She Can Tell (28 page)

“What do you mean, she left? I told you to keep her there.”

“She kind of does what she wants, sir.”

“No kidding.” Mike stepped on the gas pedal. “Where did she go?”

Five minutes later he braked in front of the tack shop. Will Martin’s oversized ego of a pickup was parked at the curb. Mike cruised down the street and spotted them ahead. Will had Rachel pinned to the side of her truck. His hands caged her in. Her feet were trapped between his widespread cowboy boots. Rachel had something silver and shiny in one
hand. Will was rubbing his crotch up and down obscenely against her stomach.

Fury, fresh and hot, gathered in Mike’s chest. Finally, he was a witness to the creep’s crime. If Will hurt her…

Mike floored his SUV and called for backup. The big ape moved one hairy hand to squeeze Rachel’s breast. Mike’s red-edged vision tunneled down to the two figures. He reached for the siren just as Rachel swung out with a right hook. Silver flashed in her hand. Will clutched the side of his head and staggered backward two steps. Her front snap kick caught him right between the legs. Will dropped to the ground like a hairy sandbag. His hands fell from his head to his groin.

Mike stomped on the brake and slammed the gearshift into park. He jumped out of the truck. His own testicles crawled up inside his body as he watched a gray-faced Will heaving on the concrete.

“You fucking bitch!” Will made a sick retching sound. “I’ll get you. I know where you live.”

Rachel leaned on her truck. Freckles stood in stark relief on a face as pale as skimmed milk, but those eyes were brimming with fire.

Mike cuffed the groaning man in the street, then stepped up to Rachel. He wanted to pull her into his arms. But he couldn’t, not in public, especially not with Will as an audience. “You all right?”

“Yeah.” Despite the jutting chin and fiery glare, her voice shook.

“Did he hurt you?” Mike glanced back at Will, who hadn’t moved from his fetal position.

She was going to say she was fine. He knew it. “Let me rephrase that. Do you need to go to the ER?”

She shook her head.

“Would you be willing to press charges against him?”

A fighter through and through, she pushed away from the truck and straightened her spine. “Of course.”

Satisfaction welled as he took her statement. Mike had been trying to get Will on sexual assault charges for years. Like a true predator, Will picked his victims well, usually choosing women who were too timid to stand up to him. Until today.

She turned toward her vehicle. Mike couldn’t help but admire both the fit of her faded jeans over her muscular legs and the courage with which she’d recovered. With a sigh he turned back to the prostrate Will and hauled him to his feet just as Ethan pulled up in his cruiser.

Mike loaded Will into the back of the police vehicle. “You picked the wrong woman to assault.”

“Is that a threat?”

Mike closed the door. “Take him in, Ethan.”

Rachel climbed into the driver’s seat. Adrenaline ebbed, and her shoulder, forgotten during the moment, throbbed anew. She drove back to the farm on autopilot, cranking up the heat to banish the shakes.

She drove away from town, the isolation and serenity of the green around her soothing. She wasn’t meant to live that close to other people. She needed space. Lots of it. Not just the physical kind.

The truck parked itself by the house. Sarah’s minivan wasn’t back. A glance at her cell told her that the girls weren’t due for another hour. Work was the best therapy.

Brandon had finished cleaning stalls and was repairing a broken section of fence.

Rachel pointed out a sleek chestnut gelding grazing in the pasture. “Why don’t you start with him?”

The well-tempered chestnut greeted the kid with a friendly nose bump before following him to the gate. Rachel inspected every inch of the tack, then took a seat on a bale of straw in the aisle while Brandon brushed and saddled the horse with practiced efficiency. She followed the pair outside and leaned on a fence rail. Once aboard, Brandon’s relaxed posture and balanced seat testified to experience and innate ability. He looked like she felt on the back of a horse. Like that was where he belonged and everything else he did was just passing time. Like climbing on that horse’s back made all the misery in his life fade away. A small pang of loss sliced through her. She would never experience that ease again. For her, riding was tainted by pain, guilt, and worry, and for a few seconds she almost wished she’d never sat on her first pony.

Because you couldn’t miss what you never had.

Which made her think about Mike and the way his presence and touch made everything easier to bear.

Rachel shook it off. Ninety percent of the good memories in her life were tied to horses. Without them, her youth would’ve been vastly more miserable.

Rachel sent Brandon off to lap the meadow a few times and adjust to the new saddle. She needn’t have bothered. The kid looked like he’d be comfortable upside down or sideways on top of a horse.

She could do something with this kid. So, she would never jump again. The thrill and the rush were a thing of her past. She still knew her stuff. Working with a talented student could be the answer. It wasn’t like she could never sit on a horse again. She just had to be sensible about it.

Dammit, she hated being sensible.

Brandon finished with the chestnut and took the gray out for a spin. Rachel had no worries the horse could get away with any of his shenanigans. Shadow Dancer sensed that he’d been bested while he was being groomed on the cross-ties. With Brandon on his back, the normally boisterous horse behaved like a school pony. By the time Rachel left Brandon cooling the horse out, satisfaction had wiped away the memory of Will’s attack.

Tomorrow she’d see how the kid handled some low jumps. If he did well, Brandon was going to get a big break.

The sound of an approaching vehicle signaled Sarah’s return. Her sister’s minivan turned into the drive and parked by the house. Rachel’s stomach growled. She checked her cell. Lunchtime had breezed by. Brandon hadn’t eaten either.

“When you’re finished cooling him out, come up to the house for a sandwich.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“And I really appreciate all the help.”

