Chapter 6

 

I collected Bruce's mail and let myself into his apartment. After spending the better part of the last ten hours outside, it felt good to be out of the cold. As I draped my jacket on the coat rack, I noticed the blood that had dried under my fingernails and worked into the creases where my skin was chapped. The sleeves of my sweatshirt were streaked with blood and amniotic fluid and urine and smelled wholly unpleasant. I stripped, used Bruce's shower, and after I toweled off, I felt like crawling into bed.

Although I hadn't slept well the night before, after Corey had gone home, I had a feeling I wouldn't have any difficulty now. It was lunchtime on a Friday afternoon, and the apartment complex was as quiet as a ghost town. On Wednesday, my first day on the job, I'd commuted the seventy-eight miles between Columbia and Warrenton, then driven back Thursday morning, and the hours were catching up with me. But I had work to do. A thorough search of the apartment, for one.

I pulled on a T-shirt and jeans that smelled of laundry soap instead of a horse's bodily fluids and snatched the bedroom phone off the nightstand. With luck, I'd catch Rachel at her desk.

"Hey, it's me," I said when she answered.

"Hey, you." A smile sounded in her voice. "Where are you calling from?"

"Bruce's apartment."

"You're off work already?"

"Yep." I flopped back on the bed. "I get off at noon."

"Lucky you. What's it like?"

"The job or his apartment?"

"Both."

"I delivered a foal this morning."

"You're kidding me? I can't believe it."

"Yeah, well. It was bound to happen one of these days."

"I am so envious. A colt or filly?"

"A colt."

"You're only on the job for three nights, and you have a foal? Man. I helped a friend of mine with foal watch on her mare for two-and-a-half weeks, and you know what?"

"What?"

"We both missed it."

I chuckled. "Well, that's to be expected with amateurs."

"Excuse me?" Rachel's voice squeaked. "You'll pay for that, boy."

"I bet I will. Anyway, I have a feeling I'll be delivering a couple more before I'm through. They've got a ton of horses here. A hundred and twenty are housed in the primary barns."

"Meaning?"

"Meaning their due dates are anywhere from a day to four weeks out."

"Wow."

"Yeah. I expect I'll be busy." I described the birth and how odd it had felt to be right with the mare while she was down in the straw. "It puts it in perspective, how much pain she was in."

"Hmm." Rachel was quiet for a moment, and I wondered what she was thinking. "What are the people like?"

"Your typical farm crew. Just like at Foxdale. Hey, can you come down this weekend?"

"I've got that clinic, remember?"

"At Hidden Hollow?"

"Yeah, and I won't be back 'til late Sunday because my last ride's at four-thirty."

"What about Monday? I can drive up, and we can go to--"

"I have my Applications class, remember?"

"Oh, yeah." Rachel had started a night course at UMBC, and I hadn't gotten used to her schedule. "How about Tuesday? We can go to the lake."

"That would be nice." Papers rustled, and the talking that I'd heard in the background grew louder. "Look," Rachel said, "I gotta go. Meet me at Foxdale?"

"What time?"

"Is six-thirty okay?"

"Great." I hesitated. "I miss you."

"You, too," she said, then disconnected.

Rachel hated taking personal calls at work. As I grabbed the leftover pizza and a Miller Lite out of the fridge, I convinced myself that that was the only reason her response had been less than I'd hoped for.

I parked my lunch on the coffee table in the living room and checked the selection in Bruce's CD player--Staind, Puddle of Mud, Three Doors Down. I hit PLAY, cranked the volume way up, then thought better of it. At home, my only neighbors within shouting distance were the horses downstairs, and they never complained. As I lowered the volume, I noticed a wooden crate wedged between the recliner and television. I dragged it out and sat on the sofa. While I ate, I flipped through a seemingly endless variety of car magazines, several outdated issues of TV Guide, a few copies of Men's Health, and a skin magazine or two. I resisted the urge to study them in detail and, instead, turned my attention to a notepad lodged between a Popular Mechanics and Car and Driver magazine.

The top page was blank. I fanned through the rest of the pages and found nothing, but when I held the pad at eyelevel, the afternoon sunlight that slanted through the sliding doors highlighted scratches in the top sheet. With growing anticipation, I grabbed a pencil off the kitchen counter, flattened the lead on the first line, and feathered the graphite over the indentations.

