by Elise Faber
Or was it the imagination of a drugged up brain?
I glanced down at my phone, saw that the incoming call was logged there, clear as the memory of the conversation with Tammy was imprinted in my mind.
The squee in my throat bubbled up, but I forced it down.
I was going to have a cooking show.
It was going to be amazing.
Already my brain was filled with recipes to try out, ingredients to drive into Denver for.
There was this awesome cheese store in the city, and I could make something with spinach and Gruyere or a dessert with green apples and white cheddar. Traditional, mid-west, but slightly more refined.
And Rob loved the Havarti from there. I could bake up some sourdough and then make fancy grilled cheese sandwiches with it. Bacon. Caramelized onion jam. Maybe some Swiss for tang.
I paused. I think I’d figured out what my drug-induced obsession word was this time around.
Cheese.
I was already thinking of the block of cheddar on the counter as I turned for the door.
But—
I rotated back around, trying to figure out what had pinged my brain, what had made my spine go ramrod stiff with alarm.
The sun was still behind the hills, the sky just the slightest hint of pink, readying for the day. The air was chilled, and the lawn appeared black.
So what was making the hairs on my nape stand on end?
And then I saw something that should be black and was decidedly not.
Light poured out of the open door to the barn.
39
I didn’t stop to think. Just shoved my feet into a pair of my sister’s boots that sat on a rack near the door, thankful that she wore a size larger than my own as my stitches protested the action.
But I pushed the pain aside because the barn door was wide open. The lights were blazing.
My sister had been raised better. She knew to close the door behind her, to flick off the lights.
My daughter, on the other hand, did not.
And Allie’s words from the day before were suddenly blazing through my mind.
“I want to ride, Mom!”
“I can do it myself.”
“I don’t need Aunt Kelly.”
Part of me hoped that I was wrong.
The rest of me knew I wasn’t.
So I took off across the lawn, my commandeered boots hurting worse than a sugar burn and the hems of my pajamas getting soaked by the wet grass.
I wasn’t entirely familiar with the horses and who should be in what stall. Hell, I didn’t even know exactly how many Kel owned at the moment or how many were boarding.
I did know that there was a sign near the tack room with each horse’s name and their stall number, and so I went there first.
Which is probably why I didn’t notice the open stall doors at first.
At least not until I’d noted where Allie’s favorite horse was supposed to be and then hustled down to number twelve.
“What the—” I muttered, seeing that the doors at four, six, eight, and ten were all pushed open. I checked twelve just to be sure. I could have read the board wrong. Maybe Kel had moved the horses somewhere else? Maybe—
Hell. Who was I kidding? My sister was never more thorough or organized than she was with her horses.
Still, I checked twelve.
Because that was where Allie had to be.
Twelve was empty.
My eyes slipped closed, and I took a breath. My stomach was crawling with panic that I was desperately trying to swallow down. I didn’t even know if anything was wrong yet.
I spun around and felt the toe of Kel’s boot catch on something.
I bent and a wave of frost shot down my spine.
Mr. Tails was on the floor of the stall.
I didn’t have time to think of a cooking curse word substitute. I couldn’t come up with anything except . . .
“Fuck me.”
And my phone rang.
This time my fingers fumbled to answer it for a completely different reason than Tammy’s call from just fifteen minutes earlier.
This time I knew if I answered it, everything was going to go to hell.
I just knew it.
Yet, what other choice did I have? I needed to pick up.
After swiping my finger across the screen, I lifted it to my ear. “Hello?”
“You’re a bitch, you know that?”
My voice had disappeared. I blinked dumbly. Both because the insult had taken me by surprise and also because I felt faint prickles of familiarity at the voice. It was female. Cold. And filled with hate.
Had I heard it before?
“Answer me!” the woman screamed.
My throat unclenched. “I’m sorry?”
“Damn right you should be,” she hissed. “Or you will be. If you don’t do exactly what I tell you.” A pause. “Say you fucking agree, you dumb slut.”
I closed my eyes, forced my pulse to calm. It was pounding so loudly in my ears that I could barely hear the woman. “I’ll do whatever you want.”
“You’d better. If you want to see Rob again.” Her laugh wasn’t maniacal, but it was damn near close. “Or your precious Allie.”
There it was.
The reason I’d run to the barn instead of staying inside the house. The reason my palms were sweaty and my hands shook.
Allie.
I clenched Mr. Tails in my fingers, feeling the material strain under my grip. But I couldn’t loosen it because . . . Allie.
“If you want to see your daughter alive, you’ll saddle a horse and ride straight out from the barn. You’ll go over the hills and then follow the old cattle trail south. From there you’ll receive another phone call.”
“But there aren’t any horses—”
This laugh was maniacal. “There is one horse left. And he’s a mean sucker.”
My gaze flashed down the corridor to the odd-numbered stalls, and I saw one door was indeed closed.
Three. I frowned, trying to remember which horse would be there—which, I got was a really stupid thing to consider when the animal was the means to my daughter’s safety, but my brain was my brain, and it was rapidly trying to digest everything that had happened in the last twenty or so minutes.
