Dark Horse & the Mystery Man of Whitehorse

by B. J Daniels

  That’s when she woke up. She sat listening to the night sounds. An owl hooted in the distance. Closer she heard a horse whinny. Then another horse, then another.

  She frowned as she got out of bed and padded barefoot into the living area of the pool house to look out toward the stables. A light was on. She caught movement. Someone was in the horse barn.

  Remnants of her nightmare made her heart beat faster. Maybe it hadn’t been a dream. Maybe she’d heard something...

  She opened the door. The Montana night was clear, the stars glittering overhead, only a slit of silver moon dangling over the barn. She made her way along the path, hugging herself against the slight chill in the air.

  As she drew closer, she could hear the horses, restless in their stalls. A shadow moved along the edge of the horse barn. A moment later she heard raised voices. Male voices.

  Her bare feet were beginning to ache from the cold of the stones along the path. She shivered, debating turning back. But curiosity won out. Her showing up at the ranch had caused a stir. If whoever was arguing in the barn this late at night had something to do with the kidnapping...

  She moved to the edge of the barn door so she could hear better over the whinnying and stomping of the horses inside.

  “You’re making a terrible mistake. If you’re wrong...” She didn’t recognize the male voice and wondered if it could be the former ranch manager who’d apparently been arguing with Patricia earlier.

  “I know what I’m doing. I’ll do whatever I have to.” Her heart slammed against her rib cage. This voice she recognized. Cull.

  “You said you don’t want anyone to get hurt. I don’t see how that can be avoided under the circumstances. This crime writer—”

  “Don’t worry. I’ll take care of her myself if this all goes south.”

  Nikki felt the air rush from her lungs. She stumbled back, her shoulder hitting the gate. The metal latch rattled.

  “Did you hear that?” the unfamiliar male voice asked a second before Nikki heard someone moving in her direction.

  She flattened herself against the side of the barn but quickly realized she would be seen by whoever came out. Her only hope of getting away unseen was to go around the side of the building. But that meant climbing into the corral.

  Nikki hurriedly climbed over the corral railing, dropping down to the soft hoof-turned earth. Her bare feet sunk into the dirt, slowing her escape. Just a few more yards and—

  Suddenly out of the corner of her eye, she saw a horse come galloping out of the barn and into the corral. It headed right for her, ears back, hooves throwing up dirt clods as it barreled forward.

  Nikki lunged for the corral fence as the huge horse bore down on her. Her hands brushed the railing and missed. Not that she would have been able to climb out before the horse reached her anyway.

  Two strong, large hands grabbed her from around the waist and swung her up and over the railing. She felt the horse’s breath at her neck. Before she knew what was happening, she slammed into a very solid male chest. Behind her, the horse stomped and snorted just feet away past the corral railing. She realized it must be the stallion that Boone had delivered to the ranch earlier.

  The arms that had wrapped around her now set her down hard at the edge of the corral. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Cull demanded as he held her at arm’s length. “You could have been killed. What were you thinking getting into the corral?”

  She couldn’t speak and realized she was trembling all over from the close call. Worse, as she glanced toward the barn, she began trembling harder when she realized that someone had set that horse free in the corral. Cull? Then why save her?

  “What are you doing out here?” she demanded.

  “Checking the horses. I heard something.”

  She nodded. “So did I.” She’d heard enough, that was for sure.

  His gaze never left Nikki’s face. He was studying her in the dim light from the barn as if he was trying to understand her. “You have no business in the corral. That’s a wild horse in there.”

  She nodded and tried to swallow down the lump in her throat. Tears stung her eyes as she realized how close she’d come to being trampled. Worse, that she couldn’t trust Cull.

  He shook his head. She couldn’t tell if he thought her silly and stupid. “Come on. I’ll walk you back to the pool house.”