Bruce had listed information down the left margin: wax, raised tail, cramping, water breaks (write time on index card). I finished drawing out the rest of the words without any hope of moving closer to the truth of his disappearance. I tossed the pencil on the counter. Bruce had simply taken notes on the foaling-out procedure. Probably when Maddie had trained him.

"Goddamn it, Bruce. Where the hell are you?" I tilted my head back and closed my eyes. You should have been the one with your hands clamped around that colt's slippery cannon bones this morning. Helping him find his mother's teats. Coming home tired, with your clothes stinking of urine and blood.

You should have been the one to see him take his first breath in this world.

I spent the next two hours searching Bruce's living room. I opened every CD and DVD; then I rifled through his videos. My pace slowed to a crawl when I reached an impressive stack of triple x-rated flicks. I sat cross-legged on the floor and flipped through them. At least I didn't have to worry that Bruce had been a victim of gay-bashing. His running afoul of a jealous husband seemed much more likely. I pictured Maddie's breasts straining her flannel top. Or a jealous boyfriend.

I looked under the furniture cushions and flipped through every magazine and book before turning my attention to his computer. I started by opening the My Documents folder and thought it a bad sign when I found it empty. What was worse, he didn't appear to have e-mail. A more extensive search pointed to Bruce's primary reason for owning a computer in the first place. The Program folders were crammed with an outstanding array of recently released games, and that impression was supported by the assorted joy sticks, steering wheel, and controllers dumped in a plastic container on the floor. Maybe Corey would find something useful. I switched off the computer, and as I scanned the room, my gaze fell upon Bruce's Ravens windbreaker. I went through the pockets. Change, a few crumpled bills, gum wrappers, a matchbook. I flipped it over. Sullivan's Bar & Grill was embossed in gold script on a white background. I slipped it into my jeans pocket.

I retrieved the pizza box and beer can and opened the door under the kitchen sink. The trashcan wasn't full, exactly, but it stank. I grabbed another garbage bag out of the linen closet and used a fork to sift through Bruce's trash as I transferred it into the plastic bag. I'd hoped for a significant piece of mail or a discarded love letter. Hell, even a receipt would have been nice, but unless a clue was hidden among the coffee grinds, eggshells, and beer cans, I needn't have bothered. I emptied the trashcan in the bathroom, then decided to go through the fridge before I took the bag out to the Dumpster.

Bruce's and my eating habits held much in common, running along the lines of pizza, soda, beer. More pizza. The date on the egg carton was a week old, but I figured they'd be okay for a day or two longer. I did throw away a Tupperware container full of spaghetti because I had a sneaky suspicion that the colorful blotches visible through the lid weren't chunks of green pepper. I poured the milk into the sink, tossed a bag of lunchmeat but kept the sliced cheese. As for the Chinese takeout cartons crammed toward the back of the top shelf, I dropped them unopened into the trash before grabbing Bruce's picture off the dining room table. I slipped his Ravens windbreaker over my sweatshirt and headed for Sullivan's Bar & Grill.

Although it wasn't quite five in the afternoon, half of the booths were occupied, and a haze of cigarette smoke hung near the ceiling like a cloudbank. Like most establishments in the historic part of town, the room was long and narrow. Toward the rear, an antique horseshoe-shaped bar jutted from the back wall. Rope lighting outlined the bar's contours as well as the overhead track that displayed the stemware. The tiny white lights strung along the upper level reflected off the polished floor. As I crossed the room, my sneakers squeaked on the wide wooden planks. I slid onto a stool and propped my feet on a brass railing that rimmed the lower edge of the bar. A matching railing encircled the countertop itself. It must have been hell to clean, but like everything else in the room, it glistened under the lights. The barkeep, a heavy, balding man with sideburns the color and texture of steel wool, walked toward me, smoothing a white cotton cloth along the walnut countertop.

He shifted a toothpick from one side of his mouth to the other. "What'll it be?"

"You got a menu?"

He nodded, leaned to the side, and produced a menu from under the counter with a flourish. He placed it squarely in front of me.

I scanned the entrée selection. "What's good?"

"Everything's good, but we're known for our fried chicken strips. Lightly breaded, spicy, tender."

"Sounds good."

