Kit Ehrman: At Risk

I groaned.

Ralston compressed his lips and studied me with an otherwise dispassionate expression. "And what do you think would have happened Saturday morning, when the rest of the employees arrived to find seven horses missing and you nowhere to be found?"

I looked at him and didn't think I liked the implication.

"Your boss and fellow employees might have been certain you had nothing to do with it," he said. "But sure as I'm sitting here, the police would've been looking for a suspect, not a body. If these guys were really smart, they would have gotten rid of your truck. Then you would have been on top of our list, without question. Not until the connection was made between the two cases, would we seriously have considered that you'd been abducted, and by that time, we would've been lucky to find your body. In the other case, we never found the murder scene. We were damn lucky to find the body, and after a month's exposure in the heat and humidity we had last summer, much of the forensic evidence had been destroyed."

I shifted in my seat. Such a casual discussion of inhumanity was more than a little unsettling.

Ralston reached inside his jacket. "Here's my card. Call me if you think of anything else, no matter how insignificant."

He dropped the gear into reverse, and as I put my hand on the door latch, it occurred to me that they had tried to move my truck. I told him how Marty had found it. That they must have been unsuccessful because the starter was acting up. That I was certain I hadn't left the door open, which had drained the battery. I refrained from telling him about Marty's hot-wiring capabilities.

He tossed his notebook into the briefcase and lowered the lid but left it unlatched. "You need to be careful when you come here outside normal business hours."

"Why?" It came out high-pitched. I cleared my throat. "Why would they come back?"

"I doubt they will. As long as they stay smart they won't, but.. "

"But what?"

He shrugged. "Just a thought."

"Oh, great." I shoved his card into my jeans pocket. "Who was the man who was, eh… killed?"

"James Peters. Ever heard of him?"

I shook my head.

"He and his wife owned and operated a horse farm. Hunter's Ridge. He went out to check on a sick horse and never came back."

I climbed out of the car and watched Ralston drive off. With him went any confidence I'd been able to scrape together in the past week.

The lane was deserted now. All the horses had gone inside for their lesson, out of the wind, out of the cold. The glare from the sodium vapors was taking over in the fading daylight, and after the warmth of the car, the air felt bitterly cold. I pulled my collar up around my neck, got back on the tractor, and drove to the implement building on auto pilot.

I parked next to the manure spreader and didn't bother unhitching the drag. Someone else could do it in the morning. I stopped alongside Dave's workbench and smoothed my fingers across the expertly-sanded wood. The sweet aroma of freshly-cut lumber still hung in the air.

He never came back.

My legs buckled, and I collapsed onto Dave's chair. I wrapped my arms around my waist and hunched forward to keep from shaking. I felt like I had when I was a kid. Felt as helpless and as scared and alone as I had the day my old man dropped me off at a dude ranch in West Virginia a week after my eleventh birthday. I'd stayed the entire summer. Learned more about horses than I'd thought possible, and that seemed to piss off my father even more. The following year, I'd gone off to soccer camp, then lacrosse. Being on my own like that, I'd learned how to take care of myself. By the time I was thirteen, I had grown used to the routine. Actually looked forward to it. Hell, it was better than staying at home with him, with them, where I wasn't wanted, both of them too caught up in their own lives to parent.

I'd thought I could handle anything. Until now.

After a while, I squinted at my watch and waited for the numbers to come into focus. I was late for evening feeding. I wiped my face, blew my nose, and hoped no one had missed me. As I hurried down the rutted lane, I saw that the horses had already been brought in for the night. The winter day had come to an end.

Marty was standing in the middle of the feed room, staring at the cart. He turned with a start when I walked through the doorway. "Where the hell've you been? I was I' ready to grain the horses myself."

"I'll do it."

"Good. I don't know how you stand it. All those damn supplements." He squinted at me. "Hey, you don't look so good, Steve. You comin' down with somethin'?"

"No, I'm fine." I rubbed my face. "Any problems this afternoon?"

"Nope. Everything's done. Was that a cop you were talking to?"

"Uh-huh."

"What'd he want?"

I glanced at Marty then looked down at the feed cart. "Nothing much."

When I said nothing further, Marty said, "Well, seein' as you're gonna do the feeding, can I leave now?"

"Sure… have a good night."

"I always do. Jessica's off," he added with a grin that could only be described as wicked.

I chuckled. Marty had the pursuit of happiness down to an art form. The pursuit of sex, more like.

"You sure you're all right, Steve?"

I told him to get the hell out before his girlfriend found a replacement and watched as he strolled out of the feed room, whistling under his breath.

Saturday afternoon, when the last batch of private turnouts were in their paddocks, I went into the feed room and lifted my clipboard off the shelf above the workbench. I leafed through the pages until I came to the medications list. There were no wounds to clean, medicate, and bandage, no eyes to apply ointment to, no injections to give. I was caught up until it was time to grain. I replaced the clipboard and walked up to the office.

The last lessons of the day were winding up, but the farm was busy as usual. I grabbed a magic marker off Mrs. Hill's desk, pulled some paper out of the printer, and printed in bold black letters: NOTICE. A white or light-colored dualie and an older dark-colored, six-horse gooseneck were used in the horse theft at Foxdale Farm on February 24th. If you have any information regarding the identity of the rig's owner, or know anything about the theft, contact Steve Cline. I added Foxdale's phone number and my home number in the lower right-hand corner and made a couple of copies. I thumbtacked a sheet to the bulletin board in the office and walked into the lounge.

I tacked a copy squarely in the center of the cork board by the soda machine. Across the room, Maryanne, Sheila, and Mrs. Curry had pigeonholed Mrs. Hill by the coffee machine. Because of the horse theft, they were planning another boarder meeting. I left before they drew me into what I knew from experience would be a long conversation and headed back to barn A. I stopped at the cork board in the aisle near the wash rack, rearranged some advertisements, and pulled off several outdated announcements. I pinned up my notice.

"Cline, tack up Bethany for me."

I turned around as Whitcombe, one of Foxdale's trainers, looked over my shoulder. As his gaze flicked over the wording, I noticed a momentary tightening around his eyes. His thick, curly red hair, which he had the good sense to keep cut short, was damp with sweat from his last ride, and his freckled, weather-wrinkled skin reminded me of a prune.

"Fall off a horse?" he said, referring to the faded bruising under my right eye.

"No." I edged past him and started down the aisle toward the tack room.

"I'll be in the lounge," he called after me. "And, Cline?"

I stopped and pivoted around. "Sir?"

"I want a dropped nose band and a Dr. Bristol bit, and this time get it right."

Get it right? Who was he kidding? I turned away from him and wondered when he'd grow tired of his stupid little control game and give it up, always asking for one thing, then telling me I'd gotten it wrong when I hadn't. Trying to make me look stupid. Maybe he wouldn't stop until I reacted. Got myself in trouble.