“It’s getting complicated. I don’t like being squeezed from two sides.” Rooney shrugged. “When this comes out, and I’ve decided it will, my reputation’s shot. It looks to me like I’m about to retire a few years early. I might as well do it with a clean slate.”
“I’m wondering,” Gabe began, and his voice was cool, deceptively detached, “if I should take you outside and beat you to a pulp. Or if I should just let you live with this.”
Rooney picked up his glass and sipped the melted ice cubes slowly. “We all make our choices, Slater. You’re a gambler. When you know the house has stacked the deck, are you going to bet against it?”
“Some games you just don’t play.” He rose as Kelsey walked back to the booth.
“I’m all right. I’m sorry.” She was still white around the lips, but her hand was steady when it gripped Gabe’s.
“You hang on for a minute.” He gave his attention back to Rooney. “Let’s have the rest.”
“You’re not going to like it. Milicent Byden didn’t hire me just to compile your dossier, Mr. Slater. That came later. She put me on retainer months ago, right after Kelsey contacted Naomi Chadwick.”
Kelsey pressed her lips together, praying for her stomach to settle. “I don’t understand.” But she thought she did, she was terrified that she did.
“Flat out,” Rooney continued, “she didn’t want you there. Didn’t want to take any chances that you and Naomi would click.”
“How did she intend to prevent it?”
“Well, since there wasn’t anything to smear Naomi with since she’d been released from prison, Milicent made use of the past. After Alec Bradley was shot, I took her my files. All of my files. There was a lot of detail in them. Not just about Naomi. I’m thorough, you see. I had documentation on Bradley and his associate. The race fix, my suspicions on Cunningham’s involvement. When she gave you a yank, Kelsey, and you didn’t come to heel, she put that information to use.”
“How?” Kelsey braced herself. “You’d better tell me how.” “She had me look up Bradley’s old friend and lure him back to the area with the promise of a job. She didn’t tell me what that job would be, but it didn’t take long to figure it out. Not with history repeating itself. A fixed race, a dead colt. Gossip and suspicion circled around Naomi, and you.” He jabbed a finger at Gabe. “Milicent didn’t want you anywhere near her blood kin. Kelsey was supposed to see just how unsavory racing was, how ruthless. And she was supposed to run back home.”
“But I didn’t.” Kelsey could feel tears burning at her eyes, but she wouldn’t free them. Not now. Not yet. “You’re telling me that she was behind it? Behind Pride’s death? And, God, Mick’s?”
“Even a woman like Milicent can’t control a man with no ethics. You could say that her hireling momentarily got away from her. She was steamed after the groom’s murder. Read me the riot act as if I’d stabbed the poor bastard myself.” He shook his head, remembering. “The horse, now, that’s what she wanted. A re-creation of crimes, a scandal to teach her granddaughter a lesson.”
“Because of me,” Kelsey murmured. Her hand lay limply under Gabe’s. “All of it because of me.”
“You’re the last of the Byden line,” Rooney pointed out. “She sets store by that. And she hates Naomi with a kind of cold-blooded passion that doesn’t dilute with time. If she could ruin her again, and keep control over you, it would all be worth it. She lent Cunningham enough money to buy that horse, Big Sheba. More than enough to keep him under her thumb and persuade him to work with her button man. Not that she liked it,” Rooney added. “Associating, even from a distance, with that type. But the ends justify.”
“I don’t think I know the woman you’re talking about,” Kelsey said slowly. “I don’t think I recognize her. How could she ruin so many lives?”
“Control them,” Rooney corrected. “She never considered any of it more than necessary control. And I went along with it.” He rubbed a hand between his eyes. “The first time I was young, eager, impressionable. This time I felt trapped. And, hell, it was just a job. My last visitor of the day changed things.” He studied Gabe’s face for a long moment. “Maybe I’m getting old. Christ knows I’m tired. So when he showed up, trying to make a new deal, I cut my losses. And, maybe, I like to think that I figured it was time for a little atonement.”
