by Blair Merrin
To Bonnie, he says, “He feels it, he feels death, he’s very troubled—”
He doesn’t get to finish. When Franklin sees Xander leaving him alone in the barn, he huffs loudly and stomps his huge hooves. Xander steps back, watching to see what the horse will do, almost as if he knows that something needs to happen, even if it will be painful to watch; Franklin is worked up into a frenzy. He bucks, first off his hind legs and then his front, the thunderous boom of his feet on wood echoing through the barn.
Out in the pasture, the other horses hear the sounds and they start running all together in a wide circle, kicking up dirt and dust. Inside the barn, Franklin bucks wildly again, kicking and stomping.
As we watch, the wood beneath his hooves cracks and splits. In what feels like slow motion, the floorboards splinter. Franklin’s front legs crash through the wood; he trips and falls sideways, screaming loudly in fear. Xander and Dash both rush forward, but for two different reasons.
Xander runs to the horse. Dash runs to the hole in the floor. Bonnie’s hand flies to her mouth. Me, I’m standing here stupidly, because I have no idea what’s happening. I inch forward to take a look for myself, but Dash catches me by the waist and tugs me backward. He’s not quite fast enough, and in the hole that Franklin created, I see the upper body of a man face-down beneath the floorboards.
CHAPTER 5
Now there are six vehicles parked in Bonnie’s lot at the entrance to her ranch. Two of them are police cruisers. The sixth is a county coroner’s van. In the barn, Xander sits on his knees with his back to the door, tenderly stroking Franklin’s neck and whispering to him. Nearby, Sheriff Phil, Deputy Sharon, and Dash investigate the scene. Two guys from the coroner’s department wait patiently to remove the body.
Bonnie and I wait outside. She doesn’t cry, or shout, or anything that I would expect. Actually, she appears to be in shock, just staring and occasionally mumbling something only mildly coherent.
“Oh, Pietro,” she murmurs.
I close my eyes and shake my head. Poor Bonnie. Pietro was one of her ranch hands, who must have worked for her for going on ten years now. I’d only met him a handful of times, but I recall him as a quiet man, serious in his duties, and very well-mannered. And his body was beneath the floorboards of the barn.
Franklin the horse broke his leg in the fracas, which is why he lays on his side next to Xander at the moment. I’m certain the only reason the animal is lying so still is because of Xander’s presence.
Over at the barn, two men in coroner windbreakers wheel a gurney out, the shape atop it covered with a white sheet. I look away. Death is inevitable. And considering our circumstances, maybe the residents of Bandit Hills know that better than most. But it doesn’t make it any easier.
Dash exits the barn and trots back over to me. He guides me by the shoulder a few feet away from Bonnie.
“How is she?” he asks.
“She’s upset, but I don’t think she’s fully processed it yet. Can you tell what happened?”
He looks away. “Do you really want to know?”
Back in high school, I was a reporter for the school paper, and—yeah, I can admit it—I was a bit nosy. I earned the nickname Curious Cassie, and the name still kind of sticks from time to time. “Yes,” I tell him.
“Alright. Pietro was stabbed three times. It looks like he was taken by surprise; there aren’t signs of a struggle that we can tell just from eyeballing it. The autopsy will tell for sure by testing his fingernails and any hair follicles they might find.”
Stabbed. Good lord. I regret asking.
“The only other thing we found,” Dash continues, “is a tiny black button. Looks like it came off a shirt, and it wasn’t Pietro’s. The thing is so small though, the best they could hope for is a partial print, and even then, it’ll be very difficult to match it to anyone.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s it,” he says. “Whoever did this, hid the body under some loose floorboards and did a good job of cleaning up afterward.”
Whoever did this. Right. Death might be inevitable, but bodies do not just find their way under floorboards of an old barn. “Are you on the case?” I ask him.
“Not officially, no,” Dash says. “Lou is on vacation, so Phil just wanted an extra pair of eyes on the crime scene.”
Phil is the local sheriff, a pleasant guy a couple years older than me that was, admittedly, kind of a jerk in high school, but ended up becoming a well-respected, as well as the youngest-ever, sheriff of Bandit Hills. He occasionally uses Dash’s services on cases that require more manpower than his four-person department.
“If they don’t find any viable leads in the first forty-eight hours, they might bring me on—”
Dash is cut off by the roar of an engine as a BMW convertible with rental stickers comes to a screeching halt, mere feet from us, kicking up gravel and a dust cloud that leaves us both coughing. A man steps out and inspects the coroner’s van as it pulls out of the lot. The guy wears a cream-colored suit and a huge silver belt buckle in the shape of a bronco. He’s got a bit of a paunch, and a nest of messy blond hair sits atop his head in such a bizarre shape that I’m ninety-percent certain it’s a toupee.
