every night that poor Marielle finds her way home someday.”

  Well, Gus, at least you don
’t have to worry about my mother anymore, Teresa thought wretchedly. And you don’t have to pray every night that she’ll find her way home again because she won’t in your lifetime.

  The police arrived about two minutes after the ambulance, and Mac gently told Teri to sit—he’d take care of the situation. She could have kissed him then, because she already felt her throat closing off and the hot, relentless tears of grief beginning to course down her cheeks. She was fumbling uselessly in her windbreaker pocket for a tissue when abruptly a new idea hit her with the force of an electric shock.

  What if the person who had darted in front of her car earlier actually had been her mother? In that case, Marielle had come home again and with her, she’d brought death.

  2

  Half an hour later, Mac pushed Teresa through her doorway, where Sierra greeted her ecstatically, turning in circles, barking and squeaking. Teri kneeled and hugged the exuberant dog. “I need some of your joy, girl. It’s been a rough night.”

  “That’s for sure.” Mac stood above Teri, looking through the open doorway at the red lights disappearing up the hill, bearing away police, emergency medical technicians, and Gus. He firmly shut the door.

  “You need to get out of those wet clothes, Teri,” he said authoritatively. “Your jeans are soaked.”

  “So are yours.”

  “I’m not the one shivering. Go change. I’ll put on some coffee.”

  Teresa wasn’t sure whether her shivering was because of wet clothes or shock. In either case, changing into something warm and dry and having a cup of hot coffee sounded wonderful. “The coffee is in a container in the cabinet above the coffeemaker,” she said.

  “I’ll find everything.” Mac held out his hand. Teresa took it and he helped her to a standing position. Their bodies were almost touching. Their gazes met and held, and for a moment Teri thought he was going to pull her against him. Then he gave her a gentle shove toward the stairs. “Go change clothes and use a blow-dryer on your hair. It’s dripping.”