  She glanced toward the barn. The horses had settled back down. She saw no movement deep in the stalls. Whoever Cull had been talking to, he was gone. Which left the question of who had let the stallion out and why. Had he hoped to scare her? Or kill her?

  She could smell Cull’s very masculine scent intermingled with saddle leather and fresh air. If the purpose had been to scare her, then the stallion had done his job. She would have to be more careful, given what she’d overhead. Especially more careful when it came to Cull McGraw.

  Chapter Eleven

  NIKKI DROVE INTO Whitehorse as the sun arced over the prairie. The day was beautiful, sunny and warm, the big sky blue and dotted with white fluffy clouds. She’d awoken before dawn with a suspicion that had felt like a douse of ice water.

  She’d hurriedly done research on her phone before giving the sheriff a call and asking if she could come by and see her.

  Sheriff McCall Crawford looked up from her desk as Nikki came in. She was a slim, pretty woman who Nikki had heard was a no-nonsense law officer. Mostly she’d heard that McCall could be trusted.

  “Thanks for seeing me,” she said, and closed the door behind her.

  The sheriff raised a brow. “You sounded so cryptic on the phone.” She motioned to a chair and Nikki sat down. “I was planning to drive out this morning to the ranch and see how you were doing.”

  “I’m sorry we met the way we did yesterday,” Nikki said honestly. “Now I am hesitant to even voice my suspicions, but I hope you will take what I have to tell you seriously.”

  “Your suspicions after only one day at the Sundown Stallion Station? You really do work fast. I’m intrigued.”

  “Were you aware of Travers McGraw’s health before his heart attack?”

  “I’ll admit I hadn’t seen him in a good while,” the sheriff said as she leaned back in her chair. “I was taken aback by his condition.”

  Nikki nodded. “His family seems to think the cause is his obsession with finding out what happened to the twins.”

  “But you don’t think that’s it?”

  She shook her head. “I think he really is being poisoned.” She pulled out her phone. “I’ve seen this once before. His symptoms are consistent with those of people who are being slowly exposed to small amounts of arsenic over time. Headaches, loss of weight, confusion, depression. In his case, finally cardiac arrest.”

  The sheriff looked skeptical. “I’m assuming you have no proof of this?”

  “No, and I had the same reaction at first that you are. But then I remembered that his wife Marianne had the same symptoms.”

  “Twenty-five years ago?” The sheriff sat up, leaning her elbows on her desk, definitely interested now.

  “But in the same house. The same house and the same people living there,” she said. “If I’m right, that would seem like too much of a coincidence, don’t you think?”

  “Marianne’s depression was blamed on postpartum. Her other symptoms on possibly an illicit love affair.”

  Nikki nodded.

  “No one else is experiencing these symptoms at the house?” the sheriff asked slowly, studying her.

  “No, so I doubt it’s tainted water or any other factor in the house causing it other than the obvious. Someone is intentionally poisoning him.”

  The sheriff said, “He’s in the hospital. If he was being poisoned, it probably wouldn’t still be in his system, except possibly in a strand
of hair from his head.”

  Nikki nodded. It was one way to find out if there was any basis for her suspicion.

  “Speaking of suspicion,” the sheriff said, “how are you since your accident in front of the Whitehorse Café?”

  “Fortunately, I wasn’t hurt other than a knock on my head.”

  “Fortunately,” the sheriff said, smiling.

  Nikki got to her feet. “I won’t keep you, but I was hoping you might see if my suspicions are valid. Given Travers McGraw’s condition, I didn’t think it was something that could wait.”

  “I suppose you have a suspect to go along with your suspicions?”

  “It’s a short list,” Nikki said. “But I’m sure you can guess who’s on it. The person who has the most to profit if Mr. McGraw should die. The same person who had reason to want to get rid of Marianne McGraw twenty-five years ago.”

  * * *

  CULL FELT THE full responsibility of keeping peace at home along with running the ranch, with his father in the hospital. Blake Ryan had handled that job for years. But a couple of years ago he had stepped down, and Cull, as oldest son, had moved into the position alongside his father.

