by Leigh Hearon
THE CARSON STABLES MYSTERY SERIES
by Leigh Hearon
Reining in Murder
Saddle Up for Murder
Unbridled Murder
Runaway Murder
RUNAWAY MURDER
A Carson Stables Mystery
Leigh Hearon
KENSINGTON PUBLISHING CORP.
www.kensingtonbooks.com
All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.
Table of Contents
Also by
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Darby Farms Dressage Show October 14–15
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
UNBRIDLED MURDER
KENSINGTON BOOKS are published by
Kensington Publishing Corp.
119 West 40th Street
New York, NY 10018
Copyright © 2018 Leigh Hearon
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.
If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”
KENSINGTON BOOKS and the K logo are Reg. U.S. Pat. & TM Off.
ISBN: 978-1-4967-1410-7
First electronic edition: July 2018
ISBN-13: 978-1-4967-1411-4
ISBN-10: 1-4967-1411-3
For Sandy Dengler
Who’s responsible for just about everything.
Darby Farms Dressage Show October 14–15
Entrants Trainer
Liz Faraday
Sammy, Danish Warmblood gelding
Training level test 1 Patricia Winters
Lucy Cartwright
Prince, Hanoverian gelding
Training level test 1 Melissa Phelps
Amy Litchfield
Schumann, Arab gelding
Second level test 3 Melissa Phelps
Tabitha Rawlins Jackson, Friesian gelding Second level test 3 Harriett Blechstein
Gwendolyn Smythe
Martinique, Dutch Warmblood gelding
Third level test 2 Harriett Blechstein
Nicole Anne Forrester
Andy, Andalusian gelding
Prix St.-Georges Who needs a trainer?
Hollis and Miriam Darby, hosts
Jean Bennett, judge
Margaret Woods, scribe
Brianna Bowen, technical delegate
Annie Carson, guest
Gustav Raymond, chef
Chapter One
SUNDAY AFTERNOON, OCTOBER 1
“Well, I’d say this was a runaway success, wouldn’t you?”
A hearty slap on the back nearly knocked Annie over, and she grasped the first object she could find to keep from falling. It was a card table, stacked with appetizers, and for a moment, she thought the carefully crafted trays would crash to the floor along with her.
Annie had spent the past three days hauling fifty horses to the stable in which she was now standing. She was tired. Bone tired, in fact. Her muscles hurt, and apparently now a few more were going to, as well.
Wincing a bit, she looked up into the round, smiling face of Sheriff Dan Stetson, the head of law and order in Suwana County. He looked so pleased with himself, she couldn’t help but smile back.
“It sure is, Dan. It’s a wonderful party.”
Dan nodded smugly and moved his bulky frame toward a row of beer kegs. Annie watched him tap off a local microbrew. Well, he was off duty.
Looking around, Annie viewed the festivities, now in full swing. The stable was festooned with crepe, ribbons, and balloons. A large banner overhead read WELCOME TO ALEX’S PLACE! Guests crowded the appetizer tables and wine bar, and the buzz of animated conversations filled every corner. Judging by the fashionably dressed people surrounding her, the venue could have been Lincoln Center. Instead, it was a brand-spanking-new sixty-stall stable, an immense structure constructed of newly logged and planed Northwest cedar, oak, and Doug fir. Annie still couldn’t get over the cold and hot running water taps in each stall. No such amenities existed in her stable. She was used to breaking up icy water in her horses’ buckets each winter with a good thwack of a small shovel.
The sharp sound of amp adjustments reminded her a country-and-western band was gearing up to perform. When the band struck its opening chords, Annie knew real conversation would be impossible. The stable’s high rafters made conversations float to the ether zone and were hard enough to follow without extraneous noise.
Fortunately, the real tenants were nowhere near the noise. Fifty mares, gelding, foals, and yearlings were in several nearby pastures, contently munching on the last of the autumn grass that hadn’t turned dry and brown over the summer. When the party was over, all the horses would be led into their new quarters and put away for the night. She wondered whether they’d realize that they’d fallen into a permanent lap of luxury. Probably not, she decided. They already were used to three square meals a day at her friend Patricia’s place, Running Track Farms. But the fact that they’d never again have to worry about their next meal wasn’t lost on Annie.
She looked through the crowd and saw the man responsible—well, mostly responsible—for it all, Travis Latham, one of Suwana County’s most venerated citizens, who had purchased land once owned by Annie’s boyfriend, Marcus Colbert, and turned it into a rescue center for both horses and young boys, all of whom sorely needed help in their lives. Travis had named his nonprofit after his grandson, Alex, who’d died at the hands of young bullies years earlier. His goal was to thwart the too-often-inevitable journey into crime that at-risk boys seemed to embark on and to help them toward a better future. When Annie came across fifty abandoned horses that had been earmarked for the slaughterhouse, the board of Alex’s Place unanimously decided to take them on and let the boys participate in the rehabilitation and training process. It was an incredibly ambitious plan, Annie knew, but Travis—and Marcus—had spared no time or expense in getting the property ready for use. It was now early October. By Christmas, Travis hoped the bunkhouse, now under construction, would be fully occupied.
