Her refusal to acknowledge the truth and give him the medical information he needed infuriated him. “This horse could die. As it is now, you risk losing your trainer’s license. Do you want to face animal abuse charges on top of that?”
She shot him a venomous look. “I have nothing to do with these accusations. I need to question my employees.”
“Your employees dosed this horse without your knowledge? I find that hard to believe.”
“What is the plan to make Diablo well?”
“I’ll leave this medication for you. Otherwise, we need to continue as we have been, supporting him and working through the symptoms. He’s probably got damage to his liver, kidneys, and heart. What were you thinking? That it would increase his endurance?”
She stared at him, her face expressionless.
“This drug can break down muscle tissue and compromise vital organs.” Cole typically tried to educate clients, but this made him mad enough to lash out. “Dosing horses with it is illegal and cruel.”
“I believe Juan is the one you should speak with about this. I’ll go find him.” She went to the door of the box stall and let herself out.
Right . . . pass the buck. Cole tried to put a damper on his fury and looked around the stall. He went to the hayrack to check the quality of hay and to make sure there was no alfalfa in it. Scooping the hay away from the wall, he examined the dry grass, noticing it was of excellent quality, weed and alfalfa free. He was about to replace it when his eye caught a glint of white from behind the rack.
Peering into the crack, he saw something with a black-and-white pattern. As his eyes adjusted to the poor lighting in the narrow space, he realized he was looking at a laptop computer. With a zebra-striped cover.
His memory clicked on an image of Adrienne Howard typing information into a laptop like that. And he remembered Mattie asking him about Adrienne’s missing computer.
He reached into the narrow space. Barely able to grasp the plastic case, he pulled out the laptop and stared at it. This must belong to Adrienne.
Did someone put it here? Did she?
The stall door flew open and Juan Fiero dashed inside, frantic. “You must come with me, Doctor. Hurry. She’s going to kill you,” he said in English.
“What?”
“There’s no time to talk. Come with me.”
Knowing that the man’s panic was real, Cole followed, placing the laptop into the front of his coverall and zipping it in tightly against his chest. Juan ran a few doors down the alley to the opposite side and tugged open a door. He led Cole into a room filled with hay bales.
“There is a door to the outside there,” Juan said, pointing. “It’s the back side of the barn. Go! She killed the lady. She wants to kill you!”
Stunned, Cole tried to process what he was being told. “Carmen killed Adrienne?”
Juan’s eyes darted to the inside door and back. “No time to talk. Get away! Go to the top of the ridge. You can use a cell phone up there.”
Cole’s thoughts were hazy. Juan began pushing him across the room toward the outside door, his hands shaking with urgency. Cole felt the man’s terror, making him believe what he’d said.
“Stop!” Carmen stood inside the doorway, the alley at her back, an evil-looking crossbow in her hands. Cole froze, staring at her as she raised the bow and sighted through the scope. Juan pushed him outside the back door, shouting as he slammed the door shut behind him, “Lock the door! Run!”
Cole stumbled out onto a rocky verge scraped up around the barn’s foundation. He had the presence of mind to process Juan’s last instruction, even as he heard the man’s scream and a thud. He found the latch that secured the door from the outside and slammed the heavy bolt in place.
My God! What the hell’s happening? But even with shock making his thoughts disjointed and confused, his instinct for survival kicked in. He scanned his environment: heavy forest upslope about fifty yards. Running for all he was worth, he headed toward the trees.
Mattie completed her reports and looked at the clock. Shortly after three. Stella’s lab hadn’t called back yet on the boot print, and she was tired of waiting. She decided to call Cole to see if he could share any impressions of Juan Fiero. She swiped to her quick-dial list and pressed Cole’s cell phone number. She listened to a few dial tones and a click before hearing a female voice answer: “Timber Creek Veterinary Clinic. This is Tess.”
Mattie identified herself. “I’m trying to reach Dr. Walker.”
“Hi, Mattie. He must be out of cell phone range. Your call transferred to the office.”
“Oh. Do you know when he’ll be back?”
“He went up to Dark Horse Stable. Actually, he should be home any minute.”
A twinge of anxiety worked its way into Mattie’s chest.
“He wanted to be home in time to meet the kids after school,” Tess continued. “I’m surprised he isn’t within cell phone range yet. Do you want me to leave him a message to call you?”
“Tell him to call my cell; he has the number.”
“All righty. Talk to you later.”
Mattie disconnected the call and took a long breath. The people at Dark Horse had set off her radar. If Cole didn’t call back soon, she would try to reach him again.
She went to Stella’s office to see if she’d heard from her lab yet. She tapped on the door and entered the room. Stella looked up from her computer.
“I just tried to reach Cole Walker, and his assistant told me he went to Dark Horse this afternoon,” Mattie said. “He’s late getting back.”
Stella nodded, a furrow of concern creasing her brow. “I’ll call and build a fire under my CSI unit. I expected them to call back by now.” Her cell phone rang, making her pull it out of her pocket and look at the caller ID. “That’s them now. Hold on a minute.”
Mattie listened to Stella’s side of the conversation while a sense of urgency tightened her chest.
“Okay,” Stella was saying, summing up the information with the CSI tech for clarification while stating the information for Mattie. “So you’re saying that you can’t say the boot prints are the same size since one is a partial, but the toe prints match exactly. You’re extracting the shape and sole information that you have to see if you can determine the brand of boot that made it. But since the sole is flat and has no tread marks, you consider being able to do that a long shot.”
Stella listened, nodding at what she was hearing.
“Okay. See what else you can do,” she said, ending the call. She looked up at Mattie. “Toe shape is as close as we can get on that print match, but it’s close enough to give us probable cause. I’ll get the sheriff started on that search warrant.”
Stella headed for McCoy’s office while anxiety circled Mattie’s chest. She knew her brain had taken a leap from a match on a toe print to labeling Fiero a killer, but she couldn’t help herself. The thought of Cole inadvertently walking into a dangerous situation—a situation that she should have uncovered sooner and warned him about—made her shoot into red alert.
She needed to go now and see if she could find him; she couldn’t wait the hour it would take to get a warrant. She started after Stella when her cell phone rang.
Relief melted through her when caller ID told her the call came from the Walker residence. But when she answered the phone and heard Angela’s voice coming through the receiver, her relief was short-lived.
“Mattie?” Angela asked, her voice sounding high-pitched and tight.
“Yes, Angie. Is something wrong?”
“I don’t know. Dad said he’d be here by three and he’s thirty minutes late. Tess says she expected him back about an hour ago.”