Hunter's Moon Page 8

  Mike shrugged. “Nowhere. The cops weren’t really here because of me, were they?”

  “They said you smoked pot, Mike!” Sam interjected excitedly before Molly could reply. “They said you drank beer too!”

  “You are such a liar,” Mike said, fixing his little brother with a disdainful look.

  “He is not!” Susan took up the cudgel in her twin’s defense. “Sam never lies!”

  “That’s what they said, Mike,” Ashley confirmed. Mike’s eyes widened, and he glanced at Molly. Lips compressed, she nodded.

  “They said a group of teenagers was trespassing in a barn over at Sweet Meadow Stud. When they pulled up, the kids ran. They left behind evidence that they had been smoking pot and drinking beer in the barn. A witness identified you as one of the boys.”

  “What witness?” The very defensiveness of Mike’s tone made Molly’s heart sink.

  “You were one of the kids in the barn, weren’t you, Mike?” Oh, God, what was she going to do? Disciplining a teenage brother was a Herculean task, Molly was discovering. Taking away TV and phone privileges did not seem to be a strong enough response to this crisis. But what did that leave? Grounding him? Physical discipline? Her imagination boggled at the thought. Mike was bigger than she was.

  Mike hesitated, his gaze unwillingly locking with Molly’s.

  “Maybe,” he said.

  “Maybe?” Molly’s voice went up an octave.

  Mike started to say something, then glanced at Will, who stood silently to Molly’s left, his hands still thrust into his trouser pockets, his eyes on Mike’s face.

  “Does he have to be in on this?” Mike asked with a jerk of his head in Will’s direction.

  “He’s on our side,” Susan piped up. Ashley and Sam nodded agreement. Molly barely caught herself before she joined in.

  “That was pretty rude,” she told her brother. Mike shrugged.

  “Anyway, he’s going to get you a lawyer,” Ashley said. “Before you talk to the police.”

  “I’m not talking to the police, and I don’t need a lawyer. It wasn’t me in that barn.” Mike’s face turned sullen, an expression Molly had lately become all too familiar with. He was lying. She knew it in her gut. All at once she got mad. How could he do this, to himself, to her, to all of them? Harsh words sprang to her lips. She had to grit her teeth to hold them back. Yelling at Mike was not the answer, she knew, although she couldn’t seem to figure out what was.

  “You don’t believe me, do you?” Mike’s question was angry. Looking at him, Molly suddenly saw before her the undersized eight-year-old he had been when he was restored to their family after years in a series of foster homes, and her own anger cooled. He had used belligerence to mask his fear then too.

  “Whether I believe you or not, you’re in trouble, bud,” she said quietly. “This isn’t going to go away. The deputies who were here want me to call them tomorrow to set up a time so they can talk to you. You can just bet they’ll be talking to other kids, too, and I’d say there’s a pretty good chance that somebody will spill the beans. And that’s not even the worst of it. The worst of it is what you’re doing to yourself. If you were drinking, or smoking pot, I need to know. You need to tell me the truth.”

  Mike glared at her. “Why? You never believe a word I say anyway.”

  Before Molly could reply, he turned his back and stomped away. Feeling helpless, she could only watch as he took the porch steps in a single bound and disappeared into the house.

  “He’s going through a phase,” Ashley said, clearly wanting both to comfort Molly and to excuse Mike’s conduct.

  Molly took a deep breath. “I know.”

  She had told herself the same thing countless times, but it was cold comfort just at that moment. She glanced up at Will. “Do you really think he needs a lawyer?”

  “Up to you,” Will said, sounding indifferent. “You could just take him along to the police and let him ’fess up. If he really was smoking pot and drinking beer, a taste of the juvenile justice system might be what it takes to straighten him out.”

  “He’s only fourteen,” Molly said sharply.

  “If he’s smoking pot at fourteen, what will he be doing at twenty?” It was a reasonable question, one that Molly had already asked herself, and been unable to answer. Her shoulders slumped.

  “If you could get us a lawyer, we’d appreciate it,” she said to Will, knowing she might be making a mistake but unable to do anything else but come to her brother’s defense. Will nodded.

  “Mike won’t have to go to jail, will he?” Susan asked, looking up at Molly. The child sounded scared, and Molly squeezed her shoulder.