Rooney’s eyes sharpened. “Do you want to know how Benny Morales’s son did the Chadwick colt? How somebody nearly did one of yours, Slater? Look to your own organization, and look to your old man. That’s right,” he said, smiling a little. “Rich Slater wormed plenty of secrets out of Alec Bradley. And he was more than happy to use them, and repeat the sequence when Milicent Byden sent for him. Revenge and control, revenge and money. Her motives, and his. Makes a hell of a combination.”
CHAPTER
TWENTY-EIGHT
“PULL OVER, WILL YOU?”
A half mile from Longshot, Gabe swung to the shoulder of the road. “Are you feeling sick again?”
“No.” She was, but not in the way he meant. “I just need to walk for a minute. Can we walk?” Without waiting for his answer, she pushed out of the car.
The perfect night, she thought. The classic midsummer night in the country with a diamond-bright dome of sky, stars, and moon. Not even a wisp of a cloud to spoil it. The air smelled of the honeysuckle that was patiently burying the fence along the rolling field to the right. The high grass that grew beyond it was alive with the chirp of crickets. As she walked, the soft shoulder gave under Kelsey’s feet.
“It’s too much,” she murmured. “It’s just too much to take in. How can I tell her, Gabe?” She spun around, her hands reaching for his, for a solution. “How can I tell my mother that it was all planned? That everything that happened was all part of some scheme to keep her away from me?”
“First”—he reached up to tuck her hair behind her ear—“you stop blaming yourself.”
“I’m not.” She stopped, turning to lean on the fence, to look out over the shadowy hills. “But I’m angry that I was used, like a pawn. She wasn’t even thinking of me as a child. I can see that. Not as a child, certainly not as a person. Progeny,” Kelsey said bitterly. “That’s all I was. All I am to her. Just the next Byden.”
He started to speak, to offer some sort of comfort, then stopped. Sometimes it was kinder simply to listen.
“I think,” Kelsey continued, “I really think she wanted to love me, that she tried, even succeeded for stretches of time. But the way she felt about my mother, and maybe—God, I hope—the guilt she lived with over what she’d done made it almost impossible. She wanted me to be a credit to the family name. Educated at the best schools, knowledgeable about the arts, competent in music and other acceptable pastimes. My friends had to be from the right families. Maybe that’s why I never made any who were really close to me. And every small rebellion, every flash of my own personality or needs was seen as a mirror of the woman she’d ruined.”
Kelsey plucked some honeysuckle from the vine and began slowly, systematically to shred the fragile white blossoms.
“When I turned twelve, she wanted me to go to boarding school in England. My father refused. It was one of the few times I’d ever seen them quarrel. I needed discipline, I needed guidance. My father said I needed childhood.”
With a sigh, she rubbed the tattered petals between her fingers, stinging the air with scent. “Did she realize that she was using him, too? Another pawn. How responsible is she, Gabe, for destroying their marriage, whatever chance they had of making it work? That’s the least of it, though,” she murmured, and let the blossoms fall. “Now I have to find a way to tell my mother why, and how, and who. And my father. I’ll have to tell him too, won’t I? He has a right to know everything she did then. Everything she’s done now.”
She turned to him then, pressing her face to his chest, grateful that his arms were there to wrap around her. “So much waste. So many lives lost or ruined. And it all trickles down
to some horribly misplaced family pride.”
“And a few more of the deadly sins,” he said quietly, thinking of his own father. “Envy, greed, lust. I’ve always believed more in luck than fate. But it’s more than luck that brought this full circle.” He drew her back so he could see her face. “You and me, Kelsey. We’ve both been a part of it right from the beginning.”
“And maybe we wouldn’t be so close to ending it if we hadn’t found each other. You’ll want to find him now, won’t you? Your father?”
“I’ll have to find him.”
