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The celebratory atmosphere that had enveloped Riverview’s backside was short-lived. Jessie hadn’t completed delivering the test papers before owners and trainers, negative Coggins tests in hand, loaded their animals into trailers and headed for the exit.
By the time Jessie returned to the clinic, a line of horse trailers jammed the road from the gate toward the river. The rumble of gasoline and diesel engines and the choking stench of exhaust filled the air. She spoke to several of the men and women behind the wheels of the rigs, imploring them to stay, but the general consensus was to beat it before the powers-that-be changed their minds.
Dinner might not be the festive occasion Daniel had anticipated.
She stood in the shade of the clinic with her arms crossed, watching the exodus. This wasn’t what she’d wanted.
Her phone rang. She slipped inside and pressed a finger into her other ear to block the growl of idling engines.
Sherry’s voice greeted her. “I need to talk to you.”
“Well, you’ve got me. If you’re calling about partnering up with me, take a look around. There aren’t going to be enough horses left on the grounds for even one of us to treat.”
“Shut up and listen. I know something about my dad’s death.”
Had Jessie heard right? “Wait a minute.” With her finger still rammed in her ear, she hurried into the office and kicked the door closed behind her. “What did you say?”
“I have a pretty good idea who killed him and why.”
The air in the office suddenly felt unbreathable. And not because of the diesel fumes. Jessie dropped onto the futon next to the tabby. She waited for Sherry to continue, but there was only silence on the other end of the receiver. “Hello?” Jessie wondered if they’d been cut off.
“I’m here.”
“So tell me.”
“Not over the phone. I want to meet someplace where we won’t be interrupted. If he finds out we’re on to him...”
“Him? Who’s ‘him’?”
“I told you. Not on the phone. I had an appointment to swim Sullivan this afternoon before the EIA thing came up and never bothered to cancel. Check the book. Did anyone else change it?”
Jessie pinched the phone between her ear and shoulder, yanked open the file cabinet drawer, and fumbled through the contents. She retrieved the book and opened it on her lap. The pool was severely underutilized. The only name on the page was Sherry Malone.
“You’re still on for two o’clock.”
“Good. No one else will be around the spa. I’ll meet you then.”
The spa. The pool. Someone might just give you a little shove, and you might end up taking a swim like old Sullivan here. “Isn’t there someplace else we could meet? How about my office?”
“Not private enough.”
“I could lock the door.”
An exasperated hiss of air crossed the phone line. “The spa at two o’clock. Be there.”
The line went dead. Jessie looked at the time on the phone’s screen. One thirty.
If he finds out we’re on to him...
Who? Jessie tried to swallow, but her mouth and throat felt as dry as a roll of sterile gauze. She already knew the answer.
Daniel had served time for murder. He had everything to lose if Doc had revealed his secret past. Daniel possessed a bottle of the drug that turned a high-strung, but tractable, stallion into a raging killer.
Molly strolled out of the bathroom, stretched, and sauntered toward Jessie, springing lightly into her lap. Jessie stroked the old cat’s velvety head, letting her hand trail down her neck and back, all the way to the tip of her black tail.
There was another possibility. Jessie set Molly down on the floor and moved to the chair behind the desk. She slid open the top drawer and removed the barrette. Evidence that Sherry had been in her house and destroyed Doc’s records. What had she been trying to cover up? She was in debt to the local loan shark and needed money that Doc refused to give her while he was still alive. She’d been trying to throw suspicion onto everyone else all along. Butch. Frank Hamilton. Even Daniel.
If Sherry wanted to play this hand, fine. Jessie would go along with it and meet her at the spa. However, Jessie intended to stay far away from that awful green water. She would listen to what Sherry had to say. And then Jessie would throw down the card she’d been holding for the last week. She turned the barrette over and over in her hand feeling the smooth metal and stone against her fingers. It was time to call Sherry’s bluff.
At ten minutes before two, Jessie’s phone signaled a new text message. She looked at the screen. Emergency. Barn E.
