The Skeleton King (Dartmoor Book 3) Page 6

  Walsh twisted his mouth in a wry non-smile. “You know I’m a Dog, then.”

  “I asked around. Talked to a buddy who knows there’s somebody named Walsh who rides with that crew.” He glanced over with shrewd assessment. “Figure there’s not too many British bikers around here named Kingston Walsh.”

  “You figured right.”

  He made a phlegmy, old-man sound in the back of his throat. “So what’s going on here? The MC wants to buy my farm? Why? Y’all need another crack house? A brothel? Gonna start selling turns with horses?”

  Walsh couldn’t suppress a low, dry laugh. “No, sir. That we’re not doing.” He added, “This isn’t for the club. Not to be used the way you’re thinking.”

  “But a man like you can’t afford a place like this. Not alone.”

  “You’re right, I can’t.” Walsh shrugged. “I have the club’s support behind me. We’re a family – we support each other. Just like you,” he said with a pointed stare that made the man scoot back in his chair. “But the plan is for Briar Hall to keep functioning as a boarding and training barn.”

  “Why?” Richards demanded.

  “It benefits our interests to keep high-density housing developments to a minimum.”

  The old man snorted. “This isn’t a small town, Mr. Walsh.”

  “You’re right. But there’s no sense letting this place” – broad gesture to the land around them – “get turned into retirement condos, is there? The MC’s all about tradition. About history. We don’t like seeing old things plowed over to make way for new.”

  Richards’ face was set at a stern, bulldog clench, but he was listening intently.

  “And truthfully,” Walsh continued, “I don’t want to see that happen. Personally. I’m a hermit, Mr. Richards. I like peace and quiet. I like animals. I like your farm. And I want to buy it. For myself.”

  ~*~

  Though equine-inspired, Amy’s outfit wasn’t suitable for the dusty inside of a barn. Designer jeans, glossy brown riding boots, airy gauze top printed with brown-on-brown horseshoe design. Diamonds sparkled at her ears and throat, and her dark hair was swept up in decorative leather combs.

  She occupied the ratty swivel chair as a queen would a throne, manicured hands curved on the arms, legs crossed at the knee. She did a lazy spin, eyes roving over the photographs, ribbons, trophies that decorated the wall. Some were Emmie’s. Most were her own.

  This farm had been her father’s gift to her. Her four siblings had been sent to college. She hadn’t wanted to go, had instead wanted to marry the young man who’d knocked her up with Brett. Davis had made her a deal: don’t marry the young man, and he’d build her a farm. She’d accepted the deal.

  And now, almost thirty years later, she was leaving the farm for a new husband, new life, new farm in Kentucky. And there was nothing Emmie could do about it.

  “How’s the farm coming?” Emmie asked, proud that she didn’t sound too bitter.

  Amy nodded. “Fence is all done. We’re planting trees this week. A whole bunch of silver maples going down the drive.”

  “That’ll be pretty.”

  “Yeah.” Amy stopped spinning and pinned Emmie with a glance. “How’re you doing?”

  “I’m…”

  She always said “fine” in these instances. But today, the word got stuck against the roof of her mouth. All her horse-related life, she’d worked to be easy, compliant, uncomplaining. She wanted to be a help and never a hindrance. She’d seen her quiet acquiescence to everyone else’s wishes as a way to gain some career karma. That her dedication and unfailing good spirits would give her a leg-up professionally.

  It had gotten her nowhere.

  “I’m not great,” she said, and Amy looked surprised. “I’m…” She glanced up and saw a faded photo of herself at age eleven, grinning hugely as Amy held her old lesson pony’s bridle. She’d won her class that day at the pony club show. “I’m depressed,” she admitted. “I’m exhausted, and I hate what’s happening.”

  She offered her boss a sparse smile. “But what can I do, huh?”

  Amy studied her a moment, head cocked. “I think you’re burnt out, is what I think. When the builders close on this place in a few weeks” –

  Emmie’s breath caught in her throat.

