Dead Heat (Alpha & Omega 4)

“Right, it’s easier on the horse and on the rider. But when you are riding in a circle, you want to rise and fall with the outside leg; the inside leg on a circle is already taking more weight. Mackie is on the wrong leg. She’ll have to bounce a beat to change. There she goes. Good girl.”

“She’ll make reserve,” said Joseph. “That’s just fine. Not the first mistake she’s made in the ring, and it won’t be the last.”

“Any class that you end up still on top instead of eating dirt is a good class,” said Max, deadpan, but obviously quoting someone.

“She’s got the hands and the seat,” said Maggie. “Just like her grandfather. She’ll be one of the good ones.”

“If she wants to be,” said Chelsea.

She’d come to the stands with Wade, Anna, and Charles to watch while her husband was in the paddock behind the in-gate to make sure Mackie got into and out of her class okay. She was, Anna noticed, doing a lot better with the crowded arena than she had earlier. The hour in the quiet of their section of barn with Anna radiating calm had given her the respite she’d needed to regain her control.

Max laughed. “No one is capable of making Mackie do anything she doesn’t want to, Mom. You know that.”

The riders lined up in the middle, and the places were announced. Mackie did indeed take reserve, which apparently was second place. The horses trotted one more time all the way around the arena and then out of the gate.

Chelsea stood up as if she had springs. “I’ll go gather the children. Max, can you help your grandparents get home when they are ready?”

“Will do,” he said.

Charles got up, too. “Let’s take a break from the horse show. If there is someone who is fae here at the show grounds, we aren’t having any luck finding them.”

They ended up eating at a Chinese restaurant that was fairly decent—better than anything in Aspen Creek, anyway. It was late for lunch and early for dinner—so there was only one other couple in the place. Charles relaxed and listened in on Anna’s phone call with Special Agent Fisher.

Leslie sounded frustrated and unhappy. “Our expert was in with McDermit for two hours this morning, but he wants another crack at him this afternoon. Sorry.”

“Tell her,” Charles said thoughtfully, “to see if she can figure out if Mr. McDermit was gone for a couple of weeks in November, when the fae all disappeared into the reservations. He shouldn’t be one of the ones who hid out like the wearden in Ms. Jamison’s garden. If she’s checking the background of the other people associated with the day care, she should look at that for them, too.”

When Anna relayed the suggestion, Leslie sighed. “Already working on that, but it was right around Thanksgiving. A lot of people left to visit relatives. We are, my flunkies are, confirming that people actually went where they say they did. So far we found one wife who was supposed to be visiting her parents who was actually sleeping with a married man. And another who was in rehab. It is understandable that he told his work that he was taking an extended vacation. I promise I’ll call when I get something, or if I can get you in to talk to Mr. McDermit.”

They drove back to the Sanis’ ranch about two hours after they left the show, only to find it deserted. Anna called Kage.

“Chelsea’s hanging out with Michael, Mackie, and the girl who was last place in Mackie’s class,” Kage explained, a smile in his voice. Charles wondered why no one had called them to let them know that everyone was staying at the show. But Hosteen had his family well guarded, even without Anna and Charles.

“Mackie was feeling pretty bad until she saw that the little girl on the chestnut was crying,” Kage said. “She gave her the same pep talk Hosteen gives everyone. Did you do your best? Well, okay then. Any class where you don’t end up on the ground is a good class.” Charles could hear the smile in Kage’s voice. “Chelsea took them both to get ice cream with Hosteen.”

“I told you not to worry,” Charles said after she hung up.

“If I were a fae trying to steal children, that horse show with all of its distractions would be just the place to do it,” she said.

“He’ll have to get past Hosteen, Wade, and the handful of werewolves working the crowd because they aren’t going to be distracted from their job. And it’s pretty public. So far this one has gone out of its way to avoid detection.”

“Handful?” Anna frowned. “I only spotted two.”

“They mostly stayed out of range of your nose,” he said. “No use them running over the same places in the crowd where we were already looking. If we didn’t pick up on any fae, neither would they. But I know most of the people in Hosteen’s pack by sight.”

Charles settled in with his laptop on the only chair in their room to work on pack finances. Just because the fae were out terrorizing Scottsdale didn’t mean the rest of his work stopped.

Anna pulled out a paperback novel with a half-naked man holding an improbably long sword. He wondered if the sword was meant to be metaphoric. Then he wondered if he should be concerned that his mate was reading a book with a naked man on the cover. Anna stretched out on her stomach to read. Her feet were toward him. Her position gave him a nice view when he needed a break from studying numbers, and he quit worrying about naked men.

A couple of hours later they heard a car drive up and the front door opened. The chatter of happy voices told Charles that the younger children were home—and so was Max. He didn’t sound as happy as the kids. Charles was already logging off and shutting down his laptop when there was a quiet knock on their door.

Anna hopped off the bed and pulled the door open.

“Um, excuse me,” Max said. “But Granddad is down in the car and he’s too tired to get out. Grandma sent me up to get you.”

Charles brushed past him and leapt down the stairs. He was worried, though he knew that was ridiculous. Joseph was dying. He might die tonight, waiting for someone to help him out of the car. He might die a week from now in his bed.

Ridiculous or not, Charles rushed out to the car, where Maggie stood with the door open.

“Don’t you die on me, old man,” she said. “We have some fighting left to do.”

“And arguing, too,” Joseph said, the humor coming through the breathlessness just fine.

“I told you we should go after Mackie’s class,” she snapped.