  “No, of course not,” Molly answered stoutly, striving to reassure her little sister.

  Her siblings, Ashley included, looked relieved, as though Molly’s word were law. Will’s expression was unreadable.

  Susan yawned.

  “You’re tired, aren’t you, Susie Q?” Molly asked. Susan shook her head in an instant, vigorous no, which Molly disregarded with the wisdom born of experience. Glancing from Sam to Ashley, she added: “We’re all tired. Let’s go inside.”

  “Him too?” Sam asked hopefully, looking up at Will. Never having had a father, or a father figure, Sam was always eager to attach himself to an available adult male.

  “No!” Molly said with more force than tact. Gaining a grip on her composure, she turned to Will, holding out her hand. “I’m sorry the evening ended this way. Thank you for offering to help us with the lawyer. Good night.”

  “Could I speak to you for a minute?” Will asked, ignoring her outstretched hand. To anyone else it might have sounded like a polite request, but Molly knew an order when she heard one.

  Ashley, with a glance from her sister to Will, began to move away toward the house, shepherding Susan and Sam with her. “Come on, guys.”

  Ashley probably thought that, as her “date,” Will wanted privacy to kiss her good night!

  “What?” Molly asked abruptly when she and Will were alone.

  “I expect you to get your job back tomorrow.”

  Molly, who was braced for a lecture on the merits of letting her brother take his lumps, had almost forgotten her Faustian bargain. “I’ll try.”

  “Don’t try. Do it,” Will said, voice curt. He studied her for a moment, then reached into his inside coat pocket and drew out his wallet. “How much do you need to get your phone turned back on?”

  “I don’t want your money.”

  He opened the wallet and thumbed through the bills anyway.

  “It’s not my money, it’s the government’s money. You’re working for Uncle Sam now, remember? And I need to be able to get in touch with you in a hurry if I have to. So you need to get your phone turned back on.”

  “You mean I don’t get a shoe phone, like in Get Smart?” Molly tried to cover her humiliation with flippant humor.

  “How much?” Will ignored her weak attempt to be funny. Grudgingly, Molly named a figure.

  “I’ll have a lawyer call you tomorrow,” Will said, handing over a quintet of twenties. “If I were you, I wouldn’t be too easy on your brother.”

  “That’s too much”—Molly discerned the amount at a glance, and thrust the fanned bills back at him—“and how many teenagers have you raised lately?”

  “Keep it. You might get another sudden urge for doughnuts, and I’d hate to find you out robbing a 7-Eleven.” His mouth quirked at her. “As for raising teenagers, I have an eighteen-year-old son. A good kid. But I sure have seen a lot who’ve gone bad.”

  “Mike’s not going bad!” The warning stung.

  “Isn’t he?” Will shrugged. “You know him better than I do. I’ll be in touch. Good night.”

  With a brief inclination of his head, Will turned and walked to his car. Molly watched him go. Wind rustled through the treetops, dislodging a shower of leaves that swirled down around her. The car backed down the driveway and turned right, heading for town.

 
; Alone in the dark, Molly was suddenly cold. Crossing her arms over her chest, she turned and headed for the house. Despite the chill in the air, she was in no hurry to get inside. Once there, she would have to deal with Mike.

  And she simply did not know what to do.

  About anything.

  11

  October 12, 1995

  It was 3:00 a.m. The old woman sat straight up in her bed, awakened from a sound sleep. It was happening again. She was convinced of it.

  The screams had invaded her dreams. Long-ago screams. Screams of an eviscerated pet mouse, a mutilated kitten. Screams of a parakeet, wings and tail aflame, streaking frantically through the house. Screams of a dog. A horse. A child.

  Oh, God, the child. And she had never spoken out.

  Breath catching on a sob, she fought to calm herself. It couldn’t be happening again, it couldn’t. That was twenty years in the past. Over. Done with. Forgotten, by almost everyone. Even for those who remembered, time had worked its magic to veil their memories and dull their pain.

  The screams that had awakened her had been part of a nightmare, of course. Nothing more than that.

  Though it was not a cold night, she was shivering. As she forced herself to lie back down again and pulled the covers up around her chin, she discovered why: The thin silk nightgown she wore was drenched in sweat.

  From the nightmare, of course.

