The Stars Shine Bright (52 page)

“Who told you that?”

“The veterinarian. And here's something else. The guy's showing signs of radiation sickness. Sores all over his skin. Weird mood swings. Jack, forty-eight hours are gone. And this guy's not playing games.”

“Harmon, if zits and mood swings were grounds for arrest, the jails would be full of women with PMS. So if you don't mind—”

I hung up.

For the next three minutes, I paced along the back wall. Then I checked my phone. No call. I kept myself from calling him by staring at the photographs on the wall. Winning barns, from years past. I saw Eleanor and Harry together. A happy middle-aged couple. Then Claire Manchester's barn. And Abbondanza was there too. Most of the photos showed a tiny platinum blond. I leaned in. She was identified as Karen Trenner. And the resemblance to her daughter was striking. When my cell phone rang, I checked my watch. Sixteen minutes. Not bad. But the janitors were looking over, hearing the Tijuana Brass horns.
Whaa-whaa-whaa
.

I flipped open the phone. “Thank you.”

“What if I'm calling to say no?”

“You wouldn't.”

“Only because you're falling fast.”

“Do you have the background check or not?”

“We're back to Arnold Corke.”

“What?” I said.

The janitors looked over again. I gave a little wave, tried to smile, and dropped my voice. “How?”

“He's another one of Corke's unhappy campers. Drug addict mother. Brent Roth went into foster care early. By ten, he'd moved to Corke's place. No dummy either. He got a full-ride scholarship to UW. Guess what he studied.”

“Jack, spit it out.”

“Physics and engineering.”

Ideal for bomb-making. “Now do you believe me?” I said.

“Hard to say. This far out on the limb, I can hear it cracking.”

“What would convince you?”

“Facts. Like, who's paying the taxes on that trailer?”

“Why that?”

“Harmon, this is the People's Republic of Washington State. If it moves, the state slaps a fee on it. So if Corke still has the title, which is what Handler said, then the bill would come to him every year. Maybe he's helping these guys more than he wants to admit.”

“That would take me days to find out.”

There was a long silence. The janitors were wiping down the counters, scrubbing the grill. But beyond the picture windows, the backstretch was empty. And the oval waited. For tomorrow. And the last day. The perfect day to set off a bomb.

“Jack, do you want me to beg?”

“No,” he said. “I want to keep my job. And you're asking too much. So all I can tell you right now is, good luck. And yeah, I know. You don't believe in luck. But right now, that's all you have.”

Chapter Fifty-Nine

I
searched for Ashley.

The showers were empty, and when I circled back to the barn, she wasn't in the stables. Cooper's office door was open, so I glanced inside. Ashley wasn't there, but Cooper was sitting at his desk. The bottle of whiskey was open. And his face had a rosy glow. But his smile said his good mood was more than booze. He only smiled like that when his horses won.

But something else caught my attention too. His shirt.

It was definitely the same blue shirt Claire Manchester bought from Tony Not Tony. But the connection was less certain. Was she bribing him to lose? Or were they having some kind of love affair? Cooper. Claire. I shuddered at the thought.

“Have you seen Ashley?” I asked.

“I fired her,” he said.

“For what?”

“Not doing her job. I haven't seen her all day.”

I turned and headed for the back of the barn, toward the grooms' studios. The horses were kicking the plank walls, but with no perceptible rhythm. Almost catatonic. I rapped on Ashley's pink door. There was no response. I tried the knob.

It was unlocked.

When I stepped inside, closing the door behind me, the room still had that hydrochloric acid odor. But now it was mixed with a false sweetness. Soap. No, I realized. Shampoo. Her strawberry shampoo, the stuff that drove Henry the Ate crazy.

Beside her bed, a half-eaten banana was next to a saltine. I could see her U-shaped dental impression in the chalky fruit. A bath towel was heaped on the floor, and a row of puddles like kettle lakes stretched to the clothing bins. The last time I was here, everything was folded neatly into the milk crates. But now the shirts hung messily, as if yanked out. I stepped over the puddles and stood in front of the crates. Something else seemed different. But I couldn't decide what. The top shelf still held her mementos. The wine bottle. It had been moved to the side. And the green glass was pushed up against some small stones. I read the label again. There was a handwritten date. March of this year. I picked up the bottle. Chardonnay. From the Yakima Valley. I felt a familiar prickle running up the back of my neck. The rocks she'd gathered were fine-grained, igneous. Russet-colored. Dusted with a whitish clay.

They were arranged in lines on the shelf. Vertical lines, and horizontal. Three stones connected by one stone followed by another three stones down. It was . . . a letter.

H.

Next to that, another three stones down. But two were at the top of the line. Two in the middle, two at the bottom.

E.

The third letter was a straight line with a foot: L.

HEL.

Hell?

I turned around, taking in the room. No signs of struggle. But the bite of a banana. Towel dropped. Water puddled on the floor. I could see her long hair, dripping wet. No struggle. But rushed. Hurrying.

I turned around, reading the stones again. Over and over. I realized what was wrong.

She ran out of stones.

The word she wanted to spell was HELP.

Chapter Sixty

F
eeling almost blind with fatigue, I managed to drive to the condo. I set my alarm for one hour and when it beeped, I woke up feeling like my nap lasted thirty seconds. I stumbled into the shower, dressed, and drove to the convenience store.

The Indian family was eating dinner behind the checkout counter. I asked Raj for a cheeseburger and fries. To go.

“Let's do the salt,” said the girl with the pigtails.

“Let's do sugar,” I said. “Pour eight packets into a large coffee cup.”

