Breakaway (A Gail McCarthy Mystery) (27 page)

About halfway down the aisle I stopped. Something was wrong. The client hadn't arrived yet, maybe. I felt the quiet darkness and it did not feel right.

Some tension, some intensity, something palpable-was it footsteps? I took a step backward, swung the flashlight in an arcing sweep.

All my instincts screamed a warning, fear rushed into the blank hole of my mind. The flashlight swept wildly down the aisle; I saw a figure and turned without thinking to run.

In the turn the light caught someone just behind me; I screamed, startled out of any wits I had left.

"Why, Dr. McCarthy." Bart Bishop bared his teeth at me. "Did I scare you?"

I said nothing, just gripped the flashlight and looked at him. I saw something in Bart's eyes, something I could not place, and then a voice spoke from behind me.

"Gail, what are you doing here?" Clay's voice.

I turned to find Clay approaching from the other end of the barn; his was the figure I'd seen, then.

I took a deep breath. Gathering my wits, I spoke to both brothers. "Someone called me out here for an emergency colic. Someone named John Jay. He was supposed to meet me here in the big barn."

Bart and Clay looked at each other. After a minute, Bart stepped over to what appeared to be a big supporting post and reached behind it. With an audible click, overhead lights switched on, illuminating the barn.

"Why didn't you turn those lights on earlier," I demanded of Bart. "You nearly scared me to death, sneaking up behind me like that."

At the same time, I noted there was a flashlight in Clay's hand, a flashlight that had certainly not been on as he walked down the barn aisle toward me.

"How the hell am I supposed to know there's no boarder named John Jay?" I demanded again, my voice rising.

Bart looked at me and narrowed his eyes. "I didn't know what you were up to, sneaking into my barn in the middle of the night. I thought I'd better see."

"For God's sake, what did you suppose I was up to? You could see my truck parked out in the driveway in plain sight. Why the hell didn't you just turn the lights on and say, 'Hey.' And for that matter, what were you doing sneaking around the place at night yourself?"

"I always check the horses before I go to bed. It's a good practice." Bart watched me steadily.

I said nothing; I could feel my hands shaking.

Clay looked concerned. "I'm sorry we scared you, Gail. I saw someone pull in when I was looking out my window, saw the flashlight go into the barn. I didn't know it was you. I was just checking."

I nodded. The shakes were growing stronger; I wasn't sure I could trust myself to speak steadily. Tightening my jaw muscles, I said, "It must have been a prank. I'll be going."

I started walking. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Bart shrug and continue strolling down the barn aisle, looking casually into the stalls as he passed. Clay fell in beside me. His eyes were worried.

"I'm really sorry, Gail. I know you found that other woman down the road last night. I was going to call you, but I didn't know if I should. We're all a little paranoid around here since we heard."

"Right," I said.

I did not feel up for conversation. I knew Clay was going to think I was angry, but I didn't care. All I wanted was to get in my truck and get out of here. I could feel that I was about to start crying.

Clay stayed by my side until we reached the truck. I started to climb in, but his hand on my arm detained me. I didn't look at him. I knew there were tears on my cheeks.

"Gail, I'm really sorry," he said again.

"Right," I said. "It's okay. I've got to go." Still not looking at him, I climbed in the pickup, waved a quick good-bye, and started the engine.

Something was shifting, something was changing. I knew Clay was looking after me, but I did not look back. The tears were flowing faster now; my breath was coming in gulps.

I sobbed all the way home.

TWENTY-SEVEN

The weight had shifted. I could not stop crying. Overwhelming waves of grief rushed over me, too painful to bear. I sat on the couch and sobbed and sobbed, gasping for air.

I thought of Nico as I had seen her last; I thought of her bright, pure face in life. I thought of my parents; of Lonny, who wasn't here to hold me; of Blue, my old dog; of all loss, all grief.

Like lava, searing pain poured out of me, streaming down my face. I cried, feeling I would never stop, sobbing noisily and messily in the empty darkness, staring at the blank windows, knowing that balance had gone and I was falling.

It was like tumbling into an abyss, in free fall, going down and down, with no bottom in sight. I was lost. It seemed as if Gail was no more. Only endless grief.

I don't know how long I cried. It seemed like hours. It seemed like forever. Eventually the tears slowed to a trickle and the gasping sobs eased. The pain became a quiet river, rather than a raging torrent. It flowed steadily through my limp body and exhausted mind, running out of my eyes gently.

I still sat on the couch, facing the dark windows. I found I was waiting for dawn. I had no idea how far away it was; I did not turn to look at the clock. I merely watched.

Swirls of anxiety and grief went through me, tears flowed sporadically now. I watched the night sky from a desolation of loneliness and waited.

I am in the abyss, I thought. I am in the dark night of the soul. The words came unbidden; I remembered that Nico had said them to me.

My mind seemed to be working again. I found myself wondering what happened now, now that I was here at the bottom. I had never cried like this in my entire life, that I could remember. My whole body ached from crying.

And yet, there was relief in it. I could feel, I was feeling, the terrible sadness. No doubt this was what the shrink had meant when he talked about feelings of grief that I'd repressed for so long. Feelings about myself as a lonely child, feelings about my parents' death. Every time I thought of my parents, a few more tears leaked out of my eyes.

