The Black Sheep and the Hidden Beauty

by Donna Kauffman

  “We don’t know that. When was the last time you spoke to him?”

  “Last night when we left. He texted me this morning that he’d be in surgery all morning and that Springer did well through the night. I was supposed to call him an hour or so ago.”

  “So he’s had all day, then.”

  “I just don’t see it. He was fine last night, his normal self, nothing remotely out of the ordinary.”

  “Things can change fast.”

  She thought that was the understatement of the century. Just look at the two of them. “If something happened, even suddenly, for him to take such drastic measures, he’d have contacted me.” She gasped. “What if someone else came and took Springer? Kenny could be somewhere on the property, hurt.” Or worse, but she wouldn’t let her mind go there.

  “Why take his other horses?”

  “Maybe they don’t know which one she is.”

  “The pregnant one?”

  Elena dipped her chin. She was panicking and not thinking clearly, and doing no good for anybody. “You’re right, of course.” Her heart was thundering and it was all she could do to keep it together. “I—I can’t sit here, Rafe. She’s—” She stopped when her throat closed over. “I’ve done everything I could to keep her and the baby safe. All this time, and now we’re so close and…I don’t know what I’ll do if anything happens to her. Maybe I should have kept her here. I should have told you sooner what was going on. I should have—”

  He turned her back to him, taking her face once again in his wide palms and keeping it there until she focused on him and not her blind panic. “You are doing everything you can. You’ve done nothing wrong, made no wrong moves. Sometimes things aren’t always in your control.”

  “So…what are you saying? We can’t do anything to help?”

  “I’m saying that we’re going to go find where Mr. Johansson goes, and follow him.”

  “What? What does he have to do with—”

  “He’s the only new cog in the wheel. And he is the only one connecting you with Geronimo. And he’s here, and your horse is suddenly gone. I say that, right now, he’s our only connection to what is going on.”

  “You think he stole her?”

  “I don’t know who he is, or isn’t. Or what he’s capable of. All I know is, he’s all we have.” He turned his chair slightly so he could stretch one arm across his desk and push a button on the console. “Kate?”

  A few seconds later, there was a responding beep from the intercom, then, “Here. Our Mr. Johansson is losing patience.”

  “Send him on his way. Do you think you’ll need help with that?”

  “No, he’s agitated. Very agitated. But I can handle it. What can I do for you? Is Elena okay? Elena?”

  She couldn’t answer, didn’t know what to say. She’d dragged this whole place, these people who’d been nothing but kind and generous to her, directly into her mess.

  “Take his card, tell him we’ll be in touch, and you’d appreciate it if he’d call first next time. Then watch him leave, and let me know which way he heads out.”

  “Will do. Anything else?”

  “I don’t suppose you have a spare helicopter I can use. Finn is still hogging ours.”

  “Sorry. Other than my trusty golf cart, horseback is the only alternate mode of transportation I have at my disposal.”

  “Thanks. I’ll keep that in mind.”

  “I’ll be back in a minute.”

  Rafe shifted her off of his lap and stood, keeping his hand on the small of her back as they stepped out from behind the desk. “Come on.”

  “To?”

  He walked over to a wooden file cabinet that had a key pad on the side and punched in a series of numbers. When it sprang open, he took out a black gear bag and slung it over his shoulder. “We’re going to go find your horse.”

  Chapter 22

  Where was the company helicopter when he really needed it?

  It was damn near impossible to follow someone on a rural country road, so Rafe had had to give Johansson a pretty decent lead. He had no idea how closely the investigator had looked at the vehicles parked up at the main house, so he’d taken one of the farm pickup trucks instead. A nondescript green Ford wasn’t likely to draw too much attention. Elena had wanted to take her truck and the trailer, but he’d quickly talked her out of that idea.

  As if she were reading his mind, and he wasn’t too sure she couldn’t, she chose that moment to grumble, “I still say it wouldn’t be all that unusual to have a truck and trailer behind you out here.”

  “All true, but they’re not really all that great in high-speed chases or quick maneuvers.”

  “Do you think we’ll really be doing that?”

  Despite her relative calm, he noted she had her fingers curled into white-knuckled fists in her lap. “I like to keep my options open.”

  “He’s not exactly racing off somewhere. We’re barely going over the speed limit.”

  Which made following the guy even more of a pain in the ass. He had to lag back to the point of ridiculousness to keep Johansson from pegging him or Elena in the rearview mirror. It would almost be worth having the trailer hooked up, just as an excuse to go slower. Not that he planned on mentioning that to her.

  “I’m still really torn about heading toward Kenny’s instead. Whatever went on out there couldn’t have happened without leaving some kind of tracks or trail of some kind, right? And what if Kenny is still out there? What if he’s hurt? I’ll never forgive myself if something happened to him because of me.”

  She wasn’t thinking anything he hadn’t already thought about. “I…took care of that.”

  She swung her gaze to his. “You what? How? When? And who?”

  “When you went into the barn to get the harness and lead rope, I made a few calls.”

