The Kill (2 page)

Riding boots clunked hollowly against the gray wood planks of the elevated deck, but no effort was made to tread quietly. The closest farm was half a mile away. The only person within earshot was dead, or would be soon.

Sidestepping a dark puddle, the shooter squatted next to the body, extended two fingers, and checked for a pulse. Wide blue eyes stared vacantly, ghostlike in the shadowy dusk.

Satisfied, the shooter grasped the rifle with both ends of the stock tie and placed it on the deck, tipping the body just enough to wiggle a wallet out of the dead man’s back pocket. Letting the body fall back down, the shooter slid the sleeve on the dead man’s left wrist to expose a gold Rolex watch. The temperature had plummeted with the setting sun, causing the shooter’s fingers to move stiffly as they worked to release the catch on the band and slide the timepiece over the dead man’s hand.

A fox screamed somewhere in the woods and a shiver tingled down the shooter’s spine. Smiling, the shooter rose and fingered a salute at the dead man.

Good night, Master
.

A
bigale Portmann resisted the urge to guide the mare and avoided looking down at the sheer cliff to her right. She let the sure-footed Arab choose her own way along the craggy path.

“Jesus Christ, Portmann.” Fear raised the pitch of the reporter’s voice in front of her. “Of all the stupid things I’ve ever done to get a story, this is by far the stupidest. Why the hell didn’t you talk me out of it?”

Abigale tugged the scarf away from her frozen mouth. “Don’t try to ride him, Joe,” she called, unsure whether he could hear her or if the driving wind swallowed up her words. “Just give him his head. He doesn’t want to fall any more than you do.”

“Fuck.”

The horse’s head shot straight up in the air. Abigale could tell it was getting increasingly irritated with Joe’s death grip. Joe yanked on the left rein, trying to steer the horse around a sharp turn that skirted the precipitous drop. The horse fought to escape Joe’s heavy hand, danced to the right, and teetered on the edge of the pass. Abigale gasped as its right hind hoof punched air, searched for a foothold, then found firm footing back on the trail.

One of the Afghan trackers on foot slipped back and grabbed the horse’s bridle, scolding Joe in Dari. Even though Joe didn’t understand the Afghan language, Abigale was pretty certain he’d get the drift of what the tracker was saying.

Their ten-horse team had been climbing the mountain since daybreak, in blinding sleet and snow for the last couple of hours. Icicles hung from the horses’ manes and the eyebrows of the tracker leading Joe’s horse. Abigale eyed the packhorse carrying their laptops, satellite phones, and her camera equipment. The Reuters name on their gear was obliterated by snow and ice.

Joe and she had huddled in the hotel bar in Kabul deep into the night, bouncing back and forth two questions: How big is the story? How grave are the risks? In the end, they’d both agreed gaining access to the remote encampment justified the trek through the mountain pass to the Panjshir Valley. Yet both knew their quest for the elusive story might be a death sentence.

Abigale shifted against the blankets that served as a saddle, trying to keep her circulation moving. Despite Joe’s fear that his horse would plunge off the trail, she knew their greater danger was freezing to death in the sudden blizzard. Horses were survivors, most of them. Even the rogue ones that didn’t care if they unseated their riders didn’t want to hurt themselves. But, accidents happened. The snapshot of a beautiful chestnut mare flashed through Abigale’s mind. No surprise. This was the first time she’d sat on a horse since that night in Virginia. She shoved the thought away.

Still, the feel of the horse between Abigale’s legs unlocked dusty childhood memories: foxhunting, showing, lazy summer hacks. Maybe Uncle Richard was right, she should go back. Enough time had passed. Perhaps this year—if her mother was well enough to travel from Switzerland—they’d accept her uncle’s invitation to spend Christmas with him at Dartmoor Glebe.

Abigale’s belly clenched at the mere thought of it. Who was she kidding? It would take much more than that to persuade her to return to the Virginia hunt country.

S
wollen clouds hugged the spine of the Blue Ridge, spilling tendrils of fog over the patchwork of horse farms sprawled lazily across the Shenandoah Valley. Margaret Southwell eyed the drab morning sky and flicked the wiper lever up a notch as her pickup truck clunked through a pothole on St. Louis Road.

“Looks like the
Farmer’s Almanac
let us down, Duchess. So much for an October with below-normal rainfall and record warmth.” The yellow Lab beside Margaret opened her eyes and thumped her tail leisurely against the worn leather seat. Margaret scratched the dog behind the ear. “Aw, I know, it makes no difference to you. You’ll head straight for the pond and end up wet anyway.”

She eased the truck around the blind curve that hid the entrance to the steeplechase racecourse at Longmeadow Park, moaning as her back absorbed the jolt of another pothole. Thank God the repaving project was due to be completed before race day.

Margaret swerved around an abandoned car perched on the shoulder, allowing herself a smile as the chained black iron gates came into view. She was the first to arrive. If she didn’t delay, she might have time to unload the snow fence before the rest of the work crew started rolling in. Maybe that would put an end to the recent talk about how she should start taking it easy at her age. Her father had hunted hounds into his late eighties, retired as master at the age of ninety-one, and her mother had hunted—sidesaddle, mind you—until she was seventy-nine. With that gene pool she didn’t plan on slowing down anytime soon. Besides, they said seventy was the new sixty.

Margaret parked the truck in front of the gates and tugged a waxed rain hat over her tightly permed gray curls. “Stay put, Duchess. I’ll be right back.” She grabbed her Barbour coat off the seat back and opened the door, shrugging into the olive-green jacket as she stepped down from the cab.