“What’s all this?” he asks sternly as he strides toward us. “What’s going on here? Who are you?”
Dash and I blink at each other. “Who are you?” Dash demands.
“I’m the soon-to-be owner of this ranch.”
He hitches his pants and drops a beige ten-gallon hat on his head. And despite everything going on around me, I have to try really hard not to laugh. This guy looks ridiculous, and right away I know who he must be.
“You didn’t answer my question,” the man from New York says. “Who are you, and what happened here?”
Phil and Deputy Sharon see the newcomer and start toward us.
“A man died here,” Dash says simply.
The man clucks his tongue twice and looks around. He peers into the barn and his eyes settle on the brown horse lying on the ground, Xander beside him, and his face turns bright red.
“Ajax!” he rushes toward the horse. “What the hell did they do to you?!”
The horse recoils and tries to get up. Xander puts one hand on its neck to calm it, and the other hand out to stop the man from getting closer.
“Please,” Xander counsels him quietly. “He’s broken his leg. Let him lie still.”
“Broke its leg?”
The man takes off his hat and—no kidding—throws it on the ground. I half-expect him to start stomping on it, Yosemite Sam style.
“You’ve got to be kidding me!”
Xander shakes his head sadly. “I can’t be sure until the veterinarian arrives, but I believe he broke his fetlock joint. Unfortunately, that is a death sentence for most horses.”
The horse looks up at us with his big brown eyes, and my heart melts. Poor guy.
“Hey!” Bonnie shouts behind us, seemingly snapping out of her trance. “You’re trespassing, Applegate! Get off my property!”
“I came here to see Ajax,” the man—Applegate, I presume—protests. “But it looks like you people have gone and ruined him!”
“His name is Franklin,” Bonnie says through gritted teeth.
“His racing name is Ajax.”
“I would never let you race one of my horses!”
“Well, sure looks that way now, doesn’t it?”
“Come on!” Dash shouts. “A man has died here. Can we all cool it a moment?”
Applegate cocks his head at Dash. “Isn’t that good for business around these parts?” he sneers.
As the rest of us stare at him in disgust, Bonnie loses it. She starts toward him with both hands outstretched, a slew of obscenities streaming from her mouth. It takes Phil and Sharon both to hold her back. I have no doubt she’d take that guy apart with her bare hands. Beside me, Dash’s fists are balled at his sides. I’ve never seen him look so angry. Just as he opens his mouth to speak, Xan
der stands and takes a position between Dash and Applegate, both hands raised calmly palm-out.
“Listen, friend,” he says softly to Applegate. “Regardless of what you may think of us or this place, this is a very serious matter. Whatever business you have here has to be put on hold. And you have my word that I will do everything in my power to help heal this horse, but he will never race.”
Applegate stares at Xander, his mouth a tight little line in his face. “Alright,” he says finally, and he plucks his hat up from the dirt. “I’m going. But rest assured I’m not leaving this town. I’m not finished here yet.” He gets back into the rental car and speeds away, making sure to spray as much gravel in our direction as possible.
“What a—” Dash starts.
“Pompous jerk?” I offer. “Arrogant cretin? Conceited jackass?”
“Yeah, that works,” he grinds out.
Bonnie looks at me like she only just now remembered I’m still there. She hugs me tight. “Oh, Cassie, this is all so terrible.”
“I know. But don’t worry; we’re going to figure this thing out.”
“We?” she says.
Over her shoulder, Sheriff Phil looks at me dubiously.
CHAPTER 6
The first thing I see when I get back to the shop is Mom tapping her foot anxiously with her cell phone in hand.
“Where have you been? Why weren’t you answering your phone? You could have called. I thought you were in a ditch somewhere.”
She gives me the third-degree for a solid minute before I can get a word in edgewise. Of course, when I tell her about what happened, she feels terrible about it and hugs me. Moms, right? I send her home for the day, even though I know she’s going to head straight over to Bonnie’s with a casserole or a pie of some sort, and I continue in my quest to mark my merchandise with sales stickers. It’s a mundane task, but it affords me some thinking time.
I really shouldn’t have said “we” to Bonnie. I didn’t mean to. I meant “we” as in the present company—the police and Dash, but certainly not me. See, Sheriff Phil is one of the few people who knows that it was Dash and I who solved a young woman’s murder recently, because we told him the whole story, omitting a few of the illegal details, so that he could help us get the evidence to the places it needed to be. Which is why he gave me the look he did when I said “we.”
The bells on the door chime and I instinctively turn my head and smile, but it evaporates at the first hint of a cream-colored suit. Ugh, that color—it reminds me of old milk. This guy Applegate looks around the shop before he addresses me.
“Miss Miscellanea, huh? It’s cute. I like it. Reminds me of a New York boutique.”
“Is that so?” I ask, amused.
“Sure does. Ever been? Greatest city in the world.”
