Happy Reading.
Excerpt from:
THE SKELETON KING
ISBN -13: 978-1516905874
Copyright © 2015 by Lauren Gilley
Cover photograph Copyright © 2015 by
Lauren Gilley
Brighton
Racecourse
Brighton,
East Sussex, England
24 Years Ago
The
trainer was a broad man, with a full dark beard. He stood wreathed in mist
beside the rail, gaze sweeping along the downs and the irregular track. His
breath plumed like smoke. Dawn just breaking, and the ocean lay hidden under a
white shroud, the crash of the waves a dull murmur.
An indistinct sound drew closer, and
then became the fast drumming of hooves. Walsh felt the turf vibrating beneath
his boots the moment before horse and rider burst from the mist. The horse at a
sleek gallop, neck extended, legs driving like pistons. The jockey crouched low
over the animal’s withers, hands white-knuckled on the reins.
To see a horse gambol through an
open field was beautiful. To watch a Thoroughbred breezing on the track – that
was breathtaking.
Horse and jockey flew past,
disappearing once more in the mist.
“Ha,” the trainer said to himself,
clicking his stopwatch. “Fast,” he murmured. “Jesus, the beast is fast.”
He jotted figures on the clipboard
he carried, and then made to turn away from the rail.
Walsh felt his grandfather’s hand
between his shoulder blades, giving him a little shove forward.
Gramps cleared his throat. “ ‘Scuse
me, sir?”
The trainer turned toward them,
squinting to see through the fog. “Aye?”
Gramps gave another shove and Walsh
was standing right in front of the trainer, head tilting back on his skinny
neck so he could look up at the man.
“My grandson here,” Gramps said, “is
a right fine rider. He wants to become an exercise rider. Wants to work the
horses.” He gestured to the track.
The trainer leaned closer,
inspecting Walsh from the top of his pale head to the scuffed toes of his
outgrown boots. “I do need a new a rider. Had one broke his foot ‘bout a week
ago. How old are you, boy?”
“Eighteen, sir,” Walsh lied.
The man grinned. “Sure you are. Can
you sit a horse?”
“Like he’s glued in the bloody
saddle,” Gramps said.
Walsh could only nod.
The trainer studied him a long
moment, eyes hooded. Then he nodded. “Come back to the barn then, lad. Let’s
see what we can find for you to do.”
One
Knoxville,
TN
Present Day
“They’re
back, chica.”
Of course they were. It was too much
to hope for that they’d forgotten the way out here. “Good job, Kelsey. One more
lap – keep those fingers light. Thumbs up. Atta girl. Then a nice, easy
downward transition…there ya go. And walk him out. Let him have the reins.” Her
final instruction of the lesson delivered, pleased with her young student’s
progress, Emmie twisted around to face Fred.
The groom stood at the rail, hands
folded over the top board, his expression one of resigned concern.
“How many this time?”
“Three.” He pushed back his straw
sun hat and scratched at his forehead. There was a deep crease where the
hatband had been. “Fancy men, with shiny new botas.” He lifted one of his dusty cowboy boots with a wry grin.
Emmie snorted. “Trying to look the
part. Bastards.” She sighed. “Alright. I’ll head up and meet them. They’re at
the barn?”
“Sí.”
She turned back to face her student.
Kelsey was ten, scrawny and tenacious in the way of all blooming equestrians.
Emmie’s favorite student, if she was allowed to have favorites. Kelsey would
die of heat stroke before admitting defeat; Emmie was the one who had to insist
on water breaks.
“Great job, girlie,” Emmie told her,
smiling. “Can you walk Champ out for me?”
The girl was beaming. “Yes!”
Something as simple as cooling out a horse was thrilling for a kid with this
kind of equine addiction.
“When he’s cool to the touch, bring
him back to the barn and Fred can help you untack and put him away, alright?”
“Okay!”
“Great job, baby!” Kelsey’s mom called
from the rail. She turned to Emmie and said, “Is she really ready to unsaddle
him by herself?” Her brows plucked together with worry.
“Totally ready,” Emmie assured her.
In an undertone: “And the worst thing Champ’s ever done is raid the Apple
Wafers bag. If y’all need anything, ask Fred.”
“Thanks.”
Emmie wanted to walk alongside the
horse as Kelsey cooled him out, discuss the highs and lows of the lesson, map a
course for next week’s lesson. It was her habit, a way to bond with her students
and further their understanding. She liked to go up to the barn with them,
instill good post-ride habits.
But she had three dicks in suits
waiting on her, and wasn’t that a mood-killer?
“Thank you,” she told Fred on her
way out of the arena, and he dipped his head in response.
