This Case Is Gonna Kill Me (27 page)

“He’s always a real shit to everyone.” Caroline returned the purple blouse to the rack, and we moved on toward my downfall—the shoe section.

“I can understand why. You’re a superior being: stronger, tougher, faster, and pretty much immortal.” I shook my head. “At that point you don’t worry too much about being polite to the noisy monkey throngs that spring up and die around you.”

“You mean us humans, right?” Caroline asked.

“Yeah, think about it. Our lives must pass by vampires like a DVD on fast-forward.”

“Unless they drag. Would life become a burden after centuries? Is it the certainty of death that gives us drive?” Caroline mused.

I considered that while I inspected a pair of winter boots that had just been put out on display. It was hard to imagine needing them when it was ninety outside. “Well, they’re not big on innovation, that’s for sure. You don’t hear about a vampire Einstein or Steve Jobs.”

“Hey, you want to get an iced coffee and continue this conversation sitting down?” Caroline asked.

“Sounds good.”

We headed for the escalator, and Caroline asked, “What about werewolves? Are they more creative?”

“They’re certainly more violent.” I couldn’t totally suppress the shudder. We glided up to the seventh floor and 40 Carrots. “If they’re not in the military, they tend to gravitate toward the financial sector—bond traders, that sort of thing.”

“Maybe they sublimate the violence with competition,” Caroline said.

“Yeah, that’s possible, and I think they like to keep score, and toys and money are an easy way to measure success.” The hostess seated us.

Caroline leaned across the small table, her expression intense. “Okay, since you’ve been raised around vampires, maybe you can explain something else to me.”

“I’ll try.”

“Why didn’t Ryan bite us? Not enough to make us vampires, but as a way to show his dominance over us. That’s what the crappy sex was about, and the sex act is intrinsically difficult for him.”

“It’s what I told you before—they don’t bite women.”

“I thought you were just talking about turning someone into a vampire and making partner. You mean they never—”

I interrupted. “No, they won’t lay a tooth on us, and if they do, the punishment for both parties is very severe. As in
make you dead
severe.”

“Wait a minute. What about Bram Stoker—Dracula, the vampire brides, Lucy Westenra, and all that?” Caroline argued.

“Stoker was a Victorian man with real hang-ups about sex. He had syphilis, and supposedly Dracula was all about his disease. My guess is that he knew someone who actually knew the secret—that vampires existed. Stoker then took that knowledge and created a work of fiction. Real vampires don’t bite women for fear that sometime, one of them might go too far.” Caroline opened her mouth, then closed it, but she still looked like she wanted to argue. “Have you ever seen a female vampire?” I pressed.

“No.”

“There you go. If I order an ice cream, would you help me eat it?” I asked, trying to change the subject.

“Using me to assuage your guilt?” Caroline snapped.

“Forget it,” I said, and wondered how somebody could seem so nice one minute and bite the next.

She was frowning and fiddling with her silverware. “Do you think they might ever reconsider the taboo?”

“Probably not in time to do
us
any good.”

“I wish I could change. Become a man.” The words burst out of her, harsh and ragged.

“Well, that’s just stupid, and no, you don’t. You’re brilliant and talented, and also happen to be beautiful, and you shouldn’t beat yourself up over your gender, or allow yourself to be judged by it—”

“But I
am
.”

“And you’re buying into it: assuming that the fact that you’re a woman is going to limit you or make you less than vampires. Think how they’re limited. No children, no family. No, I wouldn’t want to be a vampire.”

“Why not? A chance to make partner. Eternal life. Not getting old. Some people would find that wonderful.”

“First, I want children, a family. Second, you don’t suddenly get young when you’re bitten. You stay the age you were when you were Made. And finally, you might not stay all that pretty as the decades and centuries pass. Vampires don’t heal all that well. There’s an old adage in the community—read the years in the scars.”

“I haven’t seen that with our partners,” she argued.

“We haven’t seen beneath their clothes. Well, except for Ryan, and he seems to be a very young vampire. Mr. Bainbridge has a terrible scar on his shoulder. One of my foster brothers told me about it. He had the nerve to ask about it, and Meredith said it was from a battle-ax.”

“Okay, we have officially gone into too-much-creepy-information territory.”

