The Stars Shine Bright (43 page)

But she was gone. Running.

“No!”

I raced after her, but she was running at top speed. She went after the horses like a sheepdog, barking and nipping.

“Madame—no!”

The two horses in back ripped past the fence and ran around the base of the hill, disappearing. But the third horse tried to outmaneuver Madame. Changing direction, darting, twisting. But the small black dog refused to give up.

“Stop!”

I tripped, fell. Got up. They were running too fast, the ground vibrating with the heavy hooves. When the horse changed directions, its tail crested like a breaking wave. But it was headed toward the hill and I stopped, pleading silently.
Run up the hill. Please
. But Madame cut off that path, sending the horse galloping to the left. Down. To the water. Madame on its heels.

“No—”

I ran for the river.

“No—no!”

The horse splashed into the pond. Madame stood on the bank, giving one final bark. Victory.

But the next sound chilled my spine. Wet, slurping. The horse, caught in the clay.

I yanked off my cell phone and clicked off the camera. “Don't move, Madame.”

The horse was rocking back and forth. I dialed 911 and started talking as soon as the operator answered.

“Dark Horse Ranch. It's an emergency.”

“All right, ma'am, calm down. Are you alone?”

“I need help. The river, Yakima River, right off—” I struggled to remember the name. “Clover Road.”

Her voice was too calm. “Is there anyone nearby who could be of some assistance?”

“Lady, this is an emergency!” I grabbed a board from the stack on the bank and dragged it toward the horse. I threw it down. The horse's flanks quivered.

“I'll need a little more information.” Her voice was placid. “Tell me exactly what's going on.”

“There's a horse in danger.”

“A horse.”

“It's not a joke. It's an emergency. Please send help to the Dark Horse Ranch, across from Clover Road.”

She asked for more details. I gave a strangled cry, then cut off the call. A cheap shot, but the horse's head was bouncing up and down. It was snorting, trying to move. And every effort only cemented its legs deeper into the soil.

“Okay,” I whispered. “It's okay. Hold on, hold on.”

I laid the boards over the water. They wobbled under my feet. I could see the horse's eyes. Too large, bulging, flashing white in the moonlight. I wanted to run for the car, fly the Ghost down the road, escape over the mountains. Toss the tube to the crime lab and pretend this part of the night never happened. But I knew—I knew. If I left, this horse would snap its legs. And die.

I took the spade from the small of my back. The water was over the horse's ankles and it was making a keening sound. Like bagpipes. I tried to remember what Handler had done. The soil was heavy as lead and every spadeful landed on the bank with a sodden plop, wet as death's rattle. Hopelessly, I leaned against the horse's chest, watching the thick vein bulge beside its knee. Pulsing with fear and adrenaline. I wrapped my hands around the right ankle. The water cold, seeping through my cotton gloves. I pulled. And prayed. Leaning into the horse, trying to get it to shift its weight. Suddenly I heard a suctioning sound. Words tumbled from my mouth. Thanking, pleading, begging.

I rushed for the left ankle, but I could see the problem. The horse was leaning on this one leg. I stabbed the spade into the clay, throwing the soil. I heard a high-pitched wail. But it wasn't the horse.

In the distance two cones of light bounced through the dark. Chrome glinted in the moonlight. The sound of the engines grew more distinct. ATVs.

I glanced at the riverbank.

Madame was facing them, her tail stiff. I worked the last of the soil from around the left leg, threw the spade on the board, and yanked up on the ankle. The horse didn't budge. I threw my weight into its shoulder, hard. Enough to throw the animal off balance. When I grabbed the ankle, it lifted and I guided it onto the board.

But now the horse leaned forward, like the horse this morning. Trying to yank out its back legs. And I could hear their voices. Close. Yelling.

I placed my hand on the horse. “Please don't move. Please wait for them.”

The eyes were black. Obsidian marbles. And I could see dots of white light. The headlights, coming near. I wanted to bolt. But I moved slowly across the board, hoping not to spook the animal.

I jumped for the riverbank.

“Madame, run!”

We were at the barbed wire fence in under a minute. Scooping up the dog, wanting to smack her rear end, I tossed her on the other side and scrambled through the wires. I glanced back, once. The machines had stopped on the bank, headlights aimed at the horse.

We sprinted down the road. I'd lost the flashlight and when we reached the trees, I was tripping over the roots.

“You're in trouble,” I panted at Madame. “Big, big trouble.”

My heart was pounding so hard it hurt. I flung my gloves into the trees, grabbed the key I'd hidden under the bumper, and pulled the tubing from my waistband. Inside the car, I keyed open the glove box, threw the tube inside, and locked the panel.

The car growled forward in first, bumping over the roots. I didn't turn on my headlights.

I didn't need to.

Coming through the trees, the blue lights flashed like strobes. Swirling. Cutting through the darkness.

Police lights.

“No more funny business,” I told the dog. “You hear me?”

Chapter Forty-Seven

I
remained hopeful even as the police cruiser came bumping down the road. Even as the officer stepped out of his vehicle with his right hand on the butt of his revolver. Even as he shined a Maglite beam directly through the windshield into my eyes. Even as Madame crawled down to the floor, suspecting trouble.

I still hoped for a getaway.