The ornamental gates squawked in protest as Margaret swung them inward, one at a time, fastening each side with an iron hook to the sturdy white wooden fencing that bordered the 250-acre estate. She drove through the entrance and followed the gravel road, which dipped and swelled with the terrain as it wound around the perimeter of the steeplechase course. The blazing hues of crimson and gold foliage provided a brilliant backdrop to the foggy, faded green of the racecourse. Margaret inhaled deeply, capturing the serenity. On Sunday, white tents and catering trucks would top the berm and five thousand or so partying race fans would dot the landscape: the locals in tweeds and sensible shoes; the women from Washington fashionably dressed, teetering around the rugged landscape on spiky heels.

Margaret topped a rise and the parking area by the stewards’ stand came into view, revealing Richard Evan Clarke’s silver Lexus SUV parked in the lot. Her mouth puckered into a frown. That was peculiar. If Richard had arrived before her, why hadn’t he left the front gates open?

She pulled her truck up next to the SUV with the shiny new foxhunting license plate: SLVRFOX. The personalized plate was Richard’s comeback to the countless old-fart jokes he’d had to stomach on his seventieth birthday. Of course, the moniker was nothing new. It was common knowledge that several ladies in the hunt had referred to Richard as the “silver fox” for years—a blatant reference to his movie-star looks, not his age.

Margaret leaned over and peered through the rain-streaked passenger window into the Lexus. Empty. She scanned the grassy panorama. No sign of Richard. That meant he must be working on the far side of the course. The timber on several fences needed to be repaired, and with all the rain the drainage ditch on the far turn would need to be opened. Still, Richard should have waited for Smitty to come with the Gator rather than traipsing that far on foot. Stubborn old workhorse! Just last week, she’d had a heart-to-heart with Richard, pointed out now that he was in his twentieth season as master of the Middleburg Foxhounds, it was due time others helped shoulder more of the burden. But, from the look of things, her advice had just gone in one ear and out the other.

Margaret killed her pickup’s engine and opened the door. She should be able to spot him from the upper deck of the stewards’ stand. “Come on, Duchess. Let’s go find Richard.”

The Lab slid stiffly from the cab, sniffed at the blowing mist that blasted her face, and stretched into a walk, nose to the ground, heading in the direction of the pond.

Margaret tugged a box of race programs from behind her seat and shouldered the truck door closed. “Hold on, girl. I have a delivery to make first. Then you can have your swim.”

Duchess circled back and they set off toward the stewards’ stand, Margaret’s Wellies crunching on the bluestone path. She noted the way the two-story green and gray wooden tower glistened through the drizzle and gave a grunt of satisfaction. What a difference the fresh coat of paint made! She had raised hell when Richard had suggested they could get by another year without a paint job. What kind of an impression would that make on the race announcer and judges? Not to mention the horde of VIPs. It would be like inviting guests for dinner and using mismatched everyday dishes just because you were too lazy to hand-wash the good china.

A pair of crows circled the weathered cedar-shingle roof, cawing as they landed on the railing of the under deck.
Damn birds
. She and Richard had spent the better part of a morning scraping droppings off the railing before the paint job. Now the crows were back, mucking it up again. Margaret pursed her lips at the sight of the plastic owl perched on the center of the rail. She had told Richard it wouldn’t do a lick of good, that he was just throwing good money away, but he had insisted on buying the damn thing anyway. She figured it could only be pride that prevented him from removing the useless deterrent, given the fact that the crows used it as a roosting place.

Margaret waved her hand toward the stand. “Go on, Duchess. Go get ’em, girl.”

Duchess cocked her head and looked at Margaret, her tail swaying in a low wag.

One of the crows let out a loud caw and Margaret gestured toward the stand again. “Go on. Shoo them out of there!”

Duchess barked and bounded toward the stewards’ stand.

“Good girl. Go get them.”

The Lab disappeared up the stairs and Margaret chuckled as she watched the crows take flight. “That’s a girl, Duchess. You found yourself a new job.”

As she shifted the box of programs to her left arm and reached for the stair railing, Duchess’s bark deepened to a growl.

Margaret grasped the handrail. “It’s okay, girl. That’s enough. You scared them away.”

Duchess responded with a shrill bark and Margaret tilted her head toward the top level of the stewards’ stand, attempting to see the Lab through the slats in the gray stairs. What on earth had gotten into her? Had the crows flown back? She reached the mid-deck landing and as she rounded the corner she saw Duchess backed against the rear railing of the top deck, a growl rumbling in her throat.

“All right, Duchess. That’s enough.”

Duchess’s brown eyes flitted toward Margaret, then back across the stewards’ stand.

Margaret neared the top of the stairs and stretched up on her tiptoes to peer at the outside rail. The crows were gone. So what was Duchess raising such a ruckus about? The knee-wall blocked Margaret’s view of the deck flooring, but from what she could see the top level was completely empty except—

She cackled as her eyes settled on the plastic owl. “Duchess, you silly dog. That bird won’t be flying anywhere, no matter how hard you try to scare it off. Come on over here and I’ll show you. It’s just a useless blob of plastic.”

She patted her thigh as she rounded the corner. “Come on—”

A moan swelled in Margaret’s chest. The box of programs thudded to the deck and spilled down the steps.

She stumbled forward and dropped to her knees beside Richard.