The Stable Affair

by Jessica Andersen

  But it was not to be. She found only endless groves of trees that dripped with rain and were rank with summer humidity in the gathering darkness. “Oh heck, I give up,” Sarah muttered and sped up.

  A few minutes later, headlights appeared behind the trailer and she greeted them with unreasoning relief. “Hey there! Welcome to Sleepy Hollow! Come and join my convoy of one.” The other vehicle stayed a polite distance behind the rig as car and Truck followed the road’s course up and down the rolling foothills that flank the Berkshires.

  Sarah cranked the music a little louder, switching from soft rock to straight metal in an attempt to beat back the night. The defogger hummed a monotone counterpoint as the windows began to steam.

  A sudden stab of light pierced her retinas and she jerked back, “Jesus!” The car behind her had pulled up close while she was fiddling with the radio, and its high beams were reflecting madly off her side-view mirror. “Okay. Tired of following a slow horse trailer? Can’t say I blame you, but thanks for the company.” She snugged her rig close to the side as they neared an intersection, giving the other driver room to pass.

  Sarah glanced in her side mirror as they rumbled under a series of lights at the deserted four-way light and ice sizzled through her veins. Her breath came short with sudden panic.

  The light glinted off a bald head and the other driver’s ears lay close to his skull.

  “No!” Her stomach sank. Seville must’ve noticed the break-in. If that was the case, she was driving for her life. She jerked the trailer back to the middle of her lane and saw the pickup move up alongside as the road began to curve gently.

  “Oh, no you don’t!” Sarah said grimly and swung the trailer wide, forcing the other driver to fall back. “I’m not Jay. I could thread a needle with this rig if I needed to.” For a horrible moment, she was back in the Ford with her former fiancé. She had been half-asleep when a sleek shape rocketed around the two-horse and slammed its brakes on in front of the old rig, forcing it off the road. “I’m not Jay,” she repeated, certain now that his death hadn’t been an accident.

  Slapping the transmission out of overdrive, Sarah goosed the gas and the rig growled in response and lurched forward. The trailer fishtailed a bit around the next corner and she turned the music off just as she felt more than heard a muffled pop. The trailer dragged a bit to the right and Sarah knew she’d lost at least one of six tires, either to a freak accident or a bullet.

  “Damn it, Devers. You live in my hip pocket for months then you’re not here when I really need you. Where the hell are you?” She would easily forgive Dante’s perfidy if he just showed up now.

  The pickup nosed its way up next to the trailer and Sarah swung wide again to force it to fall back.

  The gooseneck trailer slewed about, yanking Sarah’s Truck across the road and the nose of the rig clipped a signpost. The impact sung through Sarah’s bad shoulder. She heard Noble whinny in distress and pictured striped planks raining through the air back in the trailer as she fought to regain control of the vehicle.

  The bald man took this opportunity to jam his pickup through on her left and Sarah heard another pop and the glass next to her head exploded.

  She screamed and ducked as glass bit into her cheek and forehead, and she slammed on the brakes, screaming again as she was forced to brace her bad arm on the steering wheel while she struggled to keep the trailer on the road.

  A lurch from behind her and Noble’s bellow of pain told her that he had fallen in the trailer and she sobbed in frustration and fear. She continued to decelerate and the heavy dual axle Dodge fought the gooseneck to a halt, winding up half in a ditch.

  Surprised by her emergency stop, the pickup truck overshot the trailer by a few hundred yards before coming to a squealing halt by the side of the road.

  Sarah wiped at her stinging face, smearing blood across her cheek as she scrambled free of her seatbelt. The pickup spun around to face her, its engine revving menacingly. She looked frantically toward the woods on either side of the road, but Noble’s distressed whinny decided her. She couldn’t leave him trapped in the trailer at the mercy of The Doctor’s hired thug.

  In the distance she could hear the high whine of an engine being run at the very edge of its abilities and hoped against hope that it was coming in her direction. Maybe whoever it was could scare the bald man away long enough for her to get the rig back on the road and escape.

