Horse Race (9 page)

T
HEY DIDN
’
T FIND
Deborah in any of the nearby barns, so they headed for the track to see if she was there watching the workouts. She was nowhere in sight, but another familiar face was.

“Uh-oh,” Stevie said under her breath, tugging at Carole’s sleeve. “Mayday. Mayday. Josh alert at three o’clock.”

But her warning came too late. Josh C, better known now as Show, had already seen them. He was standing near the rail with his parents. His father was taping a group of galloping horses with his camcorder. “Hey, Carole!” Josh called loudly. “Hi! Remember me?”

“How could I forget?” Carole said quietly with a groan.
But she did her best to smile as Josh came toward her. “Hi, Josh,” she greeted him. “I don’t think you met my friends yesterday.” She quickly introduced Stevie and Lisa.

“Nice to meet you,” Josh said politely. Then he grinned at Carole. “I bet you’re surprised to see me here so early,” he said proudly. “After talking to you last night, I convinced my parents to come watch the workouts this morning. They thought it was a really cool idea—you know, as part of the total Kentucky experience.”

Carole glanced at her watch. It was about eight o’clock. She vaguely remembered telling Josh and his parents about the early-morning schedule at the track the evening before. It hadn’t been easy to come up with things to talk to them about, even in the brief time she had spent taking their picture. Now she wished she had kept her mouth shut. She and her friends didn’t have time to deal with a love-struck Josh right now. They had to find Deborah.

“That’s nice,” she said. “Um, I don’t want to keep you from enjoying the action. So I guess I’ll see you later.” She started to turn away.

“Wait.” Josh put a hand on her arm to stop her. Even after she stopped, he left his hand there, squeezing her wrist gently. “I thought maybe you could watch with me for a little while. You know, tell me what’s going on and stuff.” He shrugged and grinned again. “I hardly know anything at all about horses. Maybe you can teach me.”

Stevie and Lisa exchanged glances. Normally there was nothing Carole liked more than talking to people about
horses. But this wasn’t the time for one of her hourlong lectures.

“Sorry, Josh,” Stevie said. “I’m sure Carole would love to help you out, but I’m afraid we’ve got to drag her away.” She did her best to look apologetic. “She has a lot of work to do.

She’s taking care of the favorite for one of today’s races.” Noticing that Josh’s father had turned and was taping them now, she added an elaborate shrug. “And unfortunately, work comes first.”

“One of the favorites?” Josh said, looking impressed. “Wow! That’s really cool. What’s his name? I’ll tell my dad to bet on him.”

“It’s a filly—um, a girl horse,” Lisa said. “Her name is Cookie Cutter—Uh-oh.”

Her friends turned to see what Lisa was looking at and gasped. It was Garvey. He had just appeared and was leaning on the rail, talking to an exercise boy, who was riding one of the Maskee horses.

“What’s the matter?” Josh asked. He turned and stared in Garvey’s direction, too, trying to see what the girls were looking at.

Stevie had an idea. “That’s our boss over there in the blue shirt,” she explained. “If he catches us here talking to you instead of working, he’ll be really mad.”

“Your boss?” Josh said. “Does that mean he owns Cookie Cutter?”

“He trains her,” Lisa corrected.

“Wow!” Josh exclaimed. “That’s really cool. Maybe you
could introduce me to him. I’d love to meet a real live horse trainer.”

“I have a better idea,” Stevie said. She turned and pointed to a large bay horse that had just stepped onto the racetrack. “See that horse over there? His name is … um … Pine Hollow. He’s the fastest horse in all of Kentucky. You don’t want to miss his workout.”

“Really?” Josh’s eyes widened as he watched the horse start to trot. “Wow. Thanks for the tip.”

Stevie smiled. “You’re welcome. Hurry, it looks like he’s starting. You might want to get your father to tape him, too.”

Josh nodded and raced over to his parents. Stevie watched long enough to see him grab his father by the arm and point toward the bay. Then she turned to her friends.

“Okay, let’s make a break for it,” she said. “Luckily, I don’t think Garvey’s noticed us yet.”

