Just Horsing Around

Chapter 19

“What’s going on, Angela? Why the emergency?” Susan called out, but I had already started running towards the side of the house. There was definitely no time to explain. Charlotte followed after me, as Susan continued to call out, confused.

“We have to get to the stable,” I said to Charlotte. I saw her look behind us quickly, to make sure Susan didn’t follow. “Celeroa,” she panted, and I felt the ground beneath my feet moving at a record pace. I began to run at a speed that made Usain Bolt look like a hippo. I was surprised at Charlotte’s daring to use a spell in public, even though she’d checked to make sure Susan hadn’t followed us. She must have understood just how dire the situation was.

We covered the couple hundred yards to the stables in just a few seconds. Stopping in front of the door, Charlotte quickly cancelled the speed spell. Suddenly, we heard a cry coming from inside the stall. Charlotte and I looked at each other quickly, and Charlotte quietly murmured the unlocking spell. The door to the stable shot open and we darted inside.

What I saw froze me to the core. At the far end of the stables, by Touch of Frost’s stall, Philippe was standing over Ellie, holding a piece of pipe. She was screaming, holding up her hands.

“Please! Please don’t kill me! I don’t want to die,” she begged through tears. Touch of Frost was neighing in his stall and pushing himself against it, evidently trying to break out. He must have understood that he had to help Ellie.

“I have no choice. I have to kill you,” Philippe said, raising the pipe and moving towards her.

“Wait!” I cried out as Philippe began to strike at Ellie. I knew with a pipe like that, a single blow to the head would be enough to kill her. Philippe turned suddenly and looked at Charlotte and I, the frown on his face so black I physically recoiled from horror. So much for the element of surprise.

“What the hell are you doing here?” he snarled.

“Stopping you from murdering Ellie,” I replied with what I hoped sounded like more bravado than I felt. I could feel Charlotte shifting her weight nervously behind me, and I tried to block her from view. After all, I was the big sister. This was up to me to do, it wasn’t on her. I didn’t want Charlotte to get hurt, no matter what.

“Go,” I whispered to her. “Go now, and get help.”

“Not on your life. If anyone right now needs help, it’s you and Ellie.”

“I suppose dere is no difference between three murders and just dee one,” Philippe said. “I have my private jet ready to go in Portland, in two hours I will be gone from your terrible country.”

“In two hours you’ll be rotting in a jail cell, where you’ll be spending the rest of your life,” I replied, watching carefully as Philippe moved towards me with the pipe. I tried to motion for Ellie to run with my eyes, but she seemed rooted to the spot, paralyzed with fear.

I knew how she felt. With every step Philippe took towards Charlotte and I, I felt more and more rooted to the spot. I forced myself to breathe. I had to be quick here.

“Go right,” I whispered to Charlotte just before Philippe was onto us. “Dat is enough of you,” Philippe said as he swung the pipe upwards, then down, right towards my head. At the last second my body responded by darting over to the left. The pipe banged loudly against the floor, and Philippe yelled with rage.

“You come back here, silly girl. You cannot escape. I will kill you. I will kill all of you!”

I backed further away, back towards the door, as I tried not to watch Charlotte. She ran towards Ellie at the other side of the stable, and leaned over her while Philippe came after me.

He swung again, this time from the left side to the right, like he was swinging a baseball bat. I ducked at the last second, and kicked out, hoping to hit something – anything – that might put him out of sorts for a minute. I connected, and he let out a yelp of pain as he grabbed his knee and swore at me.

“You stupeed American! I will make sure you die!” He grabbed the pipe and swung at me again, but it was obvious he was weaker now. Charlotte had gotten Ellie to her feet, but she was holding Ellie up with her whole body weight. Charlotte wasn’t strong enough to drag her out of here, I knew that.

Touch of Frost was still pounding against the stall door.

I needed a split second to tell Charlotte what to do, but I wasn’t sure I had the time. Philippe swung at me again, and this time I felt the pipe graze my nose as I heaved myself backwards to avoid it. I ran back to the door, away from Philippe, as fast as I could.