  “I might need them. Why didn’t you tell me you had someone checking on him? I’ve been sitting here worried sick.”

  “Because you hadn’t mentioned it and I didn’t want to bring that possibility up if it hadn’t occurred to you yet. No need for you to worry more than you already are.”

  “Thanks, but I’m a big girl. And I’d really appreciate being in on whatever is going on. It’s my horse, my friend, my life we’re talking about here.”

  She was right, but that didn’t mean he liked it any better. “You know how it’s a learning curve for you to let someone help you? Well, I’m not used to working alongside the people I’m helping.”

  “You work with Finn and Mac.”

  “That’s different—they do what I do. You don’t.”

  “We’re a team, in this together, as you so often point out, so I think I deserve a different consideration from your usual client. Actually, I don’t just expect that, I demand it.”

  “I wasn’t patronizing you.”

  “No, you were protecting me for my own good. Same thing, in my book, even if your motives were pure.”

  “Well, I wouldn’t go that far. A lot of my thoughts about you are anything but pure.” He smiled at her, but she was in no mood to be teased.

  “We need to keep everything open and on the table.”

  “Okay.”

  “Okay.” He caught her wary gaze from the corner of his eye, but she knew when not to push. “When will you hear anything? From whoever it is you have checking the farm out?”

  “Not sure. But I will tell you what I find out. I’d planned on that, anyway.” Maybe not every little detail—that depended on Aaron’s report. But he’d keep his word and tell her what she needed to know. People always thought they wanted to know everything. He’d been on enough cases to know that that wasn’t always true. She didn’t want to trust him to judge for her, and he respected that, but he wasn’t about to expose her to more grief than she already had. And if she found out later and got pissed at him, well, that was a risk he was willing to run.

  “Cell service is spotty out here, so—”

  “Which is why we carry satel
lite phones.”

  “Oh.” She settled back in her seat, looked back at the road. “Good.”

  “We thought so.”

  She was silent for a minute, then said, “How many people is ‘we’?”

  “You mean besides me, Finn, and Mac?”

  She nodded.

  “Depends. No other actual company employees. Everyone else is freelance, or on permanent retainer.”

  “How many is ‘everyone’?”

  “It varies according to the case and the kind of help we need. We’ve worked with dozens of different people since we started.”

  “I guess that makes sense.” She went back to staring daggers at the back of Johansson’s truck.

  “So, in the spirit of keeping everything on the table, how did Springer get knocked up by a million-dollar race stud?”

  She flinched at the sudden question. It took her another mile to come to terms with telling the story, but she finally started talking. “Springer doesn’t come into heat regularly. Usually she’s late. This time, however, she was early. When I went out to see Geronimo that night, I rode her out there.”

  “Did you normally ride your horse back to your quarters when you got off work?”

  “No. I usually walked or took one of the staff golf carts. But I’d had one of the hands bring her down after the rest of the horses had been put up so I could get the farrier to look at a problem I thought she was having with one of her shoes.”

  “Is the farrier on staff?”

  “They have one on rotation with two other big spreads in the area. He wasn’t scheduled that day, but I knew he’d be stopping by on his way back from Green Hills because of Geronimo’s arrival.”

  “Did he check him out, too?”

  “I don’t know, but I don’t think so. It was more just to be there, be part of the excitement of the day. A lot of people in the area found a reason to stop by that day. But I’d heard through the grapevine that he was coming by, so rather than wait for his regular visit, I had Springer down for him to look at. Which he did.”

  “So he was gone when you rode her out to Geronimo’s barn?”

  “Yes. Everyone was gone. I had her in a stall near where I was working, but there wasn’t anyone else over there, or any horses stalled there, either, that night. So I didn’t know she’d come in season.”

  “What happened when you got out there?”

  “I rode her into the paddock and left her ground-tethered while I walked in and looked for JuanCarlo.”

  “Who wasn’t there.”

  “Right. Geronimo started making some noise in his stall, which, I realize now, was probably because he’d scented Springer. I thought it was just a typical temperamental stallion being a little ornery. He’d had a very long day, after all, and was in a new, unfamiliar place. But that directed me to his stall.” She paused for a moment, then sighed and said, “He was stunning. Truly stunning.”

  He could hear both the pain and the longing in her voice, and for a moment, Rafe hated himself for making her relive even a moment of that tragic night. If it hadn’t been so important, he’d have told her to stop right then.

  “He, uh, he was in the back of his stall, and had no desire to come over and see me. I remember wishing I’d brought something out with me, some kind of treat. Of course, I wouldn’t have dared.”

  “Why?”

  “Even though he wasn’t racing any longer, he was still on a highly monitored diet. There would have been all kinds of tests run on him once Gene took possession, just as a routine precaution, so…” She shrugged. “I just wouldn’t have done it.”

  “So, I’m guessing when you couldn’t cajole him over, you went into the stall? Wasn’t that ridiculously dangerous? Wait,” he said, stopping himself. “I forgot, you’re the horse whisperer.”