“You could leave it to Rossi.” Her grip tightened suddenly, urgently. “Gabe. He wants to hurt you. If he went to Rooney’s office so soon after we did, he was probably following us. He’s looking for a way to get to you.”
“So, I’ll find him first. That’s my circle, Kelsey. I need to close it.”
“But if we went to the police—”
“Why haven’t we already called them?”
She looked away. He saw her heart, her needs too clearly. “All right. I need to talk to Naomi first, and you need to find your father. Then we’ll end it. I guess you’d better take me home.”
When they pulled up at Three Willows, she declined his offer to come in with her. She would do this alone. He waited until she went inside, until the front porch light went dark.
Gabe had his own demons to face. And the first wasn’t his father.
Inside, Kelsey glanced up the stairs. It was late. Undoubtedly Naomi was in bed. Wait until morning, she thought. It’s waited so long already, surely it could wait one more night. But that was cowardice. With a sigh, she headed toward the kitchen. She would brew a pot of tea first. That would give her a chance to sort out exactly how she would begin.
“Gertie?” Kelsey was surprised to find the housekeeper up, loading the dishwasher.
“Oh, Miss Kelsey, you gave me such a start.” The woman pressed a hand to the bodice of her pink chenille robe.
“It’s after midnight. You shouldn’t be working so late.”
“Oh, I was just putting my dishes in. There was a Bette Davis movie on the TV tonight, Now, Voyager. I had me some lemon cake and a good cry.” She sighed happily over the thought of it. “They just don’t make movies like that these days, Miss Kelsey.”
“No, they don’t.” Struggling to hold a conversation, Kelsey moved to the range, her movements mechanical as she picked up the kettle and walked to the sink to fill it. “Is everyone else in bed?”
“You want some tea? Let me do that.” Territorial, Gertie brushed her aside and set the kettle on to boil. “Channing’s out with Matt Gunner. That Tennessee Walker of the Williamses got a case of the strangles. They don’t know if he’ll make it until morning.”
“Oh, I’m sorry.”
“Well, it’s a shame, that’s the truth.” Gertie busied herself warming a china pot while waiting for the kettle to boil. “But I have to say Channing was mighty excited at the idea of sitting up half the night in a barn. I told him I’d leave the kitchen door unlatched for him, and there’s a nice cold plate of chicken in the fridge.”
“Then undoubtedly he’ll be in heaven.”
“It’s a pleasure having him around here.”
“For me, too. I need two cups, Gertie. I want to take a cup up to my mother.”
“Oh, she’s sleeping, honey.” Gertie chose the chamomile and measured the leaves out by sight. “Fact is, she looked so tired out and upset about something, that I had her take a sleeping pill just an hour ago.”
“A sleeping pill?”
“She said I was fussing, but she didn’t look well to me. All drawn out and pale. A good night’s sleep is what she needed, and I told her so. I was going to check on her before I went to bed.”
“I’ll do it.” Kelsey looked at the teapot with a mixture of resignation and relief. “Just one cup then, Gertie, thanks. I’ll talk to her in the morning.”
“She’ll be fine then. Just overtired, I expect.” Gertie put the pot on a tray, arranged the cup and saucer. “She’s looked better, happier these past few months than she has in a long, long time. That’s your doing. It don’t matter what else goes on, a mother pines for her child.”
“I’m here now.”
“I know it, honey. Don’t you stay up too late.”
“I won’t. Good night, Gertie.”
Kelsey carried the tray upstairs, setting it in her room before going to look in on her mother. In the slant of moonlight through the window, she could see Naomi sleeping, deeply.
So it would be in the morning after all, she thought, and slipped into her own room to wait for the dawn.
Gabe didn’t bother to stop in at the house, but drove straight to the barn. He saw the light above the tack room and grimly circled around and climbed the stairs. He didn’t knock.
Jamison sat at his desk, paperwork in neat, organized piles, a single glass of brandy at his elbow. He looked up, blinking owlishly.
