Dead Heat Page 27

  All the while, Anna breathed in deeply, paying attention to what her nose could tell her. Mostly it told her that at least two people around here were wearing too much perfume, and there were lots and lots of horses around.

  The riders were called into the center, those advancing to the next level were announced, and then they cleared the ring. Almost instantly the stadium seats filled and the nosebleed bleachers saw some use. Joseph and Maggie’s gossip partners wandered off to find their seats.

  Over the loudspeaker, the announcer said, “This is class one-sixteen, lead-line ages two through seven. First in is Candice Hart, riding Little Joe Green by Mister Vanilla out of Desert Wind Doll, with handlers Josie Hart and Karen Tucker.”

  And a tiny girl who was younger than Michael came into the ring wearing a tiny pink cowboy outfit that glittered with pink rhinestones under the lights. She wore itty-bitty pink boots and bright pink fringed chaps. She sat on a very small black saddle that looked utterly ridiculous and precious at the same time. Instead of a cowboy hat, she wore a bright pink riding helmet. The horse, a very pale palomino, carried his tiny burden with solemn majesty. The two adults walked on the left side, one holding a lead clipped to the bridle, the other with a hand on the tiny girl’s leg.

  “That is the cutest thing I’ve ever seen,” said Anna seriously.

  “Just wait,” said Maggie. “It’s not over yet.”

  And one at a time, each little rider was announced and led in. There were English riders, western riders, and one who looked like an extra from The Sheik in what the announcer called traditional costume. The costume was a bright-colored flowing thing with enough tassels, jewels, and bangles to leave any self-respecting Bedouin tribesman running for the hills.

  “Next in we have Michael Sani on three-time national champion SA Phoenix by Xenophonn out of SA Rose Queen. Leading them in is Kage Sani.”

  Michael couldn’t compete with the little fairy doll in pink. Instead, like some of the men Anna had seen in the last class, he was wearing a perfectly respectable blue western-cut shirt with a black shoestring tie. Like his father and Hosteen, Michael looked very much at home on top of the big bay gelding his father led.

  When Michael rode past them, he gave his grandfather a solemn nod and patted his horse. Joseph returned the nod but added a grin as he held up both hands clasped together in the traditional victory sign. When the last rider was in, the announcer asked the group to reverse at a walk. They paraded for about five minutes, so that everyone had time to take photos, and then they were taken to the middle of the ring.

  Anna couldn’t help a ridiculous twinge of anxiety. Michael looked awesome. But who could compete with a toddler in pink? Or a princess dressed in tassels on a white horse with a tail that dragged the ground? She clenched Charles’s hand, and he clenched her hand back, looking so serious that she knew he was having fun. She had the suspicion that it might be at her expense.

  “Well, ladies and gentlemen,” said the announcer. “Our judges have been very impressed with this group this morning. What do you say?”

  The crowd exploded in a chorus of clapping and whistles. Charles covered Anna’s ears to protect them and winced a little. It was loud. Chelsea had covered her own ears. Good for her.

  When the crowd quieted, the announcer said solemnly, “That’s exactly what our judges said. With this quality of competition they have been unable to pick a clear winner. If this were a race they’d have to declare it a dead heat. Because of this, we have decided to award first place to every child in the class.” More applause followed.

  Anna sat back and gave Charles an indignant look. “They all get first prize,” she said.

  “That’s right,” Charles said.

  “Every time.”

  “Could you have picked out a winner?”

  She smacked his thigh lightly and then rubbed it to wipe away any hint of sting in case she’d hit too hard. When the last child was led out of the ring, Anna gave a happy sigh as the group of Sani stablehands, trainers, and riders stood up and began shuffling out.

  “Joseph and I will watch from here,” said Maggie. “You should go out and walk around. Mackie’s class isn’t until just before the lunch break. We’ll keep Max here to run for food and drink.”

  CHAPTER

  13

  The arena they had been in, despite its size, was not a tenth of the Scottsdale show grounds. Their program guide promised them more than two thousand horses, and Anna supposed that many horses could not be contained in a small area.

