The gun Cowboy held was another matter, but I managed to keep my expression cool.
Any show of weakness would be a mistake.
I held the brush tightly in one hand and rested the other on Heart’s muscular flank. More to conceal my shaking fingers than anything else.
I didn’t want to open my thoughts to the horse—sharing my terror with him wouldn’t do me any good.
The poor thing might rear or try to bolt. I was just as likely to get trampled in the confined space as Cowboy, so I kept my mind carefully shielded as I held his gaze.
Time seemed to move at the speed of a herd of turtles marching through molasses. Mr. Jingles finally broke the stalemate when he appeared in the doorway. Cowboy looked at his partner, who shook his head, which I took to mean he’d searched the house and found it empty.
They turned their attention back to me.
“Howdy,” I said.
“Tony was right.” I wasn’t sure if Cowboy was talking to me or Mr. Jingles.
“There’s a first time for everything,” I said, letting my distaste show.
“You found the horse.” Mr. Jingles was eyeing me the way someone might look at an unusual bug.
“I did. But not for Tony. I found him for Jasmine and to get the reward she offered.”
“You won’t be collecting,” Cowboy said.
“Come on.” I put my hands on my hips. “It’s only ten grand. You got what you want, you can’t be that greedy.”
The men stayed silent. I looked back and forth between them and let my smirk fade. “You did get what you wanted, right?”
“What might that be?” Cowboy asked.
“Uh . . .” I tried to look surprised and innocent as I pointed to the empty plastic eggs on the hay-sprinkled ground.
Predictably, Cowboy raised his gun to point at me and snarled, “Where are they?”
“Your guess is as good as mine. I . . .” I trailed off then shook my head and muttered, “Damn.”
“What?”
“Can’t you guess?” I asked.
“I’m not in the mood to play games.”
“I’m not the one playing.”
He leveled the gun at my leg. “If I don’t like the next three words out of your mouth, I’ll blow your knee apart.”
Don’t faint, I told myself. Don’t throw up and don’t crumple to the ground to beg for your life.
I had to have some moxie.
He wanted to hear three words. I only needed one.
“Logan.”
Cowboy’s eyes narrowed.
I waited. Sometimes it was best to shut up and let people draw their own conclusions. I was hoping these two were going to come up with the same conclusion Boyle had, that I was in with Sartori’s gang.
Ironic, given how much energy I’d spent trying to prove I wasn’t connected to Sartori’s criminal organization. Now my life depended on two very bad men believing the opposite.
“How do you know Logan?” Mr. Jingles asked.
“He works for my uncle.”
“Uncle?” Cowboy scoffed. “You’re saying Sartori is your uncle.”
“Yep.”
“You’re lying. You’re dating a cop.”
“You mean Kai Duncan?” I tried to smile flirtatiously as I looked at each man in turn. “The sergeant’s not my type. But don’t tell him that.”
Mr. Jingles let his gaze flick over me, though whether it was in admiration or doubt, I couldn’t be sure.
“Tell you what,” I said, “you can call Logan and—” I started to reach into my back pocket and almost lost my kneecap.
“Don’t,” Cowboy growled.
“Whoa. It’s just his number.” I held up Logan’s card.
Cowboy plucked it out of my hand and frowned. “Did you drop it in a garbage disposal?”
“No, that’s goat spit.”
He almost dropped the card, but I pretended not to notice. “Unlike Mrs. Simon, or whatever her name was, I’m an actual vet who works with real animals.”
Cowboy curled his lip in distaste.
“Hey.” I shrugged. “Spit happens.”
Neither man seemed to appreciate the joke.
“Call Logan. Tell him you have me and you want to trade. He’ll do it.”
Cowboy held out the card to Mr. Jingles. He declined and pulled a phone out of his back pocket. “I have his number,” he said, and dialed.
I waited for him to curse and say there wasn’t a signal. My plan was to then suggest we use the house phone and once we’d left the barn I’d make a run for the woods.
