Chapter Twenty-Nine #2
“He… What? How do you know all this?” asked Yvette. She fixed me with a cold look. “I knew you weren’t a fancy-ass instructor. I knew it for sure when we rode out with Harvey.”
“So that’s why you gave me such a difficult horse!”
“I didn’t. I genuinely wanted to ride Prince, but when I took London’s saddle off after, there was a burr under it. It was no wonder he got spooked.”
“I thought you were trying to get me thrown!”
“I didn’t saddle up the horses,” Yvette reminded me. “I think Harvey slipped the burr under.”
I was saved from answering by the horse trailer slowing, turning, and coming to a stop.
“Maddox, are you still there?” I asked.
Lily held up the phone. “I’m still here,” he said. “We found the correct turnoff and we’re on our way. Sit tight.”
“Who’s that?” asked Yvette.
“The horse trailer stopped,” I told Maddox.
“Can you hide?” he asked.
I glanced at the musty pile of horse blankets. “Not really.”
“We’ll be there in minutes.”
I didn’t want to tell him we might not have minutes as the door bolts slid back. “Radio silent,” I said quickly and Lily stuck the phone in her jeans pocket. Maddox remained quiet. I put my finger to my lips and Yvette nodded, shivering as the door opened, sending in the cool evening air.
The first horse was unloaded, its hooves skittering down the ramp and then falling quiet on the soft ground outside.
I motioned with my hand for Lily and Yvette to get to their feet, ready, but remain crouched.
We would have one shot at making an escape, if the opportunity arose.
I motioned to myself and pointed in one direction, then to Lily and the other way, then to Yvette and a different direction.
I mimed running and hiding. Lily shook her head rapidly: No.
“We have to,” I mouthed. “We have to split up and run.”
“Hide,” whispered Yvette, pointing to the blankets. “They only know about me.”
“They’ll see us.”
“Not at first.”
“She’s right. We might have a few seconds,” said Lily.
“Okay,” I agreed. “Yvette play dead.”
They were right. We might only gain a few seconds, but it came with a bigger element of surprise than the few seconds we’d get if they saw all three of us together, ready to pounce.
Yvette slumped to the floor and pushed hair across her eyes, like she’d been jostled around, unable to brush it back.
I grabbed a blanket and snuggled close to Lily as we pulled it over our heads, pressing our backs to the wall, making ourselves as small as we could.
“She’s still out cold,” said a male voice.
“Take the horse into the barn and we’ll deal with her after,” said Harvey before two sets of feet, and the horse’s, intermingled with each other as they took the ramp.
I pushed back the blanket and stood, reaching for the bolt holding the divider in place. It hadn’t been closed so I pushed the divider open a fraction.
“Let’s go,” I said and Lily and Yvette scrambled to their feet. We filed through the divider and I pushed it back into place, not bothering with wasting precious seconds on returning the bolt.
The sky was velvety black, a trickle of stars just visible beyond the towering trees. A barn loomed in front of us and as we stepped out onto the ramp, I noted there were plenty of places to hide just as soon as we split apart.
“Run,” I hissed to the others, ready to leap off the ramp.
“Not so fast,” said a cold voice as Harvey moved around the side of the horse trailer into view, the gun raised.
I hesitated, the window of opportunity gone.
“There’s three of us, and only one gun,” I said defiantly as Lily and Yvette flanked me.
“I bet I can shoot all of you pretty damn quick,” said Harvey.
“What’s going on?” The second gunman stepped out of the barn.
“Our stowaways were going to make their escape,” said Harvey.
Out of the shadowy barn emerged Joel. Bewilderment crossed his face. “What are they doing here?” he asked. “You were only supposed to move the horses. Yvette? What’s going on?”
“Good question.” Harvey stepped backwards, careful on the uneven ground. He beckoned Joel forwards. “Why don’t you tell me what we’re supposed to do with Scooby Doo, Scrappy Doo, and your snooping sister-in-law?”
“What do you mean ‘tell you what we’re supposed to do’? They’ve got nothing to do with any of this,” said Joel, waving his hand around.
“They’re going to blow this whole thing up and we’ll all go to jail,” said Harvey.
“I’m not going to no jail,” said the gunman. He removed the gun from his waistband, training it on our frozen group.
Two guns, three women. The odds were getting worse, fast.
“Yvette?” Joel stared at her, shock and fear clouding his face.
“You knew about this?” she said, disgusting dripping from her tone.
“I can explain.”
“Did you kill my sister?” she hissed.
“No, of course not… no, Yvette, no! I could never hurt Jessica.”
“She’s dead, and Harvey has his gun pointed at us! Not you. Us!”
“C’mon, man, put the gun down. You too. We can talk about this,” said Joel. He held his hands up, showing he was unarmed, and tried waving at the two men to put down their guns. They ignored him.
“There’s no way they’re staying quiet,” said Harvey.
“Too right we won’t,” yelled Yvette. “I’ll tell the whole damn world you killed my sister just so you could cover up your horse stealing operation!”
“I didn’t… it was an accident. Yvette, please…” Joel pleaded.
“Jessica knew,” I said, stepping forwards, directing the focus, and the guns, to me.
“She figured out most of it anyway. She knew you were stealing from the farm to fund your affair, and she knew you were trying to put the money back before anyone noticed it was missing. I don’t think she knew exactly where you were getting the money from, first your loan shark, then Harvey to keep quiet about the stolen horses, but she was close to figuring it out. ”
“Funding the affair? Joel barely spent a penny on me,” whined Yvette.
“See? They know too much,” said Harvey, talking over her.
“You knew if Jessica figured it all out, she’d divorce you and you’d have nothing, so you killed her,” I said firmly.
“No, that’s not…” Joel started to protest. “Jessica didn’t…” He trailed off, gulping.
Harvey stepped back, putting himself in line with Joel. He held the gun out to him. “Take it,” he said.
“What? No!”
“Take the gun and shoot them,” he said. “Get rid of them and we get rid of our problem and you get the farm.”
“Joel?” pleaded Yvette. When he said nothing as Harvey pressed the gun into his hand, she choked back a sob. “You asshole!”
A leaf drifted down, floating on a light breeze, and landed on my shoulder. I plucked it off, looking at it, frowning as it sparked a memory of leaves where they shouldn’t have been. Leaves that were toxic.
“It wasn’t you,” I said, realizing now, I’d gotten it wrong. I’d thought Joel had the biggest motive to kill Jessica but I was wrong.
The crack of a bullet sounded through the air, sending us all diving from the exposed ramp to the damp earth.