  Running the ranch, he could do. It was keeping peace in the house that was the problem. Patricia had been on a rampage since yesterday. He’d heard her yelling at Frieda, their elderly family cook, this morning. He’d broken that up only to find that Nikki St. James had taken off before breakfast and no one knew where she’d gone.

  Had she seen how useless this was and left? He could only hope, but even as he thought it, he knew better. Nikki wasn’t a quitter. Wherever she’d gone, she’d be back.

  As crazy as things had been, he hoped that his father’s heart attack would be a wake-up call for him. Something had to change.

  “How is he?” Cull asked the nurse when he reached his father’s hospital floor after driving in from the ranch.

  “He’s doing well,” she said. “You can see him. Just keep your visit short and don’t upset him.”

  That meant not mentioning Nikki or the twins or Patty or Kitten or the ranch, Cull thought as he walked down the hall. He hesitated at his father’s door. He’d watched the man get sicker and sicker and hadn’t been able to do anything. Travers McGraw was stubborn; Cull knew that only too well. But maybe now he was ready to face things.

  As he walked into the room, he saw that his father’s eyes were closed and he was breathing steadily. He stood for a moment, simply relieved. He was glad to see his father’s color was better. Stepping to the bed, he touched his hand.

  His father’s eyes opened and he smiled. “Hope I didn’t give you a scare.”

  Cull chuckled. “Naw, we all just finished our meals before rushing you to the hospital,” he joked.

  “I’m fine,” his father assured him. “The doctor said it was a minor heart attack and he’s already lectured me, so you don’t have to.”

  He nodded. Travers McGraw was anything but fine. He needed to make some changes in his life. If he didn’t realize that now...

  “Is Ms. St. James still at the house?”

  Technically, she’d spent last night in the pool house, where Patricia had exiled her, and was gone before he’d gotten up. But he said, “She is,” hoping his father would ask him to send her away.

  “Good. I still want her to do the book, no matter how it turns out.”

  He wanted to argue with his father, but he bit his tongue. “Okay.”

  “I’d appreciate it if you would help her, do whatever she needs.”

  His father was asking too much, but he nodded, thinking of working closely with Ms. St. James. He had a sudden vision of her swimming half-naked in the pool on a moonlit night—Where had that come from? He smothered the thought, but it took a while for the heat in his belly to go away.

  “Is Kitten all right? I hope I didn’t scare her.”

  Cull chuckled at that. “Little scares Kitten.”

  “So you’ll see to it that Ms. St. James gets everything she needs.”

  He’d love to see to her...needs. “I will.”

  “Good.” His father seemed to relax. He closed his eyes and for a moment, Cull thought he’d dropped back to sleep.

  “I can’t tell you how much it means to me to have you for a son, Cull.” His father opened his eyes again and reached for his hand. “I know I can depend on you and your brothers.”

  The nurse came in then and shooed Cull out. He promised to come back later and left the hospital.

  On the way back to the ranch, he spent most of the time grumbling to himself. By the time he reached the front door of the house, he’d made up his mind.

  He would do exactly what his father asked him to do. He’d help Nikki in every way possible. And once she realized there was nothing new to write, she would leave. His father would be disappointed, but he was going to be disappointed anyway.

  As he parked in front of the house, he saw that Nikki wasn’t back. He wondered where she’d gotten off to so early in the morning and if she’d tell him if he asked. He headed for the pool house only to cross paths with Kitten.

  “She’s not there,” the teen said. “I heard her tell Frieda that she was going into town to do some research.” Kitten made it sound like Nikki had lied. “I bet she’s meeting a man.” Her eyes glinted with mischief. “Which means you got dumped. Looks like you’ll never get a girlfriend, even one you had to run over with your truck.”

  He had wondered how long it would take for that little tidbit to get around. Now he knew. “Kitten, there is a big, black spider on your shoulder.”