  She lay awake the rest of the night, afraid to close her eyes lest she sleep, and invite the nightmare back again.

  12

  October 12, 1995

  Slicked with early morning dew, the lush bluegrass lawn shimmered in the light of the rising sun as Molly walked along a turf path to Barn 15. The crisp air was tinged with manure and sawdust. Neatly trimmed privet hedges underscored with masses of golden yellow chrysanthemums outlined the maze of walkways that led from the backstretch barns to the track and the stands and beyond.

  Built of aged gray limestone, impeccably manicured Keeneland was one of the most beautiful racecourses in the world. Composed of more than nine hundred acres bordered by a three-foot-tall, ivy-covered stone wall, it was officially named Keeneland Race Course, in the European tradition, instead of racetrack, in the tawdry American fashion, when it was built in the 1930s. Billboards and signs were not allowed on the grounds, and it was the only major racetrack in the world without a public address system. This omission was deliberate, underlining the expectation that Keeneland’s visitors would be knowledgeable enough to identify horses, riders, and silks without an announcer’s assistance.

  Just as it was meant to, Keeneland exuded an air of old money. Not nearly as well known as Churchill Downs, Saratoga, or Belmont, Keeneland had the exclusivity of a well-kept secret. Even this early in the day, men casually elegant in navy blazers breakfasted on the terrace overlooking the track, heads buried in copies of the racing form. The few women present were more colorfully dressed, but they, too, subscribed to the tasteful understatement that was the course’s unofficial dress code. No outrageous fashions or enormous hats for this crowd.

  An exercise rider, standing straight-legged in the irons, jogged a fidgety Thoroughbred down the path, heading toward the oval track. Molly stepped aside to let them pass. The colt lashed out at her with a back hoof as it went by, skittish rather than vicious, and was sharply called to order by its rider. Molly dodged, then continued on, unruffled. Like all true horsemen, she had been kicked, bitten, stepped on, and thrown too many times to count. The unpredictability of the animals was a given.

  In the distance, the pounding of hooves told of other horses already on the track. It was just shy of 7:00 a.m., and morning work-outs were well under way.

  “Mornin’.” A uniformed security guard scrutinized with a glance the pass Molly had clipped to the front of her zip-up gray sweat shirt. Hired for the meet, he was no one she knew. With a nod she kept walking.

  The white-painted barns were clustered beneath a sheltering grove of trees. Outside Barn 15, two eight-horse trailers and a lawn company truck were parked. Marta Bates, another Wyland Farm groom and a good friend, led Tabasco Sauce toward the paddock. Preoccupied with the colt, who was prone to acting up, she acknowledged Molly with an absent wave.

  Molly felt as if she had never been away.

  Except for the stamping of horses’ hooves, it was quiet inside the barn. Kept as clean as a hospital, the vast interior gleamed with fresh white paint from the baseboards to the lofty rafters high overhead. Heavy double-wide doors mounted on rollers provided access from either end. At the moment only the side through which Molly had entered was open, allowing a waft of fresh air to drift through. Thirty-two stalls faced each other across a wide turf lane. Each stall bore a plaque inscribed with its resident’s name on the bottom half of the Dutch door. Half-barrels of plum-colored chrysanthemums adorned the space between every third stall. The barn smelted of sawdust, disinfectant, and horse.

  Molly took a deep breath, the action almost subconscious. The smell was as familiar to her as her name, and as welcome as the scent of her own home.

  Wyland Farm’s head groom, Rosario Arguello, whistled softly as he mucked out a stall just inside the entrance. Molly leaned over the half-open door.

  “Hey, Rosey, where’s Mr. Simpson?” she asked. Dark and compact, a native of Argentina who had once hoped to become a jockey, Rosey was an even closer friend than Marta. He glanced up, eyes widening as he saw who was asking.

  “Molly!” he said in his heavily accented English, dropping his pitchfork and walking toward her. “Damn, Molly, what you doing, hmm? How could you go off and leave us? Just like that? What about a goodbye?”

  Molly smiled at him as he caught her shoulders and gave her a rough hug. Fortyish, Rosey had a wife and four children, with another on the way. He had never once in the seven years she had known him treated her as anything other than a genderless fellow groom and friend, and she appreciated that.