“Dat is right, run away, little girl. But you cannot escape. You cannot run from me, no matter how much you try!” he said as he came after me once more. He was a few steps away, I had about a second to do what I needed.

I focused on Charlotte with all my might.

Let Touch of Frost out, I thought, using all the powers I could possibly muster. I felt a light wave of energy, and I opened my eyes just as Philippe was striking at me with the pipe again. This time, there was no chance that I’d be able to move out of the way in time. I let out a squeal as I raised my hands, trying to block the fall of the pipe on me. I halted it somewhat, and fell to the floor, which lessened the impact of the pipe even more as it hit my head.

I saw stars, and my vision in front of me began to tilt for a second, but I didn’t pass out. And what I saw behind me I knew wasn’t a hallucination either.

Touch of Frost – or whoever was pretending to be Touch of Frost – was now standing in the middle of the stable, all sixteen hands of him. He snorted loudly, and I hoped he’d act fast. After all, while I wasn’t unconscious, I knew I had no chance of moving out of the way of the next blow. Philippe raised the pipe once more, ready to send me to my grave, when he heard the snort.

He turned once more, and I heard him cry as he dropped the pipe. In an instant, Touch of Frost was on him. I had just enough time to get out of the way before the horse reared up, neighing loudly as he brought his front legs down firmly onto Philippe’s chest, knocking him back against the wall. The pipe fell from his hand and his head made a sickening thud as it hit the wall and he fell down to the ground, unconscious.

Touch of Frost immediately walked over to where I was sitting on the ground, dazed. He nuzzled my face, and I reached up and stroked him.

“You saved my life, thank you,” I told him, closing my eyes as I pressed my face against his. Touch of Frost or not, I liked this horse.

“You saved mine first. Just returning the favour. They built those stalls too well.”

I laughed softly as Charlotte left Ellie and went over to Philippe. She checked his pulse, then grabbed her phone out of her back pocket.

“It’s going to take a minute to turn on,” she told me before calling 9-1-1. We were going to have to add that number to our speed dial pretty soon, the way things were going.

Ellie came over to Touch of Frost.

“You saved us. You saved us, Frosty,” she told him, stroking the horse gently. He moved over to Ellie and nuzzled her as well. I smiled. It was obvious that no matter who he was, Ellie loved Touch of Frost, and he loved her too. He was going to be in good hands with Ellie in charge of Gibson Farms.

The ambulance was the first to arrive. They loaded up Philippe, and an EMT checked me over and told me I should go to a clinic later to be tested for a concussion. But, luckily, neither Charlotte, Ellie nor I needed to go to the hospital. The EMTs waited for the police to arrive, about three minutes later, so an officer could ride with them and arrest Philippe, although I overheard a couple of them saying they weren’t sure if he’d ever wake up.

For me, everything was still a bit of a daze. I felt like my brain was working at about 90 percent capacity, like it was taking me a split second to answer anything else than it should have. I spent most of the time while the EMTs were around sitting against the stall, letting Touch of Frost come over and nuzzle me from time to time.

As soon as Hawthorne walked in, with the strut of a man who knew he was going to get credit for doing absolutely nothing, I groaned. He was the last person I wanted to see today. Or ever, really. Except for maybe Philippe.

“Alright, ladies, I wanna know exactly what happened here,” he told Charlotte, Ellie and I. “I need statements, and I need them from you individually. You, the hot one. You first,” he said, pointing at Charlotte, who practically curled in on herself in revulsion.

She followed him out of the stable, leaving Ellie and I mostly alone with Touch of Frost, as the EMTs had left, and the crime scene unit from Portland hadn’t had time to arrive yet. If they were even coming, after all there had been no murder here today, just an accident with a horse. I knew there were a few cops outside, and that was about it. There was one cop at the far end of the stable looking around, but apart from that we were alone.

Ellie came and sat down next to me.