Sweet Fred – she couldn’t run this
place without him. Originally hired on by Mr. Richards as a landscaper, he’d
come running to her aid one afternoon when Brett left a gate open. In his
soft-spoken, gentle way, he’d explained – after the horses were all safely back
in their paddocks – that he’d worked with horses in his native Nicaragua before
immigrating north to the US. He’d told her to call him Fred, because his real
name was difficult for Americans to pronounce.
He’d been promoted to head groom,
and his help was indispensable. Because there were horse farms…
And then there was Briar Hall.
As she mounted the hill toward the
stone and timber barn, Emmie had a view of the farm bathed in amber evening
light. Verdant fields dotted with oaks; two 100’x200’ natural sand arenas with
lights and sprinkler systems; outbuildings for hay and shavings in dark cypress
wood; four-board black fencing across the property. The barn was a masterpiece:
twenty stalls, tongue-and-groove wood on the interior, industrial fans over
each stall, with four wash racks, massive tack room, office, and the loft
apartment above, where she lived. Three cupolas set at intervals along the peak
of the copper roof housed heating units that warmed the barn in the winter.
The property rolled gently upward
from there, toward the pale stone house on the hill where Mr. Richards lived,
alone since the passing of his wife last year.
All told, Briar Hall was sixty acres
of horse heaven, a strip of forest hiding the property from its neighbors. It
was more a home to Emmie than any house had ever been. From hangaround kid, to
student, to stall-mucker, to groom, to working student – she’d poured her
heart, her sweat, her blood, her life into this farm, and now, at twenty-nine,
she was its manager.
And it was for sale.
Three men stood beside the black BMW
X5 parked in front of the barn. Black suits, muted ties, and, as promised,
shiny black cowboy boots with crazy-pointed toes. Two conferred, holding
iPhones; the third scanned the front of the barn with obvious distaste.
Emmie felt sick.
She wiped her hands on the thighs of
her breeches and forced a chilly smile. “Gentlemen,” she greeted as she
approached. “You’re back.”
Phones were pocketed and one of them
stepped forward, his smile detached, professional. “We’re here to talk with Mr.
Richards again. He said you could show us up to the house, Ms. Johansen.”
Vultures,
she thought. You awful bastards. “I
can.” But she didn’t oblige them right away. “You guys have new boots.”
The man in front of her – she
thought his name was Gannon – glanced down at his shoes. “Well” – he shrugged,
made an attempt at a wry grin – “if I’m going to own a farm, I might as well
get used to the attire, right?”
“Right.” She sighed. “Come on. We
can take the Rhino.”
~*~
“Ratchet,
what did your courthouse guy say?”
The secretary made a comical face,
like he didn’t want to have to say what he was about to. “His girlfriend was
the one who pulled the plat. The names match. The guy looking to buy Briar Hall
is the same guy who called and talked to Ethan about the cattle property. Lance
Gannon.”
Everyone at the table said “fuck” on
the same breath.
“What do you know about him?” Ghost
asked.
The zippered notebook came open,
pages rustling. “He’s co-owner of a land development firm, with two other guys:
his brother, Neal, and a cousin, Don Harmon. The housing market’s knocked ‘em
on their ass, but they had a successful build about six months ago, that
retirement condo village down near Spring City.”
“I’ve seen the place,” Dublin said
grimly. “Four condos to a unit, real nice, with their own grocery store, gas
station, restaurant, that kinda thing. All self-contained, so the old farts
don’t ever have to leave. No offense to the elderly, mind,” he added, a glance
thrown toward Troy’s empty chair.
“I don’t care what the amenities are
like,” Ghost said. His face was thunderous. “I wanna know if they’ve got enough
bank to buy out old man Richards.”
“Bank and then some,” Ratchet said
with a wince. “These guys don’t mess, boss.”
“Shit.”
Walsh turned his silver lighter
around and around in one hand, watching the lamplight slide across its surface
and fracture on his rings. Biding his time. Waiting until this clusterfuck was
inevitably turned toward him. It was a stick of financial dynamite, and he was
the one-man bomb squad.
Michael was the one who’d seen the
sign. Almost a month ago, he’d taken Holly up to the cattle property to work on
her target shooting, and he’d come back to report that there was a For Sale
sign up at the street in front of Briar Hall, the cattle property’s
long-standing neighbor.
Two weeks ago, someone had called
Ethan Briscoe’s office, wanting to talk to the owner of “that piece of land
beside Briar Hall.” Since Ghost had finagled the property deed around and set
up a dummy corp as the land’s owner, Ethan’s office handled all phone calls and
mail directed toward the place. The property wasn’t for sale, Ethan had told
Gannon, end of story.
But now plats were being pulled for
Briar Hall. And if a developer bought the horse farm, that would mean earth
movers, construction crews, and eventually a whole boatload of nosy neighbors
right next door to their shooting range and body dump.
Comforting thought.
“We gotta talk to Richards,” Aidan
said, pulling in a deep drag off a fresh smoke. In the dim interior of the
chapel, the scarred-over tats on his forearms looked darker than normal.