With an exasperated growl, she grabbed a pen and jotted an explanatory note to Sherry, ending with, I’ll be back as soon as I can. After tearing a strip of tape from the dispenser, she jogged through the hallway to the spa and taped the note to the light switch, which she left turned off. Unless Sherry wanted to wait in the dark, there would be no way she could miss the message.
Unlike many of the stables, Barn E was not deserted. When Jessie entered the shedrow, several horses’ heads hung over their stall doors. A rail-thin boy sat on an overturned bucket cleaning a bridle. Farther down, Jessie spotted Zelda’s groom, Miguel Diaz, dragging a water hose from stall to stall. Neither seemed particularly upset. The boy looked up at her with no expression.
“Did you call for a vet?”
He went back to his work. “Not me, man.”
About halfway down the shedrow, Zelda stepped out of a stall, latching the webbing behind her.
Jessie called to her.
Zelda looked in her direction. “Dr. Cameron. How nice to see you. I missed you when you were here earlier distributing the test results. Great news, isn’t it?”
“It is. I guess it wasn’t you who texted me.”
Zelda frowned at the boy on the bucket. He shook his head at her. She turned toward the other end of the barn. “Miguel, did you call for the vet?”
“No, Senora Zelda. I did not.”
Zelda’s mouth puckered to one side. “That’s strange.”
“Is there anyone else around who might have sent me a text?”
Zelda extended both arms, taking in her two helpers and the entire shedrow of horses. “Nobody here but us.”
Jessie dug her phone from her pocket, pulled up the list of messages in her inbox, and opened the most recent. It was short and sweet. Emergency. Barn E. She hadn’t misread it. This time, she noted the number from which the text had been sent. An icy chill tickled the back of her neck.
Zelda was tapping her chin with one finger. “Maybe we should look around?”
“I don’t think that’ll be necessary.” Jessie strode toward the groom. “Miguel, did you ever find your phone?”
“No, Doctor Jessie.” He wrinkled his nose. “I think I maybe dropped it in the manure dumpster.”
Zelda joined them and put a comforting hand on her groom’s shoulder. “We figured someone’s using it to mulch mushrooms right about now.”
Jessie checked her own phone one more time before pocketing it. “I don’t think so. Someone just used it to text me.”
***
THE CLOCK ON THE CHEVY’S dashboard read two fifteen when Jessie braked to a stop in front of the clinic.
On the short drive across the backside, she’d determined Sherry had summoned her away from the clinic in order to steal or destroy the rest of Doc’s records. And, if Sherry had Miguel’s missing phone, she’d been the one who’d lured Doc to Clown’s stall that night. It all made perfect sense.
But then why make the appointment to meet poolside in the first place?
Jessie bolted from the truck, pounded across the exam area, and slammed through the office door, expecting to find empty file drawers hanging open. Instead, the tabby, frightened by Jessie’s abrupt entrance, scrambled from the futon to the bathroom. Molly didn’t stir from her napping spot on the desk. Everything else was just as Jessie had left it.
She pulled the door closed and gazed down the poorly lit passageway toward the spa. “Sherry?”
No one replied. For the second time in a half hour, Jessie made the dreaded trek to the pool. The back door remained closed. The lights were still off. Apparently, Sherry hadn’t shown up.
Jessie picked her way across the floor, waiting for her eyes to acclimate to the darkness. She reached for the switch. The note she’d left was gone. She flicked on the overhead lights. Once the fluorescent bulbs hesitated, flashed, dimmed, and finally came on, she searched the wall, thinking maybe Sherry had left a note of her own. Jessie scanned the walls and the countertops but found nothing out of the ordinary. She checked the railing around the pool. Nothing.
Except...
She looked again. Not at the railing, but at the water’s surface. It shimmered black. The reflection of the overhead lights skimmed across the pool until they hit an obstacle. Something in the pool broke the reflected image.