  And Charles was interested in them all. Anna soon gave up watching horses for the pleasure of watching her husband watch the horses. Once in a while he’d grunt in approval, and she knew he’d found something he really liked.

  They stood for a while by a covered arena (there were lots of arenas) where people were doing some last-minute training or warming up or whatever. English horses with big shoes trotted rapidly around, lapping the western horses whose oh-so-slow gaits seemed almost Zen-like. Women riders outnumbered men, but not by a huge margin except in the ten-to-eighteen-year-old crowd, which seemed to be mostly girls. One horse was foaming with sweat, and his mincing western gait was stiff and uncomfortable looking. His rider kept pulling back on the bit and spurring at the same time. Charles grunted and walked away from the arena.

  “What was she trying to do?” asked Anna.

  “I don’t know,” Charles said unhappily. “And I can tell you that poor horse didn’t know, either.”

  They stopped for a bunch of young horses crowded in front of yet another arena, clad only in narrow-banded halters designed to show off their exotic heads. They sidled and snorted and looked pretty. A few of them were frightened—Anna could smell it—but most of them were just bouncing around with happy energy, preening when they noticed someone looking at them.

  Charles bought Anna an ice cream cone, taking a good-humored lick himself when she offered it to him.

  And nowhere did they smell fae.

  The buildings where the horses were stabled were set in parallel lines along the outer edge of the show grounds. Some of them were strewn with banners belonging to one stable or another. They found the Sani stables more by luck than because they were looking for them.

  A crowd of children were gathered around the horse Michael had ridden in the lead-line class. He was bare of tack except for his halter and stood half-asleep while one of the Sani handlers held him so that the children could pet him.

  Kage stood by the horse’s hindquarters, gently directing the kids toward the front of the horse instead of the rear and patiently answering questions. Mackie seemed to be helping, showing the younger children how to pet gently. She was dressed in a white button-up shirt tucked into dark gray stretch pants that were tucked into tall English riding boots.

  “Anna, Anna,” caroled Michael, breaking free of the crowd and running up to her. “I won, I won, did you see me?”

  She smiled. “I did. Did you have fun?”

  “I like riding Nix,” he said, bouncing happily in a way that reminded her of the bunch of young horses they’d just seen. “He is Grandpa’s horse and he likes kids. The kids from my school are here. They saw me win, too. I’m letting them pet my horse.”

  “I see that.”

  Ms. Newman was mostly too busy admiring Kage to look their way, though she managed one sly look at Charles that stopped as soon as Anna caught her eye. Ms. Edison smiled sharply, an aha smile, but didn’t leave her post at the rear of the herd of children.

  Anna didn’t know if it was good or bad that the principal had figured out just who had clued them into the trouble at the day care. None of them, children or teachers, smelled of fae magic, either. She could smell Ms. Edison’s perfume and Ms. Newman’s shampoo, and one of the kids had a cat, but she didn’t smell fae.

  Charles walked them around the kids, nodding to Kage as they passed, and into the stable building. Hosteen was drinking from a bottle of water and chatting with Wade. Beside th
em, sitting hunched over on a straw bale, Chelsea had her eyes closed.

  Anna left Charles’s side and sat down beside Chelsea. She finished the last of her ice cream cone, licked her sticky fingers, and tried to radiate calm. She was rewarded by Chelsea’s gradual relaxation, though the other woman didn’t open her eyes.

  “Too many people,” Chelsea murmured. “Too many sounds, too many smells.”

  “Yeah,” Anna agreed. “It hits all of us like that once in a while. Do you need to go home?”

  Chelsea shook her head, took a deep breath, and opened her eyes. “Not until after Mackie’s class. Then a whole bunch of us will go back to the ranch. All the kids and me. We’ll take Nix, too. He’s twenty-eight, ancient of days. One day of excitement is enough for him.”

  “How long until Mackie’s class?” Anna asked.

  Hosteen said, “About an hour.”

  “Then why don’t I wait with you here?”