As the three girls hurried back to the safety of the stable area, Lisa smiled at Stevie. “I wonder what that horse’s name really is?” she said.

Stevie shrugged. “Who knows? But I think Pine Hollow is an awfully nice name for a racehorse, don’t you?”

T
HE GIRLS STILL
hadn’t found Deborah a few minutes later when they met Toby leading one of the Maskee horses back from the track. Luckily, Garvey wasn’t with him.

“Hi there,” Toby said when he saw them. “What are you three up to?”

“We’re looking for Deborah,” Stevie said. “Have you seen her?”

The jockey shook his head. “Not lately. I thought she said something about visiting farms.”

Lisa gasped. “That’s right,” she said. “She’s going to be gone until post time, remember?”

“Is there a problem?” Toby asked, looking concerned. “Maybe I can help you out.”

Carole shook her head quickly. “No, no problem,” she assured him. “We just wanted to—um—find out what time we’re leaving tonight. We can ask her later.”

Toby nodded and continued on his way. Lisa watched him go. “Maybe we should tell him the truth,” she whispered to her friends.

Carole shook her head again. “I don’t think that’s such a good idea,” she said. “I’d like to trust Toby. But what if he was the one Garvey was talking to on the phone last night?”

“Good point,” Stevie said. She glanced after the jockey. “Still, he seems so nice …”

“I know,” Carole said. “But don’t you remember, I told you Garvey said something about being loyal. Doesn’t that sound like he was telling Toby he’d better win for Maskee Farms?”

“Maybe.” Lisa frowned. “Besides, even if he’s not involved in whatever it is, he might not believe us any more than the police would if we started accusing Garvey of being a crook.”

“Or whatever,” Carole added with a sigh. “That’s the
worst thing. We don’t even know what we’re accusing him of.”

“That’s only part of the problem,” Lisa said grimly. “We don’t know, but Garvey thinks we do. That’s why he wants to shut us up.”

Carole glanced at her watch and gulped nervously. “And Deborah won’t be back for hours.”

“That settles it, then,” Stevie said. “Until Deborah gets back this afternoon, we’re just going to have to deal with Garvey ourselves.”

T
HE GIRLS DECIDED
to head out to the grandstand to talk, since Garvey wouldn’t be likely to find them there. But someone else found them almost as soon as they made themselves comfortable on a bench.

“Carole!” Josh B exclaimed from behind them. “How are you?”

Carole fought back a groan of dismay as the older boy hurried over. Today he was wearing a clean white turtleneck and a pair of pressed black pants. “Hi, Josh,” she said weakly.

“Hi, Josh,” chorused Stevie and Lisa.

“Hi,” Josh greeted them shortly. Then he turned all his attention back to Carole. “I’m really glad to see you again,” he told her. “We didn’t have nearly enough time to talk yesterday. I was hoping for a chance to show you around the
track—you know, give you a taste of what I do here and how things work.”

“That sounds awfully interesting,” Carole said hesitantly. She didn’t want to hurt the boy’s feelings, but the last thing she needed right now was to be dragged off on some kind of grand tour of Bluegrass Park. How could she get out of it without being rude? For once, she wished she’d paid more attention when the girls at school or Pine Hollow were chattering on about how to talk to boys.

“But we really wouldn’t want to take up so much of your time,” Stevie continued—for her, smoothly—smiling innocently at Josh. “I’m sure your job keeps you really busy, right?”

“Well, yes,” Josh said, glancing at Stevie as if trying to remember who she was. “It does. I have a lot of responsibility here, you know. My uncle really counts on me to keep things running.”

“That’s great,” Lisa said. “You must be really good at what you do.”

Josh smiled and straightened the collar of his turtleneck. “Well, I don’t like to brag,” he said. “But everyone says I’m a fast learner. I already know everything about how the front office runs, and I even know a little about the betting machines. As soon as I’m old enough, I’ll probably start working at one of the windows.”

