At Risk (30 page)

"Did he?" I said.

"Well, now. Let me think." He rubbed the
bristles on his chin. "He was tense for his breedin'. Mouthy, too.
Couldn't leave nothin' alone."

"What about when you handled him? Did he do
anything out of the ordinary?"

"Now you mention it, he wasn't happy unless
he had part of his lead in his mouth. Always had to have something
to chew on."

A steel gray draft cross with a fetish for
lead ropes, who just so happened to belong to Victor Sanders, gets
stolen from George Irons' dressage barn only to show up at Foxdale
two years later where he's stolen again. Even when Steel had been
in the trailer that night, he had fooled with the chains the entire
time. They had to be one and the same.

I wondered if he was still alive. If any of
the others were. Were they being masqueraded somewhere else under
different names, waiting for their turn to be "stolen?" I didn't
know what Sanders did for a living, but it took a hunk of change to
board a horse at a facility like Foxdale and keep it active on the
show circuit. Sanders never wore anything that wasn't
top-of-the-line, and the Mitsubishi 3000GT he owned had to have
cost him a bundle, not to mention the money he shelled out
entertaining the string of young women he brought to the farm. Then
again, maybe they didn't cost him much.

"So, what you wantin' to know all this for?"
Irons said.

I looked at the tightness around his eyes and
the heavy lines crinkling his face. "I'll tell you when I know
more."

"Tell me now."

I shook my head. "When I know more."

* * *

I checked that everything was running
smoothly in the barns, then drove home. Greg's vetmobile was parked
at the barn entrance with the compartment doors popped open. As I
headed for the steps, he walked out of the barn and set a stainless
steel bucket on the gravel.

He flipped a towel off his shoulder and wiped
his hands. "Cuttin' out early?"

"Nah. I'm heading back in a couple minutes."
I crossed the lot and stood alongside the back bumper. "Remember
Victor Sanders' horse? That steel gray draft cross that got
stolen?"

Greg frowned as he uncapped a green bottle
and squirted some sharp-smelling disinfectant into the bucket. He
stretched the hose out of the back of the truck and lifted a dental
float out of the sudsy water. "Vaguely."

I told him my theory while he hosed off and
dried the floats and stowed them in a bin.

He shook his head. "I don't know Steve. Lots
of horses have quirks like that, and now that the horse isn't
around anymore, there's no way to prove it was the same one that
was stolen from Ironsie's place."

Ironsie? "Well," I said, "I'll let the
insurance company know, and they can take it from there."

I took the steps two at a time. When I
reached the deck, I glanced over my shoulder. Greg had let the hose
recoil back into the storage area under the compartment, and as he
closed the lid, he looked up at me, his expression thoughtful.

I flipped through the clutter in the junk
drawer until I found the packet Marilyn had sent me. I unfolded the
copy of Sanders' insurance policy and smoothed out the pages on the
countertop. On the first page of the mortality insurance
application, question number fourteen asked: "Have you filed an
insurance claim in the past three years for any of the proposed
horses?" Sanders had answered no.

I got Marilyn's number from her brother and
told her what I'd learned.

"And you said the company's name was . . .
?"

"Liberty South." I gave her the agent's name.
"What will happen now?"

"We'll contact them," she said. "Start an
investigation. If we can't prove it was the same horse, or that he
was involved in the thefts . . . I don't know. Maybe we can get him
for intent to defraud." She signed. "Depends on what we find."

* * *

Around five-thirty, I went into the lounge,
snagged three sodas from the caterer, and walked over to the main
dressage arena. Most of the auditors were clustered around the
clinician who, according to Rachel, was short-listed for the
Olympics.

Michael Burke was his name, and he was
younger than I'd expected, somewhere in his late-twenties,
early-thirties, and soft-spoken. He was slouched in his chair with
his feet propped on an arena marker, his fingers laced together
over his stomach. He'd tipped his cowboy hat low on his forehead
and looked half asleep as he watched a rider guide her big chestnut
across the diagonal in a leg yield.