Threading her way through the chattering crowd, she reached Travis, who was just finishing up an interview with Rick Courtier, a reporter from KXTV in Seattle, a short ferry ride away. Annie noticed a tiny microphone clipped to a buttonhole in Travis’s wool vest. As usual, he was dressed in tweeds, along with a thick corduroy jacket with elbow patches. No one could surpass his sartorial splendor as the country gentleman, Annie thought, not even Marcus, whose tastes ran toward Armani.
“We believe the boys and horses will learn a great deal from each other,” Travis was saying.
Rick slowly nodded. “But isn’t it risky to let boys, many of whom have never been around horses before, participate in pot
entially dangerous activities?”
“Life is a risk, man!” Travis was impatient with the question, which Annie suspected he’d heard plenty of times before today. “Every single boy who comes here already is at risk, and in far more troubling ways than taking a fall off a horse. We’ll have skilled trainers and counselors, who will live with the boys and make sure they’re kept safe, as well as a full-time RN on board. But each boy will be responsible for taking care of his own horse. I suspect both student and horse will be teaching each other many important life skills before too long.”
Annie was standing next to a pole beam, partially hidden from sight. She had no desire to get caught up in an interview with Rick Courtier, who’d used every single wile he could imagine to wheedle information out of her earlier this year, after she’d come across a dead body. She had to admire Travis, though. He clearly knew how to use a reporter to get his story across.
Country music burst from the stage, and the interview was thankfully brought to a halt. Annie wiggled the last few feet to Travis and gave him a quick hug.
“You were marvelous,” she said, her eyes sparkling at him. “No one can deliver the message of Alex’s Place better than you.”
“Nonsense,” Travis said, but he smiled as he said it. “Everyone on the board is a good ambassador. I just get tired of hearing the naysayers. I have full faith in what we’re doing.”
“As do I,” Annie said firmly, and snared a glass of champagne from a roving waiter.
“Where’s Marcus?”
“Haven’t seen him since he gave his speech. We agreed to wander separately so we could meet and talk to as many prospective donors as possible.”
Travis laughed. “Excellent idea! We’ll take all the help we can get. I don’t know which will be more expensive, feeding fifty horses or fifty teenage boys. Whichever it is, it’ll be a bundle.”
“No doubt. But I can’t believe how beautifully you’ve designed the stables. Everything is at the boys’ fingertips. And a heated blanket room! I should be so lucky. My horses and I are green with envy.”
“We tried to implement as much on your dream list of stable amenities as we could, Annie. The less time the boys have to spend doing daily chores, the more time they have to ride, groom, and spend time with their horses.”
Annie gave an exaggerated sigh. “Don’t I know it.”
“But you’ve got Lisa now to help.”
She visibly brightened. “Yes, I do, and I hope she’ll never leave. I’ve told her she can get married and live on my property as long as she wants. I’ll even throw in a pony for her kids. She’s taken such a load off me, which is great, because I have a new horse to train.”
Annie felt her phone vibrating inside her blazer pocket, the cue that someone was trying to reach her.
“Hold on a sec.” She pulled out her phone and quickly scanned a text from Leif, a local volunteer fireman with multiple skills, including shearing sheep. A few weeks before, he’d done just that on Annie’s flock. Now he was handling a job usually Annie did herself—breeding the ewes for spring births. She’d been watching the ewes closely, and today on horseback, she’d inspected the flock, now in a pasture a mile from her farmhouse and soon to be moved to their winter home. The ewes were in heat, no doubt about it. And the ideal time to take advantage of their condition was precisely now.
“Getting there,” read the text. “20 tagged and 20 to go. How r u doing?”
Good for Leif, Annie thought. It wasn’t exactly a picnic herding the right ewe into the pen, tagging it after the deed was done, and extracting it without getting the ram too riled. She answered Leif’s subtle query of whether she’d be back in time to help.
“Good man,” she texted. “Back around 6.”
“Party on” was the brief, somewhat morose reply.
Annie felt a pang of guilt for not assisting in this yearly farm chore. But there simply was no way to predict exactly when the ewes would exhibit their telltale signs. In fact, the ewes were a bit early this year in demonstrating their desire for male companionship. Perhaps that boded a short and mild winter. Annie certainly hoped so.
She felt a hand on her arm and looked up. It was Patricia Winters, operations manager of Running Track Farms, a state-of-the-art rehab farm for hunter jumpers, dressage, and racehorses. Patricia had graciously let the fifty feedlot horses live on the premises while in quarantine after their rescue. Annie would have done anything for this woman. Without Patricia’s generous offer to house them during those first critical months, the abandoned horses might not have been saved.
