“What?” She stared at him, cold dread seeping through her.

“By the guy who attacked you.”

“But why?” She asked the question but already her mind was racing to the only reason that made any sense. “Oh, no…”

“To freak her out,” Nate said flatly. “To make Molly impossible to handle. To force you inside her stall and ensure that you would be trapped with a frenzied, wild, crazy animal.” A muscle worked in his jaw as he added, “Whoever did this planned it carefully. Molly wasn’t just being stubborn or balking because of the fire. She was reacting to being tortured. See here,” he pointed to a bit of darkened skin near the corner of the mare’s mouth, an obvious burn mark.

“No.” Shannon stared at the horse’s muzzle and saw the evidence, so plain to her now. Sudden nausea roiled in her stomach. “What kind of sicko would do this?”

“Someone determined, someone lethal, someone who has one helluva grudge against you. Used some kind of torch or lighter or held up a burning stick.”

“Damn it!” She wanted to scream at the blatant cruelty to the mare. She replayed the scene that Nate had mapped out: She’d tried to touch Molly, to pet her, but the horse had reacted by tossing back her head. “Have you told the police?”

“Not yet,” he said and Shannon understood his aversion to the authorities. Nate, like she, had been falsely accused of murder in the past. He’d spent eighteen months of his life in prison before DNA evidence had cleared him of the crime. He didn’t trust the law. “I figured you might want to tell them yourself.”

“I will,” she said, anger boiling anew through her blood. What kind of horrible maniac would harm an innocent animal, use the creature’s pain to get back at her? Who? And why? She automatically reached into her pocket for her cell before remembering that it was in the house recharging.

Hell! She let her gaze move from Nate’s concerned face to the rest of the little herd. “Were any of the other animals harmed?”

“Not that I can see.”

“You checked the dogs, too?”

“Yep.”

“Good.” Though she was pissed as hell about Molly, she felt a bit of relief that there were no other examples of the hideous torture.

“It might be time to get a security system installed, for your house, the stable and kennel.”

He unsnapped the lead and let Molly free. Snorting, the mare quickly trotted over to the other horses where she stood, black tail swishing, ears flicking nervously.

“I’ll put one in up at the new place. It’s going to be renovated anyway. And Alexi Demitri stopped by today. He told me he has a company that will do the installation.”

“I don’t like him,” Nate said without inflection.

“So you’ve said.”

His lips flattened as he stepped through the gate. “You might rethink your plan. You’re not moving for a while, and, apparently the danger is now. You might want to do something here as well.”

He had a point. She still had a few weeks to live here and the thought that whoever had attacked her had been able to come and go at his will made goose bumps run up her arms. Worse yet, that same man probably killed Mary Beth and was holding Dani Settler hostage…if he hadn’t murdered the girl as well.

Panic and rage rippled through her. Though she had no evidence that he’d been in her house, she wasn’t certain and if he came back…Her stomach curdled. “I’ll call Alexi immediately,” she said.

“So why was he here?” As the sun set and shadows lengthened across the fields, Khan, tired of searching for squirrels in a woodpile, trotted over and whined for Nate’s attention. Out of habit, Nate reached down and scratched the dog behind his good ear. “What did Demitri want?”

“He dropped off keys to the woodshed at the new place.”

The corners of Nate’s lips pinched and the skin grew taut over his high cheekbones. “I thought maybe after what happened the other night, you might not want to move.”

“It might be safer up there.”

He snorted. “More isolated.”

“Look, we’ve been over this before. Alexi had another reason for dropping by.”

“Which was?”

“To offer condolences for Mary Beth. And he also brought me a gift.”

Tags: Lisa Jackson West Coast Mystery
Source: readsnovelonline.net