“Convince him to hold out for a real buyer.”
“Pretty sure Gannon’s got real money,” Rottie said with a snort.
“I meant somebody who’s gonna keep
it a farm,” Aidan clarified, rolling his eyes.
“Yeah, but that place’s gotta cost,
what, at least a mil,” Tango said. “Not a lot of wannabe farmers walking around
with that kinda change in their pockets.”
“We could advertise,” Briscoe said,
tone only half-joking.
“
‘Wanted: Rich Fucker Looking to Buy a Horse Farm.’ ”
Ghost shook his head. “Richards and
his people have been quiet. No one comes over the fence, no one cares that we
shoot out there. Even if Briar Hall stays a farm, who’s to say new neighbors
won’t get nosy?”
“We convince them that’s a bad
idea,” Mercy said with an elegant shrug, leaning back in his chair, looking
satisfied with his logic.
“Cute.” Ghost smirked. “But I don’t
think we’re to the fingernail-prying stage yet.”
“Aw, but boss, I’ve been so bored.”
Mercy pretended to pout.
“Which would explain the reason I’ve
got another grandson on the way, right?”
Chuckles rippled around the table.
“Seriously, though.” Ghost sobered,
and the laughter died away. “We’re gonna have to figure out something.” His
eyes flicked toward Walsh. “Everybody put your thinking caps on. In the
meantime, I think we’re going to have to reconsider our go-to remains disposal
techniques.”
Groans all around.
He ignored them. “I need you guys” –
he gestured to Walsh and Michael on either side of him – “to head up to the
property, get me a ballpark figure for how many bodies we’re talking. Make sure
they’re good and deep underground. You” – Ratchet – “see what kinda dirt you
can find on Gannon and his crew. You” – Mercy – “get a hobby that don’t involve
gettin’ people pregnant, alright?”
A chorus of “yes, sir” and a big
grin from Mercy dismissed the meeting.
~*~
Emmie
had been inside the house countless times, but it never stopped impressing her.
She led the developers around to the back entrance, up onto the wraparound
porch, through the French doors of the library. The place had a library. The interior smelled of old
pages and oiled leather, the cigars Mr. Richards enjoyed every evening while he
read.
A door surrounded by bookshelves led
into the adjoining office, and Emmie knocked once before opening it a fraction,
peeking in.
Davis Richards sat at his massive
marble-topped desk, scowling at his computer screen. He wasn’t a big man, but
there was a Churchillian pugnacity to his broad face that lent him an air of
total authority. He was seventy-six, looked sixty, and oversaw his operations –
all of them – with a brusqueness that would have been cliché if not for the
occasional burst of unexpected levity. He’d always treated Emmie well, and at
times, he felt more like a grandfather than a boss.
His head swiveled toward her as the
door opened. “What? Oh, Em, it’s you. You brought Gannon up?”
“Yes, sir.” She pushed the door
wide. “They said you had an appointment with them.”
“Yeah, yeah, I do.” He waved the
three suits closer with an impatient gesture. “Come sit down.” As she was
backing out of the room, he said, “Thanks, Emmie. Everything going okay today?”
She gave him a quick smile. “Just
fine.”
Except
for the fact that you’re selling the farm to real estate developers,
everything’s fucking peachy.
It felt wrong to stay, and press her
ear to the door, so she went back outside, pausing a moment at the top of the
stairs. The stone house with its heavy timber trimwork seemed to glow in the
evening light, the façade gleaming gold. From the porch, she could see most of
the farm stretched out below. Tranquil, drowsy in the faded heat.
What would she do without this
place? There were other farms, other students, other places she could go. But
the landscape of her heart bore the image of this place, this farm.
The Rhino was waiting for her in front of the
garage doors and she climbed behind the wheel. Let the flashy suits walk back
down to the barn, she thought, cranking the engine.
Briar Hall was in its usual evening uproar:
horses pawing at gates, whinnying, calling to her as she parked. The steady
sounds of buckets rattling and pellets sluicing into feeders signaled that
Becca was pouring dinner.
Emmie passed Tonya on her way into the barn. The
leggy brunette led her gelding, Chaucer, out through the double doors, looking
more like a Dover catalogue model in her fawn breeches and white poplin shirt
than a serious equestrian. But serious she was, Emmie's most talented student,
cool and beautiful and elegant.
“Running through your tests tonight?” Emmie
asked.
Tonya nodded. “The transition after the second
half-pass needs work."
“You want me to come watch for a bit?”
Tonya shrugged and tossed a disinterested glance
over her shoulder toward the busy barn aisle. “If you have time, sure.”
She'd known the high-dollar socialite too long now
to be offended by her tone. “ ‘Kay,” Emmie said, and kept moving.
