The Stable Affair

by Jessica Andersen

  Sarah’s mouth twisted wryly. “Thanks for the backhanded vote of confidence, Matt. But you’re right. I had been pretty out of it since Jay’s death, and maybe I had been sloppy once or twice before, but never with a result of this magnitude. I would never tell a young mother that she was going to die unless I was sure of my data, and Susan was my friend. I reloaded the screen three times before I told her she was positive. It wasn’t my mistake.”

  “How can you be sure?” As much as Dante wanted to see his sister’s memory laid to rest, he wanted Sarah Taylor to be blameless.

  “For one, because there was no other Huntington’s test performed that week that I might have accidentally switched with hers. The computer screen for that data is very distinctive. It’s just not possible that I confused her results with some other woman’s amniocentesis or breast cancer susceptibility screen.”

  “And the other reason?”

  Sarah leaned back and looked around the table. Daniel sat easily in his chair, but his quick questions had impressed her and she thought she’d be glad for his help by the time this was done. Dante was very rigid and a muscle was ticking in his jaw, jumping away like a live thing. She wasn’t sure what his problem was, but hoped he wasn’t still mad that she’d invited Matt to the farm. Matt himself seemed almost too casual, as if he was working hard at being relaxed.

  “Well, it’s only logical, isn’t it? If it were just a case of a mistake, then my firing should’ve been the end of it, right? But it hasn’t ended—I’m still seeing bald men in the shadows and finding my photographs in the wrong places at night, not to mention that there’s a whopper of an arson investigation that is at this very moment taking place in my aunt’s home.”

  Sarah pressed her fingertips to temples that were beginning to ache with fierce insistence. Was it only this morning that she had been awakened by the smell of smoke and the horses’ fear? The day already seemed a year long and it wasn’t even lunchtime yet.

  “I was ready to let it all go just yesterday. I said to myself that it didn’t matter if I never cleared my name, I could just live this life and not go back to the lab. I could ride and teach and…” She started to say something about starting a family but thought that might be a bad idea with Dante and Matt both acting so strangely. “But they—whoever they are—couldn’t leave me alone and this time they’ve gone too far. They killed a horse. They burned part of my aunt’s farm for no other reason than to get at me, and I’m afraid they’ll hurt my family next.”

  She looked directly at Matt. “You were my friend at work, and one of the few that spoke up in my defense at the hearings. I have no claim on you other than our friendship and my hope that you will want to protect the lab’s other clients if there’s some kind of cover-up going on here.”

  She turned next to Dante. “I’m hoping that you’ll help me because you want to, but I’ll understand if that’s too much to ask. I know you have your hands full with Ellie but I’d appreciate any time you can spare.” Her eyes traveled next to Daniel. “And I’m still not sure why you’re here, but you seem to be a useful sort. I’ll pay you what I can if that would help.”

  “Sarah! The vet’s here and wants to talk to you about the new filly.” Tilda’s call from outside broke the tension in the kitchen, reminding them that there was indeed life outside the small room.

  “Be right there!” Sarah checked her watch and cursed mildly before turning back to the three men she hoped she could trust with the safety of her loved ones. “I’ve got to tend to things here, but why don’t you guys think about whether you’ll help me. Let me know what you decide after you’ve talked it over with each other.”

  She strode from the kitchen without giving them time to answer, and Matt scrambled up from his chair to follow her, talking excitedly and waving his hands about as they walked.

  In the kitchen there was a weary silence broken only by the thud of Dante’s head hitting the kitchen table as he sank forward ungracefully.

  “Well, what do you think?” Daniel didn’t give his friend any time to be depressed. It was time to work.

  Dante shook his head where it lay on the table. “I dunno, Daniel. I just don’t know.”

  “Do you believe her?”

  “More importantly, do you?”

  Daniel nodded, a gesture wasted on Dante, since his eyes were closed. “Yeah. I do. Her story held together pretty well and I have a hard time seeing that sweet little thing as a killer, purposefully or accidentally. She’s not stupid. If she says she couldn’t have mixed up the test results, I’m inclined to believe her, and if she says she’s being followed and harassed, I’m inclined to believe that as well.”