She went to work and fifteen minutes later, I was heading east, sipping coffee sweet enough to be served as tea below the Mason-Dixon line. Every other thought, I had to remind myself why the FBI couldn't help with Ashley. She hadn't been missing twenty-four hours—the minimum length of time necessary for someone to be declared officially missing—and nobody was going to take those abbreviated stones seriously.

Not even Jack.

When I reached the Dark Horse Ranch, a late sunset was making the dust in the air look like glitter. When I drove past the yurts, a fire blazed in a pit. The dreadlocked youth sat around the flames like bohemian cavemen, and they watched the Ghost pass. I didn't stop by the trailers and continued to the end of the gravel drive. The house had the plain and efficient lines of Depression-era farmhouses. No porch, no patio. It was shelter built for eating and sleeping and working, day after day after day. When I got out of the car, my fatigue made me feel as stripped down as this simple country home.

All I had was the truth.

And time was still running out.

Through the screen door I could see Paul Handler. He wore shorts and a T-shirt, and when he saw me, his eyebrows lifted. The sword piercings gave a metallic salute.

“I came to apologize.”

He stayed behind the screen door, not opening it.

“And I'll pay for the damage to your irrigation line. And the horse, if it's needed.”

He pushed open the screen door.

The front room was sparsely furnished. In one corner, a small television sat on top of a dresser. The screen was black. And a long couch was covered with batiked tapestries, its one end beside a doorway that looked like it led to a kitchen. The bare wood floor seemed to slope, but that might've been my fatigue talking. Standing there, I could still feel the road moving under the car.

“Are you alone?” I asked.

He nodded. “Everybody's over at the fire. Why?”

“You didn't steal Cuppa Joe.”

He almost laughed. But he was still too angry. “You drove all the way out here to tell me that?”

“Because I finally realized why you wouldn't do it. You're too successful. This ranch is doing well. So well you can afford to hire all those kids from Corke's place.”

As if hearing the name, a dog wandered into the room from the kitchen. He was an old golden retriever and his fur had turned white. Handler watched him walking ponderously toward us.

“He drilled it into you kids, didn't he?” I said. “Take care of the helpless. Broken kids, broken animals.” I could still hear Corke's words, standing on his porch as he admonished the boys to watch over the most vulnerable. “He said you were one of his brightest. But I'm willing to bet you're also the most realistic. Not idealistic. Like Brent Roth.”

The dog reached Handler, then crumpled to the floor. It let out a sigh that turned into a groan.

“I haven't seen Brent in years,” he said.

“That's convenient. He's missing.”

“I said years.”

“Could it be eighteen months? That's about how long he's been working at Emerald Meadows.”

Handler's mouth parted before he could catch it.

“Surprising, isn't it?” I said. “A guy like that goes to work at a racetrack. Where they keep horses locked up and hopped up. Working them like machines. Brent's living there too. Great way to hide. Stay anonymous. You know who got him the job? Ashley. Did you teach him vet skills or did Corke?”

He gave a quick whistle. The dog struggled to its feet. It plodded behind Handler, following him into the kitchen. I opened my handbag and placed my right hand on Jack's gun, then walked into the kitchen.

“You came at a bad time.” He opened the oven door.

It was a white stove and it didn't match the refrigerator, which was black. Bachelor choices. But nothing compared with the floor. Brown indoor-outdoor carpeting, covered with dog hair.

“I was just about to have dinner.” He tossed two potatoes on the oven's rack. “Why don't you come back another time?”

“Ashley's missing too.”

He turned.

“Right. And she's pregnant. She said the baby's father wants her to get an abortion. Because the planet's already overpopulated. Humans are bad for the environment. Sound like anybody you know?”

When the floorboards creaked, Handler hadn't taken a step. The dog was lying still on the floor by its water bowl. I stared at Handler. The next sound was unmistakable.

Retching. Followed by a moan. A soft moan. Female.

“You're alone, huh?”

Handler licked his lips. He blinked. A toiled flushed. I placed my right index finger alongside the gun's trigger and listened to the water cascading through the pipes inside the thin walls. Loud as a waterfall. The floor creaked again.

I began backing out of the room.

He said, “You don't understand.”

I moved into the front room. To my left, stairs rose to the second floor. And a narrow hallway led to the rest of the first floor. I stood at the bottom of the stairs, listening. The toilet was refilling somewhere down the hallway. I kept my back to the wall and followed the sound to the bathroom. The door was open. I did a quick head-check. It was empty. And run-down like the rest of the house. I saw a claw-footed tub converted into a shower with a curving metal rod affixed to the ceiling. A shirt hung over the rod, drying.

It was pink. Bright pink.

Gun raised, I continued down the hall, glancing forward and back. I could hear the dog lapping water in the kitchen. The next door down was closed. The cast-iron knob felt cold in my sweating palm. I twisted it quickly, throwing open the door and jumping back.

Nothing.

I moved to the door frame. The room was dark. The light from the hallway showed a bed against the far wall. She sat up. Her blond hair swung forward.

“Ashley,” I whispered. “It's me, Raleigh.”

She pulled the sheet to her chest. I moved into the room, back to the wall. The stench was ten times worse. Acrid and cloying. Vomit, but with something greasy, like human decay. I stole glances at her and scoped the room. Low bureau. Closet door, closed. Her blond hair. Listless. When I was certain we were alone, I looked at her again. Her face was puffy but the body was thin. And something was wrong with her head. Her hair. She was bald in places.

“I'm so sorry.”