While Cole drove up into the mountains toward Dark Horse Stable, his thoughts turned to Carmen. What was he going to say to the trainer? He needed to confront her on the issue of dosing and let her know that he planned to report her to the racing commission. No one should be allowed to do this to a horse and get away with it.
He began to wish he’d asked Tess to ride along and make this call with him. He couldn’t predict how Carmen would react, especially after she’d made a pass at him. It seemed silly, but a veterinarian became vulnerable when working alone on house calls without a witness.
He also imagined that she might deny the accusation. If so, he’d have to do the best he could to document the conversation. Well, he didn’t have time to change the situation now. The log arch that marked Dark Horse was a welcome sight; he could quit thinking about the confrontation and get on with it.
After parking, he gathered his equipment and the new medication, walked past the barking Bruno, and entered the barn. For a change, no one was waiting for him. He paused outside Diablo’s stall, remembering the other horse down at the end. He wondered if that red chestnut, like Diablo, had been dosed with the concentrated form of Clenbuterol. He placed his kit beside the stall door and hurried down the alley.
When he reached the last stall on the left, he peeked over the door. What he saw confirmed his suspicion and made him sick to his stomach. The gorgeous red thoroughbred trudged along a worn path that was about six inches lower than the rest of the bedding. He’d obviously been circling like this for days. His sweat-drenched coat appeared dull and lifeless. His sunken eyes spoke volumes, delivering a message of fatigue and anxiety.
Good God, why didn’t I come down and check on this horse sooner?
“Doctor!” Carmen called from only about ten feet away, making Cole jump. He hadn’t realized she was behind him. “What are you doing?”
Cole faced her. “I ran a test on Diablo’s blood for Clenbuterol. It came back positive. You’re dosing these horses.”
A variety of expressions chased across her face: surprise, anger, deception. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I think you do. Frog juice.”
“Frog juice?”
“I brought the proper medication to counteract Clenbuterol toxicity. We need to get Diablo started on it. And you need to stop dosing this chestnut horse right now,” Cole said, and he walked toward Diablo’s stall.
She remained silent while he picked up his things, and she followed him inside the box stall. Diablo was lying down, an emaciated version of the horse he’d been a few days ago. The easy boots were in place on his feet; plentiful grass hay wisped over the edge of his feeder.
“Has he stopped eating?” Cole asked.
“Pretty much.” Now she seemed shut down and sullen.
“Will he get up?” Cole started drawing the proper dosage of the new med into a syringe. He bent over Diablo and injected it quickly, sending out a request to the powers that be that it wasn’t too late to do some good.
“We had him up about an hour ago. He drank some water.”
“When did you stop giving him the frog juice?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Her refusal to acknowledge the truth and give him the medical information he needed infuriated him. “This horse could die. As it is now, you risk losing your trainer’s license. Do you want to face animal abuse charges on top of that?”
She shot him a venomous look. “I have nothing to do with these accusations. I need to question my employees.”
“Your employees dosed this horse without your knowledge? I find that hard to believe.”
“What is the plan to make Diablo well?”
“I’ll leave this medication for you. Otherwise, we need to continue as we have been, supporting him and working through the symptoms. He’s probably got damage to his liver, kidneys, and heart. What were you thinking? That it would increase his endurance?”
She stared at him, her face expressionless.
“This drug can break down muscle tissue and compromise vital organs.” Cole typically tried to educate clients, but this made him mad enough to lash out. “Dosing horses with it is illegal and cruel.”
“I believe Juan is the one you should speak with about this. I’ll go find him.” She went to the door of the box stall and let herself out.
Right . . . pass the buck. Cole tried to put a damper on his fury and looked around the stall. He went to the hayrack to check the quality of hay and to make sure there was no alfalfa in it. Scooping the hay away from the wall, he examined the dry grass, noticing it was of excellent quality, weed and alfalfa free. He was about to replace it when his eye caught a glint of white from behind the rack.
Peering into the crack, he saw something with a black-and-white pattern. As his eyes adjusted to the poor lighting in the narrow space, he realized he was looking at a laptop computer. With a zebra-striped cover.
His memory clicked on an image of Adrienne Howard typing information into a laptop like that. And he remembered Mattie asking him about Adrienne’s missing computer.
He reached into the narrow space. Barely able to grasp the plastic case, he pulled out the laptop and stared at it. This must belong to Adrienne.
Did someone put it here? Did she?
The stall door flew open and Juan Fiero dashed inside, frantic. “You must come with me, Doctor. Hurry. She’s going to kill you,” he said in English.
“What?”
“There’s no time to talk. Come with me.”
Knowing that the man’s panic was real, Cole followed, placing the laptop into the front of his coverall and zipping it in tightly against his chest. Juan ran a few doors down the alley to the opposite side and tugged open a door. He led Cole into a room filled with hay bales.
“There is a door to the outside there,” Juan said, pointing. “It’s the back side of the barn. Go! She killed the lady. She wants to kill you!”
Stunned, Cole tried to process what he was being told. “Carmen killed Adrienne?”
Juan’s eyes darted to the inside door and back. “No time to talk. Get away! Go to the top of the ridge. You can use a cell phone up there.”
Cole’s thoughts were hazy. Juan began pushing him across the room toward the outside door, his hands shaking with urgency. Cole felt the man’s terror, making him believe what he’d said.