And that was a dream coming true followed by a hell of a lot of fucked up.
So I probably shouldn’t have been surprised when Theodore popped his head over the door.
“Oh. There he is now,” the voice in my ear said. I’d nearly forgotten about the phone, but now I whipped around, half expecting to find the woman in the barn with me.
How else had she known that Theodore had appeared?
“Look up,” the woman said.
I did.
“Now wave to the cameras,” she sing-songed. “And know that if you do anything except saddle that horse and ride out, your daughter will pay the price. No phone calls. No texts. No running into the house for some more of those security guards.” Her voice went chiding. “Rookie mistake, by the way, letting Rob pull off the exterior guards for his rescue mission. The company should have known better and sent more men to cover the holes.”
“They’re—” I bit off the rest of my words, mentally kicking myself for almost telling her what Rob had planned for the security.
More guards were coming. Actually, they would probably be there soon. Justin had said they would be at the ranch near daybreak.
She laughed and I realized I really didn’t like the way she did that. It sounded like shards of icicles were piercing my eardrums, even through the call’s airwaves. I didn’t like how cold it felt, how unhinged and frenetic.
And my daughter was with this madwoman.
“Who are you?” I asked, despite myself.
Another cackle. “You’ll find out soon enough. Now you’d better move. Your fifteen-minute timer begins now.”
40
Since I didn’t have any pockets, I shoved the phone into Kel’s boot the
n ran down the hall to the tack room.
I had only the smallest clue what I needed, having been in the room with my sister a time or two. I scoured my brain, desperately trying to remember what she’d put on Sweetheart for our trail ride with her and Allie.
Thank God everything was labeled.
There was a section that said Theodore and in it sat a saddle, a blanket, and one of those things with reins that fit between a horse’s teeth. I started to pick up everything I could then froze, glancing up and searching the corners of the room.
Were there cameras in here? Could I risk a call?
No. The cameras out in the barn might have microphones. And if that woman heard me not following her instructions . . .
A text! I could—
But dammit, what if they were tracking my phone somehow? They’d gotten past the security team once. Who was to say they hadn’t hacked the cell?
Shit. I had to do something. My eyes scoured the room, searching for a brilliant idea. I was running out of time, so I grabbed the only thing I thought was safe.
Snatching up a marker, I wrote on the whiteboard posted near Theodore’s gear:
Hills. South on cattle road. Phone call. Woman. Has Allie.
Please let someone see it.
Then I picked up the equipment and sprinted out of the room.
Theodore was staring at me, and I wondered if he’d kill me when I tried to saddle him. This was the horse that had kicked Kelly in the stomach when she’d been pregnant with Abby.
My sister said it had been a freak accident. That he’d spooked during a lightning storm, that he’d been hurt himself and hadn’t meant to hurt her. She said he was actually a misunderstood sweetheart.
I hoped she was right.
I shoved open the door and slipped inside the stall.
“Fuck,” I muttered. I really hated horses, and I especially hated how big Theodore was.
I dropped everything to the stall floor, jumping when Theodore snorted and pawed the straw with his hoof, but forced myself to calmly pick up the blanket and reach to put it over his back.
He shied away, snorting again and bobbing his head in a way that I knew was not happy.
Allie was out there. I needed to hurry. I had to do this.
Dammit. How was I going to do this?
I needed to channel Kelly. WWKD. What would Kel do?
“Hey, sweetheart,” I said, speaking in the same tone I’d heard my sister use before. “Did some people come in here and scare you?”
He huffed.
“I’m sorry. They’re scaring me too. And I think they scared Allie—” My voice caught, and I swallowed, reaching with the blanket again. This time Theodore allowed me to drape it over his back. “I don’t know where they’ve taken her, but they say I need to ride you out over the hills. Can you help me do that?”
He turned his head slightly, eyeing me as I lifted the saddle and set it atop the blanket. Luckily I was fairly tall for a woman; otherwise, I never would have reached.
“I’m not sure that I’m even putting this on correctly,” I murmured. “You’ll let me know if I hurt you, right? I don’t want to hurt you, Theo.”
He moved so fast that I didn’t have time to react. All of a sudden his head was next to mine, and I stumbled, trying to move back. I knew he’d bitten Justin before. But he didn’t try to bite me.
Instead he rested his head on my shoulder for the briefest of moments and blew air in my ear.
And I felt my eyes fill with tears.
“Thank you,” I said, arms coming up to pat his neck. “Thank you, Theo.”
I buckled the strap around his middle and reached for the reins. Theo let me slip them up and over his head. I didn’t think I knotted them correctly, but it was a joke to think I had a chance in hell of controlling Theo anyway.
The saddle was on. There were reins.
Now I just needed to figure out how to get onto his back.
Kel or Justin had always given me a boost in the past, and I had no clue where the mounting block that Allie usually used was.
And I was running out of time.
I opened the stall door and started to lead Theo out of the barn.
He froze and my heart sank.
