Asa exited the car and managed to get Micah into the pool house where she deposited him in the bathroom. She pulled off Micah’s soiled pants and threw them in the laundry basket before he began hugging the toilet. This gave her plenty of time to go through his phone, make copies of his keys with a new app, and downloaded his computer files, sending the information to an operative waiting for the information. Then she went through his desk and searched the pool house.
Hearing Micah call for her, Asa went back to the bathroom and helped him into the shower. “Don’t worry, Micah. You’re not going to remember a thing about this. Besides, you don’t have anything I haven’t seen before.” She stripped him naked and made sure he was clean before turning off the water. After drying Micah off, Asa found a pair of soft athletic shorts for him before putting the groggy and exhausted man to bed. “Nighty-night, Micah. Go to sleep. I’ve got more work to do.”
Asa pulled a pair of night goggles with a Go-Pro camera attached to the side, and a walkie talkie from her bag, tied the bag around her waist, and turned off the lights. She silently left the pool house, taking care no one was around and searched the property. It was very difficult as there were security cameras everywhere—the kind that tripped peoples’ phones, so she had to work fast. Sooner or later, security would be summoned.
Hurrying to the horse barns, she checked all the stalls. Finding no sign of Last Chance, she made her way along a spring running through a pasture. Close by was an abandoned early nineteenth-century farm house with a separate brick root cellar, which Asa had discovered from studying satellite photos of the property earlier that day. The house and cellar were surrounded by a fence with the metal gate left open.
The house was full of hay bales. It was not unusual for farms to store additional hay or feed in old buildings if the roofs were good. However, it was unusual to find horse droppings in a house. Asa took a deep breath. She was close.
Surely, they would not have put that foal in that damp root cellar. Asa couldn’t fathom that. Still, she had to check. It only took her a few seconds to reach the root cellar. It was a large brick dome sticking out of the ground with spring water running underneath the cellar floor. The cellar was built over the stream to keep items cool in the summer. Asa studied the steps leading down to the door.
Good Lord! There was a padlock on the door! The colt had to be in the cellar. Asa was careful going down the slimy, mossy steps. She couldn’t afford an accident now. Reaching the door, she tried pushing it. It was too sturdy to knock down. Asa pressed her ear against the door and heard a small whinny. The colt was inside!
Pulling out her walkie talkie, she said, “I found him. Be ready.”
A voice replied, “They’re on to you. The house just lit up like a Christmas tree.”
“Copy.”
As there was no reason to be quiet now, Asa picked up a loose brick and banged away at the lock until it broke. Throwing open the door, she stared at an agitated colt neighing and pacing back and forth in fear. “Hey there, little fellow. I’m gonna take you back to your mom.” Asa turned her head as she heard shouts in the distance.
“Look, I know you’re scared, and I don’t have time to make friends with you. You just have to trust me. I am going to carry you up those stairs, so don’t kick me or we will both fall. Neither one of us can afford a broken leg.” Asa pulled a small blanket from her bag.
Asa cornered the colt. He struggled for a second until Asa put the blanket over his eyes. “Oh jeez, you weigh a ton,” Asa muttered, picking the colt up. She was glad she lifted weights as part of her training.
Still the bandaged wound on her side felt like it had opened. Asa felt a little faint, but gritted her teeth. No time to think about that now. She gingerly climbed up the root cellar’s steps making sure she was not in danger of slipping. The steps were slowing her down.
Breathing heavily, Asa made it to the top and put the colt down while clutching his mane. He tried to buck Asa, but she held fast. Going into her bag again, she pulled out a halter and a lead. “I came prepared, little guy. We’re going home.”
Asa looked up after hearing car motors. Lights were coming toward her across the pasture. She hurried to put on the halter while the colt tossed his head, fighting every step of the way. “Don’t argue with me. We’ve just got seconds.”
Just then, a black truck with a horse trailer crashed through the wooden fences surrounding the pasture where the root cellar was. The truck stopped about ten feet from the cellar. A man jumped out of the passenger’s side and ran to open the trailer.
Asa pulled the colt over to the trailer where the man picked up the horse and carried him inside. Asa closed the back of the trailer and jumped in the passenger’s seat throwing her bag on the floor. “HIT IT!”
The truck and trailer busted through another series of fences onto Parkers Mill Road. A minute later two SUV’s went through the opening in the fence, following them.
Asa poked her head out of the window watching the SUV’s swerving behind them. “They’re gaining.”
“There’s only so fast I can go with this trailer,” the operative said. “We’ll be there in a minute.”
“I should have let the air out of everyone’s tires.”
Asa’s operative shook his head. “You would have been caught for sure.”
“We’re almost there. No matter what. Keep going.”
Fifty seconds later, Asa’s employee swerved through an open gate into a pasture where five cars were parked with their lights on in a line guarding another horse trailer.
Asa grabbed her wounded side as her man sped into the field and slammed on the truck’s brakes. When she pulled her hand away, it was covered in blood, which had seeped through her clothes. “Park beside the other trailer,” she ordered. The foal had to be reunited with his dam before anything else.
The operative drove slowly and stopped next to the other trailer.
Asa pressed against her wound trying to stop the bleeding and bit her lip. When she moved to open the door, Asa couldn’t push through the agonizing pain, only then realizing she must have done more than just open her bullet wound.
Asa decided to sit in the truck for now. There was time to tend to her when Jean Harlow and her foal were brought back together.
The horses had to come first.