  Chelsea smiled tensely, but it was Hosteen who said in a gentle voice, “I think that would be very useful. Thank you.”

  About then Ms. Edison came into the stables to thank Chelsea for letting the four-year-olds pet Michael’s mount. She was smiling, gracious, and brief.

  Mackie’s class was a lot smaller than the lead-line class had been. There were three girls, one of them nearer to ten and the other girl about Mackie’s age.

  “This is English pleasure,” said Joseph for Anna’s benefit. “The horses have more elevated gaits; that means they pick their feet up higher and are generally more excitable. There aren’t a lot of horses who can be English pleasure horses and be safe enough for someone under ten to ride.”

  The riders rounded the ring at a trot, Heylight looking a lot bigger with Mackie riding him. Anna leaned forward and paid attention. The other younger girl looked a little off balance, and her horse, a sweet-faced chestnut, didn’t have the action of the other two horses.

  This time, Anna noticed, the family was tenser than they had been for Michael, leaning forward in their seats. The horses walked for half the arena, reversed, and trotted.

  Max groaned and Maggie sat up straighter. “Change diagonals, Mackie,” she said under her breath. “Come on, notice what’s going on. Quit paying attention to the crowd and watch what you’re doing.”

  Anna leaned toward Charles in silent query.

  “When you’re posting you rise and fall with one front leg instead of bouncing with every footfall,” Charles said.

  It was like music, and Anna understood music. “Like cut time instead of four-four.”

  “Right, it’s easier on the horse and on the rider. But when you are riding in a circle, you want to rise and fall with the outside leg; the inside leg on a circle is already taking more weight. Mackie is on the wrong leg. She’ll have to bounce a beat to change. There she goes. Good girl.”

  “She’ll make reserve,” said Joseph. “That’s just fine. Not the first mistake she’s made in the ring, and it won’t be the last.”

  “Any class that you end up still on top instead of eating dirt is a good class,” said Max, deadpan, but obviously quoting someone.

  “She’s got the hands and the seat,” said Maggie. “Just like her grandfather. She’ll be one of the good ones.”

  “If she wants to be,” said Chelsea.

  She’d come to the stands with Wade, Anna, and Charles to watch while her husband was in the paddock behind the in-gate to make sure Mackie got into and out of her class okay. She was, Anna noticed, doing a lot better with the crowded arena than she had earlier. The hour in the quiet of their section of barn with Anna radiating calm had given her the respite she’d needed to regain her control.

  Max laughed. “No one is capable of making Mackie do anything she doesn’t want to, Mom. You know that.”

  The riders lined up in the middle, and the places were announced. Mackie did indeed take reserve, which apparently was second place. The horses trotted one more time all the way around the arena and then out of the gate.

  Chelsea stood up as if she had springs. “I’ll go gather the children. Max, can you help your grandparents get home when they are ready?”

  “Will do,” he said.

  Charles got up, too. “Let’s take a break from the horse show. If there is someone who is fae here at the show grounds, we aren’t having any luck finding them.”

  They ended up eating at a Chinese restaurant that was fairly decent—better than anything in Aspen Creek, anyway. It was late for lunch and early for dinner—so there was only one other couple in the place. Charles relaxed and listened in on Anna’s phone call with Special Agent Fisher.

  Leslie sounded frustrated and unhappy. “Our expert was in with McDermit for two hours this morning, but he wants another crack at him this afternoon. Sorry.”

  “Tell her,” Charles said thoughtfully, “to see if she can figure out if Mr. McDermit was gone for a couple of weeks in November, when the fae all disappeared into the reservations. He shouldn’t be one of the ones who hid out like the wearden in Ms. Jamison’s garden. If she’s checking the background of the other people associated with the day care, she should look at that for them, too.”

  When Anna relayed the suggestion, Leslie sighed. “Already working on that, but it was right around Thanksgiving. A lot of people left to visit relatives. We are, my flunkies are, confirming that people actually went where they say they did. So far we found one wife who was supposed to be visiting her parents who was actually sleeping with a married man. And another who was in rehab. It is understandable that he told his work that he was taking an extended vacation. I promise I’ll call when I get something, or if I can get you in to talk to Mr. McDermit.”