“Once,” I tell him. “I found it somewhat crowded.”
“That’s why you gotta get yourself a penthouse, like me. Live up high. Your own little piece of heaven.”
“Sure. How can I help you?” I ask, not certain that I want to hear his reply.
He smiles, and I think that it’s supposed to look genuine, but it comes across as cocky.
“I’m just getting to know the town a little better. Besides, I think we got off on the wrong foot earlier. You didn’t exactly see the best side of me.” He sticks out a meaty hand. “Henry Applegate, real estate developer.”
His hand is fleshy and sweaty. I shake it halfheartedly. “Cassie Cleary, shop owner.”
“Cassie,” he repeats, and I immediately dislike the very sound of my name coming out of his mouth. “I’m just gonna have a look around.”
“Feel free,” I tell him, and go back to my stickers to avoid having to talk to him.
I furtively keep glancing at him every few minutes. He paces around the store slowly, pausing every now and then at a case or the counter, as if he’s actually shopping. I’m certain there’s nothing in a secondhand store that he’d consider worthy to purchase, and furthermore, I really don’t want to take any money from him. Even in a fair transaction it would feel kind of icky.
He treads around the store a few more times, and after about fifteen minutes he breaks the silence by loudly asking, “How much for this?”
I turn. He’s pointing at Xander’s horse sculpture.
“For you, Henry?” I smile sweetly. “One million.”
He smirks. “That’s real funny.”
Does he honestly think I’m joking with him? I shrug. “Price of fine art.”
Hey, Xander did say I could name the price.
“You know,” he says, still smirking, “I could buy this whole town twice over if I wanted.”
“Mm, from what I hear, you’re not having the best luck with that so far,” my return smile drips with sarcasm.
His smirk disappears. “I own hotels. Condominium complexes. Restaurants. An amusement park in California. You think this town means anything to me?”
“Then why are you still here?”
The arrogant grin returns. “Because you people don’t appreciate what you have. Look at Roswell. Or Salem. Those places probably do ten times the tourism you do. This place could be huge. Don’t you see I want to help you? All of you look at me I’m some evil invader. I want to put this place on the map.”
I can’t tell if he’s being literal or not—you actually won’t find Bandit Hills on almost any map or GPS. We’re not even on the sign for Exit 13 on the highway.
“Maybe we like it this way. Maybe you can’t just buy your way into everything,” I tell him.
He takes a step closer to me, trying to act like a big, intimidating alpha male, but I stand my ground. Ooh, I just want to slap the smirk off his face. I imagine he’s not married.
“Trust me, Cassie. Everyone can be bought.” He nods to me and heads for the door. “You think about the price on that statue. I’ll come by tomorrow.” And then he leaves.
Geez! What a jerk. As if I would sell the statue to him. I can’t even imagine what Xander would think. I watch Applegate get into his convertible, and as he peels out of the parking spot, I decide that I was right; a million bucks is a fair price for him. I try to go back to my stickers, but I’m seething. I just can’t focus. Instead I call Dash.
“Hey,” he answers on the first ring.
“Hay is for horses. You want to pick me up and grab something to eat? I can close the store a bit early.”
“Uh, sure, sounds good.”
“Great. I’m so hungry I could eat a horse.”
“Bad timing, Cass.”
“Sorry.”
He pauses for a long moment. “Does this mean we’re not arguing anymore?”
“Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth. Just come over.”
“Cassie, seriously—”
“I know, I know. I’m just horsing around.”
“I’m hanging up on you.” And he does, before I can say something about a horse of a different color.
CHAPTER 7
As soon as I see Dash’s El Dorado pull up to the curb in front of the store, I flip the open sign to “closed” and grab my purse, but then the bells chime.
“I was coming out,” I tell him.
“I know,” he says, “but I wanted to say something first.”
“Um, okay,” I swallow hard, uncertain.
“We didn’t get a chance to talk earlier. We really should just… you know, get that out of the way.”
He runs a hand through his dirty-blond hair, which I know by now is a sign that he’s nervous.
“In light of everything that’s happened today, it’s not super high on my agenda,” I tell him candidly, hoping that he takes it the right way.
“You’re right. But just let me say what I want to say, and then we can go from there.” He takes a deep breath—
Crash! I nearly jump out of my skin. Dash crouches and sticks a hand in his blazer. One of the knick-knacks, a ceramic horse, somehow fell off a shelf.
“Relax, Agent Hamilton,”
I say with a grin as Dash pulls his hand out of his coat. “What were you going to pull out, your PI license?”
“I just figured if it was a burglar, he might think I had a gun.”
I laugh at him. “A burglar? What is this, the Roaring 20’s?” I pick up the knick-knack, which is now in two pieces. “Looks like his head broke off. Clean break, though. I can probably glue it back on and sell it at half-price—”