  The pickup dropped into gear and raced toward her, its back end fishtailing and tires burning rubber as the vehicle bore down on her. At the last possible moment, Sarah flung herself aside, landing hard on her bad shoulder as the pickup overshot her and turned for another run. She lay on the pavement writhing in agony from her arm as the truck accelerated with deadly intent.

  Sarah heard the other vehicle approach, and with an automotive scream a dark gray Jeep rocketed around the bend aimed directly at the back of the pickup. Dante must have been going over fifty miles an hour when he hit the bald man’s truck with catastrophic force.

  The Jeep slammed into the pickup, cartwheeling it up and over the guardrail with almost balletic grace. There was a shattering crash and a splintering of trees when the truck landed in the ditch beside the road.

  Sarah watched in horror as the Wagoneer slithered sideways across the road, scrambling for purchase on the slick tarmac before it too hit the guardrail, crumpling the steel as if it were paper before following the pickup truck down into the abyss.

  Sarah screamed in extreme horror, “Dante!” She rushed to the gap where the Jeep had broken through the guardrail and peered down into the piney ditch, experiencing a horrible sense of déjà vu. “Dante!”

  A man lay on the rocks where he had been flung from one of the smoking vehicles. He wasn’t moving.

  Sobbing, choking, gasping, Sarah slid down the incline heedless of the brambles that tugged at her clothing and scratched her neck and face. Her right arm hung useless as she staggered to the limp form that lay amongst the mossy rocks.

  It was the bald man, and the awkward angle of his neck told Sarah that he would be answering no questions that day or any other. She turned away from him, deeply afraid of what else she might find at the bottom of the ditch.

  The Jeep lay on its side, one wheel still spinning cheerfully in the sudden silence of the forest. The smell of gasoline was sharp in Sarah’s nostrils.

  “Dante?”

  There was no response to her tentative hail, and she approached the Jeep fearfully. “Dante? Are you in there?”

  The windshield and passenger’s window were spiderwebbed with cracks but Sarah could see that the driver was still strapped to his seat inside the vehicle. Thank God. Dante had used his seatbelt.

  There was a puff and a hiss from the pickup, which lay nearby. A small tongue of flame licked from beneath the hood and the smell of gasoline grew stronger.

  “Dante!” Sarah was beginning to panic now. Even if he were alive within the Jeep, he wouldn’t be for long if it caught fire. “Dante! Can you hear me?”

  She climbed atop the vehicle to tug at the badly dented passenger’s door, but with only one functioning arm she was unable to open it. She could hear the voices of Jay and Susan urging her to work faster. Another puff and more flames decided her. Sarah prayed that Dante would forgive her a few glass cuts and kicked in the broken windshield.

  The safety glass held together and sagged inward against her kick, allowing Sarah to pull most of it free and away from Dante, who was unconscious in the driver’s seat.

  “Sarah! Where are you? Dante? Are you here?” The hail from above caused Sarah to crouch in fear and look quickly for cover before she recognized the voice.

  “Daniel! We’re down here. Dante’s trapped. Hurry!” She reached inside to pry Dante’s belt free of its mechanism and was mightily relieved when he stirred and muttered at her touch.

  Daniel slid down the hill and paused momentarily at the bald man’s body before joining Sarah at the Jeep. “What happened?�
�

  “Never mind that. Help me get him out—the truck’s burning. We need to get him out of the Jeep now!” Sarah allowed herself to be shouldered out of the way and the big man pulled his friend to safety. She hovered close as Daniel slung Dante’s limp form over his shoulder and climbed laboriously back up to the road. There was a ferocious roar behind them as flames erupted from Dante’s Jeep.

  “Where can we lie him out flat? I’m not sure how badly he’s hurt.” Daniel was puffing with exertion and Sarah could barely understand him.

  “Here. In the trailer.” Sarah unlatched the ramp and let it down with a thud. The trailer was tilted off the road, but the floor was thick with shavings and once Sarah laid down a wool cooler, Dante had as comfortable a bed as they could make on short notice.