Our coffees arrived, and we dropped the subject of vampires.

*   *   *

On Monday morning, the Abercrombies came in and signed the settlement agreement. I put a set of the documents in the pouch heading to Washington DC, and set a runner to file the executed copy with the court. Now there was no way for Securitech to back out.

With everything that had happened I hadn’t followed up on Joylon Bryce’s offer to come and ride. I decided to remedy that. I called and asked him if I could come out around six. He assured me that would be fine.

After the subway, there was a bus that dropped me off almost at the front gate of the Bella Luna Riding Stable. Large trees overhung the crushed gravel driveway, and their shade helped blunt the force of the sun. A group of five giggling girls rode past. They looked to be in their early teens, and they were mounted on a mixture of horses—a Connemara pony, an old quarter horse, a pinto mare, a fancy chestnut thoroughbred, and a dainty Arabian.

I remembered being that age, when I’d slipped away from the Bainbridge house to a nearby stable. I had worked as an unpaid stall cleaner to cadge rides on other people’s horses. Then Mr. Bainbridge had found out and bought me a horse, and the old barn on the property had a resident again. Suncloud, a black-and-white paint of indeterminate breeding. He was such a sweetheart that he would let me sit under his belly to get out of the rain, and I rode him bareback and pretended I was an Indian.

Mr. Bainbridge had stood in an upstairs window and watched me jumping fences, and suddenly I had a coach, and more horses joined Suncloud in the barn. Delila, Miss Patti, and Excalibur. I tried everything—western, jumping, eventing, even sidesaddle, but I’d settled on dressage. There was something about the precision and total communication that matched my personality. Then I’d gone off to college, and it was back to working for rides and riding “problem” horses. And now, it seemed, I was doing it again.

*   *   *

Jolly was waiting for me when I arrived at the wood and stone barn. Unlike Ryan, he did not have a groom tacking up the horse. Instead he showed me Vento’s saddle, bridle, and tack box, waited for me to change into riding clothes, and then led me down the barn’s center aisle. Beautiful heads thrust over the stall doors, their liquid brown eyes filled with pleading looks. And Jolly responded with a treat and an affectionate croon for each horse. The air was redolent with the scent of hay, dust, and horse. Dust motes spun in lazy golden circles in the still air. At the end of the barn was a double-sized stall. Jolly gave a strange little whistle. There was a
chuff
from inside and a white head was thrust over the door.

Like may Iberian horses, Vento had a Roman nose, but there was more than a hint of his Arabian ancestors that had come across with the Moorish conquerers. His forelock hung over his eyes. Jolly reached up and brushed it aside, revealing a bulging forehead bisected with a deep
V
between Vento’s eyes. Legend said that horses with that configuration on their forehead were smart. In my experience, legend was right.

I stepped up close and noticed the ring of blue that surrounded Vento’s dark eyes. He looked like a baroque painting, all compact ovals. He wasn’t big, maybe fifteen hands, which was fine by me. I’d ridden more than my share of seventeen-hand warm-blooded monsters, and at five foot one it was not fun.

“Vento, meet Linnet. Linnet, meet Vento,” Jolly said with grave courtesy.

I extended a hand. Vento lipped it, then lifted his head and regarded me seriously. I leaned forward and gently blew into his nostrils. He
whuffl
ed back. Jolly rolled his chair back a few feet and gestured at the stall door.

“Okay, he’s all yours.”

I took the black leather halter with its silver nameplate off the hook by the stall door and stepped into the deeply bedded sawdust of the stall. Vento dropped his head over my shoulder and pressed me against his neck and chest in the equine version of a hug. Then he obediently dropped his head into the halter.

As I led him down the aisle toward the tack-up bays he chuckled at one of the mares. Without thinking, I smacked him on the shoulder and said, “Cut it out. No trash talking.”

Jolly gave a small laugh. “Yes, you are a horsewoman. He is very well behaved for a young stallion, but occasionally he has to be reminded of his manners where ladies are concerned.”

I took my time picking out his feet and grooming him. I even braided his long silver, white, and gray mane. I wrapped his legs with polo wraps, placed the saddle, and was pleased to discover he wasn’t a bit girthy.

