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Tyler paced the floor, waiting for his payday to arrive. This would soon be over. He'd hold Prince Bourbonville for the two and a half million he needed, release the horse back to Robert Crown once paid, and Prince could run his race.
Surely Robert would pay the money for Prince, wouldn't he? The horse was the fastest the Crown farm had ever seen. Robert wouldn't want this prize horse to miss the big race—or races, rather. If the horse was as fast as they'd been bragging, he'd surely be a contender for the Triple Crown, and a man like Robert wouldn’t let that possibility slip through his fingers for a mere amount of money. Using his ex-wife's family was the quickest and easiest way he could think of to get out of his financial mess. Yeah, it didn’t work the first time when he'd married Peyton, but it—they—were worth another shot.
The overhead door on the alley side of the warehouse began to rise. A truck and trailer wheeled in and parked. The door shut. Baldy and Stretch slid out and walked toward him, both smiling. Likely happy about their soon-to-be payday. Delivering Prince Bourbonville netted them twenty-five grand each. Not bad for a few hours’ work.
Now, all Tyler had to do was get his carefully crafted ransom letter into Robert's hand, and he'd get his money. The money he needed to pay his investors–to save his life, and the life of his sister. The clock was ticking, and if he didn't find a way to make his unscrupulous investors whole, his sister's life would be in jeopardy. With the help of his business acquaintances, they came up with this plan to steal Prince Bourbonville and hold him for ransom. The hard part was done. All that remained was to contact Robert and get paid.
"I take it everything went okay?" Tyler asked.
Baldy nodded. "Yep. It was easy, almost too easy."
"What do you mean?"
The large man shrugged. "I don't know. It's like they hardly put up a fight and pulled over. I suppose they didn't want to hurt the fancy-ass horse in the back, but still, they hardly said a word the whole while Stretch held them at bay, unhooked the trailer from their truck and hooked it to mine, and put our horse farm decals over theirs to disguise the trailer."
Doesn't seem quite like Robert Crown not to put up a fight.
"Who was with Robert? Was it his son, Coach?"
"No, the guy whose picture you showed us earlier was not the guy driving. It was an older guy."
This couldn't be. Coach wasn't escorting this prize horse. That was not like Robert to not have his best man guarding his horse.
"Son of a bitch!"
"What?" Baldy asked.
"We've got the wrong goddam horse!"
"How can we have the wrong horse? You clearly said you heard Peyton say they were transporting Prince at ten o'clock. Christ, we began watching the place at four o'clock, and not a single horse trailer left earlier."
"Maybe they haven't moved him yet, or maybe he was already in Louisville. They set us up, knew we were coming."
Tyler ran to the back of the trailer, opened the gate, and led the horse out to get a better look at him. Pulling the photo of Prince from his pocket, he eyed the picture and then the horse. It looked like the same horse. Milk chocolate in color with a dark chocolate mane and legs. A slim white patch stretched from his eyes to his snout. Tyler's gaze swung between the photo and the horse standing in front of him. There it was, the slight difference between the two. The white patch on the horse in the picture started at the horse's eyes and ran down to the snout, the white patch on the horse standing before him stretched up almost to his ears.
The air drained from Tyler's lungs. The picture fell from his hands. His payday was gone. "This is the wrong fucking horse. Get rid of it."
"How?"
"I don't care. Just get it out of my sight."
How in the hell was he going to tell his ruthless investors he'd messed this up? With the security at Churchill Downs, there wasn't a snowball's chance in hell he'd be able to kidnap Prince Bourbonville if he was already there.
He rubbed his pounding temples. He needed to think, come up with a new plan. His life and that of his sister's depended on it. His deadline was the day of the Kentucky Derby. Would May 6th be the day noted in his obituary or that of his sister's?