  Noble observed the proceedings with interest. He appeared undamaged by the wild ride and Sarah hoped the thick shipping bandages had protected his legs adequately.

  “Is he all right?”

  “I think so,” Sarah replied vaguely as she bent over Dante, “I think the wraps saved his legs.” When Daniel looked at her strangely, she realized he had been asking about Dante, not the horse. She flushed. “Um. I mean, he seems okay, but he’s still unconscious. He moved a bit when I first got into the Jeep, but now he’s just out. Do you have a car phone?”

  “I do, but it’s broken. There doesn’t seem to be much traffic in this godforsaken place. Will you be okay here if I go for help?” Daniel was reluctant to leave her alone, not knowing whether the dead man had friends nearby, but Dante needed medical attention.

  She nodded. “Yes. Please go, I’ll stay here with him.” Dante muttered again and twisted while Sarah fought to keep him still. “Hurry.”

  Daniel’s car roared to life and he sped back the way he’d come while Sarah tucked another smelly blanket around Dante, who was suddenly shivering. She threw on the last blanket and when that didn’t seem to ease his chill, she crawled into the makeshift bed with him, wrapping her arms and legs around him in an effort to share her warmth with the shocky man.

  The rain was coming down in earnest outside and she could hear it drumming on the aluminum roof of the trailer. She hoped it would douse the car fires before the whole forest ignited. The last thing she needed on her conscience now was a forest fire.

  Dante’s shivers eased and he turned in her arms, nuzzling his head between her breasts and banding his arms around her waist to hold her close. “Sarah,” he murmured. “Safe?”

  She listened to the rain outside and the sounds of the forest and the contented munching of her horse inside the trailer and for the first time in months, Sarah felt safe. “Yes, we’re safe. Hush now; don’t try to talk. Just rest.” She touched the ends of his hair gently; afraid that doing more would cause him pain. “Everything’s okay. We’re safe.”

  Dante twitched, seeming to be fighting against unconsciousness. “Sarah…” he mumbled, “Love you.” His eyelids quivered as if he was trying to open them.

  Something inside Sarah loosened and gave way. “Rest now, darling. Everything’s going to be just fine. Rest.” She closed her eyes and let the knowledge flow through her. “I love you, too.”

  She opened her eyes to find Dante staring at her with lucid pain. He said two words quite clearly before he passed out for good.

  “Thank God.”

  The Doctor sat at his desk. His busy fingers were still, his squawking phone quiet. Rumney was dead and Sarah Taylor was alive. This complicated matters.

  The intercom burped discreetly. “Doctor Seville? I’m sorry but no one has seen Bender for several days. He told his technicians that he had a family emergency and would be gone for at least a week.”

  “Or a few years,” Seville muttered.

  “Excuse me, sir?”

  “Never mind.” He clicked the annoying voice silent and stared at the framed picture on the wall. “Think you’re clever, do you Sarah? We’ll see about that. I guess what they say is true—if I want something done right…”

  He climbed to his feet and collected a few items from the office. “I’ll have to do it myself.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  “I absolutely AM riding! I’ve skipped all the warm-up classes this week except the one required to enter the Grand Prix because you didn’t want me off the farm, but this is really too much. I’ve been planning this since spring, and I’m not going to let Gordon Seville take it away from me. He’s taken too much already. I’m ready. Noble’s ready. We’re doing it.”

  Dante paced outside the single stall they had rented at the show, tugging at his hair in exasperation. “I should’ve sent you off to Florida with Ellie!” But they both knew that would’ve been pointless—Seville wanted her, not the rest of them.

  “You keep ripping your hair out like that and you’ll be bald soon.”

  He glared at her. “Are you actually joking about this?”

  Sarah shrugged. “I’m not going to worry today. I have to compete and you, Tilda and Daniel are doing quite enough worrying as it is. We haven’t seen hide nor hair of Gordon since that night, there’s no reason to believe he’ll turn up here.”

  “The problem is that we have absolutely no idea where he is!” After the multiple car accident, Daniel had taken their suspicions to his buddies at the sheriff’s department. Combining that with the body of the bald man and some papers found in the pickup truck, they had been able to get a warrant to search Boston General’s Genetic Testing Unit.

