“Rose? You’ve come back for me.” Her father’s eyes were red-rimmed as he stared at her.
“Of course I’ve come back for you. Can you stand up?” She’d never seen her father broken and unshaven. Even when he’d had a few too many drinks and was mourning her mother, she’d never seen him so low. She feared the worst. He looked as if his life’s work had been destroyed.
“I’m frightened, Rose—”
“Don’t talk now, Pa. Let’s get in the cab.” She hauled him to his feet. She didn’t like the feel of the place, and today the deserted street felt more threatening than ever. Opening the passenger door, she quickly took the gun out of the dashboard and stuffed it into her pocket before helping him to climb in.
“I’ve got myself tangled up with a bad lot, Rose,” her pa explained as he secured his seat belt. “I’m in trouble—”
“Tell me when I’m in the cab, Pa,” she said, not wanting to waste any time.
She closed his door, then hurried around to the driver’s side, climbed in, and locked both their doors before asking him, “What type of trouble, Pa?”
The weariness and fear in his eyes shocked her.
“Money trouble, Rose. I should have known that when something seems too good to be true, it is too good to be true, but I thought I was doing the right thing. I’ve been struggling for a while. As the farm workers grew older and retired, it wasn’t easy to recruit new people. There aren’t many who want to work in the country these days. I tried to take on more work to cover myself, but the money I borrowed to buy new
machinery got the better of me.”
“Why did you borrow money at all?” Rose asked in bewilderment. “I thought the farm was doing well. I wouldn’t have left you otherwise, and neither would my brothers.”
“It was doing well,” her father insisted, “until he took all the money for machinery that either didn’t work or never arrived.”
“Who is this man? And why didn’t you call the Garda?” And where were the police, by the way? Rose thought anxiously, glancing around.
“And look a fool?” Her father sighed heavily before continuing. “I’m no businessman, Rose. Without you and your brothers’ advice, I started to flounder. When I met this man in the pub and he said he’d help, I thought my troubles were over.”
She groaned inwardly as her father continued. “He promised I’d be able to train the horses like I used to—good horses, he said, so I thought he had my best interests at heart. He seemed so friendly and chatty…”
“Oh, Pa.” She reached out to squeeze his arm as she drove. Her father was notoriously trusting. “Well, don’t worry about him now,” she soothed. “Whoever this mystery man is, he’s obviously a conman. You’re just too nice, and there’s nothing wrong with that.”
“I tried to save the horses, but he took them away.”
“Did he bring them here?” She glanced back at the slaughterhouse.
“He said he would. He said this was where he was heading. I followed him, but I can’t see beyond that damn wall.”
“What’s the name of this man?” Rose asked, taking her foot off the gas.
“He never gave me his full name. We were on first-name terms.”
Of course, Rose thought, imagining the scene at the pub where money would pass freely in between copious tots of whisky.
“Simon, he told me,” her father explained brokenly. “He’s the man I trusted. He’s the man I owe my money to.”
And Simon probably wasn’t even close to the top of the pyramid, Rose reflected. He’d just be one of the gang—the most plausible—a man no one would recognize.
“From what I can work out,” her pa continued as he puzzled it out. “They have some sort of protection racket going here in Ireland. They target stables with valuable horses, and either steal them or poison them if you try to stop them.”
“There are a lot of evil people around.” Reaching out, she rested her hand briefly on her father’s arm to reassure him. “You won’t be the first to fall victim to a thug like that.” Rose’s thoughts traveled back to rumors she’d heard on Isla Celeste about a man who’d crossed Dante. There were definitely similarities between the man her father was describing and the gang boss who was said to be responsible for Dante’s stone-cold heart.
“Now I’ve heard that others in the village have had problems with this gang trying to buy them out when they don’t want to move,” her father explained, growing ever more heated.
“Do you think this Simon might be in the slaughterhouse now?” Rose asked, parking She’d only driven a short distance down the road from the slaughterhouse. She could easily go back.
“Arranging a price for the horses, he told me while he was laughing his head off,” her pa recounted with a deepening frown.
“Do you think they’re…?” She couldn’t bring herself to say the words.