Carole had seen the little windows where men and women sat behind the betting machines, punching in numbers and handing out tickets to the people who were gambling
on the races. But she had never paid much attention to them, and she had given even less thought to the track’s front office, whatever that was. She liked the track because horses were there. Everything else was just boring details.

She was sure Stevie and Lisa felt exactly the same way, but at the moment both of them were nodding and smiling at Josh as if his job were more exciting than a groom’s, a jockey’s, and the United States president’s combined.

“Wow,” Lisa said. “That’s amazing. I feel bad even taking up this much of your time when you have so much to do.”

Stevie stood up and grabbed Carole’s arm. “Come on, Carole,” she said, dragging her to her feet. “We’d better stop bothering Josh now and let him get back to work.” She smiled at Josh again. “Maybe we’ll see you later.”

“Um, I hope so,” Josh said, looking a little confused. “Bye, Carole.”

The Saddle Club hurried away along the rail, leaving Josh staring after them. As soon as they were near the gap and safely out of sight, Stevie and Lisa broke into giggles. “That was fun,” Stevie declared.

Lisa shrugged. “I don’t know,” she said with a smile. “I actually felt kind of sorry for him. He never knew what hit him.”

Carole grinned at both of her friends. “Thanks, guys,” she said gratefully. “You really helped me out back there. I couldn’t think of a thing to say to him. If it was left to me, I’d probably be touring the snack bar or the program booth right now.”

“You’re welcome,” Lisa answered for both of them. “But we shouldn’t count on that working more than once. We’d better stick to less Josh-infested places for our meetings.”

Carole’s smile faded as she remembered the reason for their Saddle Club meeting. But before she could say a word, she heard a gruff voice behind them.

“Hey, you girls!” Garvey shouted. He had just rounded a corner and seen them.

“Oops,” Stevie whispered. “Should we make a break for it? Those muscle-bound guys usually can’t run very fast.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Lisa hissed back. “He’s not going to do anything to us here with all these people around.”

Carole glanced around. At least two dozen people were nearby, from the jockeys on the track to the trainers watching them ride to a janitor sweeping up the grounds. That made her feel a little safer, but not much—especially when she got a good look at Garvey’s glowering face.

“What are you three whispering about over here?” he demanded belligerently. The janitor looked up. Garvey noticed and lowered his voice. “I hope you’re not telling secrets you shouldn’t be telling.”

“We don’t know what you’re talking about,” Lisa spoke up bravely.

Garvey stared at her. “Oh yeah?” he growled. “I don’t think I believe you. I know little girls tell their friends everything.”

“You’d better watch out,” Stevie said hotly, clenching her fists at her side. “We haven’t told anybody what you’re planning
yet. But if you keep threatening us, we just might change our minds.”

Garvey whirled to face her. “Threatening you?” he said. His angry face cracked into an ironic smile. “I’m not making any threats. Your imagination must be running away with you.”

Lisa frowned, guessing what he was driving at. It was true that nothing he had said was concrete enough to be considered a threat if the girls told anyone. And now she knew that was no accident. She knew Deborah would believe them if they said Garvey was out to get them, but would anybody else?

“What about what you said to Carole about not blabbing to her reporter friend?” Stevie challenged him.

“What about it?” Garvey said, still smiling. “I was joking, that’s all. You can’t arrest me for having a different sense of humor than you do.”

Meanwhile, Carole was gaping at the big man, astonished. “What about making me ride Storm Chaser when you knew I was going to get thrown!” she exclaimed. “Is that also your idea of a joke? A lot of people might not think it was funny.”

Garvey shrugged. “That was an unfortunate accident,” he said calmly. “Storm Chaser only throws his first rider of the day. After that he’s safe enough for a five-year-old to handle. Toby told me he’d already ridden him today when he hadn’t. Obviously.”

It was clear that Garvey had thought this out. Lisa wondered if his excuse for putting Carole on Storm Chaser meant that Toby was in on the plot, too, as Carole suspected. Either way, Lisa knew that Garvey. was lying. But they had no way of proving it. “What do you expect us to do now?” she asked the trainer.