  Fontaine’s old lab had been empty, the little room behind the bookcase had been cleaned out, and Gordon Seville was nowhere to be found.

  It was making Dante crazy that not even the feds could locate The Doctor, and Sarah wasn’t helping Dante at all with her determination to ride Noble in the Grand Prix. A part of Dante understood that this was a kind of closure for her, a way of saying farewell to Jay and to the accident that had ended Fontaine’s life. But the rest of Dante just wished she wasn’t being so pig-headedly stubborn.

  “I’m riding.”

  “You’re a fool.”

  “Perhaps, but I’m done letting other people guilt me into doing what they want. I’m my own responsibility, not yours!”

  He grabbed her then—fingers biting into her upper arms through the thin cotton of her ratcatcher show shirt. “Damn it Sarah!” He brought his lips crushing down on hers, tasting her fear and determination.

  Sensing that he needed something from her, some sort of reassurance, she melted in his embrace.

  “Damn it Sarah,” he repeated, holding her face in his hands and lowering his brow to hers where the marks from the glass were fading now. He kissed a yellowed bruise at her temple. “Don’t do this.”

  “I have to, I’m sorry.”

  The loudspeaker squawked, “Riders in class four, your course is now open to walk.”

  She levered herself away. “That’s me.” He watched her walk to the ring. Two of Daniel’s friends fell in beside her as Tilda waved from the Derby field.

  “Footing’s good,” Sarah commented, scuffing at the springy, short grass. “It’s held up well this week.” She looked around, taking in the gestalt of the course. “They’ve done a good job using the natural stuff, it should flow well.” She and her aunt walked to the first jump, dodging other groups of riders that were counting strides and predicting approaches farther along the course.

  “Jump one’s pretty simple,” Tilda commented, rocking the round blue rail in its deep jump cups. “Won’t come down too easy.”

  They both tried to ignore the trailing bodyguards as they counted steps between the first two obstacles. Taking approximately three-foot steps themselves, they counted in fours, knowing a cantering horse covered about twelve feet per stride. “So that’s an easy five in the first round.” Sarah knew she could ride more conservatively in the qualifier then gallop strong and leave out a stride or two in the jump off when she rode against the clock.

  “This course designer sometimes makes the initial time a
llowed tight to encourage mistakes. You don’t go until like twenty-fifth so we can watch the first bunch and see how fast you’ll have to ride round one.” Tilda jumped up and down a few times to test the give of a soft spot in one turn.

  They walked deliberately, discussing different approaches to each fence and which would be the hard and easy options. Several towering jumps held their top rails in flat cups, waiting to fall with the barest touch of a hoof, and the dreaded railroad jumps lurked two-thirds of the way around the enormous course, blinking balefully. Sarah and Tilda chose a conservative route that would give Noble plenty of time to eyeball the two-stride combination. Horse and rider would have to make up the time somewhere else.

  They finished the walk, stood and discussed the plan, and then Sarah walked the whole thing twice more without Tilda so she was sure of it in her mind. Her bodyguards plodded behind her unprotestingly and their presence began to make her shoulder blades itch.

  The paddock master yelled, “Clear the course, please. The first rider is on deck!”

  A dapper man in white britches, tall black boots, a red and gold coat and top hat stepped to the center of the field and lifted a long horn to sound the call to horse and rider, officially beginning the Grand Prix. The audience roared its approval and a chunky white horse with a crimson-coated rider entered the ring.

  “Why’s she got a red coat?” Dante asked Sarah in a stage whisper as they leaned on the rail to watch the first few riders tackle the course.

  “They’re called ‘pinks’ and you have to earn them, either by being a master of hunt or a member of the USET, the United States Equestrian Team. She’s an Olympic veteran, um, ‘88 I think.” The crowd groaned as the white horse dipped his toes over one of the skinny jumps and rolled the light rail off the flat cups, earning the pair four faults and eliminating them from the jump off. After that, the white horse sped to a blinding gallop, finishing quickly.