  “Me, too. But you know what that means, don’t you? It means that there’s something much more complicated going on here, and it is starting to escalate. Being followed around is scary enough, but I don’t like this fire one bit. That’s getting too close to murder for my tastes.” Dante shuddered.

  Daniel grimaced and inclined his head in agreement. “Same here. I get the feeling the time of rubber bullets has passed for these guys. And there’s another thing that worries me. Did you notice it? Your Sarah was all concerned about her aunt and the horses, but she didn’t once say that she thought she was in danger. That’s going to make it tougher to protect her.”

  Dante raised his head, eyes red-rimmed with worry and rage. “Yeah. I noticed. But we’re going to protect her, Daniel. Whether she wants it or not.”

  “Why wouldn’t she want us to protect her?”

  “I haven’t told her yet, and I have a feeling that when she finds out that I’m Susie’s brother and that my original purpose in coming here was to get revenge, Sarah is going to be less that pleased. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if she outright kills me. But Daniel, promise me one thing?”

  “Sure, what?”

  “If she does kill me, or gets rid of me somehow, promise me that you’ll protect her yourself.”

  Matt left after agreeing to ask some quiet questions around the lab, and Dante and his friend were nowhere to be found, so Sarah began the chore of cataloging and pricing her ruined equipment for the insurance company. She had to blink back tears as she pulled out the dripping, charred pile that had been Noble’s show clothes: the gray and green dress sheet with his name embroidered on it, the cooler that signified his win at the one and only Grand Prix they had done together.

  Silly, they were just things. All the living creatures were fine, even the little orphaned filly seemed to be fighting for survival against all odds. Sarah had named the little horse State of Grace, since her sire was called State of the Art. The pinto filly’s barn name would be Lucky, for obvious reasons.

  The people and animals were fine, but Sarah mourned her possessions. These things, these tacky scraps of cotton and wool were a link to the days when Noble had been at his peak, when Sarah was young and fearless and strong, when she was the girl in the magazine pictures, the one that didn’t know death, didn’t know deceit, had no concept of heartbreak. These trophies were relics of a time that had passed Sarah by and would never come again.

  Silly, she told herself again and only sniffled a little as she dutifully listed the burnt items before toting them to the big dumpster that had been delivered that morning.

  Dress sheet w/ embroidery, used, sixty dollars, she wrote. She remembered buying the sheet with the first prize money she had won in a jumper classic. “If you win something,” she had whispered to Noble, “I’ll buy you something pretty.” He had and she did.

  Wool cooler, North Shore Jumper Classic, 1992… she paused. Sure she could replace it for ninety or a hundred bucks, but why bother? It wouldn’t be the cooler they draped over Noble’s unscarred flanks as they crowned him with the champion’s tricolor and handed her a bouquet tied with a blue ribbon and an oversized check for over ten thousand dollars.

  So many things lost. So many memories. She sat on her haunches and crumpled the ruined cooler in her lap while tears rolled down he
r cheeks. She wasn’t sure if she was crying for the things lost in the fire, or for the glory and love and trust gone from her life.

  “Sarah?”

  She had not heard Dante’s approach, had not known he had stood there for almost a minute watching her grieve over a sloppy mess of fabric.

  “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine.” Her voice belied her words and another fat tear rolled down her cheek.

  “Sarah. There’s no shame in being afraid and there’s no shame in being angry at what they’re trying to take away from you. It’s okay to be mad at them for burning your farm.”

  “You believe me?”

  A pang of guilt twisted in his gut at the joy in her face. She had been honest with him, hadn’t she? Was it really fair for him to continue his charade? “Of course. Daniel does, too. He’s off doing whatever investigators do in these circumstances. We agreed that my job was to stick close and make sure you stay safe, if that’s okay by you.”

  “But what about Ellie?”