But Mr. Jingles didn’t curse. In fact, it looked like he was waiting for someone to answer.
He must have a satellite phone.
Crap!
I heard him say, “We have Sartori’s niece.” His eyes shifted to me and I barely had time to consider panicking before he handed the phone to me.
I took it. “Logan?”
“Grace.” He sounded resigned. “Where are you?”
I couldn’t tell him. Doing so would let Mr. Jingles and Cowboy know Logan had never been here and therefore couldn’t have taken the gems.
“Don’t give me a hard time, Logan, you knew I was looking for the horse.”
“I’m going to need more to go on, sweetness,” Logan said.
I knew that, but aside from Boomer, only one person knew where I was—Kai.
I made a show of rolling my eyes as I tried to think of a way to discreetly pass this information to Logan. “You can be pissed later,” I said. “I’m supposed to be meeting Kai and he’ll get suspicious if I don’t show. You know how long I’ve been working on him?”
“Kai knows where you are.” It wasn’t a question.
“That’s ri-ight,” I singsonged. “Forever.”
I could tell my comments had made Cowboy suspicious. But I didn’t want to give back the phone. Breaking the connection with Logan suddenly felt like cutting the cords of a parachute.
Cowboy stepped toward me and snatched the phone out of my hands.
“Rude,” I said, crossing my arms in a huff.
Cowboy kept his gaze on me as he spoke into the phone, “You have thirty minutes to bring us what we want.” I couldn’t hear Logan’s response and couldn’t read Cowboy’s expression.
Cowboy hung up and handed the phone back to Mr. Jingles.
For a couple of seconds, I let myself think, Yay, Logan is coming! Then reality started seeping in and I thought, Oh crap, Logan is coming.
He had nothing to trade for me, which meant he would have to resort to other tactics.
If he did something drastic to Cowboy and Mr. Jingles, where did that leave Emma?
Maybe I was jumping too far ahead. They’d given him a mere thirty minutes. Which didn’t allow Logan much time to get in touch with Kai and ask where I was.
I didn’t want to imagine how that conversation would go. Would Kai even talk to Logan?
There were so many things to worry about, I wasn’t sure which to pick first. But one thing was clear, I was going to need to come up with a plan B and be ready to exploit any opportunity that presented itself.
I heard Mr. Jingles say, “He’ll try to sneak up on us.”
Cowboy shrugged. “Keep an eye on her. I’m going to look around.”
I watched him slip outside into the light rain, which left me one less bad guy to deal with. Though I didn’t know if the remaining bad guy was armed. I thought not, but couldn’t be certain.
“It’s funny,” my captor said. “Tony told us he wasn’t working with Sartori.”
“Tony said a lot of things.” I turned and started brushing Heart again, hoping to sneak a glance at the loft where Boomer was hiding and avoid any questions I didn’t know the answer to.
I could fe
el Mr. Jingles’s eyes on me and the nape of my neck shivered and tried to crawl away to hide.
“I’m wondering, why did he hire Simone? I mean, she’s good as far as cons go, but it seems foolish to have her set up shop and pretend to be a vet if he’s got you.”
“Good question. Too bad you can’t ask him.”
“You’re right. It is too bad.”
I glanced over my shoulder when I heard the jingling again. He was looking out the partly open door into the drizzling rain. I watched as he fished a pack of cigarettes from the inside of his jacket, reached into the jingle pocket of his pants, and produced a metal lighter. Flicking the flame to life with one smooth, practiced movement, he pulled in a lungful of smoke and turned his attention back to me.
“Tony and me went way back,” he said more quietly, then glanced away, flicked ash from his cigarette, and exhaled a cloud of smoke. “I didn’t mean to kill him.”
“Right,” I said, wondering if Boomer had heard the confession. If everything went south, maybe he could vouch for Emma.