  “So, how’s Mr. Simpson feeling today?” Molly asked, which was a roundabout way of inquiring whether the trainer was in one of his legendary foul moods. Rosey knew the code. He rolled his eyes.

  “Bad, huh?” Molly grimaced. Just her luck.

  “Lady Valor came up lame this morning.”

  “Oh, no!” Born at Wyland Farm, Lady Valor was—or had been—one of Molly’s horses. Molly had cared for the two-year-old filly from birth, and had a special fondness for her.

  “Mr. Simpson’s with her now, I think,” Rosey called after her, but Molly was already hurrying away. Most of the roomy stalls with their half-open doors were empty, she saw at a glance as she passed them. The horses were on the track. In the stall beside Tabasco Sauce’s empty one, Ophelia lay with legs tucked beneath her. As Molly passed, the little burro clambered to her feet, furry rabbit ears pricking forward. She wanted the handful of sweet feed that Molly’s presence usually presaged.

  “Later, Ophelia,” Molly promised, and strode on.

  Lady Valor’s stall was second from the far end, on the left-hand side that was Wyland Farm’s row. Simpson, his burly form clad in khakis and a blue button-down shirt with sleeves rolled up, and veterinarian Herb Mott were in the stall with the filly. Simpson’s thick gray hair, usually carefully groomed, was standing on end as if he’d been raking his hands through it. Dr. Mott, seventyish and frail, was kneeling, running his hand over Lady Valor’s leg, while Simpson, his back to Molly, leaned over the vet’s shoulder. Angie Archer, a young hotwalker Molly assumed had been recruited as her own replacement, stood at the animal’s head. Lady Valor had her ears back. Molly knew that look. For all her sweetness, Lady Valor was a biter.

  “Can I help?” Not waiting for an answer, Molly entered the stall and went straight to Lady Valor’s head. The filly greeted her with a soft nicker and a vigorous nod. After an identifying glance, Angie surrendered the shank with an expression of relief. Noting the quartet of small round bruises on the sturdily built brunette’s bare forearm, Molly almost smiled. Lady Valor’s displeased
nips were as painful as a vicious pinch.

  “She’s injured her goddamned stifle!” Simpson threw Molly an anguished glance.

  “Oh, no!” Molly said with genuine alarm. The stifle was the joint in the hind leg of a horse that was roughly equivalent to the human knee.

  “Overnight, in her stall,” Simpson continued almost on a groan.

  “Is she still going to be able to run in the Spinster?” Molly asked, referring to the coming Sunday’s big distaff stakes race. Lady Valor was an early favorite.

  “Don’t look like it.”

  The vet glanced up at that, shaking his head in confirmation of Simpson’s opinion. Simpson swore.

  “Sorry, Don,” Dr. Mott said, gently putting Lady Valor’s leg down and standing up. “This kind of injury just takes time to heal.”

  “I know.” Simpson wiped the lower part of his face with his hand, shook his head, and then recovered his composure enough to walk Dr. Mott to the stall door.

  “She’ll be fine in a month, six weeks.”

  “I know.”

  Dr. Mott left. Simpson latched the chest-high wooden door behind the vet, then turned back into the stall. His gaze met Molly’s.

  “Sometimes I feel like I oughta be one of them Hee-Haw characters: You know, if it weren’t for bad luck I’d have no luck at all.” He was talking more to himself than her, Molly knew, and she also knew that no reply was expected, or wanted. Suddenly Simpson’s bushy gray eyebrows snapped together, and he frowned.

  “What the hell are you doin’ here?” he demanded, as if all the reasons she shouldn’t be present had just registered on him. “I thought I fired you.”

  “You didn’t fire me. I quit,” Molly answered, frowning back at him. Being meek with Don Simpson was a mistake, she had learned soon after he had taken over the job a year ago. At sixty-two, he had once been a big-time trainer. A career-crushing string of losses over the last five years had sent him reeling to the relatively small potatoes of Wyland Farm, which, like himself, had once been a force to reckon with in the racing world. Wyland Farm, and Simpson, were considered has-beens by people in the know. But Simpson still thought of himself as a superstar. His ego had not shrunk along with his prestige. He was a bully with a vicious temper, happy to terrorize any poor soul who would let him. His one saving grace, in Molly’s eyes, was that he had an almost intuitive understanding of horses, and a genuine love for them.