  “I knew better. I was just—I knew I’d probably never get another chance. You have to understand, for someone like me who has dedicated her life to working with those magnificent beasts, knowing the chances of even crossing paths with a horse a tenth as talented as Geronimo is incredibly slim. This was a chance of a lifetime for me.”

  “He was going to be housed on your farm—surely you’d have had the chance to get close to him.”

  “He had nothing to do with my program. At best, I’d see him from a distance. I certainly wasn’t ever going to get up close and personal with him like I happened to be in that moment.”

  “So you sweet talked your way into his stall.”

  “More or less. It was bigger than I’d imagined, so I had plenty of room to maneuver around him.” She dipped her chin. “It all happened so fast,” she said, her voice hardly more than a whisper. She shook her head slowly. “I still can’t believe—I was so stupid. So stupid.”

  He reached over, touched her knee, and she jerked her gaze to him. He glanced away from the road long enough to connect with her. “You know that what happened with him and Springer had nothing to do with his death. You couldn’t have prevented what happened to him that night, whether you’d gone out there or not.”

  She nodded, but didn’t look any less miserable. “He swung his head around and his ears twitched, he snorted, then the next thing I knew, he was bolting for the door. It was all I could do to dive out of the way to keep from being trampled. I took off for the paddock after him, and, well, do I really have to go into detail?”

  “And no one saw or heard this?”

  “It can be a noisy thing, depending, but Springer didn’t really freak out or anything. The paddock was private, in the rear of the stable, and, like I said, it was over almost before it started. Afterward he was fairly docile and though it took me a few minutes to get close enough to throw a lead rope around his neck, leading him back to his stall wasn’t all that hard.” Her shoulders slumped a little. “At the time, it felt like eons. I don’t think I’ve ever been so scared in my life. I kept waiting for lights to flash, sirens to go off, for half the farm to come running.” She shook her head slowly, deep in reverie.

  “No one came.”

  She continued to shake her head. “No one. I honestly couldn’t believe it. I waited to make sure he was okay, then I panicked and took Springer back to her stall in the employee barn. I stayed with her until I could be sure she was okay, then I finally went home. I’d just turned out the lights when all hell did break loose. At first, I thought it was my fault, and that something had happened to Geronimo. Then I heard the sirens. I was already outside by then, and I saw the smoke.”

  Rafe had kept his hand on her knee, rubbing slowly. Now he tugged at her elbow until he loosened her hold on herself, and slid his hand into hers, giving her a reassuring squeeze. It didn’t feel like nearly enough, given what he was putting her through. Her skin was pale, her palm chilly and damp.

  “I—I didn’t even have a chance to figure out what I was going to do if Springer ended up pregnant. If I told JuanCarlo, or, God forbid, Gene himself, I’d lose my job for sure. Which would have been understandable and I’d have dealt with that—it was only fair, on negligence alone. But I wasn’t too sure they wouldn’t take Springer from me, too. For sure they’d have taken the baby, and I would have obviously let them, but I don’t know the legalities of who would have gotten what. I did know they were powerful and rich, and I was not. It was such a nightmare—all the way back to my trailer I was praying it wouldn’t take and maybe no one would be the wiser.” Her grip tightened in his. “I had no idea that the nightmare hadn’t even begun.”

  “You never told anyone any part of this?”

  “No one. Not one word.”

  “How did you explain the pregnancy when it was confirmed?”

  “I trailered her out of there, took her to a different vet, not one we dealt with, for the test. They didn’t ask, I didn’t say.”

  She was trembling now, and Rafe wished like hell he had an answer for her problem, but the more she talked, the worse things looked.

  “I’ve never had anything in my life I had to hide, and
I’m not sure I’d have kept myself from running to JuanCarlo or Gene straight off and telling them, just to clear my conscience. I doubt I’d have even made it until I could run the tests on her. But in less than an hour, before I’d even collected my wits about me, the explosion happened. Then the media descended like vultures, and there was speculation of arson almost immediately. Though I knew I hadn’t been responsible, there was no way I could say anything without fear of being tarred and feathered before they even bothered to find out if I was innocent. I was scared. Scared-out-of-my-mind scared. Scared enough to keep my mouth shut. So I sat, and prayed it hadn’t taken. And then it did…and I just didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t lose her. She’s been with me for ten years. She’s the only family I have left.”

  “Did anyone there know that Springer was pregnant?”

  She shook her head. “I left before it was noticeable and never mentioned it, but it wouldn’t have mattered, really. It wasn’t that we didn’t breed our personal mounts—that’s a private decision. I owned a mare and she wasn’t being raced, nor was she being used in the Charlotte Oaks program in any way, so what I did with her in that regard was my business. But there was no way I could have bred her, even off premises, and not had someone there know about it. I would obviously have had to say something at some point, and questions would have been asked, just in regular conversation.”

  “Which is why you left the racing world altogether.”

  “In part. I didn’t want to have that conversation with anyone there.”

  Good at avoiding, he thought again, but bad at lying.

  “But it was also time for me to go.”

  “Which is what you told Kate when you took the job here.”