The Stars Shine Bright (40 page)

I passed an entrance sign for Dark Horse Ranch, and just past that I saw three yurts staked at the base of a short rounded hill. The middle yurt's flaps were rolled up and a handful of guys milled around an outdoor stove, holding mugs and plates. I climbed out of the Ghost. The air smelled of coffee and potatoes.

“You're staying,” I told Madame, rolling down the car windows.

She glanced out the window at the yurts, then placed her paw on the gearshift. Preparing for some getaway.

“You are an amusing animal.”

I walked toward the tents. The soil was so dry my Dolce & Gabbanas were kicking up clouds of dust. A ranch house sat in the distance. And two large horse barns on either side of a horse arena. Quite a spread.

A stocky man stepped out of the middle yurt, moving toward me quickly, almost urgently. As if he wanted to reach me before I reached the tent. Arnold Corke had called ahead, I could feel it. But I wondered if he would play dumb.

“Help you with something?” he asked.

Dumb, I decided.

“I'm looking for Paul Handler.”

“I'm Paul.”

His brown hair was long and his short beard was blond, the ends twisted into a short tail hanging off his chin. His mouth was thin, almost sardonic, but his eyelashes were lush and dark. I decided the light-colored beard was a bleach job. An affectation. Like the small metallic arrows that pierced his brows, also thick and dark like the eyelashes. Jack's background check said this guy was only two years younger than me. But his appearance, combined with Raleigh David's, made me feel middle-aged.

“I'm Raleigh David.” I extended my hand. His fingers were rough, callused. “Arnie probably called you.”

For the next moment, he seemed to weigh the gain-loss of truth versus lies. I could tell, because I was doing the same thing.

“Yeah,” he said finally. “Arnie did call me. What can I say? I messed up. I should've changed the title on that trailer.”

“So you do own the trailer, license plate E-K-W-A-S?” The words were out of my mouth before I could stop them. They sounded more like Raleigh Harmon, FBI agent. I tried to recover. “I'm just wanting to make sure I didn't drive all the way out here for nothing.”

“Yeah, that's my trailer.” He shrugged. “I don't see what the big deal is.”

“Arnie didn't explain?”

“Something about a horse stolen from Emerald Meadows. With my trailer. But I just laughed. That's not even possible.”

“We have an eyewitness.”

“They're lying.”

“Can you prove it?”

His thin mouth pulled back, a tight smile. Challenging. “You want to see the trailer for yourself?”

I was trying to play it cool, but he was so much cooler it was throwing me off balance. Yes, I expected Corke to call him. Yes, I expected him to play dumb at first. But I didn't expect him to be this forthright.

I followed him past the yurts. The figures inside were indistinct, shaded from the sun. Moving like shadows. I sensed a hush as Handler passed, and when we came to the short hill behind the tents, I saw three rows of trailers. Six were narrow singles, two were doubles, and three were quads—two stalls in front, two in back. And one red school bus. Its dust-covered side advertised “The Pony Express.” Handler saw me staring at it.

“We do pony rides,” he said. “Birthday parties. For kids.”

“You breed horses for pony rides?”

He laughed and once more caught me off guard. Too relaxed. Not the least bit nervous.

“Arnie would only sell me that trailer if I agreed to take in old nags.” He shrugged. “No big deal. They're perfect for kiddie rides. And it pays for their keep.”

He moved through the trailers, stopping at a faded white single. “Here you go.”

One wheel rested on its rim, flat. I got a bad feeling and kneeled by the license plate, wiping away the dirt from the metal.

EKWAS.

Handler was unlatching the back doors. The hinges screeched, dry and rusted. “Maybe you'd put a horse in this thing, but I wouldn't.”

The trailer floor was orange, at least where the floor still existed. Most of it had rusted away, leaving behind a lacework of crispy oxidized metal. The grass was growing through the holes.

He closed the squeaking doors. “See what I'm saying. My trailer didn't take your horse.”

“It's not my horse.”

“Then why're you looking for it?”

“It was taken from my aunt's barn. The guy who owns it isn't the understanding type.”

“Who owns it?”

“Salvatore Gagliardo.” I raised my hand against the bright sun, reading his expression. “You know him.”

He nodded. “Abbondanza.”

“Right.”

“I sold his trainer some horses awhile back.” He wiped his hands on his jeans, removing the dirt picked up from the trailer's handles. “Which horse is gone?”

“Cuppa Joe.”

He froze. Now I saw worry in his eyes. No more Mr. Cool.

“That's impossible,” he said.

“They also left a note. They plan to kill him after forty-eight hours.”

“But—” He squinted, frowning, thinking. “But I sold that horse to them. Last summer. The bigmouthed Wop, he came out here himself.”

“Jimmy Bello?”

He nodded. But the frown remained. It angled the piercings in his brows, like arrows pointing at his eyes.

“I drove Cuppa Joe over the Pass myself. What a nightmare. He almost jackknifed us, kicking and bucking. I was ready to open the trailer and let him run off. But I got paid good money for him.”

I glanced at the old white trailer. Under the tires, the blades of grass were long and unbroken. I kneeled down again, making one last-ditch effort. I rubbed my fingers over the lug nuts holding the plate to the trailer. But the soil was thick, undisturbed.

“You think I have that horse,” he said.

I looked up. He had a disarming ability to switch attitudes in an instant. Now he looked vulnerable. I wondered if his conscience had a volume knob.

“I don't know,” I said.

“Do I look suicidal to you? I'd need a death wish to steal a horse from that barn. And I didn't even like Cuppa Joe. When he left, I threw a party.”