"It do, don't it?" He replaced the menu and absentmindedly swiped the cloth over the polished wood. "Want fries with that?"

"Sure. What've you got on tap?"

"Heineken, Miller, Pabst."

"I'll take a Heineken, then."

He nodded, and his gaze briefly settled on the Ravens' logo before he ambled toward the kitchen door at the far end of the bar. His gait had an odd, rolling quality to it, as if one leg were shorter than the other, but the effect could have been the result of his habit of keeping that bar towel planted on the countertop. I swiveled back around on my stool. Two women in a booth across the room quickly turned their heads, and I realized they'd been watching us.

A minute later, the barkeep returned, centered a cocktail napkin in front of me, and placed the Heineken in the exact center of the square. I watched him cross to the other side of the bar, wondering if his compulsions ever intimidated the customers. I swallowed a mouthful of beer, wiped the froth off my upper lip with the back of my hand, and relaxed onto the stool with a sigh. The room was filling up, mostly with professional types, but four guys in a corner booth were laborers of some sort. Based on their mud-caked boots and grimy jeans, I assumed they worked construction or on a farm.

The service was efficient, and after a waitress brought my food and handed me a set of silverware rolled in a napkin, the barkeep returned. "Want a refill?"

"Sure."

He smoothed his towel across the wood, and as I watched him head toward the taps, I wondered if he didn't repeat that move over and over in his sleep.

When he came back and peeled a fresh cocktail napkin off a pile stacked next to a half-full bowl of pretzel sticks, I said, "Hey, a buddy of mine comes in here, and I wonder if you've seen him lately?"

He narrowed his eyes as if he'd just tasted something sour, and I sensed more than saw the muscles along his spine tense. He focused on placing the new drink next to the old before he swiped the towel across his edge of the bar. He'd probably been lied to more times than he cared to remember and naturally distrusted people fishing for information.

"We both went to College Park," I said, and when his gaze flicked back to the Ravens' logo, he seemed to relax. "His name's Bruce. Preppy-looking guy. Short brown hair. Built like a football player. You know who I mean?"

"Works on a horse farm?"

"Yeah, that's him."

"Some of the guys who work at Stone Manor come in from time to time, but I ain't seen him for a couple weeks."

I needed to keep him talking, and the best way to do that was to pretend I knew more than I did. "Really? A couple weeks?" I frowned. "Didn't he come in here Monday night with a skinny black kid, got his hair done up in blond dreadlocks?"

"Nope. Ain't nobody like that come in here. Last time I saw your buddy, he was with a big blond man, got a ponytail halfway down his back."

"You know his name?" The women across the room, one blond one brunette, watched openly now.

"Nope. Haven't seen him before or since. Bruce and him sat in that corner booth back there," he pointed over my right shoulder, "couple hours at least, all through my busy time. We were packed that night, so it must've been a Friday or Saturday. Then, after your buddy left, some other guys came in and joined Ponytail. Didn't leave 'til closing time."

"You know those guys?"

"Never seen them before or since, either. Why you looking for him, anyway?"

"He owes me money." I looked up from my drink and grinned. "We're friends and all, but money's money."

He snorted. "Sounds like him."

I picked up the fresh beer and took a swallow as he drifted off to serve another customer. A couple weeks. Bruce had quit his job and disappeared off the face of the earth two weeks ago.

On the drive back to the apartment, I contemplated what little the barkeep had given me. Bruce had been there on a Friday or Saturday night. If he'd been there Saturday, he'd come in the day he quit. Saturdays had been his long days. And now, they were mine. I glanced at the clock on the dash. I needed to switch off with Maddie at midnight, work until the day crew came in at seven, then be back in time for rounds at six. But what I really needed was a lead on Ponytail.

* * *

When the alarm blasted me out of a dead sleep, I bolted upright and slammed my palm on the snooze button. In waking, I was intensely aware of the unfamiliar smell of the dark room, of the feel of bed sheets that weren't mine, of the heavy comforter that had slid down to my waist. The memory of where I was, and why I was getting up at eleven-thirty in the middle of the goddamn night, kicked in like a toggle switch being flipped. I groaned and flopped back on the mattress.

Four hours sleep before my long day.

