Without Mercy - Lisa Jackson [161]
Satisfied that the animals were safe, Trent found his cell phone, and said to Jules, “I’ve got to call Meeker.” He punched in the number, waited, then swore under his breath. “Oh, hell. Still can’t get through. Guess we can’t count on the cavalry.”
Jules’s heart sank. Was the killer finished? Or, she wondered in horror, were there more bodies?
The door to the stables flew open. A rush of frigid air swept inside, tossing bits of hay into the air and cutting through Jules’s jacket.
She jumped and bit back a scream.
“Get down!” Trent yelled at her. Crouching swiftly, he leveled his gun at the doorway.
A dark figure carrying a large battery powered light in front of him. “Hey!”
“Stop!” Trent warned, his gun and flashlight trained on Bert Flannagan’s shocked face.
“What the hell?” Flannagan stopped dead in his tracks, a large survival lantern in one hand, his rifle strapped across his back. “What’s going on in here? A fire?” The lantern’s harsh glow washed over the burned straw on the floor to stop at Maeve’s ashen-faced corpse and the blood puddled around her. “Holy Christ!” His Adam’s apple worked, then he swung his dark gaze at Trent. “What the fuck happened here?”
“You don’t know?”
“Hell, no!” His lips tightened, and he appeared agitated, even desperate. “Why don’t you fill me in?”
“We just found her,” Jules said, wary.
“You have any idea why there was a fire in Omen’s stall?” Trent cut in.
“Fire?” Flannagan repeated, as if just noticing the singed straw and the strong odor of smoke that wafted through the stalls. “What the hell?” Flannagan’s features pulled tight, his mouth twisting down at the corners as he shot a look at the box where the big horse was usually housed. “Omen wasn’t hurt?”
“Just a scratch. Cut himself escaping. We found him outside the gate.” Eyeing Flannagan cautiously, Trent motioned to the opening of Omen’s stall with the beam of his flashlight. “It was hanging wide open.”
Jules remembered Lynch’s notes in Flannagan’s file. Affinity for weaponry. Military background. Not hired by several law enforcement agencies. Flannagan, with his military buzz cut and honed wrestler’s physique, worked with the animals every day. Here. The stable was his milieu. All three kids who had died, had been attacked in his domain. He could have murdered Maeve earlier and returned in an attempt to throw suspicion away from him.
Jules’s skin crawled. She didn’t trust this man, plain and simple. Was he a cold-blooded killer?
Flannagan glanced again at the dead girl and a muscle worked in his jaw. “I suppose we’d better get hold of Lynch.”
“Get him,” Trent suggested, “and while you’re at it, round up Deputy Meeker, send him out here. We’ll need to cordon off the stable until the detectives and crime investigators get here.”
“So we’re just going to leave her?” Flannagan was incredulous as he lifted his lantern higher, spreading more light over the area, illuminating Maeve’s gray corpse. Ghostly shapes disappeared, transforming into feedbags and dangling bridles; lumpy, distorted images became saddles stretched across sawhorses.
“For now we leave her as we found her. Until the crime investigators have a look. We’ll have to keep everyone out of the stable to preserve the integrity of the scene.”
Flannagan frowned down at the body and sighed through his nose. “You don’t think she just slit her wrists?”
“After setting a fire in Omen’s stall and setting him free, then dousing the place with retardant?” Trent asked. “No, I don’t think so.”
Flannagan looked over at Jules. Silvery eyebrows formed one suspicious line. “So what were the two of you doin’ in here?”
“Checking on the stock after the power went out,” Trent replied without missing a beat.
“Yeah?” Flannagan wasn’t buying it.
Trent didn’t seem to notice. “I’ll find the battery-powered heater and set it up, keep the place from freezing. But the temperature’s already dropping in here. Let’s get winter blankets on these horses.” While Flannagan was still eyeing Jules, Trent opened a cupboard and began hauling