Sweet Justice (11 page)

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

A
WEEK
AFTER
Andrew's kiss, Mallory still didn't know which way was up. She'd even started avoiding the library because Carole kept pestering her about how things were going with Andrew.

Now, as she pushed her mop across the apartment's faded vinyl kitchen floor, she considered what her real answer to Carole might be.

I'd love to give myself over to the moment, but I'm too busy trying to prove that he screwed up?

No, that wasn't right. After her clumsy foray into Daniel's policy and procedures manual, with Andrew catching her red-handed, Mallory had sworn off any further investigation. Best to leave that to the professionals, she'd thought.

But Chad had seemed impressed that she'd found the information. Since his investigator had been tied up with another case, he had urged her to keep digging.

He'd called her again this morning, and she'd had to admit she hadn't found anything else beyond trying to balance work and cleaning.

Mallory had today off, and she'd not even thought of using it to “investigate” Katelyn's case. Instead, she'd given the apartment a thorough cleaning. It was easier when Katelyn was gone, not sacked out on the futon, glued to her phone, surrounded by snacks.

Mallory had finally given in and subscribed to one of the online streaming services to take advantage of the complex's free, if poky, Wi-Fi. Maybe that had been a mistake. It was supposed to be a carrot to tempt Katelyn into getting back into her schoolwork.

The “carrot” had turned out to be another distraction, another, “Oh, Mal, I will, sure... This episode ends in, uh, seven minutes.”

At least when it came to therapy, Katelyn was raring to go. Mallory had dropped her off earlier, then beat it back to the apartment to give the unoccupied futon a good going-over with the vacuum.

Now she thought about her conversation with Chad. She wandered back into the living room and sank down on the freshly vacuumed futon. A scrap of paper torn from an old sales circular, with a phone number in Katelyn's handwriting scrawled on it, lay on the floor. It must have fallen out when Mallory had been shaking out the cushions.

Chad had warned her that the longer they waited, the more evidence the county could hide—and they would, despite her convictions to the contrary. When she'd protested that the Monroes were good people who'd honestly been trying to help, he'd laughed wryly.

“Oh, ho, ho. They're pulling
that
stunt on you, huh? Where they're so nice and so helpful and they bend themselves into a pretzel trying to accommodate you?”

He'd warned her not to fall for it, to keep in mind that, more than the money, they needed to make sure the county was held accountable.

“You want them to
hurt
, Mallory. You want it to sting when they write that check out. You want to make sure they hurt so bad that they'll never do something like this to another kid in Katelyn's shoes.”

When Chad had mentioned shoes, all Mallory could think about was the melted pink bunny slippers. For her, they symbolized the horror that Katelyn had been put through.

What Chad said made sense, Mallory had conceded. “I can see that. And that's what I want, too. For them to admit they made a mistake, and to be sure it will never, ever happen again.”

“That's my job—and looks like it will be yours, too, Miss Nancy Drew, because I'm putting
you
in charge of digging up some more evidence. Here's what we need. We need a timeline of what happened that day. Who did what. They've got a report somewhere—probably in triplicate, knowing the county. You go in there, say that, uh...” Chad had paused, considering. She'd heard the clear snap of his fingers as he'd hit upon an idea. “Say the insurance company needs it for their records, that's it. And if you can find out if any of the firefighters who responded had disciplinary write-ups in their records—”

“What?”

“You gotta have leverage, Mallory. That's what's going to keep this thing from going to a jury trial. If there's anything they don't want to come out in open court, county governments will pay big just to sweep it all under the rug.”

And with that, he'd gone, leaving Mallory staring at the scrap of newsprint with the mysterious phone number in hot pink ink. Afraid it might get lost, she picked it up, walked over to her wallet and tucked it in the change compartment. She'd have to remember to give it to Katelyn—

Katelyn!

A glance at her watch told her it was past time to head out to Happy Acres. So intent had she been on mopping every smidge of dirt and dust—and if she were honest, every thought of Andrew—out of existence, she'd let the time sneak up on her. That and Chad's phone call had vaporized the block of time Katelyn had been at therapy.