  The girl screamed and began running around swatting at her shoulders.

  “Sorry, it wasn’t a spider. It was that chip you have on your shoulder.”

  She mugged a face at him. “I’m going to tell Mother.”

  “Be my guest.” He headed for the stables, wondering what kind of research Nikki was doing in town. Or if Kitten was right and Nikki had lied.

  * * *

  ALL THE WAY back to the ranch, Nikki told herself she’d done the right thing going to the sheriff. If nothing came of it or if she was dead wrong, then at least she’d shared her suspicions.

  Now she had to get on with her work. As soon as she reached the ranch, she went looking for Patricia. As a true crime writer, she’d learned that where she found the truth was in the inconsistencies. Not just slight changes in a person’s story, but new information that they hadn’t remembered before. It always surprised her. Small tidbits were often drawn up from some well of memory to surprise both her and her interviewee.

  While she also looked for changes in the stories, she found that those who had the most to hide had almost memorized their statements. They would provide an almost word-for-word account even as many as twenty-five years later.

  After something horrible happened, of course people often changed. How much or how little was also often a clue. In Patricia’s case, the change had been huge.

  Nikki had read Travers’s testimony as well as Patricia’s from the sheriff’s reports along with hundreds of newspaper articles. Travers had awakened to find his wife gone and had rushed out into the hallway on hearing Patty’s screams. He raced down the hall to find the window near the twins’ cribs wide-open, the cribs empty and a ladder leaning against the side of the house.

  He saw no one, but had raced outside only to find footprints in the soft dirt under the window. He’d immediately called the sheriff.

  It wasn’t until later that he saw Marianne. She’d apparently gone for a swim in the middle of the night because she was coming from the pool house.

  Nikki had a pretty good idea that Patty’s story would be the same one she had told dozens and dozens of times after the kidnapping. But still she needed to hear it herself.

  As she entere
d the house, she heard voices coming from the kitchen. Patty’s voice carried well and while Nikki couldn’t make out her words, she could hear the tone. Patty was unhappy with someone.

  She found her at the breakfast bar in front of a muffin. From the tension in the room, Patricia had been having a heated discussion with the cook, Frieda Holmes. Clearly Nikki had just interrupted it.

  The cook turned her back to the stove, but not before Nikki had seen her blotched red face and her tears.

  “I hope this is a good time,” she said, knowing full well that it wasn’t. What had the two been discussing that had them both so upset? “Mrs. McGraw, I need to ask you some questions.”

  “You can’t be serious,” Patricia said, shoving away her crumb-filled plate. “My husband is in the hospital possibly dying and you’re intent on—”

  “Doing what he asked me to do. I know you told the authorities what happened that night, but I need to hear it from you. The sooner I get everything I need, the sooner I will be gone.”

  Patricia sighed. “Not here,” she said, glancing at the cook’s back. Frieda didn’t seem to hear. Or at least didn’t react. “Let’s go into Travers’s office.”

  Nikki followed her, thinking about yesterday and the first time she’d seen Travers. She was glad to hear he was doing better and would be allowed to have visitors later today.

  As if thinking the same thing Nikki was, Patricia said, “When I see my husband this afternoon, I’m going to convince him to put an end to this book of yours.”

  “You do realize I can write the book without his permission.”

  Patricia huffed as she sat down at her husband’s desk. “Well, I have nothing to add.”

  Maybe. Maybe not. “I wanted to ask you about Marianne. You were living in the house. You would know if there were problems between her and her husband. If there was another man.” She looked down at her notes and turned on her digital recorder. “In other interviews, you’ve said she’d been acting...strangely.”

  Clearly Patricia had expected to simply tell the same old story she’d been telling about that night. Her dislike of Marianne became quickly evident. “Strangely was putting it mildly. She would wander around the backyard as if lost. I thought for sure she’d lost her mind and as it turns out...”