Box Office Poison

He fell silent again. “But Charles was able to truss you up without incident. Perhaps your lover gave you some kind of protection against us. I wish we had more time to figure out exactly how you are doing it. But alas, I don’t. I think I will leave it to Charles to finish the job. It’s a shame about the note. I doubt we could persuade you to write one without doing violence to your person, which would undermine the theory I’m providing for the police. Charles, do you have gloves?”

“Yeah, of course.”

“Excellent. Then please see to it that Ms. Ellery shoots herself in the head. Through the temple, I think. Women are known to be squeamish about shooting themselves in the mouth.”

“I could slit her wrists.”

“True, but they tend to do it in warm baths with candles all around them. And someone might find her before she bled to death. No, I want to know she is dead. But wait until I am gone. My presence might lead to another unlikely escape on her part.”

“But you’ll come back for me and take me with you?” Charles asked

“Absolutely.” Qwendar packed up the pen and legal pad, handed the pistol to Charles, and walked to the end of the breezeway. In the doorway of the barn he vanished into Fey.

Charles pressed the gun into my hand. Some feeling had returned to my hands, and I waited for the moment when he was studying the side of my head, pushing the hair back behind my ear. Then I struck out and hit him hard on the hinge of his jaw. He yelled and lost his balance as he squatted in the dirt and sawdust of the breezeway. I scrabbled at the dirt, pulling myself away from him. There was a pitchfork resting against the side of a stall across the breezeway from me. The glow from the lights glittered off the sharp tines. If I could reach it … I pictured driving it into Charles pendulous belly. Could I do that? Hell, yes, I could. But I didn’t get even halfway. The thug landed hard on my back. I felt a rib crack and cried out in pain, though it was muffled by the gag. He was a crushing weight, his breath hot and reeking of beer and garlic puffed against my ear. It was like being smothered.

“Fuckin’ bitch!”

He jerked me up and dragged me back to Vento’s stall. Dirt and sawdust from the breezeway filled my shoes, and my skirt was rucked up around my waist. He grabbed my left hand in a crushing grip, forcing the gun into my hand, and my forefinger through the trigger. His thick finger pressed mine painfully against the metal of the trigger. With his free hand he gripped my chin, keeping my head still. I fought him, but I was no match for his bulk or his strength. The barrel of the gun approached my temple. At least he had picked my left hand, I thought in what were my final seconds. John would have known instantly that it was murder since I was right-handed. Maybe someone else would make the connection. David?

I closed my eyes and felt the cold kiss of metal on my temple.

21

A whuff of warm air across that top of my head ruffled my hair. Vento telling me good-bye. I choked on a sob. From overhead there came the sharp tink of metal breaking under enormous pressure. My eyes flew open just as the stall door went sliding to the right. Without that support against my back I toppled backward into the stall with a strangled, startled cry. Charles struggled to hang onto me, but his weight also pushed me back.

There was the glitter of light on steel shoes as Vento’s hooves struck out over my face. One hoof took Charles in the head, the other hit him hard in the chest. He gave a high-pitched scream as the gash across his forehead gushed blood, blinding him. He lost his grip on the pistol and went scrabbling away on all fours, trying to elude the maddened horse. Vento went sailing over my head in pursuit of my would-be killer, his belly a flash of white.

The man was yelling, but it was hard to hear beneath the fierce scream of an outraged stallion. Other horses, terrified by the noise, the smell of blood, and the rampaging stallion, began to spin in their stalls and whinny. I managed to sit up in time to see Charles clamber to his feet and stagger toward the door. But Vento wasn’t going to let that happen. He pushed the man hard in the back with his head and sent the thug sprawling. What the fuck, I thought? The only other time I’d seen anything like this was on a vacation out west when I’d watched a mare crush a rattlesnake that had entered her pen. Not that Charles wasn’t as dangerous as that rattler, but how could a horse know that? Vento reared, a terrifying sight, and came down onto the man’s back with both front hooves. There was an audible crack. The stallion continued to strike out, battering the limp form beneath his feet.

I tore the gag away, ripped off the belt that secured my legs, and struggled to my feet. I ran to the horse, arms outstretched. “Whoa, whoa, boy. Easy.” I kept my voice low and soothing. “What a good boy. Easy now.” The long head swung back to look at me, and the wild light faded from the deep brown eyes.

The horse turned away from the limp form and minced gingerly over to me. His front hooves were stained with blood. I swallowed hard. I threw my arms around the powerful neck, and hung on for dear life. Vento turned his head so he had me wrapped in the curve of his neck, his version of a hug. His nostrils flared, blowing warm breath across my back as his sides heaved with his frantic breaths. He was wet with sweat, his skin was hot, and I pressed closer because I was suddenly shivering. A sob burst from my chest. Over the chorus of frightened whinnies I heard the sound of car engines, one very close and one more distant.

A dark figure loomed in the door of the barn and ran toward me. “David!” I ran toward him and collapsed, sobbing, against his chest. His arms closed around me, pulling me close. He pressed his lips against my temple. He was cold, but the embrace was comforting in ways I couldn’t explain.

“Linnet. Dear God.” He looked over at the still form lying in the breezeway. “What happened here?”

I gestured at Charles. “He was going to kill me. He and Qwendar. Make it look like suicide.” I wiped an arm across my streaming eyes and my running nose. “But Vento saved me.”

David’s expression was a study in confusion. “Wait. I’m lost. That’s not Qwendar.”

“No, that’s Charles, a guy he hired.”

“How do you know his name?”

“Qwendar used it. Why are you asking me that?”

He pressed a hand against his forehead. “You’re right, that was stupid. I’m just so…” He shook his head like a boxer shaking off a hard uppercut. “Why don’t you put the horse away. Let me take a look at this fellow.”

It made sense. I took Vento’s halter off the hook by his stall, slipped it over his head, and started to lead him back to his stall. But the sight of the blood on his hooves was too disturbing. I took him into the wash rack, thinking I would clean his feet.

David knelt next to Charles and pressed the tips of his fingers against the man’s throat feeling for a pulse. He looked up at me and shook his head.

“He’s dead.” I shivered, turned on the hose. “Don’t!” David snapped. “We have to call the police and we have to preserve the evidence.” I hesitated but turned off the water.

“You won’t let them hurt Vento, will you? He saved my life.”

At that moment a man dressed in jeans and a pajama top, his bare feet thrust into tennis shoes, came running into the barn. “Jesus Christ!” he swore when he spotted the body.

David stepped forward, all competence and control. “Are you the manager of this facility?”

“Yeah. My house is on the other side of the property. I heard the horses going crazy and drove over. Who are you? And who’s he?” he gestured at the body. “And who’s she?”

“We need to call the police,” David said.

“Yeah, I guess we do.” The barn manager pulled out a cell phone and dialed 911. I led Vento back to his stall. David joined me. We slid the stall door closed together. I automatically went to clip it shut, but couldn’t find the clip. David bent and picked it up out of the dirt and sawdust. It was a metal clip, and the metal was twisted and broken at the hasp.

“It’s like the horse twisted it until the metal fatigued and broke,” the vampire mused.

“And then he pulled open the door,” I said. “That’s what saved me. That guy was about to pull the trigger when I fell backward.”