Brandon flushed. “I love working with the horses. My schedule is clear until the weekend. The house my family is renting is on low ground. We’re going to stay with some family until the flood risk passes.”

They both glanced at the darkening horizon. Clouds rolling down from the mountain marked the end of the sunshine. A humid breeze rustled through the surrounding woods. Shivering, Rachel zipped up as she strode down the driveway to the mailbox. She opened the metal flap. Something buzzed, and Rachel froze. A swarm of pissed-off bees poured out of the mailbox and hovered around her.

Mike’s butt hadn’t even hit his chair before Nancy appeared in the doorway with a whole-grain bagel in one hand and a bottle of water in the other.

“Figured you didn’t eat before going to the morgue.”

“Thanks.” Mike’s stomach rumbled, and his head ached from lack of sleep. He kept glancing at the door, expecting to see Fred come in with a pink slip. “Is there coffee?”

“Not for you there isn’t.” His secretary picked up a pile of signed forms from his outbox. “Think I haven’t noticed the gallon of antacid in your drawer?”

Mike sighed and twisted the cap off the water bottle. “Anything important happen this morning?”

“No. There was a minor accident on Main Street, two ten-year-olds set off firecrackers behind the school, and we had a barking dog complaint. You hogged all the excitement. Wish I could’ve seen Miss Parker lay Will out.” She made a punching gesture with one liver-spotted fist.

“It was a sight.” But Mike worried that Will’s ego could prompt him to seek retribution.

Nancy tilted her head and stared at him like she was working her daily crossword puzzle.

“What?”

“Is Fred right?” she asked. “Do you have something going on with her?”

That was a damned good question, and he didn’t ask how she knew about the clandestine council meeting. Nancy knew everything. She’d been secretary to the chief of police for almost thirty years, and Mike was convinced the church ladies’ organization she belonged to was more effective than a covert intelligence agency.

“I’m not sure.”

“You’d better give it some thought. You’re not getting any younger.”

“Thanks for pointing that out.”

“Oh, stop.” She waved off his comment. “You’re alone too much. A man your age should have something in his life besides work.”

Mike couldn’t argue with that. “Rachel is…difficult.”

“Easy is boring. Any woman who flattens Will Martin’s family jewels gets my vote. Your mother was no pushover.”

“No, she wasn’t.” His mom had hung tough right up till the end.

“Lord, if you’re going to have any kids, you’d better get a move on.” Nancy punctuated the statement with an emphatic nod. “You are not getting any younger.”

Mike choked on his water.

Ethan popped his head in, bright and eager as a puppy with a ball. “It’s a good day when we get to arrest Will Martin.”

“Don’t get too excited. I’m sure he’ll be out on bail pretty quick,” Mike warned.

Ethan’s enthusiasm couldn’t be dimmed. “So, what’d the ME say?”

Mike waved Ethan toward a chair and pulled the photo of the high school ring up on his phone. “They found this under the body.”

Ethan looked at the picture, then passed the phone back. “That should narrow things down.”

“I’m going to need you to start pulling missing person’s reports. We’ll start with 1980 through 1990. Cross-reference with the graduating class of 1973. Assuming the ring belonged to the victim, this can’t be that hard. Westbury High only graduates like a hundred kids a year.” Mike lifted the bagel. “Most of our missing persons are runaways. Except for the occasional errant spouse, not many middle-aged adults disappear.”

“Ah, Chief?” Ethan interrupted, his zeal visibly diming. “Records before 1990 were stored in the basement of the municipal building.”

“Ugh.” Mike had forgotten. Everything in town hall’s basement was toast. Soggy toast. What the fire hadn’t torched, the water had trashed.

“Actually, only closed cases were kept over there,” Nancy corrected. “If the body just turned up, this case is technically cold, not closed. We
should
have the file in the back room.”

Ethan rose.

“Did you say the 1980s?” Nancy leaned over Mike’s shoulder. “What did Greg have to say?”

“Victim was a middle-aged Caucasian male.”

Nancy stared at the photo of the ring. “Oh, my goodness. I’ll bet you found that missing carpenter.”

“Excuse me?”

“His name was…” Nancy put one hand on her hip, the other on her chin, and looked up as if the answer were written on the dropped ceiling tiles. “Boyle. Harry Boyle. He disappeared in the late eighties. Phil Bitten had just been hired as chief. It was his first big case, and the case itself was very strange. Boyle vanished under very unusual circumstances. Phil worked that case for months but got nowhere.”

“I’ll go look for that file.” Ethan headed for the door.

In the outer office, a phone rang. Nancy followed Ethan out. “Files from the eighties are stored in the cabinets on the far left wall. They’re clearly labeled.”

Of course they were.

Ethan returned minutes later, flapping a manila file folder in one hand. He handed the file to Mike. “Got it.”

Mike scanned the initial report. Harry Boyle was a Caucasian male of average height.

“Give the ME a call. Let’s see if we can confirm our victim’s ID.”

Once Ethan was dispatched with his next chore, Mike flipped through pages, his instincts waking to the oddities of the case.

Harry disappeared in February of 1987. The night of his disappearance, his house had burned to the ground. The cause of the fire was listed officially as accidental. Harry had been renovating. The place had been cluttered with containers of flammable chemicals, and Harry Boyle had been a smoker. With no close neighbors, by the time firefighters responded to a call from a passing motorist, the entire place was nearly consumed. It wasn’t until the fire investigators went through the rubble that they realized Harry’s body wasn’t inside.