“Annie, I want you to meet Liz Faraday, a student of mine. Liz, this is Annie, the woman I’ve been telling you so much about.”
Annie could feel a blush come over her. She wasn’t used to compliments, and she assumed that was what Patricia’s remarks meant.
“Nice to meet you, Liz,” she said, extending her hand. “Your name sounds a bit familiar. Have we met?”
“Over the phone.” Liz’s voice was high and pleasant. She was a slim brunette with long hair and was wearing riding breeches, just like Patricia. Annie thought for a moment, trying to recall the prior connection.
“You bought one of Hilda Colbert’s horses, didn’t you?”
“I sure did! As soon as I knew they were ready for new homes, I was at Running Track in a flash, wasn’t I, Patricia?”
“She was, indeed. Liz is one of my dressage students. We’ve been looking for a good prospect for her, but the pickings are slim around Cape Disconsolate. When I told her about Sammy, she was there in a flash.”
“Sammy?” Annie recalled that all of Hilda’s horses had much more highbrow names than that.
“Well, his real name is Samson, but you can imagine how long it took before that turned into Sammy,” Liz replied.
“Oh, yes.” Annie now vaguely recalled the horse, a Danish Warmblood with a pedigree that included a Grand Prix mare. “Was he the gelding originally touted for his ‘elastic back’ and ‘easy lateral work’?”
“Well, whoever wrote his description was correct,” Liz said. “I’m really just a beginner in dressage, but Sammy was trained to third level before coming to Colbert Farms.”
“Where he wasn’t used for much of anything, as far as I can tell,” Patricia chimed in. “But he obviously has a tremendous memory, because Liz is making fantastic progress with him.”
“I think it’s just the opposite,” Liz said, laughing. “Sammy’s making fantastic progress with me. In fact, we’re showing training level in a few weeks down in California.”
“Congratulations.” Annie voiced the word as warmly as she could muster. All she knew about dressage was that riders stood very straight and tall on large horses and maneuvered them from one marker to another in a big arena. And that they all wore tailcoats and hard hats. It all seemed rather silly. How much fun could going from letter A to letter C really be? Annie had barrel raced when she was a teenager in 4-H. She couldn’t imagine any equine sport providing a bigger thrill than that.
Marcus was suddenly at her elbow and gave her waist a discreet squeeze, which she immediately and warmly returned. Annie often wondered how such a large man could appear with such catlike ease. It was uncanny, but by no means unwelcome.
“My keen analytical mind tells me you three women are talking about horses. Am I right?”
“A mere child of three could have come to that conclusion,” Annie said drily. “After all, we are talking in a stable.”
“Exactly so. Well, ladies, are you enjoying yourselves?”
“Absolutely.” Patricia beamed at Marcus. “I’m so glad the rescue horses are finally here, all on time, and all of them healthy.”
“It was a minor miracle,” Annie said. “And we couldn’t have done it without your help.”
“All I did was give you pasture space that was going to waste. You and Jessica did all the work.”
Annie knew this was not quite true. Her equine vet, Jessica, had put heart and soul as wel
l as her expertise into ensuring that every rescue horse had received the care it needed for a full recovery from the horrors it had lived through, even though many of those horrors would forever be unknown. But she’d often seen Jessica consulting with the team of rehab vets on staff at Running Track Farms and knew that Patricia had freely volunteered their time and services, as well.
“We were just telling Annie how much we’re enjoying working with Sammy, who came from your farm. Liz”—Patricia nodded to the woman beside her—“is soon going to compete him in dressage, and he’s doing wonderfully.” Patricia was being her usual polite and tactful self. Sammy had once belonged to Marcus’s wife, now deceased—murdered on the very land where they now stood.
“I’m delighted to hear that. Tell me, Annie, how many of Hilda’s herd are still looking for good homes?”
Annie immediately felt a touch of irritation. Wasn’t this a topic that should be discussed in private? But then, Patricia, once more, had been immensely helpful in finding homes for the more than twenty horses Hilda had left behind with her death, and Annie had made sure Marcus knew how invaluable she’d been. He’d hired Annie to do the job, but Patricia had really paved the way in finding the best prospects in the area. Annie was used to finding good trail or roping or ranch horses for her friends and clients. Hilda’s horses were out of her league, and deep down, she knew it.
“Only eight left, I believe. Right, Patricia?” She looked toward her friend.
“Yes, and Annie, I believe several of them have some dressage training in their background, just like Sammy. Listen, I’ve got an idea. Why don’t you come down to the dressage show with Liz and me? We’ll transport the three or four horses that have had dressage training and show them at the grounds. Plus, you’d get a chance to see how one of your star athletes is doing in person.”