Rolling down my window, I offered him Raleigh David's driver's license before he had to ask. He pointed the Maglite at my fake identity.

“I called 911,” I confessed. “I was walking my dog, we've been driving all day, helping a friend move to Spokane, and then I saw the horse.”

He shifted the light, shining the beam on Madame. She cowered on the floor.

“You called?”

“Yes, sir. On my cell phone. I was so worried. But it looks like you got here in time. I'm so relieved.”

He handed me back the license and lifted the beam, raking it through the trees. The light was powerful enough to catch bits of the ATVs across the river. “Yeah, they got it covered. Thanks for calling.”

“No problem, Officer.” I smiled, slid the gearshift into first, and was releasing the clutch just as another set of lights came toward us. The beams seemed more elevated than normal. A truck. And it stopped on a diagonal, blocking my way down the narrow road. The driver's door opened. Paul Handler stepped out. He called to the officer. By name. And when he walked past the Ghost, he didn't bother acknowledging me.

I looked over at Madame. “We are toast.”

The two men stood behind the Ghost, talking. I grabbed my cell phone, keeping it in my lap as I dialed Jack's number. In the side mirror I saw Handler pointing at the Ghost. Jack's voice mail picked up. The officer began walking toward my car.

“Jack,” I said. “I need some help. Serious help.”

I was measuring the women's holding pen in the Selah Police Department at twenty minutes before 4:00 a.m. My method consisted of walking from one concrete wall to the other, then subtracting the number of steps needed to bypass two Hispanic women who sat in the middle of the floor, buried under a saffron-colored blanket. They seemed to want to sleep, blocking the overhead lights with the blanket. The lights burned with a sickly green fluorescence that made the blanket look blue in places. The women refused to lean their backs against the wall, and I decided they knew more about holding cells than FBI agents did.

Pacing back to the bars, I once again arrived at the sum of eight feet by eight and a half feet. Not big enough to escape the reek of ammonia that rose from the open commode attached to the back wall. The odor made my eyes water, and for some reason made me think of my mother. Maybe because the asylum smelled of disinfectant. Maybe because I felt helpless. Alone. And maybe because my current discomfort was just a fraction of her agony. I leaned against the bars. Blinking.

Several minutes later the night officer walked down the hall. Officer Brent Joiner. He was driving that cruiser that caught me by the river. He had a scuffing stride in his black cop shoes. It left charcoal hash marks on the beige vinyl, while his large head swiveled from side to side on its short neck. Like a medieval Mace attached to a short chain. There was much about Officer Joiner that seemed medieval, beginning with the patch sewn onto the shoulder of his blue uniform: the Selah Police Department's symbol was a Viking wielding a broadsword.

“Where's my dog?” I said.

Officer Joiner cast his head toward the yellow mound of blanket. “Yo. Loopy and Doopy. Wake up.”

One woman pushed her head out. Large dark eyes squinted at the light. Her companion's head rested on her shoulder, mouth parted sleepily. Front teeth chipped.

“Que?”
she asked.

Joiner swung his big head toward me. “You gonna tell me what you were doing down by the river?”

The woman waited. But Joiner seemed content to ignore her, now that he'd woken her up. She gave a soft sigh and tugged the blanket back over her head.

“Where's my dog?” I repeated.

“The mutt's tied up in my office, until the pound opens.”

“The pound?”

“No license.” He smiled.

“It's attached to her collar.”

“For Virginia. Your driver's license is Washington. So the dog's illegal.”

“You're locking me up over a dog license?”

“Paul Handler says you were at his place yesterday morning.”

“That's right.”

“You didn't tell me that part.”

“I hardly know you.”

The head swung. “What is that, some kinda joke?”

No. This was no joke. It was reality, unspooling like some fatalistic retelling of a medieval fable. I had stumbled into the rural fiefdom run by a direct descendant of the Sheriff of Nottingham.

He said, “You tell me what you were doing at Handler's place, and maybe I'll just ticket you for the dog.”

I pretended to consider his offer. “It's no big deal. Mr. Handler and I spoke about racehorses—my aunt owns a barn, at Emerald Downs, the racetrack? After leaving Handler's place, I drove to Spokane. For business.” I wasn't about to let this guy in on my undercover status. For one thing, he was clearly tight with Handler. “I was driving back from Spokane, and the dog was restless. The river looked nice when I had passed it earlier in the day. So I stopped there.” The story was close enough to the truth that I almost didn't count the omissions that were so numerous they created a black hole. “By the way, when do I get to make my phone call?”

“We'll get to the phone call.”

He whipped his head, glaring down the hall. A woman walked toward us wearing a white shirt with another Viking patch. The cord to her headset dragged alongside her. Some modern strand of Rapunzel's hair.

She handed Joiner a plastic bag. “Those nice boys at the ranch just brought this in, they did. And Ortiz called. She's on her way over.”

Joiner's head swung toward the blanket. “Yo! Mexes. Your ride's coming.
Federales
.”

The dispatcher pointed to the bag. “They said they found it on Paul Handler's property. They said somebody cut up his irrigation line.”

“Lynette,” he said slowly. “Who's answering the phone?”

She left without another word. He waited until she reached the end of the hall, then peeled back the bag.