Kelsey and her mother were saying goodbye to
Champ, Kelsey flinging her arms around the stout gelding’s neck for one last
hug. Then Kelsey hugged Emmie, and Emmie felt that rare warm stir of emotion
that sometimes left her lamenting her lack of children.
“Good job, today, I’ll see you next week.”
“Okay!” Kelsey was all gap-toothed smile and
girlhood exuberance when it came to the horses; in truth, she reminded Emmie of
herself at that age.
Becca came down the aisle, tower of eight-quart
buckets in her skinny arms. “They’re back,” she said, wrinkling her nose, and
Emmie nodded.
“Unfortunately, yeah. I just took them up to see
Davis.”
“Assholes.”
“Ditto that.”
“Though, actually,” Becca dropped her voice,
“this is really all Amy’s fault. Her dad builds her this barn, and she up and
runs off to Kentucky. Ungrateful–”
“I’m still not one-hundred-percent sure there
aren’t cameras in here,” Emmie reminded, smiling despite herself.
Becca clamped her lips shut, eyes bugging. “Oops.”
Emmie laughed, hollowly. “It’s okay. I ditto that
too,” she whispered, “but let’s try not to get fired before our jobs are
eliminated.”
“Right.” Becca nodded and walked off. “I’ll start
with the left side of the driveway,” she called over her shoulder. “I’ll let
you get the Beast’s pasture.”
That would be Emmie’s horse, Apollo. Who Becca
and Fred referred to as either the Beast, Widowmaker, or El Diablo. He was the first one at the gate every night, no
exceptions, and none of the other horses challenged him.
Emmie grabbed a carrot from the tack room fridge
and took her first deep, relaxing breath of the afternoon, heading out the
front doors. It had been one shock after the next lately – Amy announcing she
was marrying and moving all her horses to Kentucky; Davis deciding to sell the
farm; developer after developer making their way up the drive in low-slung
black cars. In the midst of the whirlwind, she was losing touch with the part
of her that thrived on the even keel of farm life, forgetting to enjoy the
quiet moments. She hadn’t ridden in days.
She took a deep breath of summer-scented air as
she headed down the driveway, resolving to shove all thoughts of leaving Briar
Hall out of her head.
In the dressage arena, Tonya warmed Chaucer up at
a swinging trot, horse and rider in perfect sync. Emmie watched them a moment
as she walked, mentally approving of the way Tonya’s hands rested light on the
reins, letting the horse stretch.
“Em!” Becca shouted, startling her. “He’s doing
it again! Tally!”
Emmie glanced toward the pasture she was headed
for…and sure enough, there went Tally, leaping neatly over the five-foot fence
and taking off at a mad gallop toward the trees.
“Shit.”
Two
It
was early when church let out, and after a brief discussion in the common room,
Walsh and Michael decided to head up to the cattle property now, avoiding the
heat of the day tomorrow and getting a jump on whatever was to be done there.
They shared an intolerance for waiting, in that regard.
The sun was at its sharp evening
slant when they parked their bikes in front of the falling-down farmhouse and
dismounted.
Walsh was slow about tugging off his
gloves, straightening his rings. He took a moment to let the country air fill
his lungs; he traced the rolling pastureland with his eyes. The grass rippled
in gleaming waves as the wind caught it. Clusters of doves lifted from their
hiding places and took awkward flight.
He loved it here. Nothing but the animals
and the faded whispers of the dead to disturb the quiet. One of the few places
in his brother-crowded world where he could feel his insides unclench.
“You good?” Michael asked. There was
the faintest edge of impatience in his normally flat voice; he wanted to go
home to Holly, and Lucy, and whatever hot dinner awaited him in the oven.
“Yeah.” Walsh laid his gloves on the
seat of his bike and pulled a notepad and pen from his inside cut pocket. “You
were the last one to have a burial up here. Lead the way.”
~*~
Tally
was short for Tally-Ho, a name that had left the entire barn staff in
stitches…until they’d realized how appropriate the name was for the
Thoroughbred. On an almost weekly basis, Tally went over a fence. For a while,
they’d turned him out in the round pen, because its eight-foot solid board
walls couldn’t be leapt. But it had been a cruelty, keeping such a large,
energetic horse in such a small enclosure. They’d swapped pastures, putting him
in with Apollo’s herd, and for a few weeks, the change seemed to please him,
and he’d stayed put. But tonight showed him back to his old ways.
“I’m sorry, Fred, you’re sure you
don’t need our help?”
“Sí.
You better catch Loco, before his madre shows up and yells at us.”
“No kidding.” Emmie dropped the
saddle flap and ran down the stirrup. “Don’t worry about Apollo’s fly sheet;
I’ll take it off when I get back.”
“Si.”
She buckled on her helmet and
glanced toward the neighboring wash rack, where Becca saddled her gelding,
Mocha. “Ready?”