“You didn’t mean to kill Simone either?” I said more loudly than was necessary.
“Simone—that wasn’t me. I pushed her to talk, sure.” He lifted a shoulder as if to say, Sometimes you just have to torture people, you know how it is. “But I would have let her go. Killing women—” He made a face.
“Your partner doesn’t have a problem with it.”
“He’s not my partner,” Mr. Jingles spat. “He has the honor of a dog.”
I snorted. He looked at me and I said, “I’ve found dogs to be far more honorable than men.”
Time to steer the conversation in a new direction. “Why use a horse?” I asked, looking over at him. “It’s not like jewelry can’t be hidden in a hundred other places. Why go to all the trouble?”
“LaPointe is a paranoid bastard. No one and nothing was allowed off the estate without being checked.”
“Everyone? Even guests?”
“Guests, family, it didn’t matter. Even the cars were parked outside the security gate.”
“That’s why he had to have the replicas made. How did you manage to swap them out?”
“Once you were inside the estate, LaPointe didn’t care. He’d let his dog walk around in diamonds.”
There was enough bitterness in his voice to make a lemon seem sweet.
“Must have driven you crazy,” I said, “Seeing all that wealth wasted on islands and cars.”
“My mother died because I couldn’t afford better doctors.”
I almost felt sorry for him. But just because life wasn’t fair didn’t give you the right to take someone else’s stuff and murder people.
Thankfully, Cowboy returned before I opened my mouth to express my views.
The two men started talking quietly. I strained to hear what they were saying, but they were smart enough to keep their voices too low for me to understand.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw movement in the loft. Boomer was trying to get my attention. To better see him, I moved to stand in front of Heart. It was time to take the blindfold off, anyway. The rain had stopped and I hadn’t heard any thunder in a while.
“You made it through the storm, didn’t you, boy?” I spoke softly to the horse as I removed the makeshift blindfold and set it aside. Then, keeping my face angled as if I was looking up at Heart, I focused past him to Boomer.
He pointed to himself, then at the fluorescent light fixture mounted on the ceiling, and sliced a finger across his throat in a cutting motion. He then pointed at me and finally, the barn door behind me. He repeated the gesture a couple of times and I thought I understood what he was trying to say.
I’m going to cut the lights. You run away.
I risked a glance at Cowboy and Mr. Jingles. They were still talking without paying attention to me. I widened my eyes at Boomer, hooked my thumb at the men, and shook my head.
A couple of seconds later, Mr. Jingles left, presumably to be on the lookout for Logan.
How was I supposed to get past the guy with the gun?
Sure, cutting the lights might confuse things for a couple of seconds, but he’d hear me if I tried to slip by or open the second door.
Boomer nodded then repeated the message. This time, he pointed at me twice.
Not getting it, I frowned and, seeing Cowboy was watching me, fiddled with Heart’s halter.
“Let’s get this fixed,” I said softly and pretended to straighten a strap as I tucked his mane out of the way, which gave me an excuse to be standing where I was with my face angled up.
Boomer waited until I’d focused back on him to start the charades again.
He pointed at me then pantomimed . . . what? He fisted both hands, held them up, and bounced up and down. Ride? He meant for me to ride out of the barn?
“Oh no,” I said, shaking my head as I fussed with the front of Hearts mane. “Look at these tangles.”
I went back to the bucket to find a comb, hoping Boomer heard me well enough to know I was not keen on that idea, either. If I, a smallish-sized human, couldn’t squeeze by Cowboy, how was Heart supposed to?
Comb in hand, I moved to stand in front of Heart again and started brushing out the lock of mane that hung over one eye.
Boomer, of course, was pointing and miming again.
It was starting to make me nervous. He was obviously out of Cowboy’s line of sight, but I was afraid Boomer might knock something over with all that moving around. I thought about turning my back and just ignoring him but that didn’t seem like a good idea, either. I was getting short on time to come up with an alternate plan.