“Please, boy. I need to find—” The words stoppered up in my throat when he knelt, seeming to invite me to climb onto his back. I scrambled up, felt the saddle sway slightly as he straightened and barely managed to hold my seat.
But it would do. It had to.
“When we get out of this,” I said, lightly tapping his sides with my heels. “I’m buying you a whole truckload of apples.”
I bumped against the saddle, squinting in the dim light as Theo trotted or cantered, or whatever speed wasn’t quite a full gallop for the hills.
“You can go a little faster,” I said. “I’ll hold on tight.”
He made a horsey noise that was either agreement or disbelief but picked up the pace.
The wind whipped in my face, yanking my hair around. It stung as it slapped against my cheeks and the corners of my eyes.
This was just not for me, I thought as a bug flew into my mouth.
Up and over the hill we went, and I tugged gently on the reins, slowing Theo as I looked for the trail. “South,” I said, mentally going through the old adage Never Eat Shredded Wheat, “is to the right. There!”
I guided Theo to the start of the trail, and he began to walk down the path.
My phone rang in my boot, startling both me and Theo.
“I’m sorry,” I said, trying to retrieve it without losing my seat. “Hello?” I answered once I’d finagled the cell free.
“That was sixteen minutes,” she said.
My heart squeezed. “I’m sorry. I went as fast as I could—”
Her voice sounded positively gleeful. “Do you want me to hurt your daughter?”
“No!” I practically screamed. “Please. No. Don’t. I’ll do anything you want.”
“I wanted you to be where you are one minute ago.”
“I’m so sorry,” I said. “How can I make it up to you?”
“You can shut the fuck up,” she snapped then sighed, not saying anything for a long minute. I wanted to go on begging, pleading, but I didn’t think it would be wise when she’d told me to can it, so I waited, heart pounding, throat tight.
“Ride on this path until I call you again.” She hung up.
I blew out a breath. “You heard her, right Theo?”
He snorted, tossed his head, and trotted down the trail.
41
The gunshot should have made Theodore spook.
It certainly made me almost lose my grip on the saddle, but Theo seemed to feel my weight shifting and moved, helping me regain my balance.
“Good horse,” I said, stroking his neck as I kept my eyes on the person who’d stepped onto the trail in front of us.
By my guess, we’d been riding for close to an hour. The sun was just peeking over the horizon and though the world was still filled with shadows, they were growing less ominous and more like the real-life objects they were—trees, bushes, tall grass.
But the person—the woman—who’d stopped us on the path didn’t look less frightening in the gaining light.
The gun in her hand certainly didn’t set my heart at ease.
“Get down,” she said, and hers was the voice on the phone.
“Why are you doing this?”
Click.
I knew that sound. It was the faint metal-against-metal noise of a gun’s safety being removed.
“I said get down.” She pointed the pistol at Theodore. “Unless you want me to shoot your perch first.”
I lifted my leg from the stirrup and practically dropped from the saddle. It wasn’t graceful, and my feet weren’t prepared for the sudden weight. I ended up on my ass in the dirt with throbbing soles, but I’d gotten down.
The woman bent at her waist and laughed.
It was just as disturbing in real lif
e as it was over the phone.
Ignoring her, I pushed to my feet and carefully stood in front of Theo, blocking him as I purposely let go of the reins and tried to shove him back in the direction of the barn.
He wouldn’t budge.
“Go,” I said, shoving his shoulder. At least I could save him. Or maybe someone would see him and realize—
“Freeze.”
“Where’s my daughter?” I blurted because the woman suddenly looked very scary.
She ran up to me and pressed the gun to the center of my forehead. “You don’t speak unless I tell you to. You don’t move a fucking muscle until I tell you to. Do you understand, you stupid, stupid bitch?”
I nodded.
Theo’s head popped over my shoulder, and he bared his teeth.
The woman shoved his head away. “Shut up, you dumb beast.”
Theo’s teeth flashed, and he moved with the quick serpent-like speed he’d displayed at the barn.
He gripped the woman’s arm and bit down. Hard.
She screamed, dropping the gun, and blood gushed everywhere. It was bright red, a crimson color that made me gasp and glance up at her mouth.
Because that was crimson too.
The same fire engine red I’d found on Rob’s collar.
And I knew. Suddenly, I knew.
“Celeste,” I whispered. Her eyes flashed to mine as she staggered to her feet.
I stumbled back against the pure hatred in her gaze, tripping over something in the dirt. Glancing down, I saw the gun had fallen between us.
I didn’t think. I just dove for it.
The metal was warm against my fingertips, so much warmer than Celeste’s icy hands as she grappled with my wrist.
For a second, she almost managed to rip it from my grasp, but I had a sudden burst of strength because I knew that if she took the gun from me that I was going to die.
It was the only bargaining chip I had, and I needed to keep it.
I tucked my feet between us and kicked her hard in the stomach. She grunted and held tight, both hands gripping and twisting my wrist. I felt something snap underneath my skin, cried out as a burst of white-hot pain shot up my arm.