  “What? Like I could keep her away from here if I tried? Not likely, she wanted to sleep in Finnegan’s stall the other night.” Dante tried to suppress a shudder at the thought of the little girl trapped in a burning building. “Luckily, I talked her out of it. She’ll help me protect you, there’s safety in numbers. Okay?”

  It was suddenly all too much for Sarah—the relief that she would have help coupled with the horrific events of the day and her own exhaustion combined to crash down on her like an avalanche. She turned away from Dante, trying to choke back a bubbling sob.

  “It’s okay to cry,” he said softly as he often did to Ellie when she remembered her mother. He drew Sarah into his arms and held her close as she started to shake with silent sobs. He pressed his cheek to her soft hair and had a brief memory of holding his sister this way when she cried over some teenage trauma. Susan. The strong one. The one who would never take the coward’s way out.

  Dante drew long strokes up and down Sarah’s back, soothing without telling her to stop. One thing about growing up with a female sibling, it had taught him not to fear tears. She didn’t need kisses or quizzes from him now, she needed a shoulder to cry on. He didn’t stop to think that he’d never before offered such a service to an unrelated female.

  Sarah shook hard, nausea coiling in her stomach as she thought of what might have happened. The barn could have been ruined, the horses all killed. The house could’ve been burned with Tilda and Sarah in it. Bob could’ve died.

  “Why me, Dante? It’s not fair, I never did anything to any of them. Why can’t they just let me go?”

  He pressed his cheek against her hair and breathed deep. “If I had to guess I’d say they were scared of you.” She continued to cry softly and he wasn’t even sure if she’d heard him when he said, “I’m not scared of you, but I am scared for you. Help us protect you. Please don’t run into any more burning buildings, okay? Ellie and I need you here, alive.” The image of her risking her life to save a group of horses chilled him to the bone.

  She nodded jerkily and clung to him while her scalding tears cooled to a damp patch on his soft linen shirt. Hearing voices preceding the arrival of others, Dante scooped Sarah off her feet and ducked through a nearby fence. She was too exhausted to even protest, and she seemed to have withdrawn to an inner place where he couldn’t follow.

  Making sure there were no observers other than several placid brown horses, he carried her across the paddock to the far side of a huge old weeping willow growing on the bank of a small pond.

  After a quick check for lurking piles of dung, Dante sank to the ground and leaned back against the smooth willowbark with an exhausted Sarah cradled childlike in his lap. Still she didn’t speak, nor did she move. He kissed the top of her head once and settled her closer. Her body was cold and he wrapped her in his arms, trying to share his warmth.

  They sat in silence for some time as Sarah’s breathing slowed and evened and Dante’s followed suit not long after.

  A bold black foal edged away from his dam and snuffled at Dante’s foot, leaping back gleefully when the sneaker twitched. The colt snuck forward again and worried at Dante’s laces for a moment until his mama herded the little fellow back to his friends.

  Sarah cried out, “Susan!” and Dante jolted almost awake at the familiar name. He cuddled Sarah closer and she turned in his arms to tuck her aching forehead behind his jaw before falling back to sleep.

  “Sir?” Matthew Bender poked his head through the heavy door. “You wanted to see me?”

  “Yes, Matthew. Please do come in and sit down.” Matt did as he was told and the door shut with a thud behind him. “Your message said that Miss Taylor had contacted you again? Did you go see her?”

  “Yes, sir. She called me to the farm. Apparently there was a fire there yesterday and she wanted to know what had been going on in the GTU. She’s got it into her head that someone from here was responsible for the fire, that it was related to St. Pierre’s death.”

  The Doctor ignored Bender’s questioning look. “How much does she know?”

  “Not much. She’s pretty sure that she didn’t mess up St. Pierre’s Huntington’s test, and she knows she’s been followed, but that seems to be about it. She didn’t really even mention Dr. Fontaine; I don’t think she has any idea about what he was doing before he died.”

  “Hmm. Interesting.” The Doctor pressed his fingertips to his thin lips meditatively. “Was Devers there?”