Quick click of Becca’s helmet strap. “Yep.”
Emmie draped Tally’s halter and
lead-rope over one arm and gathered the loose reins of her mount. She adored
Apollo, but search-and-rescue wasn’t his strong suit. She’d saddled her
favorite lesson horse, Sherman, almost seventeen hands of solid, level-headed
Quarter Horse with a knack for just about everything.
Sherman turned to regard her through
sleepy brown eyes, the lopsided blaze on his face giving the impression that he
was lifting one nostril in question.
“Let’s go find your dumb friend,
okay?” she told the horse, patting his shoulder and leading him from the barn.
Tonya was on her way back into the
barn as Emmie and Becca left. “Tally got out again?” she guessed.
“He wanted to make sure I got a ride
in today,” Emmie said with a fast, false smile. The prospect of wrangling the
wild Thoroughbred left her exhausted. “Good ride?” she asked Tonya.
“Better than the one you’re about to
have.”
“Too true.”
She and Becca mounted and steered
their horses down the driveway, toward the run between two pastures where Tally
had disappeared. The grass needed cutting and it swished around the horses’
fetlocks as they walked. Mocha and Sherman stepped with coiled energy, necks
stretching forward as an evening breeze ruffled their short manes.
It wasn’t the ride Emmie would have
chosen, but there was no fighting the magic of being in the saddle. Sherman had
an easy, swinging walk and the motion of his shoulders rolling soothed her
nerves. She pulled in a deep breath and let it out slowly, felt the tension
bleed from the backs of her legs as his ribcage pushed at them.
“It’s really happening, isn’t it?”
Becca said quietly beside her. “They’re really selling this place. And those
dickheads are going to turn it into a freaking shuffleboard court.”
Emmie heaved a deep sigh that caught
in her throat; her eyes burned and she blinked hard as she stared between
Sherman’s ears at the grass ahead. “I’ve gone through so many scenarios in my
mind: What if we bought it ourselves?”
Becca made a gasping sound of shock
beside her that quickly turned into an excited squeal.
“What if we started raising money?
Hosted a tack sale. A 4-H show, and put all the proceeds toward a collective
purchase of Briar Hall? What if we all chipped in – you, me, Fred – and we went
to the bank to take out a loan? What if we tried to get Tonya’s family to buy
it?”
“Tonya!” Becca exclaimed. “That’s it! Her dad’s
loaded. We’ll get him to buy it, and she wouldn’t have any reason to fire us,
and we could….You’re shaking your head.”
“Because I already asked Tonya, and
her family already has a farm; they don’t want this one. And because no tack
sale, or benefit show, or loan in the world will get our three broke asses
enough money to buy this place.” Emmie cleared her throat and hoped it didn’t
sound like she was on the verge of sniffling. “This is the problem with falling
in love with someplace that isn’t yours – it won’t ever be yours.”
“It’s not fair,” Becca said
fiercely.
“Davis is old, and this is a lot for
him to handle,” Emmie said, knowing it was the truth.
“What does he handle? You run
everything, and he just signs the checks.”
Emmie snorted.
“You know what I think it is? I
think he just doesn’t want all his kids fighting about it when he finally kicks
off.”
She started to protest…but nodded
instead. “I’d say that’s a big possibility.”
“I just don’t want to leeeeaaavvve,”
Becca groaned, bending at the waist and draping her torso across Mocha’s neck.
The gelding snorted in annoyance but otherwise tolerated her theatrics.
Emmie smiled faintly at the display,
feeling chilled and depressed inside. She knew, when the inevitable departure
came, Becca would land on her feet. Eighteen, fresh out of high school and
taking a semester or two to work, she was personable, responsible, bubbly, and
could meld easily into a new barn and a new situation. She and Mocha would find
another boarding or training facility to take them, and she’d swap chores for
her board, and she’d start college, and in less than a year’s time, the
heartbreak of Briar Hall would have faded.
Emmie, on the other hand, was going
to be scraped off the side of this place like bubbled-up lead paint, and
wherever she went, she’d be starting all over, back to square one; no longer a
trusted decision-maker, but the new-girl. The new, almost-thirty, boring, dry,
workaholic girl with the difficult horse no one wanted to bring in from the
pasture. Not to mention she couldn’t afford to board Apollo; she needed to work
off his rent. And, now that she thought of it, she’d need a place to live,
because going home to the folks just wasn’t an option.
Dwelling on it was getting her
nowhere fast.
With a firm mental shake, she
cleared her head. “Which way did he go, you think?” she asked as they reached
the end of the run and had to choose to follow the property line to the left or
right.
“Well, all those briars Brett was
supposed to trim back are to the left,” Becca said. “So…”
“He went left,” they said in unison.