I plucked the bridle off its hook and fingered the bit. It was a French snaffle with a nice lozenge in the center, but it was the type of bit you use on a young horse just starting under saddle. “This is a pretty fat snaffle for a stallion,” I said, not wanting to sound critical.

“He’s not your average stallion. And he doesn’t like to be uncomfortable. When I first got him, I tried him in a thinner bit. He was fussy. When I went to the big, fat baby bit he was much better.”

I nodded and held the bit with my left hand while my right hand slipped the headstall over his ears. Vento took the bridle with the same eagerness and good humor with which he’d embraced the halter.

“He’s just been started in the double bridle,” Jolly said. “If you two suit, and if you’d like to keep riding him, I’d appreciate it if you’d ride him in it once a week.”

“Sure.”

“He’s ready to show fourth level now, and I’d like to bring him out Prix St. George and intermediaire one next spring.”

“So, did you get to ride him before—I mean, you didn’t … this happened…”

“Three years ago. Car crash.” The smile stayed in place, but I noticed that Jolly’s hand tightened convulsively on one knee. “At least I got to ride him for a few months.”

“I’m sorry.” I didn’t know what else to say.

“It’s all right. I’ve almost accepted it.”

I tightened the girth another hole and led Vento toward the mounting block just outside the barn doors.

“Oh, one more thing. He puffs up like a toad. You’ll need to tighten the girth again after you’ve trotted.”

I nodded my thanks, led Vento up to the block, and mounted. We headed down the lane toward the outdoor arena.

After a walk and long and low trot work, I tightened the girth for the final time, shortened the reins, and suddenly I had an upper-level horse beneath my seat. There was so much air time in Vento’s collected trot that it felt like my heart beat a couple of seconds before the next foot fall. With the barest shift of my seat we were cantering, a cadenced, floating motion that felt like riding a carousel. I couldn’t resist. I brought him down to the walk, asked for the
passage
. I had never felt that much suspension on a horse before.

I rode over to where Jolly sat in his chair by the gate. “Okay, he’s world-class, and I don’t know if you should trust him to me. This horse should be with one of our Olympic riders.”

“But then I wouldn’t get to see him. No, I’m very happy to keep him here, and after watching the two of you together, I think you’re the perfect rider for him.”

I felt myself blushing. I tugged down the brim of my helmet so maybe it wouldn’t show so badly and went back to riding. Forty-five minutes later, the sun was a red smear on the horizon and I realized that Jolly was gone. Feeling guilty, I headed back toward the barn. I had essentially taken the guy’s horse and hadn’t even noticed when he left.

Jolly was waiting at the barn. His eyes were heavy lidded and he seemed vague. I wondered if he was stoned, then decided it wasn’t any of my business.

“Did you enjoy yourself?” Jolly asked as he rolled over to a switch and turned on the lights. I glanced toward the double doors and realized it was now full dark.

“Very much. Thank you, thank you. He’s wonderful.” Vento gave me a shove with his head as if to say,
Hey, lady, my dinner is waiting.

I hurriedly slipped the rubber bands off his mane and undid the braid. I brushed him down, and Jolly held out a hand for Vento’s lead rope. “I’ll take him.”

I handed over the rope and watched the man in the wheelchair and the gleaming white stallion, pacing next to him, glide down the aisle. For an instant there seemed to be a nimbus of light around them both. I gave my head a shake, and it was gone. Apparently just a trick of light on dust.

“Are there carrots?” I called after him.

“In the feed room.”

I found them and threw a large handful into a bucket. Vento eagerly left his hay once he saw the carrots.

I leaned on the stall while Jolly sat silently next to me. The sound of munching filled the barn. It was very peaceful. I finally moved. “I should get home. I’ll try to come tomorrow, but expect me both days of the weekend.”

“I look forward to it.”

We shook hands, and I decided to travel home in my riding clothes. When I emerged from the subway station near home, my phone chimed to indicate a missed call. In fact, there were seven missed calls. I was relieved to see it wasn’t the house number up in Rhode Island, or any family cell number. It wasn’t any number I recognized. I hit callback, and a few rings later someone answered.

“Flushing Hospital Medical Center, Dr. Bush speaking,” said a woman’s voice.

Sudden gut-loosening terror gripped me. “This is Linnet Ellery. I have a number of calls from you.”