Breakaway (A Gail McCarthy Mystery) (28 page)

Jeri thought and slowly smiled. "I could put it that way. Matt would be pissed as hell." I got the definite impression this pleased her.

"No one will hear otherwise from me," I said.

Jeri looked straight at me. "Gail, if I consider, for even a minute, going along with this crazy scheme, you have to promise me one thing."

"What?"

"You leave me in charge. If this guy comes, you do what I say. Period."

I thought about it. "I get to be there," I said at last. "I want to be there when we catch him. I won't budge on that. But other than that you're in charge."

We regarded each other for another moment and Jeri nodded very slightly. "All right," she said. "Does Kris Griffith know about this?"

"Not exactly," I said. "She knows I'm taking care of the place, that's all. I don't want to worry her. The same story can apply if we catch him."

"Oh, he's doing fine," she said. "He's gaining a little, and he seems to feel fine. I rode him yesterday," she added. "Just in the arena." She looked back at me. "That guy Bart is sure an ass," she said. "I had him come out and pick up Nicole Devereaux's mare-the one thing old Matt didn't want to deal with. Bart said he'd take care of her, but he was a little prick about the whole deal."

"Uh-huh." I nodded and said nothing more. Best to keep my suspicions of Bart to myself.

Jeri let herself out and I made eggs and toast for breakfast. By my reckoning, it had been twenty-four hours since I'd eaten.

Two hours later I'd fed the animals and fielded a call from Kris. I'd assured her I was fine and that the horse and her place would get taken care of. She was relieved, I could tell. She'd been stressed enough herself and was in no shape to deal with my problems.

I was just about to step out the door when the phone rang again. It was Blue.

The sound of his voice triggered an odd mix of emotions. Part pleasure, part apprehension, and part reluctance to deal with anything else now. Still, his "Hi, this is Blue," was far from unwelcome.

"Just thought I'd call and touch bases with you," he said.

"Oh ... yeah." Damn. I'd completely forgotten I'd asked him over to dinner. "Look," I said, "there's a lot going on with me right now."

"Oh?"

Realizing that he hadn't already heard about it-perhaps he didn't read the paper-I said, "Remember that situation I told you about, the woman whose horse was being abused?"

"It wasn't easy," I said. "And I'm afraid I need to ask you to put our dinner date on hold for a while. I'm just not sure how things are going to go."

"Whatever you'd like."

I heard the instant retreat in his voice, and as was my habit with this man, felt myself softening toward him. For whatever reason, perhaps our suddenly intimate proximity on last summer's trip, I always read his seemingly aloof reserve as shyness, felt that he was vulnerable under his apparent detachment.

"It's not that I don't want to see you," I told him bluntly. "I'd love to have dinner with you. But there's some stuff arising out of this woman's death that I have to deal with."

TWENTY-NINE

Jeri met me at eight o'clock the following evening. We took her car, a small gray sedan, less conspicuous than my truck, and parked it in the cul-de-sac, as planned. Side by side we walked to Kris's house, not speaking.

I fed the horse while Jeri reconnoitered. After a few minutes, she came back with a report.

"It's like I remembered. If he does it the same way as before, he'll come in the main door of the barn." She glanced around. "If you stay behind the haystack and I wait in the tack room, we'll have him covered from two angles. And I should be able to see into the stall."

"I see," I said. Somehow I hadn't pictured waiting in the shadows while the horse rapist actually did the deed. But what Jeri was saying made sense.

"Look, Gail. That's my job. To catch the bad guys and protect the citizens from harm. It's my responsibility to make sure you don't get hurt. If you do get hurt, I'll be in all kinds of trouble."

"Uh-huh," 1 said.

We looked at each other.

"I know it sounds bossy and dictatorial," Jeri said. "But it is my job and we agreed I was in charge. I don't want him to know you're here."

"Right," I said. "I'll hide and wait."

Jeri gave me a doubtful glance, but after a minute she shrugged. We both settled into our respective places. I rearranged a few hay bales so that they shielded me completely, while at the same time providing me with a handy crevice to peer through. Jeri took a stance behind the tack room door. We waited.

We'd agreed earlier to wait silently from nine until midnight. As far as we knew, the horse rapist had always come during these hours. After midnight we'd go home and get some rest, be ready to watch again the following night.

I rested my pistol on a hay bale, shifted my weight from time to time, careful always to take a position that I could hold if need be. I could not see Jeri from where I stood, but I could see the open barn doorway. I waited.

A barn, even a little barn like Kris' s, has a life of its own at night. I could hear the soothing rustle and munch of Dixie, out in her corral, eating hay. Smaller, closer rustles were probably mice. The gentle sounds of a summer night drifted in through the open doorway-crickets chirping, an owl hooting, the occasional swish of tires on pavement as a car passed by on Harkins Valley Road. All was peaceful.

And here we were, waiting for a murderer. It seemed bizarre. And yet, with my whole being, I wanted to catch this man. More than that, I wanted to kill him-something I didn't plan on telling Jeri.

Every time I thought about him killing Nico, red-hot rage bubbled up inside. That something so fine should be destroyed by such a bestial creature-that her life had been taken by such a thing ... I'll kill you, you bastard, I chanted softly to myself. I'll make an end to you. I'll make sure you never walk this earth again.