~*~
“These’ll
be the two kids who were bothering Ava,” Michael said, gesturing to the
innocuous patch of grass between two sapling pines. A good spot; the trees were
small, still, so the roots hadn’t provided much obstruction, but as they grew,
the roots would further till the bones.
“Ronnie and Mason,” Walsh said,
writing down the location on his pad and putting two tally marks beside it.
“That should be it.” Michael folded
his arms and didn’t seem to know what to do with himself, then, mouth curled
sharply with distaste for this whole business. At least, that was how Walsh
read his expression. What seemed a deep frown for Michael was just a facial
twitch on someone else. “How many you got total?”
Walsh ticked through the list and
whistled. “Thirty-seven.”
“Christ.”
“The Carpathians were a…large
deposit.”
“Yeah.”
“But”- Walsh stowed his pen and pad
away, straightened his cut and dug out a smoke – “the graves look good. Not too
much erosion, no odor. All of it was done by the book. Digging ‘em up would be
a bloody nightmare.”
“It’s not possible,” Michael agreed.
“Some have been here for fifteen years. Nothing left but bone and dust. And you
get that stuff up in the air, on the ground – dogs can sniff that out.”
“Hmm,” Walsh agreed, taking his
first drag. “Better to leave ‘em.”
By unspoken agreement they headed
back for their bikes, the walking slow in the rough grass. Twilight was hitting
hard, and the farm around them was pulling on its blanket of shadows as the
first stars flared to life overhead. It would be full dark soon, and then the
property would become a whole other world, one that belonged to the quiet
things that watched them now from the trees; things that slunk along on silent
bellies, with yellow eyes and strange calls that echoed across the empty
pastures.
It was a good dump ground, and Ghost
had used it wisely. Not one body had been buried before the farm had been
“sold” to the dummy corporation that now owned it. As far as the city knew,
Ghost Teague didn’t own shit aside from his home and business. The club was
careful with its comings and goings, and up till now, their activity on the old
cattle farm had been invisible.
But if a whole village of retirees
moved in next door…
If there was shopping and
entertainment and all sorts of staff…
It was something that bothered Walsh
more than he’d said aloud.
All his Tennessee chapter brothers
had grown up in the States; several had visited London, but they hadn’t been
raised there. They knew nothing of the din and stench and jostle of a city that
size. Day in, day out, London had eaten at him, like acid rain crumbling away
his hard edges over time, until he’d become this smooth, emotionless shell.
Until Gramps died, summers in East
Sussex with his grandfather had been the highlight of his childhood life. His
mother had fretted over him, worried that he had no father. “A boy should spend
some time with men, learning how to be one,” she’d told him, and when he was
four, she’d begun packing him off to her father’s house for two months out of
the year.
It was in Rottingdean, East Sussex
that he’d realized he was a boy misplaced in the world. He could close his eyes
now and return there, to the bedroom that overlooked the back garden, the nubby
clean-smelling blanket beneath his cheek, weak sunshine warming his bare arms,
the scent of Gram’s roses beyond the open window being swept up in the salt
tang coming in from the beach. He could hear the ham frying and hear Gramps
singing and he could hear birds.
Real, actual songbirds, on the window ledge and in the garden, calling to one
another.
Summers became his life, and all the
months in between merely his existence. Rottingdean was roses and cottage
gardens; it was fumbling, pleasant-faced tourists and friendly locals. Cozy
pubs, fingers sticky with candy, a belly full of Gram’s fatty cooking. It was
games of chase through walled back gardens with boys who didn’t tease him for
being so small. It was his bare sun-browned toes digging into the cool sand on
the beach, and the sun striking off the white cliff face high above. Day trips
to Brighton. Endless walks outside the town, into fields that fostered his
wildest boyhood imaginings.
He didn’t belong in the
cheek-by-jowl world of cities. He belonged somewhere drowsy and soft. It was
why he loved Tennessee. It was why something as sad as an abandoned cattle farm
meant something to him outside its body-hiding attributes.
“Did you hear that?” Michael asked,
startling him, slamming him back to the present.
He halted, going still all over. The
wind touched his face. “What?”
“I heard–”
And there it was: a scream.
It wasn’t a human one, though.
“What the hell?” Michael asked under
his breath. His hand went to his waistband, the gun stashed there.
Walsh put his thumb and forefinger
in his mouth and whistled, one sharp blast that made Michael wince and flushed
doves from the grass.
A moment later, a figure emerged
from behind a stand of trees partway up the driveway. A snorting, head-tossing,
four-legged figure, who stepped to the center of the path and stared at them,
nostrils flared. The horse was a dark, gleaming bay, rangy and long-necked,
black tail cocked like he was prepared to bolt.
“Ghost got horses up there in the
barn we don’t know about?” Michael asked dryly.
Walsh whistled again, and the horse
took a few steps toward them, threw his head up, and snorted explosively.
Walsh started up the driveway,
toward the horse and the old vacant barn beyond it, pace steady so he wouldn’t
spook the animal.