  – “you can take some time off. Go on vacay or something. You need a break. This place is killing you.”

  What was killing her was the loss of her childhood home-away-from-home. She swallowed down that retort and said, “The builders? I didn’t think anything was decided yet. There’s another buyer–”

  “Brett told Dad he ought to take the developers’ offer, and I think he’s right. They’ll pay the most, everything will happen quickly, and we can get this place off our hands.”

  “But…”

  But what about Walsh? What about keeping it a farm? What about…

  A little fucking emotional understanding, damn it?!

  Emmie felt her face settling into a cold mask. “You aren’t going to be upset when they turn your farm into a retirement village?”

  Amy shrugged. “It’s just a place, Em.”

  ~*~

  He knew he shouldn’t, but Walsh just had to stop down at the barn on his way out. Something about Emmie’s authenticity – that non-club realism that knew nothing of flirting and flashing skin – the way she took her job seriously: that called to him the way strippers drew the attention of his brothers. He’d had whores; he was done with them.

  He wanted something…more than that.

  He found her mucking a stall the old fashioned way, pitching the manure into a wheelbarrow parked at the door. Quick, efficient movements with the rake as she sifted through the shavings. She’d done this a lot. Could do it in her sleep. The easy way he handled his guns.

  Walsh propped a shoulder against the tongue-and-groove, fancy-ass stall paneling and watched her a moment. She was agitated, the tension in her arms speaking to more than hard work. She was dressed as she had been on his last visit: black breeches, a tank top – this one pale green and tight.

  “Where’s your tractor?” he asked, and she spooked, bad as one of the horses she cared for.

  With a gasp, Emmie spun toward him, stall fork lifting in an automatic blocking maneuver. Like maybe she’d bash someone over the head with it, if she needed to. Defensive. He liked it.

  She calmed when she recognized him, but then her lips thinned in an unhappy way.

  “Didn’t mean to scare you,” he offered.

  “You startled me, is all.”

  He snorted. “Tractor busted?”

  She made a face, nose wrinkling. “No. It’s not here.” She scowled and stabbed at a horse apple with the rake tines. “Brett has it.”

  “And Brett is…?”

  “Davis’s grandson. He’s offered to till up a patch of his girlfriend’s yard for a garden, and so he took the farm tractor to do it.”

  “Ah. Spoiled rotten little tosser, is he?”

  A surprised smile split her face, turned it sunny and beautiful. She coughed a small laugh. “Exactly. The one thing I won’t miss about this place.”

  “Miss?” He folded his arms across his chest. “You planning on quitting on me?”

  Her smile collapsed fast, and her gaze came up to meet his. “You aren’t going to get the farm. Brett talked his grandfather into selling to the developers, apparently. You’re standing on the future site of Briar Hall Retirement Village.”

  Six

  “Everything’s all set,” Walsh assured.

  On the other end of the cellphone conversation, Ghost said, “Good. I’ll see you in the morning.”

  The line disconnected with a click.

  Walsh set the phone on the plastic patio table at his elbow and picked up his beer. The fridge in his little cottage ran about five degrees too cold, and there was a crusting of ice on the Newcastle bottle, the ale itself frigid on his tongue.

  Beyond the screens of the porch, insects, frogs
, and nightbirds filled the black night with music. Dolly lay at his feet, half-asleep, one speckled ear cocked for threatening noises.

  It was a perfect, tranquil night. Which meant something was bound to screw that up.

  As if on cue, his phone rang. It wasn’t one of his club brothers this time, but one of his actual brothers.

  “Shane,” he greeted, slouching down lower in his chair.

  A deep breath was taken on the other end of the line, from all the way across the pond in London, then Shane’s deep, kind voice came across. “Hi, King. How are ya?”

  Walsh was an only child. On his mother’s side of things, anyway. He’d been twelve when she’d sat him down for biscuits and chocolate he’d been too old for, and haltingly explained to him that his father had sown his seeds all over the city. At the time, she’d known six half-siblings. In fact, there were eight, and even if Phillip was the London chapter’s president, the man who’d recruited Walsh into the Dogs and by far his most influential brother, it was quiet, careful Shane who was his favorite.

