Judas Horse_ An FBI Special Agent Ana Grey Mystery - April Smith [62]
“Damn it, Mike! I am in a covert situation here.”
Sirocco wakes up and shimmies her neck like a dog with fleas. She stamps and backs up quickly, squashing me against the corner of the stall. Over her spotted rump, the shape of Dick Stone is looming against the light.
“Who are you talking to?”
I flip the Oreo phone shut and enclose it in the palm of my hand.
“Sirocco,” I say, petting her. “Right, girl?”
Dick Stone’s face is sweaty and his breath comes hard. Pieces of straw and a fine spray of dirt he must have kicked up marching through the barn at the sound of my voice are floating in the backlight. I can’t believe I was not alert to the fact that the drone of the tractor had cut off. It is quiet now all right.
“You scared her,” I say.
Drawing the brush along Sirocco’s spine the way Megan showed me, maintaining contact with my hands on her coat, I slip around to the other side, keeping her body between us, and slide the phone into my underpants and, with one quick thrust, up into that place where the sun don’t shine—well, not usually.
Stone, mocking: “I scared her?”
“Coming up suddenly like that.”
Sirocco’s ears flick and she swings her hindquarters.
Dick Stone levels a dead-on stare into my eyes. Alone and close, his male scent is strong, like my grandfather’s, like the old-fashioned Vitalis that Poppy used to put in his hair.
“Where’d you grow up, Darcy?”
I squeeze my thighs in order not to drop the phone.
“Southern California.”
“Where?”
“The Valley.”
“Are you with someone?”
“I wouldn’t be here if I was.”
“Ever been married?”
“Nope.”
“No exes? No boyfriends?” He appraises me. “I can’t believe that.”
My mouth is dry as the straw dust suspended in the air. “Yes, boyfriends. But I left them in L.A.”
“Don’t you have anyone in the world?” he presses. “Besides your dad, who lives in Florida?”
I pay attention to the distrust spreading through my body, core to fingertips.
Go on the attack. Get right back in their face.
“Why are you so interested in my dad? You want to send him a Father’s Day gift?”
“Up to you.”
What does that mean, Up to you?
“Where is your father living?” I counter. “I’d like to send him a card.”
Dick Stone’s left eyelid twitches. “I haven’t thought about my father in forty years. I can’t remember the sound of his voice.”
“Tell me.”
He snorts derisively. “About my father?”
You are pushing it. Get him out of here.
“You know what I did with all that?” Stone continues bitterly. “Wrapped it up in plastic, looped it around with tape, tied it up with rope real good, and shipped it the hell out of here.”
He turns, expecting me to follow, but I have picked up a broom.
“I’ve got to finish.”
If I move, I’ll give birth to a communications device.
Dick Stone walks out of the barn. But then, in the wide square of daylight, he turns.
“Why’d you come here, Darcy?”
“To kick the government’s ass,” I say while holding my breath. “I came for action, not sweeping up horse shit.”
“Uh-huh. Well you just muck out the stalls and feed the rabbits, and we’ll see about action.”
“We lost another rabbit—”
Shut up and let him go.
“I saw this morning,” I continue perversely. “I can’t figure how they’re getting out.”
“Nobody locks the cage,” says Stone.
Twenty
I am awakened by gunfire. Crossing the rough floorboards of the attic room I share with Sara, I snap the roller shade. The tattered paper rises lazily, enough to let in a warm current of air perfumed with blackberries that hits me like the delighted slap of a baby on both of Mommy’s cheeks. My brain lights up like a scoreboard. The sharp cracks coming from a distance are definitively shots. Who is killing whom in this pastoral psycho ward?
After feeding the animals that morning, I lay down again and fell into a doze. Now everyone is gone, I discover on this gorgeous