I didn't bother with a shower. If I was going to get drenched in amniotic fluid and horse urine, what was the point? When I got to Stone Manor just before midnight, every single barn was lit up. A flutter of anxiety churned through my stomach before I realized that the lights were most likely controlled by timers. Greg, my landlord, did the same thing. Extending the perceived daylight hours brought the mares into estrus earlier than nature intended, and in the thoroughbred industry, the earlier in the calendar year a foal is delivered into this world the better. Each month of growth and development he gained over his contemporaries would work to his advantage. He'd be just a little stronger, just a bit more coordinated, and with luck, faster than his stablemates. I punched my timecard, picked up the keys to one of the farm trucks, and went in search of Maddie.

A plume of exhaust drifted from a Stone Manor truck that idled by the doors to barn six. I pulled into the drive and spotted Paul Genoa's car parked on the grass. I left the engine running and approached the doorway, mildly annoyed.

My annoyance shifted to concern when Maddie's shrill voice cut through the still air. "I am not!"

I strode into the barn.

"And even if I was," she yelled, "it's none of your damn business."

They were midway down the aisle, and Paul had his left hand clamped around Maddie's elbow. "Come on, honey. Don't do this to me. You're my--"

"Don't you get it?" Maddie shrieked and yanked her arm free. "I'm not your anything."

Paul latched onto her arms, and she pulled back.

"Let her go, Paul," I said, and their heads whipped around at the sound of my voice. I walked calmly toward them.

Maddie wiggled out of his grasp and stepped sideways toward me while keeping her focus on Paul.

He raised his hand and pointed a shaky finger at her face. "You'll be sorry, girl. No one will ever love you the way I do."

"Let's hope not."

Paul clenched his fists and stepped toward her. I quickly moved between them, and it was as if the three of us were engaged in a grotesque dance, with Paul moving to my left and Maddie ducking behind my back, while I tried to keep them separated without touching either one of them. I had a feeling that physical contact on my part would tip him over the edge. He glared at Maddie over my shoulder.

"You're a bitch, Maddie." Spittle shot from his mouth along with a healthy dose of alcoholic fumes. "You know that? A stinking little bitch." His voice cracked. "I give you everything you could possibly want, and this is what I get in return."

Paul cranked his gaze around to my face as if his movements were controlled by a faulty gear. "You stay away from her, Cline. You hear me?"

"Yeah, Paul. I hear you." I exhaled through my nose.

He looked back at Maddie, and his face crumpled. "Please . . . come home with me. I love you, Maddie. You know that."

I had the distinct impression he'd be weeping if he hung around much longer.

Maddie sighed. "Go home, Paul."

He leveled his gaze on me, like it was my fault he was being asked to leave. It took him a second or two of concentrated effort, but he eventually turned and walked toward the exit. We listened to his car start up, crunch through the gravel, and bump down the drive toward the main road.

Maddie rubbed her arm.

"Did he hurt you?"

She bit her lip, and when she shook her head, I realized her curls had worked free from the clip she'd used to gather them off her neck. It dangled halfway down the back of her head. I stepped closer, and when I reached around her, she became very still. I fumbled with the spring, feeling her warm breath on my throat. A stream of images ran through my mind. Her nipples pressing against those pajamas, the soapsuds dripping off her elbow, the seam of her jeans digging into her flesh.

I rotated the clip, and the last of her silky curls slipped from between the teeth. I held it out to her. "Here you go." My voice felt clogged.

Her warm fingers covered mine as she pressed them around the plastic. Without lifting her head, Maddie slowly raised her eyes and looked at me through her lashes. Her lips were parted, and on the edge of my field of vision, I could see her coat move as her breasts rose and fell with each breath she took.

She licked her lips.

I stepped back a pace. "Uh . . ." cleared my throat, "do you know who Mr. Hadley is?"

"What?"

I shifted my weight from one foot to the other. "Mr. Hadley. He owns Sumthingelse in barn two."

Maddie crossed her arms under her breasts and frowned at me like I'd gone mad. The look in her eyes had left little doubt that a passionate romp in the haymow wasn't entirely out of the question, and I imagined she would have been damned good at it.

"Yeah, I know him. So what?"

I slipped my wallet out of my back pocket and handed Hadley's business card to her while I relayed his concerns.

"That mare isn't due for three weeks."

"He said two."

