Kit Ehrman - At Risk

I thought about the trailer search and how it had been thwarted by the Pennsylvania registration. And Randor L. Drake who appeared innocent but couldn't be. And where was he? Had he crouched over a pile of feed bags in Greg's barn and struck his match, or was he stalking rainbow trout in West Virginia?

Had he been in Pennsylvania last week? In a barn set back off the road?

I was thinking that I should call Ralston for an update when Rachel walked down the lane. She had arrived early, presumably to watch Michael ride his Olympic-caliber horse. I stood as she approached.

She flattened her hand on my chest. "Hey there, cutie."

I enveloped her in my arms and gave her a kiss that she encouraged and allowed to linger. All the possibilities were there.

Her hair was still damp from her shower and smelled of apples. I slid my hands over the swell of her buttocks. When I pulled her tight against me, I felt her grin and realized she had noticed the intense, physical reaction her closeness had generated.

Behind us, Michael and his wonder horse executed a ten meter circle at the trot, just the other side of the fence. After their third revolution, I looked up as they came close to the fence on yet another pass. Michael grinned and cued his horse into a canter.

On their next circuit, I mouthed, "Go get some of your own."

Apparently, he wasn't finished.

"He needed that," he yelled to Rachel, and then to me, "Tell her about last night."

Rachel tilted her head back and peered up at me. "What?"

"Umm." I kissed her face somewhere in the vicinity of her left eyebrow. "Someone started a fire in Greg's feed room."

"Oh, no." She leaned back so she could see my face better.

"Luckily there wasn't much damage," I said. "Michael and I were able to put it out quickly."

"Were any of the horses in the barn?"

"No, it was empty," I said.

"Not entirely."

"What do you mean?"

"You were in the barn. A little later, and you might have been asleep." She shivered. "And I see you've already thought of that."

"Uh-huh."

"Oh, Steve."

She tightened her arms around my waist. I felt comforted by her embrace and, best of all, wanted.

Maybe the fire had been a random act, some pyromaniac doing his thing. But they typically chose empty structures to torch.

They didn't check to make sure you were home first.

During my lunch break, I called Detective Ralston and was told he was still in Pennsylvania. I drove into town and purchased a heavy-duty dead bolt for the kitchen door. The second item took more effort to locate, but with the help of a knowledgeable salesclerk at an electronics store, I found a smoke/heat detector with a remote alarm. I installed the lock, but left the rest for later.

What I really needed was a gun. But I hated them. Always had. My father had one, and I still remembered the afternoon when I'd discovered it in his dresser, hidden beneath a stack of undershirts. I couldn't have been much older than seven. I had been surprised by its weight and the coldness of the black steel against my palm. It made me cold just thinking about it.

I made it back to work a little after two. Michael was slouched in a lawn chair with his cowboy hat pulled low on his forehead, and I wondered how he was holding up. I stopped in the office on my way to the barns. Mrs. Hill was on the phone, so I checked my bin. It was empty. The door behind me opened. Elsa Timbrook had her manicured hand on the doorknob. Her blond hair was gathered high on the back of her head and hung in curls down her neck. She glanced at me as she stepped into the room.

My initial impulse was to hightail it out of there, but I intercepted her instead. "Mrs. Timbrook?"

She ran the tip of her tongue across her lips. "Elsa," she said.

"You never answered me the other night," I said. "How do you know the guy I got into a fight with at the party-Mr. Harrison's driver?" When she didn't respond, I checked that Mrs. Hill was still on the phone, then said, "Please. It may be important."

She shifted a bulky canvas tote from one hand to the other and studied me with her smoky green eyes.

I waited.

She smoothed a finger down the side of her nose.

After a pause, in which I was certain she wasn't going to tell me, she said, "Robby's my brother."

"Your brother?"

Elsa nodded and clasped the tote's straps with both hands. The canvas rested against her bare thighs. Tightly rolled bandages for doing up her horse's legs stuck out from the depths of the bag. T amp;T Industries was embroidered diagonally across the tote. "Johnny, too."

I frowned. "You mean John Harrison?"

She nodded.

"You said Robby was dangerous. In what way?"

"They both are. But Robby… He's smart and he's sneaky, and he always gets what he wants." She brushed a strand of hair off her forehead. "And it doesn't matter who or what gets in his way."

I'd heard of one other Harrison. A name from the past. James Peters' past. "What's your father's name?"

She frowned. "John, Sr. Why?"

"Does he go by a nickname?" I said.

"Most people call him Buddy."

I gestured toward her tote. "What's T amp;T stand for?" I'd seen the logo somewhere before but couldn't place it.

Her hands clutched at the straps, and I had a sudden impression she was holding her breath. She glanced at the blue and gold letters. "I don't know. I got this from a friend."

Elsa excused herself, and as I watched her push through the door into the lounge, I remembered what Gene had said about Sanders. That he'd boarded his horse with Harrison before he'd moved it to Foxdale. Then, at the party, Sanders and Robby had argued, and I would have loved to have known what it had been about.

"I'm glad you're back," Mrs. Hill said before the receiver had come fully to rest in the cradle. She leaned back, and her chair's springs squeaked under the strain. "Mr. Ambrose has hired a security service."

"You're kidding?"

She shook her head and smiled broadly. "Someone will report in each night around ten and leave at six. Can you meet him tonight and show him around?"

"Sure. Will he be armed?"

"No." She picked up a piece of hard candy and rolled it between her fingers. "And think of any instructions you want to give him."

I stepped outside, paused, then leaned back into the office.

Mrs. Hill looked up from her paperwork.

"Thanks," I said.

She beamed at me, then waved me off.

I walked down to the barns and found that the crew was in the middle of turnouts. I led a bay gelding into the farthest paddock and turned him to face the gate. He stood perfectly still, his noble head held high as he waited for me to release him. When I slipped the chain from his halter, he wheeled around. His hindquarters bunched, and he propelled himself away from me, stretching full out, his hooves kicking up clods of earth. I draped the lead over my shoulder and walked back up the hill.

As I neared the barns, the scent of freshly-mown grass and damp soil was replaced by the sharp odor of horses and the lighter fragrance of liniments that drifted from the wash racks. It occurred to me, then, that I hadn't felt this carefree in weeks. We now had a guard, and I assumed it was only a matter of time before Ralston had someone in custody.

After the last horse had been turned out, I drove to the construction site's wide dirt entrance. Dozers, backhoes, loaders, and a scraper or two were parked in a line beyond the trailer office. Sunday afternoon, the door was locked up tight, the equipment idle. I left the truck running and crossed the rough ground to the sign at the edge of the road. "Huntfield Estates," it read. "Luxury homes on one to three acre lots." It went on to list details, options, a 1-800 number, and in the lower right hand corner, "T amp;T Industries" was printed in blue and gold.