David looked around and spotted the pistol, half obscured by sawdust. He put an arm around my shoulders, led me over to a tack trunk, and sat down with me beside him.
“I don’t know a lot about horses, and no disrespect to this one, but doesn’t that rather make him the Einstein of horses?”
“I don’t know … yes. I think he just sensed that I was terrified.”
“Before the police arrive, start at the beginning and tell me what happened.”
“When I got off the plane there was a man—him,” I pointed at the dead man. “Waiting at the baggage claim with my name on a card.”
“And you just went with him?” David exploded. “A total stranger, and you—”
It was irrational and unfair, and I snapped, “Hey! When we arrived last month you just got in a car with Kobe, a total stranger. People do it all the time. And I thought you might have sent a car for me. Stupid to have expected that, I know.”
He was offended. “I was coming to pick you up!”
“You were? Oh. Sorry. How did we miss each other?”
“The airline overestimated how late the plane would be. You were gone by the time I got there. But go on with your story.”
So I did. When I got to the part about Qwendar trying to force me to write a suicide note using his magic, I stuttered and became reticent. I wanted time to process what Qwendar had said before I shared it with anyone else. Qwendar had only remarked on my seemingly miraculous escape from Jondin’s bullet fest, but he hadn’t known my entire history. He didn’t know about my equally improbable escapes from maddened werewolves. Escapes that had three different policemen in three different venues shaking their heads over my incredible “luck.” Now I had to wonder if it was luck, or if there was something about me?
I cleared my throat and said, “He … he tried to get me to write a suicide note, but I refused. They would have had to hurt me to make me comply, and Qwendar wanted it to look like a suicide. That’s when he ordered the thug to stick the gun in my hand, and shoot me in the head. Then Vento happened, and then you arrived.” I ended with a vague gesture.
After I finished David sat silent for a few minutes. “Clever. Devilishly clever,” he said finally. “Qwendar comes to me and tells me how he’s worried about you after the meeting with John, thus setting the stage for your suicide.” He made air quotes around the last word.
“Would you have believed him?” I demanded. The idea that I could be seen as crazy and obsessed didn’t sit well.
David gave an emphatic head shake. “No. Not a chance. You are sometimes—oftentimes—irritating as hell, Linnet, but you are indomitable. Nothing knocks you down for long. You’re like one of those damn punching clowns. The harder you hit them, the faster they bounce back up.”
“I guess that’s a compliment,” I said.
“It was.” An ironic smile twisted David’s mouth. “Not a very good one, I’ll admit.”
I was back to thinking about Qwendar, John, and David. “So if Qwendar was using the meeting with John to set up the cause for my suicide, that means he’d been planning this for a while. Maybe he was controlling John and that’s why he said all those terrible things to me,” I added with a flare of hope.
“I wouldn’t pin too much hope on that,” came the depressing answer. “The Alfar are notoriously inconstant.”
“Look, I’m not in love with John or anything like that. I just feel responsible because he gave up his freedom for me and Destiny and Chastity…” I realized I was sounding defensive and I shut up and returned to a more pressing issue. “But how did you know something was wrong and how did you know to come here?”
“One of your clients called me. Jolyon Bryce.”
It was as if a line of ice water had run down my spine. I slowly turned my head and studied the horse that stood with his head hanging over the stall door. “He owns Vento,” I said softly.
“He said his phone rang. It was your cell number and he could hear voices but couldn’t make out the words. There was something about the tone of the voices that alarmed him, and he heard horses in the background. He called the firm’s answering service, they called me, and I called him back. He caught me just as I was getting back to the hotel. Which put me close to the freeway, and at this time of night…” He checked his watch. “Morning. It didn’t take long to get here.”
I stood up, went over to my purse, took out my phone, and studied it. “That doesn’t make any sense.” I checked the called numbers. The last call it registered was the one I’d made to David back in New York. “The phone doesn’t show a call to Jolyon.”
“So maybe if it’s an accidental thing it doesn’t register it?”
I shook my head. “They don’t work that way. If it had purse-dialed Jolyon it would have registered.”
“I would say that’s the smallest mystery we have to solve tonight. However it happened it got me here,” David said.
“I know, and I’m glad you came. I just don’t understand.” Vento nickered softly to me. I walked over and stroked his muzzle, and he pressed his head against my chest.
Then the police arrived and things got interesting.
Detective Turnbow of the Burbank Police was not as sympathetic as Detective Rodriquez had been. He was a sallow-faced, narrow-chested man who moved like he was on stilts. He listened to my story with a sour expression, and when I finished he said, “So you were rescued by your horsey?”
At this point it was five thirty in the morning. Adrenaline had given way to bone-crushing exhaustion, and diplomacy was just right out. David stirred in his chair, but I got there first.
“Look, I’ve been kidnapped, nearly killed, and before all that I flew across the whole damn country. I’m the victim here. Yeah, and my horse saved me. He’s at least as smart as you and maybe even—”
David laid a hand on my arm as Turnbow’s chest started to puff out and his face turned a blotchy red. “Are you trying to imply that Ms. Ellery was somehow complicit in this man’s death? There is blood on the horse’s hooves; it’s clear what happened.”
“Well, let’s talk about this mysterious second kidnapper, this Alfar guy.”
“Yes, he was the mastermind. He hired the driver,” I said.
“Yeah, and he was at a pre-Oscar party in Bel Air. Which is miles away from the Equestrian Center. People saw him there.”
“How many people were attending?” David asked.
“Hundreds.”
David’s lip curled with derision. “So, a mill-and-swill. People moving from room to room, even outside. Easy enough to establish you were there and then slip away.”
“The people on the door checking invites said he never left, and the valet guys say he asked for his car at two thirty a.m.,” Turnbow said triumphantly.
I jumped back in. “Are you just being deliberately obtuse or are you really this stupid?” I practically snarled. “Everyone knows that Alfar can move through Fey. In that crowd no one would have noticed him leave, and Fey doesn’t have traffic jams, and he probably had someone waiting to take him to the airport. He went back to the party the same way.” Putting it into words answered another question that had been nagging me about Jondin, but for once I didn’t confuse the issue by blurting out what I was thinking.
“And your proof?”
“I saw him appear out of Fey, and he said to the driver he had been establishing his alibi,” I said.
“And the only person who could corroborate that is dead,” Turnbow said.
David stood up. “We’re done here. Unless you are charging Ms. Ellery with something, I am going to take her home.”
“I guess you can take her. But don’t leave the state.”
David took my arm and swept me out of the interrogation room. I stumbled and he transferred his grip to my waist. The pressure hurt and I sucked in a breath.
“What?”
“I think I cracked a rib.” He removed his hand. I also felt that burning, hollow feeling that absolute terror bestows on your gut. “Is he going to charge me with killing that guy?” I asked.