After making sure Cowboy wasn’t looking at me, I covertly gave Boomer my attention.
He motioned to the door, touched the tips of both hands together, and swung them open. Then, he mimed riding and repeated the door-opening gesture, only faster.
Boomer didn’t want me to try and sneak around Cowboy, he wanted me to charge through the doors past him.
Would that be possible?
It wouldn’t take much of a push to open the door but, still . . . I thought about the old westerns where the gunslinger shoves open the saloon doors.
Not a big deal if you had hands.
But I’d be asking Heart to hit the door at a run and keep going.
I glanced at Boomer. He must have known I was thinking about it, because he nodded encouragement vigorously.
I’d seen the video of Heart; Jasmine had said he loved running.
I looked at Cowboy. He was alternating between checking outside and glancing at me. I swept my gaze over the door. No nails or splintered wood. If we hit it at an angle, it would bounce harmlessly off Heart’s shoulder.
But then what?
The sudden darkness would give us a few seconds, but Cowboy still had a gun.
I tried to recall the details of the property I’d seen in the aerial photo. There was a large oak between the house and barn. The coops were on the same side as the old horse pasture, which meant fences, so we couldn’t go right. Dense woods were just beyond the house to the left. Didn’t want to go that way on horseback.
Once around the oak, it was a straight shot down the drive. On average, horses can gallop at around thirty miles an hour, which is at least three times faster than yours truly.
If I was lucky, I might be able to flag Logan down as he approached.
And if I stood there weighing the pros and cons much longer, I’d miss my window.
I looked up into Boomer’s eyes and dipped my head. He gave me the thumbs-up, pointed to his wrist, and held up two fingers.
Two minutes to go-time.
I stepped over to the bucket, picked it up, and started rummaging through it. There was a currycomb, a regular comb, and two brushes. Good, because I was going to need to get rid of everything and flip th
e bucket over to use as a step stool.
“Can’t believe there aren’t any braid bands in here,” I muttered.
I turned to Cowboy as if seeking commiseration—he scowled and looked outside.
Perfect.
Still holding the bucket, I took Heart’s halter and moved him so he was facing the door at more of an angle and positioned myself on his far side, where I set the bucket on the ground. I pulled out both combs and set them out of the way then grabbed a brush in each hand and started grooming Heart.
Cowboy did little more than cut me a glance, he was so focused on watching for Logan, so I tossed the brushes noiselessly onto the hay, flipped the bucket over, grabbed a handful of mane, and was ready to go.
I’d started mentally preparing Heart for the sprint when I saw Nelly stand and start strolling around the top of the wall toward Cowboy.
Crap.
If Boomer cut the lights now, she would probably be startled, tumble off the wall headfirst, and hurt herself.
“Nelly, come down off of there.”
I glanced up to where Boomer had been but he was gone—headed to wherever he needed to go to cut the lights. Which meant he wouldn’t know to wait for Nelly to be safely on the ground.
Down? Nelly asked.
Yes. Come here, Nelly girl.
I started to let go of Heart’s mane and scoot around the horse to grab the little goat, but she made it to where Cowboy was standing and hopped down onto the lower hay bale that formed the starting point of the wall’s base.
I let out a sigh of relief, and everything went black.
Even though I was expecting the sudden darkness, it took me a fraction of a second to react.
Fingers locked in Heart’s mane, I stepped on the bucket, vaulted onto the horse’s back, and spurred him forward with my heels and mind.
Ya!
Heart surged forward like a Thoroughbred out of the gate. The door flew open with a hollow crash. I kept my head down, but managed to catch a glimpse of Cowboy stumbling.
“Ha!”
I felt a maniacal grin stretch across my face as I twisted to get a better look at what happened.
Bad idea.
I may have mentioned that, despite my name, I am not a very graceful person.
Horse of a Different Killer (A Call of the Wilde Mystery Book 3) Page 28