  Matt nodded. “Yes, he was there and a friend of his named Riley. I got the feeling Riley either is or was a cop. He sort of barged into the meeting and Devers talked Sarah into letting him stay.”

  The Doctor filed the name Riley for future reference. He liked to know all the players before he even approached the field. “Is there anything between Devers and Miss Taylor? Since you failed in your assignment of redirecting her affections, I want you to pay close attention to those two. If they form a romantic attachment, I want to know.”

  “I’m not sure. I think there’s something going on, she made it pretty obvious that he was the reason she wouldn’t go out with me the other night. They shot each other a few sappy looks at the beginning, but once she started talking about Susan, Devers shut down pretty good and started acting really weird. I’m not sure why.”

  The Doctor knew why, and the knowledge warmed him. He would keep that piece of information as his trump card, waiting carefully until the exact right moment to play it. “That will be all then, Matthew. Feed them the occasional bit of information so they’ll keep talking to you, and report to me if they find anything of interest through other sources. Plan to follow them if they leave the area. That will be all, you may return to your work. I want the results from the latest preparation by tomorrow night.”

  Once the door had shut behind Bender, The Doctor triggered the mechanism that caused a section of wall to open and reveal the hidden chamber beyond. He withdrew a framed photograph from the very back of an anonymous filing cabinet drawer.

  “I’ve always found Rumney’s habit of collecting souvenirs a bit strange,” he told the photograph of a handsome, dark-haired man with his arm slung around a petite woman who held an elfin child. The handwritten caption at the bottom read “Susie, Ellie, and Dante at Moosehead Lake,” and a date from the previous summer.

  “But I have the feeling that this particular treasure will come in very handy indeed.”

  Chapter Nine

  “Can I ride with you?”

  “No, sweetie. You’ll have to ride with Tilda and Nicole in the other truck, or else with your Uncle Danny.”

  Ellie looked mutinous. “But I want to ride with you and Finnegan. Why can’t I?”

  The girl had adjusted rapidly to having a pony and working at the farm with Sarah and Tilda, but there were moments like this that Sarah could clearly see the blood shared between Ellie and her uncle. The stubborn set to the chin and the defiant blue glares were identical.

  “Because I sai
d so.” Oh God, had she really just said that? The two things she had always promised herself she wouldn’t do when she had kids was abandon them and use the words “because I said so.” But two weeks with Ellie had shown Sarah why the phrase was a necessary parental weapon.

  The girl’s eyes started to fill. “You don’t want me because I’m a pest. That’s what my father used to call me.”

  Sarah damned the man to hell, not for the first time, for leaving this bright, beautiful child so casually. But she also wasn’t sure if Ellie had learned that saying stuff like that usually got her what she wanted from an uncle who was still learning to set rules and stick to them.

  So Sarah kept it light. “Well kid, that’s part of it.” She flipped Ellie’s nose to let the child know she was joking. “But really it’s because I don’t like to drive with passengers.” She had a brief flash of a huddle of rags in the road, but instead of Jay’s striped shirt the clothes were those that Ellie was wearing. Sarah fought the bile that tried to claw its way up her throat by swallowing hard.

  “Why?”

  Sarah counted to ten. Twice.

  “Because I was in an accident and it makes me nervous to drive, especially with someone I care about.” She fixed the kid with a turquoise stare. “End of story.”

  Knowing she was beaten, Ellie gave in gracefully. “Okay. Do you think Tilda will let me ride up front and pick the radio station?”

  The idea of her aunt stuck in the truck with a gaggle of girls listening to some teenybopper pop-rap station put Sarah in a much better frame of mind. “I’m sure of it!”

  Ellie scampered off, but turned back to yell, “Oh yeah. I almost forgot! My Uncle Danny said to tell you to pack some girl clothes ’cause he wants to take you to dinner when we’re at the horse show!”

  Sarah hung her head in chagrin as a spate of guffaws wafted from the open doors of the almost completely rebuilt shed row.