She rolled her eyes and flicked the air with his card. "Two, three. Doesn't make any difference because she isn't showing any signs that she's getting close. When her tail head and vulva begin to soften, then you can start worrying." She smoothed her hand down her ass as she slid Hadley's card into a back pocket. "Come on. Drive me over there, and we'll look at her together."

Maddie spun around. I glanced at the Cozzene foal, then followed her down the aisle. For the most part, I managed to keep my gaze off her ass, until she yanked open the passenger door to the truck I'd been driving and climbed inside.

I got the Ford turned around, and as we neared Stone Manor Lane, a car passed the mouth of the drive.

"Paul," Maddie whispered.

"You sure?"

"Yes."

I eased up on the gas, and we watched him pull onto Bear Wallow. "What's he doing?"

She exhaled sharply. "He's always like this. That's why I dumped him."

"You broke up with him tonight?"

She shook her head in the dark. "No. New Year's Eve, as a matter of fact. Thought I ought to start the year off right."

"Maddie. It's the middle of February. The way he talks, you'd think the two of you are still together."

"Yeah," she said. "He's a little slow on the uptake."

Only when we turned onto barn two's drive did it dawn on me that the barns were dark. The timers had switched off. But because of the full moon and a hard frost that covered the earth like a blanket, we could see clear across the fields, all the way to the Blue Ridge Mountains. The boundary between mountain and sky was a clear sharp line that crawled across the horizon. I switched off the headlights as I approached the barn, parked, and turned off the engine.

"I do that, too," Maddie whispered. "It disturbs them less."

She'd turned in her seat to face me, and I imagined what it would be like to stretch over the cold vinyl and kiss her warm mouth. I climbed out and could have sworn she sighed as I clicked the door shut. We checked Sumthingelse, and Maddie was right.

She palpated the mare's hindquarters, lifted her tail, then stepped to the mare's side and peered under her belly. "Look. Her bag's not even big enough. She foals now, she won't have any milk."

"Okay, Maddie. I get it."

Maddie closed the stall door and leaned forward to study the index card wedged behind the plaque, and I didn't even look at her ass. "See. Her due date's March six. That's more like three weeks."

"Okay. Good."

She needed to return the farm truck to the clinic lot for the morning crew, so I drove her back to barn six. On the short drive, she explained what they did when faced with a detached placenta, but I was only half-listening. My attention was on a vehicle moving slowly down Bear Wallow. She noticed it, too.

"Paul?" I said.

"God knows. He's probably timing us, seeing how long we spend in each barn."

Shit.

Maddie handed me the farm's cell phone, and even though it probably wasn't necessary, I followed her back to the clinic when she punched out. I watched after her until her taillights disappeared over a rise as she headed for Warrenton.

Thanks to Maddie's boyfriend troubles, my first round kicked off thirty minutes behind schedule and now included the training barns per written instructions left clipped to my timecard. From now on, I'd be checking barns nine, ten, and eleven once a night. Once had been discreetly underlined. Somehow, I suspected one check in a twelve-hour period wasn't going to placate Jenny for long. By one-fifteen, I'd checked every horse on the farm, and none of them had anything on their minds but sleep. However, the mares in barn one were out of luck since their stalls were scheduled for cleaning between rounds.

I spaced straw bales down the aisle, then fired up a flashy new John Deere 5220 that was parked in the storage area. I centered the muck wagon between the first set of stalls and was raking a clump of soiled straw into a pile when I heard the heavy rumbling throb of a diesel engine in the distance. What caught my attention was the fact that it was idling. I walked down the aisle and paused in the doorway. What the hell? A tractor-trailer had pulled up to the old bank barn behind the mansion. A horse van, I presumed, but why had the driver gone there? I double-checked that I'd latched the stall door; then I hopped in the Ford and turned into the Nashes' driveway. It wound past their house and a detached four-car garage and ended in a lot alongside the bank barn. Light blazed from windows on the lower level and streamed through the wide doorway that accessed the bowels of the barn.

The side of the trailer was snugged up against a shoot used for offloading livestock. As I climbed out of the cab, a man led a mare through a side door and down the ramp. Her head towered above his, and as her ears swiveled around in alarm, I realized fear of an unfamiliar location wasn't her only concern. She had a foal at her side. But she needn't have worried. Her baby was glued to her as they crossed the lot. His high-pitched whinny echoed under the barn's forebay when his dam was led over the threshold.