“What are you gonna do?” Michael
asked behind him, and he sounded annoyed.
He didn’t know. But his feet were
taking him up the hill.
~*~
“It’s
locked,” Emmie said grimly, surveying the gate in front of her. They’d found
hoofprints in the deep mud right at the property’s edge, and they’d fought
their way through honeysuckle and low-hanging tree limbs up to the fence.
They’d found this gate that separated Briar Hall from its neighbor. And they’d
found it locked, with a padlock that only bolt cutters could overcome.
“Is there a key at the barn?” Becca
asked behind her, where she held both horses out from under the dense cover of
branches.
“Not that I know about.” Emmie gave
the lock a tug, and the rusty chain scratched at the tubular gate. She had a
sinking suspicion the neighbors had been the ones to put the lock in place.
She tilted her head back and looked
up at the sky through the latticework of leaves above. It was almost dark, the
landscape a miasma of purple shadows and indistinct outlines. She had a small
flashlight and her cellphone in her breeches pockets, Tally’s halter still
slung over one shoulder.
Doubtless, all the horses were in by
now. Tally’s owner had probably arrived, and was wondering where her baby was.
“Stay with the horses,” she said,
stepping onto the lowest rung of the gate. “I’m going to go have a look around
and see if I can find him.”
“No!” Becca protested.
Emmie glanced over her shoulder and
found the girl staring at her with horror.
“You can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Who even owns that place over
there? What if, like, some crazy old farmer dude with a shotgun and a pitchfork
is just waiting to…fork somebody to death,” she finished, face going red with
distress. “You can’t go alone, Em.”
“Someone has to stay with the
horses.” And, she added to herself, if one of us has to get arrested for
trespassing, better me than the kid with the bright future. “I won’t be
gone long, and I’ll call you if I need help.” She touched her phone where its
outline showed through her pocket. She grinned. “You know, if I almost get
forked to death.”
“You are not funny.”
“And it’s not getting any lighter.
I’ll be back.” Without leaving room for argument, Emmie climbed up and over the
gate, landing in a soft crush of ferns, and started off at a brisk walk before
Becca could talk any sense into her.
There was evidence of Tally’s
passage: trampled undergrowth, more moon-shaped tracks in the soft soil,
visible as Emmie passed the flashlight across the ground.
The sky retained color, but down low
along the grass, it was already nighttime.
Something skittered in the brush and
she jumped, sucked in a breath, berated herself. She was no stranger to the
dark, or to the woods, for that matter. With the exception of Fred, Briar Hall
was seriously lacking in the white knight department, and she’d learned to just
suck up her worries and soldier on.
Still…
A little chill went down her back,
light as the stroke of a finger. There was something about being five-feet-tall
and wandering alone on someone else’s land as night fell. She knew nothing
about the people who owned this property, only that she heard the muted crack
of distant gunshots on occasion. Becca’s description of a farmer bearing a shotgun
and pitchfork was a real possibility, one that left her mouth dry.
The clump of forest began to thin as
she walked, last year’s leaf litter crunching under her feet. Big flashes of
indigo sky became visible, and then, swatting a cypress branch aside, she was
striding into a pasture, a broad expanse of tangled grasses swaying in the
wind.
Off to her right, a barn loomed as a
dark shape stamped against the sky. It gave off that distinctly abandoned vibe:
overgrown at its base, one massive door flapping idly. There were no lights, no
vehicles, no homey scents of animals floating toward her.
What was this place?
A shrill whinny pierced the gloom,
and she started, jogging forward a few steps through the tall grass. “Tally?”
she called. She puckered her lips and made a loud kissing sound. “Tally, come
here, man. I don’t wanna hike all over this damn place looking for you.”
“Don’t suspect you’ll have to,
love,” a male voice called out to her. “I’ve got him down here.”
Emmie froze, heart slamming up into
her throat. Her skin shrank tight over her bones, the sensation painful, as
panic coursed through her in sudden, hot currents.
She felt like one of the horses she
cared for: Stranger Danger! And a strange man, at that. She wasn’t afraid of
men, but being five-foot-nothing had its strength disadvantages when you were
talking strange men in dark pastures.
She wrapped her hand tight around
the flashlight and let the beam precede her as she stepped over the small rise
ahead, and surveyed what lay below.
Two men stood in the center of a
dirt driveway, both in dark clothes, one dark-headed, the other pale in the
glow of the flashlight. The blonde had a belt looped right behind Tally’s ears,
holding the horse beneath his throatlatch with a makeshift collar.
It was the blonde who glanced toward
her, squinting against the glare. “Put that away before you blind everybody,”
he said, and it confirmed her initial impression. He was English, the accent
unmistakable. The words were said kindly, but in a way that suggested he meant
to be listened to.