  “Can’t complain,” he answered. “Everything alright with you?”

  “Aye.” But that was a lie. The tension in one word told a different story.

  “What’s wrong?”

  Another deep breath. “I saw your mum today. She and my mum were having tea at the Black & Tan, and I stopped by and…King, she’s talking to Dad again.”

  Walsh sat upright, a jolt going through him. “What?”

  “I know, I know, I never woulda believed it myself, but she slipped up, and mentioned him. She blushed this awful color red. She’s lonely, I think. And she’s been talking to him on the phone.” Shane sighed. “For now, anyway.”

  “Jesus.” Walsh took a fortifying sip. “What’s she thinking? That bloody – She’s having lunch with your mother. I thought that was a ‘Girls United Against Devin Green’ sorta thing.”

  “Me too.”

  “Shit.”

  “I’m sorry, mate. I didn’t wanna get you worried–”

  “No, it’s good you told me.”

  The night sounds seemed to swell to a roar in the silence that followed. Walsh could think of no reasonable explanation for his mother to go back to the man who’d broken countless hearts – unless she was lonely. And he knew she had to be. In every phone conversation, she asked when he’d be back for a visit; wasn’t he tired of the States yet? Wouldn’t it be better to come home and serve under his brother Phil? If he insisted on this biker business at all. Why couldn’t he be nice and calm like his brother Shane?

  The beer wasn’t doing the job. Walsh stood, Dolly’s head lifting in question. He motioned for her to stay down and went back in the house, heading for the liquor cabinet.

  “You still there?” Shane asked.

  “Yeah. Still here.”

  ~*~

  The atmosphere was sharp, that crackle of static in the air before the lightning came.

  There. Emmie spotted it through the stall window: a narrow white ribbon crackling across the sky. The thunder that followed was distant, but close enough that she knew she had to get moving if she was going to make it up to the house and back.

  “Good boy,” she murmured to Apollo, patting his neck in farewell. She’d meant to drive up to see Davis an hour ago, and had instead loitered in the barn, delaying the unpleasant conversation they were sure to have. Becca and Fred had gone home for the night; all the horses were put away. Nothing stirred but the cats after mice. The horses chewed hay, stamped the occasional fly, but it was otherwise quiet, the freshly swept aisle full of warm artificial light. Outside, the night was oily and sinister. She didn’t relish going through it. Even in the Rhino, with the headlights on.

  But that’s what she did, swapping her boots for leather barn clogs, giving her hair a fast tidy on her way out.

  The wind picked up, raking across her, dashing felled leaves through the Rhino’s lights. The trees bowed around the big stone house, giving the impression it was heaving, like a ship at sea. Lights burned on the first floor, beacons drawing her through the gale toward the parking pad. When she climbed from the ATV, she felt the first spit of rain, a few drops against her face.

  She needed to hurry.

  But there was no hurrying Davis Richards. He did everything in his own time.

  This was probably an intrusion, she thought, as she climbed the back steps onto the porch. Davis was probably ensconced in his favorite chair with a cigar and the latest Patterson novel.

  Nerves made her pause at the library door. She took a deep breath, smoothed her shirt, reached to knock –

  The door was open.

  A stream of light poured out around the disengaged lock. It was only open a crack, but the door was still open, and the sight of it twisted her stomach into a tight ball.

  “Mr. Richards?” she called, rapping once before pushing the panel wide and stepping into the library. “Mr. Richards? Hello. It’s Emmie.”

  The room was empty, lamps burning, illuminating the walls of books, the vacant chairs.

  “Mr. Richards, did you know your back door’s open?” she asked, turning a slow circle, searching for a sign of life.

  When she got no response, she went to the door to the study. Knocked. Got no answer.

  Her pulse thumped in her ears. Her breathing quickened. The sense that something was wrong crawled across her skin like insects, tickling up the back of her neck.

