At Risk (37 page)

"It wasn't your fault."

"I should have handled it differently." He
glanced at the ceiling, then rubbed his face. "I shouldn't have let
another night go by without setting up a detail."

I shook my head. "If I hadn't left my new
number with the . . . guard," I blinked, "I'd be downing some
Millers and watching the Orioles."

Ralston grunted.

I fingered the cotton blanket that was draped
across my lap. The damn thing must have been washed about a million
times.

If I had only stayed in the loft that
February night. An hour earlier, an hour later, would have made all
the difference in the world. Harrison might still have targeted
Foxdale, but he wouldn't have cared about me. Wouldn't have become
fixated.

My lungs felt as if they had collapsed into a
tight ball in the center of my chest.

Ralston straightened and walked around the
room. He looked at the IV bag, the monitors mounted on a trolley,
the curtains that provided privacy. He briefly looked at my chart,
then he dragged a chair closer to the bed and sat down. Light brown
bristles darkened his chin, and his eyes were bloodshot behind his
wire-rimmed glasses.

"Are you up to giving me a statement," he
said, "start to finish?"

I nodded.

He had a tape recorder with him that I hadn't
noticed. He checked the cassette and switched it on. "Did you see
who shot Richard Harper?"

"Yes." My voice was hoarse. "Harrison
did."

"Which one?"

"Oh, John."

He hesitated. "Do you know which one of them
killed the guard?"

"No. Harrison," I shook my head, "I mean,
John Harrison said that Robby cut the guard's throat." I swallowed.
"Any word on Robby, yet?"

"No. His car's been recovered. The Virginia
State Police found it disabled on 211, just west of Warrenton. What
happened after you went to your friend's house?"

I told Ralston about the phone call and the
rest of it, and when I was finished, I was exhausted. "I was
thinking," I said. "Something Mrs. Peters mentioned. I think her
husband reported Harrison. Maybe to the AHSA or--"

"The what?" Ralston said.

"American Horse Show Association. Maybe
Harrison was scamming insurance companies, too, and Peters caught
on. Or maybe Peters reported him to the Humane Society." I told him
what Nick had said about Harrison whipping a horse.

Ralston scribbled the information down and
closed his notebook. "I'll let you get some rest."

"Wait," I said as he turned to leave. "Did
the horse make it back okay?"

He shook his head. "He slipped as he turned
onto Rocky Ford and broke his hip. Had to be destroyed."

"Damn," I mumbled.

"I'm sorry, Steve." Ralston turned toward the
door and said, more to himself than to me, "About everything."

The door swung shut and, in a moment, the
resultant current of air swirl across my skin. I stared at the
faded pattern in the curtain and remembered the thrill I'd felt
when Chase had caught sight of that white, picket fence. I thought
about the joy I'd felt flowing from his mind when faced with a
fence and the torment he'd lived with otherwise. A sad, screwed up
horse.

I leaned back on the pillow. More than
anything, I wanted to go back to sleep. But Harrison kept getting
in the way, and a hundred other things I would have just as soon
forgotten.

On the sidewalk that night, as I had lain
against the cold block wall, I had looked at Harrison's face after
he'd died. His mouth had hung slackly open, his eyes staring
blankly toward the sky. Raindrops fell on his face and trickled
into his mouth, but what I remembered most was that his expression
had been one of pure astonishment . His sick, perverted mind had
driven him to take that last, his final, risk.

* * *

The next day, they removed another tube and
moved me into a regular room. I pressed them about a release date,
but they said it was still too soon to tell, so instead, I wondered
when they would allow visitors. Rachel in particular.

My next visitor was not Rachel, however, but
Detective Ralston.

He snagged a chair and dragged it over to the
bed. "You're looking a damn sight better than the last time I saw
you."

"Yeah. I can hardly wait to get out of
here."

"Your doctor says you're doing well, all
things considered."

"Did he say when I'd be getting out?"

He chuckled. "No. Dorsett's out of ICU."

"I know. When they wheeled him down the hall,
they let him stop in for a minute."

Ralston swung the chair around backward and
straddled it. "The investigation's moving along nicely. Besides
what happened at Foxdale, we've linked John Harrison to the murder
of James Peters and to your abduction in February. It's also
looking good for connecting him with the murders of David Rowe and
Larry Jacob, the two I mentioned the other night."

I shut my mouth with a snap. "How'd you do
that?"

"When we searched their farm, we found some
interesting things. Your wallet, for one. The older brother, John,
kept something from each victim in a bedroom dresser."

"Jesus." I swallowed and closed my eyes.
"What about Pennsylvania?"

"The boyfriend confessed. They'd been arguing
all weekend, and apparently it escalated into a physical
confrontation. He struck her hard enough that it killed her.
Afterwards, he remembered reading about the Peter's case in the
newspaper and pretended his girlfriend was victim number two."

"What about the stolen horses?" I said.