And then there was Nico. I found I could think of Nico now, in fact, I couldn't stop thinking of her. Of her grace and beauty, of the horror of her death. Mixed with grief was a steadily growing rage, every time I saw her dead body in my mind.

He had done this, the evil man who came at night to the horses. I remembered the fear I'd felt in the Bishop Ranch barn and wondered if he had been there. Had I felt his presence? Had the call been a pretext to get me out there where he could kill me?

I felt strangely detached from fear now. Grief and anger were taking up all the emotional space I had. There was no room for fear.

But I remembered the fear-intense, visceral-and I wondered if the horse rapist had been there. Had he been scared off by Bart and Clay's arrival? Or, my mind blinked, was he Bart? Had Bart got me out there to try and kill me? Why would he, my brain rebutted. I never suspected him.

Because, came the answer, he thinks you might have seen him at Nico's. I had seen nothing, but I remembered the confused sense I'd had of horses and motion, I remembered how I'd swung my flashlight around. If the horse rapist had ridden to Nico's, perhaps he had been riding away and was afraid I'd seen him. And was he Bart? Or, even more unwelcome, could it be Clay? Clay had come out to the barn, too.

I could not believe it was Clay. Despite the fact that I found him hard to read, I felt I had a sense of his essential goodness. I could not believe I would find myself attracted to a man who was capable of murder.

But Bart now, Bart was different. I very much disliked Bart. Had Bart set me up to be murdered and been disturbed by his brother?

No ready, instinctual answer came to mind. But I had a conviction that someone had been stalking me in that barn. And it was certainly at least odd that Bart, recognizing me, had chosen to sneak up behind me in the dark, rather than turning the lights on and calling out. At the very least he'd meant to scare me.

There was a lot of hostility in Bart, that much was clear. How he was working it out, what he was actually capable of, was much less clear.

But someone, some man, was capable of raping horses, of bashing a little girl over the head, of strangling a woman and raping her after she was dead. Some very twisted man was capable of a lot of violence.

With the thought, anger rose in me. He had killed Nico; I believed he meant to kill me. This stupid, warped, evil man who cared nothing for the destruction he wrought. This despicable creature so absorbed in his own desire to fulfill his strange sexual needs. He had killed Nico, ended all that beauty and talent, as a means to his own disgusting, paltry end.

It seemed to take forever. What felt like hours went by and nothing happened. Just thoughts chasing themselves through my brain and starting to make a pattern. The sky outside the windows stayed dark. I began to think it was still the middle of the night.

But I kept on waiting and watching. And it finally happened. Subtly but unmistakably, the sky began to lighten. First light, almost indistinguishable from darkness. The very faintest graying of the sky above the eastern ridge.

Dawn had come.

TWENTY-EIGHT

Two hours later I was pouring French roast in the filter when the dark green sheriff's sedan pulled up the driveway. A woman got out of the car-Jeri Ward.

Stifling the urge to look in the mirror, I walked to the door and opened it. "Come on in," I said. "I'm just making coffee."

A few minutes later I was seated at the table with Jeri, coffee cups in hand, once again providing my usual disheveled contrast to her neat and put-together appearance.

I smiled, surprised I was able to do it. "I am better," I said. I regarded her carefully. "You say you're no longer on this horse rapist case."

"All right," I said. "I'm going to tell you this and assume it's in confidence. I will not tell it to any member of your department, and if you tell them, I will deny it."

Jeri shrugged one shoulder and waited.

I recounted the story of last night's experience at the Bishop Ranch.

When I was done, I told her, "So you see, nothing happened. There's nothing to report. It's just a feeling I had. I'm not obligated to tell anyone."

Jeri nodded slowly.

"The thing is, it gave me an idea. An idea I think I'm going to follow through with. I could use some help. And you would be my first choice, if you were willing."

"What's your idea?

"My friend Kris Griffith is going away tomorrow for two weeks, and I'm going to take care of her place. Feed her horse, water her plants, you know how it goes.

"Anyway, after last night I was thinking about this horse rapist person and how you said the act becomes compulsive. So, of course, he'll probably need to do it again pretty soon. And if he's true to his pattern, he'll return to one of his former spots. Like Kris's."

Jeri looked at me. "No, Gail," she said.

"You can't stop me," I said "I have every right to go over there, feed the horse, and sleep in the barn if I want. It's nobody's business but mine. If you tell that Matt Johnson," I said, "I will say you made it up and are trying to make trouble for me."

"Gail, that's crazy. Do you want to get killed?"

"No, I don't want to get killed. I want to-" I stopped myself in time. "Catch him," I continued, "before he hurts or kills someone else. Like me, for instance." I looked at her. "You could help me."

"Just what do you have in mind?"

"I've taken care of Kris's place before when she went away," I said. "She leaves her car in the driveway to make it look like she's home, takes a taxi to the airport. I usually turn different lights on every time I'm there, turn the TV or radio off and on. So we always make it seem as if she's there.

"What I'm thinking is that this time I'll do the same, but park my truck in a cul-de-sac down the road where it's hidden and walk to the house every evening. I'll feed the horse and wait in the barn. Until he comes."

"I'm not either. What if it's just a social thing, two of us spending an evening together. We happen to be over at Kris's, to feed her horse, and this guy shows up and goes after the horse. Naturally, you nab him. Where's the problem?"