Jessie edged closer. A cold, opaque veil slid over her eyes. For a moment the world stopped. No movement. No sound. Nothing penetrated the veil that encompassed her brain.
She blinked, breaking the spell and the stillness. The image in front of her snapped into detailed focus.
An oblong pale blue balloon became the back of a shirt inflated with air trapped between the body and the fabric. Resting on top of that blue balloon, making a slight dent in it, was a long braid, once blonde, now dark and waterlogged.
Jessie fumbled for her phone. Fought to control the shaking of her usually steady hands long enough to punch in 911. She had no idea what she babbled to the dispatcher and hoped she made sense. There was no time to repeat herself.
She dipped under the railing surrounding the pool. The phone slipped from her fingers and clattered to the floor. She made a grab for it, but the phone skittered into the water with a soft sploosh.
The pool reeled in front of her eyes. Ignoring the vertigo, she raced around the catwalk, clinging to the railing. At the far side of the pool, Jessie let go and dropped to her knees. She reached toward Sherry’s body but only snatched at air.
Jessie lowered to her belly. Stretched farther. Gripped the edge of the catwalk with one hand, strained toward Sherry with the other. Still, the body bobbed just beyond her fingers.
She pressed back to her knees. Frantic, she scanned the spa, searching for something—a pole, a rope—anything to extend her reach. A broom leaned next to the door. She climbed to her feet and sprinted along the catwalk toward it.
She didn’t see the wet patch until it was too late. In one dreadful moment, her feet shot out from under her. The edge of the catwalk raced up. The impact knocked the wind out of her. Her right leg went over the side. Scrambling, scratching, she fought for a grip on the slick wood.
But the momentum carried her into the pool.
Water closed around her face, her head. The old familiar panic seized her. Just like when she was eight. No one saw her go under that time either. She flailed. Which way was up to air? Which way only took her closer to hopelessness? Was she being drawn to the surface? Or sinking like a stone? Her lungs threatened to explode. Time stalled.
Then her hand struck something solid. The edge of the pool. She clawed at it, desperate for a finger hold on the slimy surface. With darkness enveloping her, she flung one arm upward. Her fingers found the edge of the walkway. She held on.
Blinded, Jessie heaved herself up, gagging and choking. She strained to hook an arm on the edge of the catwalk. Then the other arm. She clung there, spewing foul tasting water. Gasping for breath. Blinking. For a moment, she didn’t dare move except to breathe and gather her wits. Her chest burned. Cautiously, she looked toward Sherry. There was no movement. No struggle.
But sometimes drowning victims could be resuscitated. She had to make the effort.
Wheezing, Jessie hoisted herself higher. Braced on her elbows. Grit her teeth as she tried to swing a leg up onto the catwalk. On the third attempt, her heel caught. Struggling against the weight of her water-logged clothes, she climbed the rest of the way up. Her ribs throbbed from the blow to the edge of the walkway. Hugging the rail, she picked her way along the wet catwalk, grabbed the broom, and retraced her steps to where Sherry’s body floated.
Jessie extended the straw bristle end toward the blue balloon, which was in the process of deflating. She succeeded. Slowly, she drew the broom and Sherry toward her. But the broom slipped off. Jessie tried again and dragged her closer. Close enough that she tossed the broom aside and caught a handful of blue fabric. She floated the body to the edge of the pool and grabbed her with both hands. Bracing her heels against an uneven board, she lugged Sherry’s sodden form onto the walkway and rolled her onto her back.
Years of working on animals had not dulled the basic CPR skills she’d learned ages ago. She checked for a carotid pulse. Nothing. Jessie lifted Sherry’s jaw, pressed her lips to Sherry’s mouth, and forced two puffs of air into her lungs. Shifted her position and started chest compressions.
“Hello?” came a voice outside the door.
“In here!” Jessie called.
She couldn’t remember ever being as happy to see anyone as she was to see those men with the paramedic emblems on their shirts charging toward her.