"There wasn't a theft. They'd sold the horses
a month earlier, and apparently that's what they were arguing
about." Ralston pulled a plastic evidence bag out of his jacket
pocket and tossed it on the bed. "You might be interested in
this."

Inside was an envelope addressed to my Post
Office box and a wrinkled sheet of white, lined paper. I smoothed
the plastic on my thigh, flattened the paper with my fingers, and
squinted at the small script. Although the note was unsigned,
whoever had written it had identified John Harrison as someone who
used a rig that matched the description of the one I'd been looking
for. I looked up at Ralston.

"It came in yesterday's mail," he said. "We
impounded the truck owned by T&T Industries and compared the
tire tread with the casts taken in the Rowe case." Ralston smiled
briefly. "They matched."

"Good."

"As soon as we confronted Timbrook with that
bit of information, we couldn't shut him up. It seems that John
Harrison had tipped him off about the Peters farm being for sale,
but he had no idea Harrison had been involved in Peters
disappearance and death. Because the land butted up against Piney
Run Park, T&T Industries made more on the deal than they'd
expected, so Timbrook actively began pursuing land bordering the
state park system."

"Which led him to the Ritter farm," I
said.

Ralston nodded. "That deal went through
smoothly, but Timbrook was greedy. Like you suspected, when he
couldn't persuade Foxdale's owner to sell, he asked John and Robert
to make trouble for the farm, but he swears up, down, and sideways
that he never meant for anyone to get hurt."

I handed the letter back to Ralston and
thought about Elsa. Had she known what was going on? Was that why
she had warned me about Robby?

"And you were right about something else.
"June of last year, Peters reported Harrison to the Montgomery
County Humane Society for cruelty."

"God." After a while, I said, "How could it
happen? How could two people become so . . . twisted?"

Detective Ralston rubbed his chin. There was
more color to his face, and he was freshly shaven. He wasn't
wearing the wire-rims of the day before, and I wondered if he wore
contacts. "Maybe they learned by example. The father's done time
for sexual battery, assault with a deadly weapon, aggravated
assault. Right now, he's in for statutory rape. John had a few
minor brushes with the law when he was younger, all
misdemeanors--"

"He got smarter."

"What? Oh, yeah. Robert managed to stay clean
until now."

The florescent tube above my head hummed
softly. "What about Elsa?"

Ralston shrugged. "There's nothing to
indicate she knew what her husband and brothers were up to, but the
fact that she warned you implies otherwise. As far as the cousin's
concerned, the one who owns the trailer, I don't think he knew they
were using it for anything illegal. Oh, and the District Attorney's
office is investigating Sanders. So far, they've found claims on
four different horses "

"Wow." I shifted my pillow. "Heard anything
about Robby?"

Ralston shook his head. "Nothing."

* * *

After lunch, I fell asleep. Sometime during
my nap, the pain medication wore off. I floated upward on a rising
wave of pain and jerked awake with a start. Rachel was sitting
beside my bed, her fingers entwined in mine, and she looked scared.
Her face looked stiff, and a tremor worked at the corner of her
mouth. I could only guess how my face must have looked before I'd
come fully awake.

"Hey," I mumbled.

She stood up. Her skin was pale in the
florescent light. "Oh God, Steve. Should I get a nurse?"

"No." I squeezed her hand. "I'm okay, really.
When I first wake up, sometimes it's rough, but I'm better
now."

"Oh, Steve." She hugged me.

I put my arm around her shoulders and pulled
her close. She rested her head on my chest. Her arms trembled in
little spasms, and I could tell she was crying. I ran my fingers
through her hair and closed my eyes. Her warm tears seeped through
the hospital gown.

"Hey, it's okay," I said.

She lifted her head, and her black hair swung
forward and brushed against my chin. When I smoothed it back behind
her ear and kissed her cheek, she moved her lips over mine and
kissed me, then she looked into my eyes.

"I love you," she whispered.

###

TITLES IN THE SERIES

At Risk

Dead Man's Touch

Cold Burn

Triple Cross

VISIT ME ONLINE

http://www.kitehrman.com

http://kitehrman.blogspot.com/

http://www.myspace.com/stephen_cline

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

First off, I would like to thank Bill Tapply
and Steven Havill who helped me get it right. A special thanks goes
to Susan Francoeur whose unbiased feedback gave me confidence early
on. I would also like to thank Sgt. Rick McGill, (retired) of the
Laurel Police Department for putting up with my numerous procedural
questions. Any and all mistakes are mine. Thanks also to Donna
Marsh (You were right!), Connie Kiviniemi-Baylor, Almo Smith, and
Teddy Saddoris. I am especially grateful to everyone at Poisoned
Pen Press, especially Barbara Peters, a.k.a. TEE, and Robert
Rosenwald, without whose faith and hard work this book would never
have seen the light of day.

And finally, thanks to my family and my two
wonderful sons, Phil and Ray, who good-naturedly put up with the
writing process.