The focused hatred that coursed through my veins was completely foreign to me; I would never have imagined I could feel this way. All parts of me seemed to rise up in a fierce instinctual protest against this defiler of innocent creatures, this rapist, this murderer. I hated him. He was unfit to live.

I shifted my weight, rearranged the position of my gun. He would come. If not tonight, then some night. And we would see.

Thinking, watching, waiting passed the hours. The barn grew colder. I was glad I had thought to wear several layers of sweatshirts. No jackets, nothing that would rustle. All dark colors. I endured the chill and waited.

Jeri emerged from the tack room, just visible as a human shape in the moonlight that filtered through the doorway. "Not tonight," she said.

"I guess not. Maybe tomorrow."

After a final glance around, we headed out of the barn and back down to the car, Jeri's flashlight illuminating our way. Once back at my place, she left quickly with only a brief, "See you tomorrow."

I fell into bed and to sleep almost at once, tomorrow echoing in my head.

But it wasn't tomorrow. Or the next night either. By Thursday night, the endless watching and waiting were getting to me. I was starting to feel sleep deprived, what with getting up every morning at six and never going to bed before one. It was hard to focus on my job. And it was becoming more and more difficult to stay awake as I huddled in the barn. I wondered how long I could do this.

The intense desire for revenge that drove me was still there, but fatigue was eating away at it. I had no idea how Jeri felt. We didn't speak about our enterprise much, just went through the necessary motions. No doubt Jeri had participated in such stakeouts before and was familiar with the problems.

But for me this endless, patient stalking was an entirely new experience. Hide and wait, with life itself on the line. Adrenaline crashed through me at the slightest noise; when a deer rustled through the trees outside the barn, my heart pounded erratically and I gripped the pistol with suddenly sweaty hands.

Like a hunter waiting for a tiger to come to a goat, waiting for a man-eating predator to appear out of the forest. With a mix of fear and keen anticipation, I waited on Thursday night, as I had waited every night, with the hunter's instinct alternately fighting sleep and the sudden rush of nerves.

Leaning my head against the haystack, I listened to the familiar little noises of the night-nothing new there. The wet, foggy chill in the air wasn't new either. My eyelids drooped over my eyes. I gave it a minute, then pushed them back open. All was quiet. And then Dixie neighed.

Sparks shot along my nerves. I shifted my weight carefully and placed myself where I could see well through the crevice in the hay. Taking a deep breath, I let it out slowly and did my best to relax my tired but suddenly tense muscles. Still, be still.

Dixie neighed again. And then another neigh, lower-pitched. Not Dixie. A different horse.

His horse, I thought, his horse. I shot a glance toward the tack room, where I knew Jeri waited, though I couldn't see her. Surely she had heard it, too.

Another neigh from Dixie, another answering nicker. The confused sound of muffled hoofbeats-perhaps Dixie trotting around her corral. I waited, my eyes fixed on the barn doorway.

I could hear the clang of the metal corral gate. Dixie's halter, I knew, was hanging on the post next to the gate. Small, soft sounds that could have been footsteps, could have been anything, came from the direction of the corral.

Then a creak, as of hinges, as though the corral gate was being opened. I took another deep breath. Tried to relax my muscles and steady my nerves. Pressed my face to the crack in the hay wall and gripped the gun.

Now I could see a light. A faint, bobbing golden glow, the erratic illumination of a hand-held flashlight, growing steadily brighter. The open rectangular shape of the barn doorway became distinct. My eyes strained out into the darkness.

In a moment I could discern an approaching horse, the tawny color showing even in the dim light. Dixie. Being led by a man. I narrowed my eyes.

A dark man, dark hair, dark-skinned. Unrecognizable. Jeans and a denim jacket, a ball cap. No one I knew.

I stared. No. A man with a dark ski mask pulled down over his face. Holes for eyes. He was in the barn now. His way of moving was somehow familiar, and yet I didn't know. I saw that he was wearing rubber surgical gloves on his hands, carrying the flashlight in one and leading the mare with the other.

In a moment he led the mare in the stall, out of my sight. But not, presumably, out of Jeri's.

Who the hell was it? I felt I knew him; there was something familiar in his stance, his carriage. But the dark mask was disconcerting, throwing off my perceptions. In the dim light, I had not gotten any definite impression.

My heart thudded steadily. I could hear motion from the stall. Small, soft, shuffling sounds. I knew what he was doing but I didn't want to think about it. I did, quite desperately, want to know who he was.

I shifted my weight softly, gripped the gun, and peered through the crack in the hay. Held my breath and heard a definite sound from the tack room. A creak, as of weight coming down on a board. Jeri must have moved. I heard it. Had he heard it?

I froze. He was coming out of the stall, quickly, moving fast into the tack room. Too fast.

I heard Jeri shout, "Police," trailing off into a yell.

A loud thud. I could see nothing. I started to move and froze again. He was coming back out, running out of the barn, out of the doorway.

I pushed out from behind the stack, ran to the tack room. Jeri was down on the floor, just visible in the moonlight that leaked into the barn. She was moaning, half mumbling. I felt the pulse in her neck-strong and fast.

Even as I bent over her, she started to raise herself up.