“How did you know to come find me?” she eventually asked. I explained everything to her, up to and including Charlotte figuring out this morning that Philippe was going to try and kill her.

“Did you know?” I asked her, lowering my voice. “That he wasn’t Touch of Frost?” I assumed that now the truth was going to have to come out, but as far as I was aware it was still a secret. Ellie nodded.

“Yeah. Yeah, I did. His name is really Black Envy. That’s why I call him Frosty now, it’s kind of close to Envy, his old name.”

“What happened?” I asked, and Ellie sighed.

“Just after we retired Touch of Frost, he caught the horse flu, when he was still on the road. Our regular vet did everything he could, but unfortunately Touch of Frost died. My mom was so mad. I’d never seen her so angry. She said he had only just started to live up to his earning potential now, and he was gone. She had already organized the sale of the sperm, and now he was dead. I didn’t care about the money. I was just sad Touch of Frost was gone. He was a really good horse. Then, two days later, our vet was killed in a car crash. He was speeding on the interstate and lost control, hitting a median. All of a sudden, my mom realized, the only people who knew Touch of Frost was dead were her, Corey and myself.”

Ellie sighed and waited a moment before continuing. “So my mom made a deal with Corey. If he found her another horse that looked just like Touch of Frost, and he kept up the ruse, she’d pay him a million bucks a year. Obviously Corey agreed. Corey found out that Touch of Frost had a half-brother who looked almost exactly like him. The only difference was he had a tiny sliver of white on his face. So Corey bought the horse, made the owner sign an NDA, dyed the patch of hair black and brought the new Touch of Frost home.”

“And so the three of you were the only ones who knew.”

“Yes. We hired a new vet. The jockeys didn’t know, obviously. If Tony had suspected he would have lorded it over my mom like nothing else. Susan obviously had no idea, she’d just been hired around then. Then, about four months ago our trainer disappeared. He just stopped showing up to work. That wasn’t exactly… a rare thing… with my mom around, so we never thought anything about it. Philippe applied for the job, and his references were amazing, and he obviously knew exactly what he was doing. Mom hired him straight away. Of course, if we’d known…”

Ellie trailed off and a tear began to streak down her face. I put an arm around her shoulder.

“You couldn’t have known,” I told her. “It’s not your fault.”

“Of course now, I know. He must have made sure the old trainer wouldn’t come back to work as soon as the foal was born. They would have noticed the blue eye immediately. But of course, they couldn’t come out with it publically. I mean, it would have ruined us completely, of course, but it would have meant Touch of Midnight would have been worth nothing. No one would have wanted the stud services of a stallion born to two nobodies. So he got his revenge another way. A quieter way.”

Ellie began to sob into her hands. I comforted her for a while, until Charlotte came back and Hawthorne asked for me. He wanted my statement.

Twenty disgusting minutes later Charlotte and I were free to go. I told Ellie I’d be in touch, and Charlotte and I headed back to the car.

It wasn’t even eight thirty yet. I’d have just enough time to get back to the vet clinic, change into the pair of scrubs I always had there, and brush my hair. It wasn’t exactly going to be the most glamorous day ever for me, but as long as I looked remotely presentable, it would probably be fine.

“Are you sure you want to go to work?” Charlotte asked. “I’m skipping my classes today. I wouldn’t be able to get there until late anyway, now.”

I shook my head. “No, I need to go. There’s no one who can cover for me, anyway.”

We got into the car, and I let Charlotte drive back. She drove slowly out of the driveway and back onto the road, and to my surprise, Jason Black was there snapping photos, being held back from entering the property by the cops. He smiled and winked at me as we drove past, and I rolled down the window. Charlotte stopped.

“Morning, sunshine!” Jason said, and I scowled.

“If you use that photo of me in your paper I’ll make sure you never, ever get to go on another date with me again,” I threatened, knowing just how terrible I looked right now.

“Ohhhh but my journalistic integrity!” Jason replied with a laugh, and I flipped him off as Charlotte drove off. I was so not in the mood.