When I scooted an empty chair up close behind
Rachel's and sat down, she smiled slightly, and I knew she'd seen
me. I passed the Coke over to Michael, then handed her a root
beer.

"Keep the front of the horse straight,"
Michael called to the rider. "Point his nose at F and push his
haunches to the outside."

I settled back into my seat. The girl on the
chestnut straightened her horse at F, then guided him through the
corner.

"Better," Michael said.

I popped the tab on my Coke and waited for
the fizz to dissipate. Rachel had a yellow legal pad balanced on
her thigh, and she'd been taking notes with a pink ink pen. Her
handwriting was neat and precise and loopy and reminded me of love
letters furtively passed in an afternoon geometry class.

As I looked up from the page, Elsa walked
around the row of chairs and stopped in front of Michael. I glanced
at Rachel's profile, then studied the Coke can in my hand. I took a
gulp and glanced sideways at them.

Mrs. Timbrook was wearing a man's dress
shirt. The sleeves were rolled up, and she'd twisted the shirttails
together and knotted them above her navel. She hadn't bothered with
the buttons.

Or a bra.

She leaned forward to offer Michael a food
tray from the caterer, and I almost choked. I shifted in my seat
and looked across the front field toward the old Ritter farm.

The scrapers had finished cutting and
reshaping the land, and earlier that morning, the graders had begun
smoothing gravel along the cul-de-sacs.

Elsa squeezed a chair into the space next to
Michael and sat down.

I risked another glance. Michael was pretty
much ignoring her, but Rachel's eyebrows were bunched together, and
her lips were pursed as if she'd eaten something sour.

The close proximity was suddenly too
much.

I got up and left.

In barn B, halfway down the aisle near the
cut-through to the arena, I slouched onto a hay bale and leaned
against a stall front. The barn was cool and dark, and as I sat
there, listening to the slow, measured breaths of the horse dozing
in the stall behind me, I was fairly certain I was the only one in
the barn except, of course, for the horses. I finished the Coke,
crumpled the can, and tossed it at the trash can positioned just
inside the boarders' tack room. It bounced hollowly off the rim and
rolled across the asphalt.

In the square of bright light at the end of
the long aisle, Michael crossed the expanse of asphalt that
shimmered under the late afternoon sun.

I pushed myself off the hay bale and picked
up the can as Elsa passed the doorway. And she wasn't heading to
her barn.

Chapter 17

The final ride of the evening was followed up
with a party of sorts. When the last of the participants headed for
their lodgings, I walked through the barns. I had just finished
checking on the clinic horses when Michael and Rachel entered the
barn together.

She was gazing up at him with a faint smile
on her lips. Her hair bounced on her shoulders when she nodded in
response to something he'd said. I watched her with an odd mixture
of love and sadness. I no longer cared that I'd gone from
attraction to infatuation to love faster than was healthy. I loved
her, and if she didn't feel the same, then I would just have to
hope she'd catch up.

She said something I couldn't hear.

"That's right," Michael said, "and eventually
the horse will respond to the release, which is absolutely
phenomenal."

She smiled at him and brushed the bangs from
her eyes. "I can imagine."

"Ask for a little shoulder-in and counter
bending to get him soft, and like I said earlier, do lots of
transitions within the gait to keep him focused."

I turned away from them and stared at one of
the clinic horses without really seeing him.

They paused alongside me. "Rachel tells me
you're going to lock the place up tonight."

"Yep."

"I'm going to sleep in the trailer. That
okay?"

I jerked my head around. "You're
kidding?"

"No. I always ask for the hotel's rate to be
paid directly to me, so if I want to cut corners and keep the money
myself, I can. Right now, every penny counts, and I'm used to
sleeping just about anywhere. . . . Don't look so surprised. Even
with good sponsors, I'm still scrambling to pay the bills."

The thought of Michael staying on the grounds
overnight normally wouldn't have bothered me one little bit. But
nowadays . . . I could just see it: "Top Dressage Instructor
Murdered at Local Horse Farm: details inside."