“Gabe. What brings you up here so late?”
“I could ask you the same.”
“Oh, well.” With a tired smile, Jamison gestured at the stacks of papers. “There’s always something needs dealing with. It’s easier to concentrate at night, when things are quiet. There’s a jar of instant coffee over there,” he added. “You can heat up the pot on the hot plate.”
“No.” Gabe studied his trainer, his friend, in the yellow light of the desk lamp. The past months of strain and worry had taken their toll. The shadows under his eyes were like bruises, the lines bracketing his mouth so sharp and deep they might have been carved by a knife.
Not the face of a man who had recently trained a horse to the Triple Crown.
“I used to hang around the barn a lot when I worked here, didn’t I, Jamie? Tagged after you or Mick.”
“That you did.” Jamison relaxed the shoulders that had gone tense under Gabe’s scrutiny. “Or you’d hustle us into a poker game and hose us out of a week’s pay.”
“Cunningham never gave you much peace, as I remember. If you had one winner, he wanted two. Always a bigger race, a bigger purse. I remember he was always saying Moses over at Three Willows knew how to turn out champions. And if you didn’t, he’d find someone who could.”
“He was a hard man to work for. I trained good horses for him, won a lot of races. Had Horse of the Year back in the eighties with Try Again. But I never satisfied him.”
“He wanted a Derby winner. You never pulled that off. Even after the Chadwicks lost that colt at Keeneland back in—what was it? Seventy-three—and Cunningham’s was the favorite, you didn’t pull it off.”
Gabe’s voice was quiet, cool. “That colt came in third, as I remember. A disappointing third. That must have been hard to take after all you’d gone through to see him under the wire first.”
The memory had Jamison’s mouth twitching. “A show at the Derby’s no shame. The colt didn’t run his best that day, lost it in the last furlong. And things were hard around here, mighty hard.” He lifted his brandy, drank. “After Benny hung himself.”
“You and Benny were tight.”
“We were good friends.”
“Yeah. Good friends.” Gabe turned a chair around, straddled it. “How much did you have to do with it, Jamie? Then and now?”
“What are you getting at?”
“You and Benny were close. Did you talk him into fixing the race, or did you just go along with it? I’ll tell you what I think,” Gabe continued, without waiting for an answer. “I think you asked him to help you out. Give the colt a little edge. Cunningham was pushing you for that edge. Maybe he offered you a bigger cut of the purse. Maybe he just kept the pressure on you until you broke. And when you broke, you took Benny Morales along with you.”
His eyes never left Jamison’s face. “A Derby win, Jamie. Something you’ve always wanted, and up until now, never quite pulled off.”
“That’s foolish talk, Gabe. You’ve known me too long.”
“I have, Jamie. I
’ve known you too long not to know that nothing goes on in that barn that you don’t have a hand in. I didn’t put you together with what happened to the Three Willows colt this time, or what nearly happened to mine. My mistake,” he said, watching Jamison’s eyes drop. “Never figured you’d kill a horse just to win a race. Any race.”
Gabe took out a cigar, studying it from tip to tip while Jamison remained silent. “That’s what blinded me, Jamie, until Reno. He didn’t know it was a lethal dose. Neither did you. You were just giving my colt the edge, weren’t you, by seeing that Pride was eliminated? Is that how my father put it to you, Jamie? Give yourself the edge.”
“I wanted my own place,” Jamison whispered. “A man deserves his own after so many years of tending someone else’s. Any other year that colt would’ve won the Derby laughing. Why was it Moses should have one that could match him? Why was it?”
“Bad luck.” Gabe lit his cigar. He’d stopped feeling sorrow. He’d stopped feeling grief.
“You wanted that win, Gabe. Don’t tell me you didn’t.”
“Yeah, I wanted it. I won’t tell you I didn’t.”
“Are you going to tell me you wouldn’t have looked the other