  They drove back to the Sanis’ ranch about two hours after they left the show, only to find it deserted. Anna called Kage.

  “Chelsea’s hanging out with Michael, Mackie, and the girl who was last place in Mackie’s class,” Kage explained, a smile in his voice. Charles wondered why no one had called them to let them know that everyone was staying at the show. But Hosteen had his family well guarded, even without Anna and Charles.

  “Mackie was feeling pretty bad until she saw that the little girl on the chestnut was crying,” Kage said. “She gave her the same pep talk Hosteen gives everyone. Did you do your best? Well, okay then. Any class where you don’t end up on the ground is a good class.” Charles could hear the smile in Kage’s voice. “Chelsea took them both to get ice cream with Hosteen.”

  “I told you not to worry,” Charles said after she hung up.

  “If I were a fae trying to steal children, that horse show with all of its distractions would be just the place to do it,” she said.

  “He’ll have to get past Hosteen, Wade, and the handful of werewolves working the crowd because they aren’t going to be distracted from their job. And it’s pretty public. So far this one has gone out of its way to avoid detection.”

  “Handful?” Anna frowned. “I only spotted two.”

  “They mostly stayed out of range of your nose,” he said. “No use them running over the same places in the crowd where we were already looking. If we didn’t pick up on any fae, neither would they. But I know most of the people in Hosteen’s pack by sight.”

  Charles settled in with his laptop on the only chair in their room to work on pack finances. Just because the fae were out terrorizing Scottsdale didn’t mean the rest of his work stopped.

  Anna pulled out a paperback novel with a half-naked man holding an improbably long sword. He wondered if the sword was meant to be metaphoric. Then he wondered if he should be concerned that his mate was reading a book with a naked man on the cover. Anna stretched out on her stomach to read. Her feet were toward him. Her position gave him a nice view when he needed a break from studying numbers, and he quit worrying about naked men.

  A couple of hours later they heard a car drive up and the front door opened. The chatter of happy voices told Charles that the younger children were home—and so was Max. He didn�
�t sound as happy as the kids. Charles was already logging off and shutting down his laptop when there was a quiet knock on their door.

  Anna hopped off the bed and pulled the door open.

  “Um, excuse me,” Max said. “But Granddad is down in the car and he’s too tired to get out. Grandma sent me up to get you.”

  Charles brushed past him and leapt down the stairs. He was worried, though he knew that was ridiculous. Joseph was dying. He might die tonight, waiting for someone to help him out of the car. He might die a week from now in his bed.

  Ridiculous or not, Charles rushed out to the car, where Maggie stood with the door open.

  “Don’t you die on me, old man,” she said. “We have some fighting left to do.”

  “And arguing, too,” Joseph said, the humor coming through the breathlessness just fine.

  “I told you we should go after Mackie’s class,” she snapped.

  “But we needed to see how good that stallion Conrad’s been bragging about really is. And then Lucy was riding in the amateur class on that filly she bought from us two years ago.”

  “I know why you stayed,” Maggie said. “And it had nothing to do with Lucy’s filly and everything to do with stupid pride. You couldn’t admit you were feeling poorly.”

  If she was yelling at him, Joseph was all right. As Charles bent down to lift his old friend, Maggie put her hand on his arm and leaned her head against his shoulder; he could all but feel her pain himself. Maggie was always sharpest when she hurt.

  “Let’s get you inside,” Charles said.

  “If I die after a day of watching beautiful horses, that would be okay,” Joseph said.

  The spirits that seemed to be always hovering around Joseph, even if Charles was the only one who could see them, hit Charles so hard he could barely breathe. Their impact forced him to hesitate, stop walking altogether, and spread his legs a bit to keep his balance.

  “You have a task yet,” he murmured when he could. He headed for the house. “Let me see if they’ll give you a little more strength to do what is necessary.”