No one expects trouble until it's too late.
I'm sure that woman in Pennsylvania never thought something so
horrible would happen to her.

"You're welcome to stay in my apartment," I
said. "I don't have a spare bed, but you could use my sleeping
bag."

"I have one, but that's okay. I'll be
comfortable enough in the trailer."

"It still gets cold at night, especially
after midnight."

"I'm used to it."

"You'll be more comfortable in the apartment,
even on the floor. In the morning, I'll drive you back whenever you
want."

Michael frowned. "Do I have time to squeeze
in a ride?" His face was flat, without emotion, but there was an
edge to his voice that I hadn't heard before.

"Sure," I said.

"Your apartment it is, then." Michael spun
around and walked down the aisle to get his bay horse ready.

He'd hauled two of his horses with him, and
he'd only had time to work one of them during his lunch break.

Rachel stepped closer and peered at my face.
"Is everything okay? You seem," she shrugged, "I don't know,
tense."

"Not me." I jerked my head in Michael's
direction. "You're impressed with him, aren't you?"

"He's great. Very insightful. He picks up on
everything, the smallest detail. Everyone wa--" She frowned.
"You're jealous."

"No, I'm not."

"Yes, you are."

When I didn't respond, Rachel slid her arms
around my waist and pulled me against her. I grabbed a handful of
her silky dark hair and kissed her hard on the mouth. There was a
subtle shift in her demeanor, and it took me a minute to realize
what it was. She may have been taken off guard, but she wasn't
scared. Wasn't backed off by so much overt, irrepressible
emotion.

She rested her head on my chest. Her mussed
hair brushed against my chin. I kissed her sweet-smelling hair and
whispered, half afraid to say it out loud, "I love you,
Rachel."

She slowly lifted her head. Her eyes were
dark and unreadable. "But you don't really know me."

"I know you well enough."

She slid her arms up my back and pulled me
down to her level. She kissed me with passion, and I felt relief
flood through my body. Maybe I wasn't totally off base after
all.

I could have stayed there all night, but
Michael, looking somewhat amused, wordlessly led his horse down the
aisle and broke the spell.

Rachel stepped back and combed her fingers
through her hair. "I'd better go, or I'll end up falling asleep on
the drive home."

We walked out of the barn and headed down the
lane. As we stepped beyond the protection of the buildings, a
westerly breeze cut across the parking lot. Rachel wrapped her
sweater tighter around her chest. Before she unlocked the door, she
turned to face me, and I took her into my arms and kissed her
again.

I wanted her so bad, I hurt, but I needed to
stay in control. If all she felt from me was lust, she wouldn't
believe in the love, and I wouldn't blame her.

Easier said than done.

She felt perfect in my arms, a perfect fit
with all those wonderful curves that are so uniquely female. I
stopped before I blew it, but she was smiling just the same.
Amazing how the slightest tension, a subtle movement, little more
than thought, could be sensed by an observant partner. I said good
night before the love turned into good old-fashioned lust.

I watched her taillights disappear around a
curve. She hadn't said "I love you." Not yet.

But I could wait.

Wait forever.

I didn't have to wait for Michael. By the
time I'd finished checking the buildings, he was ready to go. I
dumped his gear in the bed of my truck and cleared a space on the
front seat. He climbed in without comment, and I drove past the
gates.

After I'd locked them and pulled onto Rocky
Ford, Michael said, "They must be a nuisance."

"Yes, but a necessary one."

He looked at me for a moment, then changed
the subject. "That woman, the one who brought my dinner. She's a
trip."

I grinned. "She is that. I saw her follow you
to the barn. How'd you get rid of her?" I asked because Michael had
returned to the arena almost immediately.

Michael chuckled. "I told her I preferred men
. . ."

My fingers tightened on the steering wheel.
"And do you?"

He chuckled. "Shit, no. Don't have a coronary
on me, now." He leaned back in his seat and yawned. "I've dealt
with women like her before. It's a weird sort of groupie thing. As
soon as you're even moderately well-known, they put the make on
you. Young girls, too."

My eyebrows rose. "I had no idea."