I started across the lot, but paused as the driver returned, followed by Dr. Nash and another man I recognized as her husband. I'd seen him in the office, although we'd never met.

". . . made good time after we cleared Jacksonville," the driver said before draping the cotton lead over his shoulder. "Then we hit the construction zone just south of Richmond. Ain't no way getting 'round that."

"Did they travel well?"

"Yes, ma'am. Like veterans. All three of them."

My boss and her husband were dressed in jeans and overalls and jackets, and you would have thought it was the middle of the day. Mr. Nash caught sight of me a fraction of a second before the others.

When Dr. Nash turned away from the driver and saw me standing there, she flinched. "Oh, Steve. What are you doing here?"

I thought it obvious but said, "Sorry. I didn't mean to startle you." I gestured to the driver. "I wondered if he'd gone to the wrong barn."

"Oh, no. He's fine. I quarantine horses that come up from Florida strictly as a precaution. After a couple days, when I'm satisfied that they're healthy, we'll move them into a regular barn."

Another man came out of the building and walked past without giving us a second glance.

"I like to keep traffic to a minimum, Steve, so I'd prefer that you come over here only if Victor or I send for you."

"Yes, ma'am."

Victor Nash stepped around his wife and extended his hand. "Steve, good to meet you."

I shook his hand. "You, too, sir."

A mischievous grin spread across his face. He clasped his hands behind his waist and rocked back on his heels. "So. I hear my daughter's got you working for her now."

"Uh . . ." Wood slammed against metal as the trailer's ramp was dismantled.

"Oh, Victor. Don't give him a hard time. You know how she is."

Mr. Victor, as Ronnie called him, put his arm around his wife's shoulders. "Yeah. Just like her mother." He looked at me and winked.

I stepped back a pace. "Well, I'd better get to work."

As I neared the farm truck, I glanced over my shoulder. Victor was still smiling, but Dr. Nash's face was unreadable as she stood in her husband's shadow.

I returned to barn one, bedded down the stall I'd been mucking out, and when I started my two o'clock round, I paid extra attention to the Storm Bird mare. Maddie anticipated that she'd be the next to go since the Cozzene mare had foaled, but when I flipped on the lights in her barn, she squinted at me the way they do when they've been dozing. Even from the aisle, the thick yellowish plugs of wax that hung from her teats were noticeable. I studied the muscling over the mare's croup and tail head and thought I understood what Maddie was talking about. The area looked sunken. Maybe Maddie would luck out, and the mare would foal tomorrow night. I paused and looked in on the colt I'd delivered. He was flat out in the straw, and as I watched, a front leg twitched as if he were dreaming. What did a foal dream about, anyway? Right now, his world consisted of this fourteen-by-fourteen stall and his mother's wide body swaying over him. I watched his ribcage for a moment, and when I was satisfied that he was comfortably asleep, I headed back.

My two o'clock round also took me to barns seven and eight. I chuckled when I discovered, as predicted by Sergeant Bodell and half the crew, that the electric service had been connected. Victor was right. Jenny wasn't the only female who knew how to get what she wanted.

When I headed back, the moonlight slanted into the cab and backlit a few scattered clouds that clung to the mountain's rim like clumps of cotton candy. I slowed as I entered the curve in front of the mansion. Headlights cut across the road up ahead. At first, I assumed the semi hadn't left as I'd thought, but the vehicle waiting to pull out of the Nashes' drive was a mid-sized car. As I cleared the retaining wall directly in front of the house, an orange flash lit up the car's interior as the driver bent to light a cigarette. He tilted his head back and directed a column of smoke toward the ceiling. I glanced at the road, and when I looked back, the lighter had snuffed out.

I didn't think the driver was Mr. Nash, especially since he was smoking, and I didn't recognize the car, either. So, who in the hell was leaving their house at two in the morning? The house had been dark for hours. It wasn't like they'd been entertaining; yet, the Nashes had been dressed like they'd never gone to bed. Maybe they'd been out and had returned just before the semi's arrival. That would explain everything but their late night visitor.

As I turned onto Stone Manor, the lake's cold black water drew my gaze like a magnet. The surface was perfectly still, reflecting the sky like a sheet of glass, but a rim of ice was growing outward from the banks, and in no time at all, the water would be sealed beneath it.