  “Mr. Richards?”

  She turned the knob and pushed the door open in a rush, fighting dread. The office was as tidy as always, both green lamps on the corners lit, the light falling across –

  Davis, his arms and white head down on top of the desk.

  “God,” she whispered, rushing to him. “Mr. Richards? Mr. Richards?”

  Emmie touched his shoulder and gave him a light shake. He was warm to the touch, so that couldn’t mean that he was…

  “Davis!” she said, dropping to her knees beside his chair, pressing her fingers into his neck, searching for a pulse.

  There was none.

  Seven

  The storm lashed the house, the thunder like fireworks exploding overhead, the lightning appropriately dazzling.

  By contrast, the kitchen was tomb-like, its sterile stainless appliances watching her with blank faces, the drone of the fluorescent tubes drowning out the shuffling voices down the hall in the study. There were so many people: police, fire rescue, the EMT crew. And none of them could do anything for poor Davis.

  Emmie had been standing, frozen, still clutching her cellphone when the fire rescue team came barreling in through the open back door. One of them had draped a blanket across her shoulders and told her to go wait in another room. “Most likely a heart attack,” he’d told her with a sympathetic frown.

  That’s what happened to old people, right?

  She had no idea why she’d come into this cold, heartless room. It was industrial and uncomfortable, but her innate Southern roots had drawn her to the kitchen. That’s where you went in a crisis: the kitchen. And you made coffee and you looked for cookies in the pantry, and you soldiered on through the pain.

  She was sitting at the butcher block table, an untouched mug of French roast and plate of Oreos in front of her. Waiting.

  She knew Amy arrived when she heard the ragged, gasping breath coming down the hall, the sharp rap of boot heels. “God!” she exclaimed when she burst into the kitchen, arms already outstretched as she plowed toward Emmie. “Oh God, Em!” Her face was wet with tears, streaked with mascara.

  Emmie stood and caught her oncoming hug, getting squeezed tight and squeezing back in return.

  Amy dissolved into wrenching sobs, her face buried in Emmie’s shoulder.

  “I’m sorry,” Emmie said, voice too-calm. None of this felt real. How could it possibly be happening? “I’m so sorry.”

  ~*~

  “I just…” Becca said, sniffling into a crumpled tissue, and summed up everyone’s thoughts on the matter.
<
br />   Just…

  Because none of them could come to grips with what had happened.

  Emmie reached over and patted the girl on the shoulder, earning a grateful, tear-stained smile in return. She herself was in shock. Physically cold, shivering, and detached in her mind. She’d been like this before, the day her mother announced she was leaving Karl and marrying someone else. The day she’d buried her first horse beneath a sweet gum tree out in the pasture beyond the window. She was no stranger to shock.

  Fred stood leaning against the barn office fridge, arms folded, head bowed. He was stoic in the extreme, but his face had been grave when she told him.

  Gruff and stern though he’d been, Davis had also been a fair, kind-hearted boss. This was the loss of a friend. For Emmie, it was like the loss of a grandparent.

  “But he was so healthy!” Becca said.

  “He looked healthy,” Fred said sadly. “But he was old, chica. It happens.”

  “But…” She jerked upright, grasping on an idea that popped her eyes wide. “The door! Em, you said the back door was open. What if…okay, hear me out. But can’t like, you murder someone and make it look like a heart attack? I saw that on TV, I think. Someone left that door open. Someone murdered him.” She glanced around wildly, searching for the killer as if he might be hiding behind the desk.

  Emmie shook her head, but inwardly, she clung to that open door, terrified of what it might mean.

  Fred said, “He was sick. He went in, and his chest was hurting, and he forgot the door. It wasn’t murder.” He looked sorry to have to say that.

  Becca curled in on herself. “Oh. Yeah, maybe.”

  A heavy silence descended again. They had chores to do, horses to exercise, stalls to muck – and they’d been in here ever since they’d finished turning out, wanting to be near one another. Shocked into total stillness.

  A sudden knock against the open door startled all of them.