“And you've heard nothing about this, aside from Arnie's call?”

“Look around.” He swung his arm in a half circle, taking in the fields. “If you see that horse, take him. Please.”

I stood up slowly, trying to gauge my thoughts. Juan could've misread the plate. But what were the chances on the other end? That Handler sold Cuppa Joe to Abbondanza, and now the trailer traced back to him. I didn't like those odds. And I didn't believe in coincidences.

But the foster kid was already doing his own calculations.

“Why was Cuppa Joe in your barn?” he asked.

“The track shut down Abbondanza. Bello was using snake venom.”

“What a creep,” he said, with feeling. “That stuff can give a horse a heart attack. But I still don't see why you were keeping Cuppa Joe. For him.” He said it like I was an accomplice to the snake venom.

“When the trailers came to take Abbondanza's horses, Cuppa Joe refused to go.”

“There's a surprise.”

“My aunt's barn had an open stall. Just until he calmed down.”

“Who's your aunt?”

“Eleanor Anderson.”

“Eleanor?” He raised his eyebrows, the swords leaping. “Living legend Eleanor? She's your aunt? How cool is that.”

I nodded, feeling an undeserved swell of pride. And I decided to trade on it. “I could really use some help. Any idea who might've taken Cuppa Joe?”

“Whoever it is, they're crazy. I can guarantee that. Not only is that horse a total brat, the guys running that barn don't fool around.”

He started walking away from the trailers and I followed him. But he stopped at the base of the hill, reaching into his back pocket. He took out his wallet and removed a business card.

“If your aunt ever needs horses . . .”

I was about to answer, with a lie, but a woman was running down the hill, behind Handler. She was sledding on her feet, leaving a trail of dust behind her.

“Paul!” she yelled. “Paul!”

He turned around.

“What?” He sounded irritated.

Her face was sweating. The dust clung to her skin. Heavily freckled skin. The dust made the freckles look like more dirt.

“Horse—” She panted. “Horse stuck. Kids. Again.”

Handler took off, running up the hill. The girl turned to me. Her freckles were so numerous it was difficult to read her features. The color of old pennies, the dots covered her eyelids and her lips and her ears, even extending into her hairline. Red hair. Long but matted, hanging heavily behind her shoulders.

The word came to me like a thunderbolt:
dreadlocks
.

“Hi,” I said.

She took off without a word.

Handler was already halfway up the hill. He had a powerful stride, pure muscular determination. But the girl didn't follow him. She ran toward the yurts. I watched the thick ropes of hair swinging across her back, and Juan's words echoed in my mind. Dreadlocks. Dirty.
Muy
dirty.

I waited until Handler had cleared the hilltop. Then I walked back through the trailers. Three of them had been moved recently, judging by the flattened blades of grass around their wheels. One was black with Dark Horse Ranch written prominently on its side. The second was red, a double, also bearing the ranch's name. But a third trailer was white. A single. Unfortunately, the back end was positioned in a way that it faced the yurts. When I looked over there, people were running from the tents.

I unbuckled the leather belt that had Calvin Klein's initials and used the metal post to pry some soil from the front tire treads. I deposited the sample into a Ziploc bag, then stole another glance at the yurts. The girl with the dreadlocks was coming back. And now a bald guy was with her.

I closed my purse, looped the belt back into my slacks, and was stepping from the trailers when they appeared.

“What're you doing?” Freckles demanded.

“Sorry.” I continued to work the buckle. “It was a long drive.”

The bald guy kept his head at a weird angle. Maybe to show off the dragon tattoo that circled his neck. Like an iridescent sideburn, the reptile's tail slithered up the side of his face.

“Answer the question,” he said. “What were you doing?”

“You really need me to explain?” I smiled.

“She was snooping around the trailers,” Freckles said.

“Paul said I could look around.”

“Paul's not here,” Snake said. “And now you're leaving.”

They walked six paces behind me, all the way back to the Ghost. Madame stood with her paws on the window frame, nose lifted, like Washington crossing the Delaware.

“How could you leave that dog in the car?” Freckles said. “In this heat?”

She threw her arm toward the sun. A small green tattoo marked the inside of her forearm.
Elf
, it said. Nickname, I decided. For the elf Santa would've fired.

I tried to smile. “Thank you for thinking of my dog.”

“Somebody has to.”

Snake lowered his voice. “Easy, Bo.”

Madame hopped over to the passenger side, giving me a look that said,
It's about time
.

I turned the key and gazed at the side mirror. The yurts were empty. And my two escorts were running past them.

Chapter Forty-Two

I
drove slowly down the road and found a crowd gathered by the river. Handler was in the water with several men. And a horse. Another horse was being led away by its bridle. It was a deep brown horse, almost black. But its legs were gray.

Muddy gray.

I pulled to the side of the road. On the hillside above the river, a group of young boys watched the scene below. They were dark-skinned, with hair so black and shiny it reflected the sun in white patches. One of the boys was pointing at the Ghost, holding something in his hand. An elliptical object, long with tail wings.

I got out, carrying Madame in my arms to the edge of the road. The water turned west, a slow hairpin turn that had deposited enough sand and debris to form a bar. Water pooled behind it. Which was where Handler was with the horse.

“Shovels!” he yelled.

He stood on a plank, and the people on the riverbank slid more boards across the shallow pond to deliver the shovels. A blond girl walked down the boards last, carrying a bridle made of rope. The horse in the water was rocking itself forward and back, muscles flexing under its chestnut coat.