Emmie aimed the flashlight down at her
boots. It was dark, but she could still see both men, and the white of Tally’s
eye as he glanced at her and snorted.
“Easy,” the Englishman told the
horse, stroking his neck. Something flashed on his hand. Rings, maybe?
Emmie pushed down the fear rising in
her belly and took a deep breath. “I’m so sorry he bothered you,” she said,
pulling the halter down off her shoulder and stepping forward. “I hope he
didn’t damage anything. He’s a boarder’s horse, and we can’t seem to keep him
inside a fence.”
The blonde man held onto the belt
until she had the halter secure on Tally’s head, then pulled it free and
stepped back; slow, deliberate movements like he’d been around horses before.
Greenhorns all shared a certain clumsiness. This man eased back smoothly,
sliding the belt back through the loops on his jeans.
“No harm done,” he said. “Gave us a
bit of a start, seeing him come over the hill. I thought somebody’d be along to
find him eventually.”
She took a firm grip on the
leadline, acutely aware of the dark-haired man’s stare off to the side. His
malevolence was visible even in the failing light. “Well…thank you for catching
him.” She clucked to Tally and began to turn him away.
The Englishman spoke again. “You
came over from Briar Hall, yeah?”
She paused, skin still prickling,
nerves rattling her breath. “Yes. I wouldn’t have trespassed, but Tally–”
He waved off the explanation with a
dismissive gesture. “If you don’t mind me asking, how’d you get over here?”
She swallowed, and her throat felt
sticky on the inside. “There’s an old gate, just up that way. It was locked, so
I climbed over.”
“Ah.”
When he said nothing else, only
continued to stare at her, she cleared her throat and said, “Well, I’d better
get him back…Come on, Tally.”
She had her back to the men when Mr.
English said, “How’re you gonna lift the beast over, love?” He breathed a sound
that might have been a laugh.
“I’ll figure something out,” she
said, face burning, glad of the concealing darkness.
“Hold on,” he told her. “I’ve got
the key.” A metallic jangle proved his point.
He moved up on her left, and Tally
tugged at the line. She started walking again, feeling trapped between the two
of them.
Her British horse-catcher wasn’t
tall, she noted as they moved. His chin was on eye-level.
So maybe, if he was a psycho rapist,
she stood half a chance of kneeing him in the jewels and making a break for it.
His friend, though…That guy ought to
be interrogating mafia rats somewhere.
“Briar Hall’s for sale, isn’t it?”
the blonde asked beside her.
Warning sirens pinged in her head,
sirens she would have heeded on a normal day. But she was tired, frightened,
and emotionally taxed. “Unfortunately.”
“Hmph.” God knew what that sound
meant. “How much does old man Richards want for it?”
“More than is polite for me to ask
him about.”
“You work for him then?”
“I’m the barn manager.”
“So you run the place.”
“Yeah.”
“You turning a decent profit?”
“Excuse
me?” She shouldn’t be talking to him. She should just close her trap, let him
unlock the gate, and then get the hell out of here.
“Does the barn make money?” he
continued, unabashed. “All your horse-keeping, and lessons, and what have you.
Is it profitable?”
She scowled at the dark trees ahead
of them. “You’d have to ask Davis.” A thought struck her. “Why?” she asked with
a snort. “You interested in buying the place?”
“I might be.”
That shocked her into silence.
Before she could gather a comeback,
a low whicker issued from the brush ahead of them.
“Friends?” the blonde asked.
“Yeah.”
“Em?” Becca called. “Is that you?”
“Yeah,” she called back. “I’ve got
Tally. Everything’s fine.”
“Who are you talking to?” Becca
asked, voice uncertain.
“Your pitchfork-wielding farmer,”
Emmie shot back.
The Englishman made another of those
indecipherable sounds in his throat and they ducked beneath the branches to get
to the gate.
“No, for real,” Becca insisted in a
loud, frightened voice.
So done with this entire ordeal,
Emmie said, “I have no idea. Some dude. But he’s got the key, so he gets props
for that.”
She thought her English savior was
laughing as the key slid into the lock and the thing came apart with a loud,
rusty sound.
“Is he, like, a total serial
killer?” Becca asked.
“Probably,” Emmie called back. “My
working student,” she explained to the blonde. “She gets a little dramatic.”
In answer, the gate squealed as it
was forced open, long weeds and brambles catching at the lower rungs.
Visible only as shadows, Becca,
Sherman, and Mocha appeared on the other side.
“Oh my God,” Becca said. “I was so
worried.”
Tally whinnied to his friends and
they answered.
Emmie hesitated, turning to her
gate-unlocker. “Thank you,” she told him, and meant it.
“Go on,” he said. “Don’t be losing
hold of that nag.”
She wasn’t sure, but as she walked
through the gate, she thought she caught the quick gleam of white teeth as he
grinned.
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