“Stop!” Carmen stood inside the doorway, the alley at her back, an evil-looking crossbow in her hands. Cole froze, staring at her as she raised the bow and sighted through the scope. Juan pushed him outside the back door, shouting as he slammed the door shut behind him, “Lock the door! Run!”
Cole stumbled out onto a rocky verge scraped up around the barn’s foundation. He had the presence of mind to process Juan’s last instruction, even as he heard the man’s scream and a thud. He found the latch that secured the door from the outside and slammed the heavy bolt in place.
My God! What the hell’s happening? But even with shock making his thoughts disjointed and confused, his instinct for survival kicked in. He scanned his environment: heavy forest upslope about fifty yards. Running for all he was worth, he headed toward the trees.
*
Mattie completed her reports and looked at the clock. Shortly after three. Stella’s lab hadn’t called back yet on the boot print, and she was tired of waiting. She decided to call Cole to see if he could share any impressions of Juan Fiero. She swiped to her quick-dial list and pressed Cole’s cell phone number. She listened to a few dial tones and a click before hearing a female voice answer: “Timber Creek Veterinary Clinic. This is Tess.”
Mattie identified herself. “I’m trying to reach Dr. Walker.”
“Hi, Mattie. He must be out of cell phone range. Your call transferred to the office.”
“Oh. Do you know when he’ll be back?”
“He went up to Dark Horse Stable. Actually, he should be home any minute.”
A twinge of anxiety worked its way into Mattie’s chest.
“He wanted to be home in time to meet the kids after school,” Tess continued. “I’m surprised he isn’t within cell phone range yet. Do you want me to leave him a message to call you?”
“Tell him to call my cell; he has the number.”
“All righty. Talk to you later.”
Mattie disconnected the call and took a long breath. The people at Dark Horse had set off her radar. If Cole didn’t call back soon, she would try to reach him again.
She went to Stella’s office to see if she’d heard from her lab yet. She tapped on the door and entered the room. Stella looked up from her computer.
“I just tried to reach Cole Walker, and his assistant told me he went to Dark Horse this afternoon,” Mattie said. “He’s late getting back.”
Stella nodded, a furrow of concern creasing her brow. “I’ll call and build a fire under my CSI unit. I expected them to call back by now.” Her cell phone rang, making her pull it out of her pocket and look at the caller ID. “That’s them now. Hold on a minute.”
Mattie listened to Stella’s side of the conversation while a sense of urgency tightened her chest.
“Okay,” Stella was saying, summing up the information with the CSI tech for clarification while stating the information for Mattie. “So you’re saying that you can’t say the boot prints are the same size since one is a partial, but the toe prints match exactly. You’re extracting the shape and sole information that you have to see if you can determine the brand of boot that made it. But since the sole is flat and has no tread marks, you consider being able to do that a long shot.”
Stella listened, nodding at what she was hearing.
“Okay. See what else you can do,” she said, ending the call. She looked up at Mattie. “Toe shape is as close as we can get on that print match, but it’s close enough to give us probable cause. I’ll get the sheriff started on that search warrant.”
Stella headed for McCoy’s office while anxiety circled Mattie’s chest. She knew her brain had taken a leap from a match on a toe print to labeling Fiero a killer, but she couldn’t help herself. The thought of Cole inadvertently walking into a dangerous situation—a situation that she should have uncovered sooner and warned him about—made her shoot into red alert.
She needed to go now and see if she could find him; she couldn’t wait the hour it would take to get a warrant. She started after Stella when her cell phone rang.
Relief melted through her when caller ID told her the call came from the Walker residence. But when she answered the phone and heard Angela’s voice coming through the receiver, her relief was short-lived.
“Mattie?” Angela asked, her voice sounding high-pitched and tight.
“Yes, Angie. Is something wrong?”
“I don’t know. Dad said he’d be here by three and he’s thirty minutes late. Tess says she expected him back about an hour ago.”
Mattie’s throat tightened. “Okay.”
“Dad told us this morning that he’d always let us know if he was going to be late. He made a big deal of it, you know. And . . . well, I’m worried that something happened to him.”
Mattie knew Cole Walker, and a promise to his children would not be something made lightly. “I talked to Tess about twenty minutes ago. Have you talked to her since then?”
“Just now. Right before I called you.”
“And she hasn’t heard from your dad yet?” Mattie knew the answer but needed to confirm.
“No. I asked Mrs. Gibbs to drive me up toward Dark Horse Stable to look for him, but she suggested I call you instead.”
“She’s right. I’m glad you did. You girls need to stay put in case your dad calls. Call me immediately if he does. I’ll drive up that way and find him. Maybe he had a flat tire outside of cell phone range or something. I’ll let you know as soon as I can.”
“Okay.” Angela still sounded frightened.
“I’m sure your dad’s fine, Angie. Don’t worry so much. You’ll hear from one of us soon.”
Mattie tried to reassure the girl before disconnecting the call, but she couldn’t damper her own alarm bells. With Robo following, she went directly into McCoy’s office and summarized the situation for him and Stella.
“He’s an hour late now,” Mattie said. “I think under the circumstances, I’d better drive up that way and see if I can find him.” Not intending to wait for permission, Mattie turned to leave.
“I’ll go with you,” Stella said, falling in behind Robo.
“Get Deputy Brody to go along as back up,” McCoy said. “I’ll get this warrant request over to the judge and meet you up there.”