Саманта Сильвер - Just Horsing Around

Ellie came over to Touch of Frost.

“You saved us. You saved us, Frosty,” she told him, stroking the horse gently. He moved over to Ellie and nuzzled her as well. I smiled. It was obvious that no matter who he was, Ellie loved Touch of Frost, and he loved her too. He was going to be in good hands with Ellie in charge of Gibson Farms.

The ambulance was the first to arrive. They loaded up Philippe, and an EMT checked me over and told me I should go to a clinic later to be tested for a concussion. But, luckily, neither Charlotte, Ellie nor I needed to go to the hospital. The EMTs waited for the police to arrive, about three minutes later, so an officer could ride with them and arrest Philippe, although I overheard a couple of them saying they weren’t sure if he’d ever wake up.

For me, everything was still a bit of a daze. I felt like my brain was working at about 90 percent capacity, like it was taking me a split second to answer anything else than it should have. I spent most of the time while the EMTs were around sitting against the stall, letting Touch of Frost come over and nuzzle me from time to time.

As soon as Hawthorne walked in, with the strut of a man who knew he was going to get credit for doing absolutely nothing, I groaned. He was the last person I wanted to see today. Or ever, really. Except for maybe Philippe.

“Alright, ladies, I wanna know exactly what happened here,” he told Charlotte, Ellie and I. “I need statements, and I need them from you individually. You, the hot one. You first,” he said, pointing at Charlotte, who practically curled in on herself in revulsion.

She followed him out of the stable, leaving Ellie and I mostly alone with Touch of Frost, as the EMTs had left, and the crime scene unit from Portland hadn’t had time to arrive yet. If they were even coming, after all there had been no murder here today, just an accident with a horse. I knew there were a few cops outside, and that was about it. There was one cop at the far end of the stable looking around, but apart from that we were alone.

Ellie came and sat down next to me.

“How did you know to come find me?” she eventually asked. I explained everything to her, up to and including Charlotte figuring out this morning that Philippe was going to try and kill her.

“Did you know?” I asked her, lowering my voice. “That he wasn’t Touch of Frost?” I assumed that now the truth was going to have to come out, but as far as I was aware it was still a secret. Ellie nodded.

“Yeah. Yeah, I did. His name is really Black Envy. That’s why I call him Frosty now, it’s kind of close to Envy, his old name.”

“What happened?” I asked, and Ellie sighed.

“Just after we retired Touch of Frost, he caught the horse flu, when he was still on the road. Our regular vet did everything he could, but unfortunately Touch of Frost died. My mom was so mad. I’d never seen her so angry. She said he had only just started to live up to his earning potential now, and he was gone. She had already organized the sale of the sperm, and now he was dead. I didn’t care about the money. I was just sad Touch of Frost was gone. He was a really good horse. Then, two days later, our vet was killed in a car crash. He was speeding on the interstate and lost control, hitting a median. All of a sudden, my mom realized, the only people who knew Touch of Frost was dead were her, Corey and myself.”

Ellie sighed and waited a moment before continuing. “So my mom made a deal with Corey. If he found her another horse that looked just like Touch of Frost, and he kept up the ruse, she’d pay him a million bucks a year. Obviously Corey agreed. Corey found out that Touch of Frost had a half-brother who looked almost exactly like him. The only difference was he had a tiny sliver of white on his face. So Corey bought the horse, made the owner sign an NDA, dyed the patch of hair black and brought the new Touch of Frost home.”

“And so the three of you were the only ones who knew.”

“Yes. We hired a new vet. The jockeys didn’t know, obviously. If Tony had suspected he would have lorded it over my mom like nothing else. Susan obviously had no idea, she’d just been hired around then. Then, about four months ago our trainer disappeared. He just stopped showing up to work. That wasn’t exactly… a rare thing… with my mom around, so we never thought anything about it. Philippe applied for the job, and his references were amazing, and he obviously knew exactly what he was doing. Mom hired him straight away. Of course, if we’d known…”

Ellie trailed off and a tear began to streak down her face. I put an arm around her shoulder.

“You couldn’t have known,” I told her. “It’s not your fault.”

“Of course now, I know. He must have made sure the old trainer wouldn’t come back to work as soon as the foal was born. They would have noticed the blue eye immediately. But of course, they couldn’t come out with it publically. I mean, it would have ruined us completely, of course, but it would have meant Touch of Midnight would have been worth nothing. No one would have wanted the stud services of a stallion born to two nobodies. So he got his revenge another way. A quieter way.”

Ellie began to sob into her hands. I comforted her for a while, until Charlotte came back and Hawthorne asked for me. He wanted my statement.

Twenty disgusting minutes later Charlotte and I were free to go. I told Ellie I’d be in touch, and Charlotte and I headed back to the car.

It wasn’t even eight thirty yet. I’d have just enough time to get back to the vet clinic, change into the pair of scrubs I always had there, and brush my hair. It wasn’t exactly going to be the most glamorous day ever for me, but as long as I looked remotely presentable, it would probably be fine.

“Are you sure you want to go to work?” Charlotte asked. “I’m skipping my classes today. I wouldn’t be able to get there until late anyway, now.”

I shook my head. “No, I need to go. There’s no one who can cover for me, anyway.”

We got into the car, and I let Charlotte drive back. She drove slowly out of the driveway and back onto the road, and to my surprise, Jason Black was there snapping photos, being held back from entering the property by the cops. He smiled and winked at me as we drove past, and I rolled down the window. Charlotte stopped.

“Morning, sunshine!” Jason said, and I scowled.

“If you use that photo of me in your paper I’ll make sure you never, ever get to go on another date with me again,” I threatened, knowing just how terrible I looked right now.

“Ohhhh but my journalistic integrity!” Jason replied with a laugh, and I flipped him off as Charlotte drove off. I was so not in the mood.

Chapter 20

The rest of the day passed in quite a bit of a blur. I made my way to the vet clinic and saw my patients for the morning. Around ten, I got a text from Jason. It was a picture of me, scowling at him through the passenger side window of my car. My eyes were half closed, my hair was sticking out the back of my head, there was a piece of straw poking out of my hair, I had dirt on my face, and my oversized t-shirt gave me a real puffy look. All in all, not my greatest moment.

This one’s going on the front page came the caption a minute later.

If it does, there’ll be one more murder to report in Willow Bay I replied.

Alright, alright. Meet me for lunch at Betty’s tomorrow?

Only if you promise not to run any photos of me this morning.

Promise. When’s your lunch break?

One to two.

See you then

So I had to admit, I my heart skipped a little bit of a beat knowing that I was going to get to see Jason for lunch the next day. It made the day go by just a little bit faster, knowing I had that to look forward to.