Mindless of her jeans and sweater, Mallory grabbed her purse and keys, jumped in the car and headed off to pick up Katelyn from therapy.

A few minutes later, as she leaned on the farm's white rail fence and watched Maegan work with Katelyn on a ponderously slow gray horse, Mallory used the sneakered toe of one foot to ease a cramp in her calf from all her mopping and cleaning. She needn't have hurried. She could see that now. Maegan always scheduled Katelyn as her last patient, and many times she took an extra few minutes to work with her.

Was it like Chad said? A way to make nice and get them to forget about the suit?

Mallory lowered her chin to the rough wooden rail and drew in the crisp air perfumed with Ma's fragrant hyacinths. The weather had warmed up to the point where she had driven out to the farm with the top down on her convertible, inhaling tea olives and Carolina jessamine and the wonderful smells of early springtime in Georgia. Even here, the air smelled of grass and woods eager to throw off the damp sogginess of winter.

A vibration through the rail fence caught her attention. She looked across to the other pasture to see Andrew astride a huge gleaming black horse, thundering over the deep green grass toward a group of barrels. Her breath caught as she watched the pair. They moved as one, Andrew almost an extension of the horse, around the set of barrels in a tight figure eight.

She found herself drawn to him as though he was lodestone. Easing alongside the fence, she approached the paddock where he was.

Andrew hadn't seen her. He was intent on putting the animal through its paces. He could have been on the cover of a rodeo poster: a battered Stetson atop his head, his back straight, the reins loosely but confidently held in one hand. His plaid button-down, faded jeans and dusty boots made a sharp contrast to the glistening, heaving horse.

Mallory couldn't fathom how he made the horse do its delicate two-step around those barrels. The turns were so sharp and fast that she found herself holding her breath, praying that he wouldn't take a spill.

And then it was over. The horse, following some unseen signal from Andrew, slowed to a trot, and then to a walk. Andrew leaned forward, giving the animal a pat on the neck, talking to it.

“Easy, boy. That's a good guy, you're getting the hang of it. And they said I'd never break you!”

The horse's sides were heaving, but he tossed his head high in response and let out a neigh, as if to say, “Sure, I can!”

She couldn't help it. She laughed with delight. She stopped herself before she broke out in a clap, remembering what Katelyn had told her about horses and blind spots and how easily spooked they could be. And this huge creature, twitching from his velvety muzzle to the tip of his long tail, looked as though he'd take any excuse to rear up on his hind legs.

Andrew wheeled the horse around in response, his frame relaxing as his gaze fixed on her.

“I'm sorry...but he looks so smug and self-satisfied,” Mallory apologized. “As though he's conquered the world.”

Andrew lifted a shoulder and nodded. “From his point of view, I reckon he has.”

“Did you really break him yourself?” she called.

He walked the horse over closer to the fence. “I did. He was a rescue... He and about four other colts had been pretty much left to fend for themselves. If you'd seen him then, you wouldn't recognize him now. Skinny—and skittish. Didn't trust people.”

I can see his point
, Mallory thought, taking in the horse's liquid eyes, which studied her with a hefty dose of suspicion. Down the center of the horse's nose was a large white blaze, stark in contrast to his inky blackness.
Why should you trust a world that keeps handing out bad stuff?
“He still looks nervous.”

“Oh, man, this is nothing. He was barely halter trained when I got him, and nowhere near able to endure a saddle. Little by little I've got him to this point.”

The idea that Andrew, so busy with the fire department and helping Maegan, would patiently coax a skittish, abused colt into becoming this magnificent creature astonished her. The energy and patience and faith it must have taken!

“What's his name?”

“Joker—and no, I didn't name him. That was all he had when he came to us, and I didn't want to take that from him. Besides, it's a good fit. He's been known to have fun at my expense.”

“Can I—” She lifted her hand, and then pulled it back.

“Go on. That's right. Lift your knuckles up to him—that's how you say hi to a horse.” Andrew slid off and led the horse closer. Once again, she found herself being tutored in the ways of these giants.

Joker reached out, but instead of sniffing her hand, he nosed at her hair. His muzzle grazed her, tickling as it explored. Mallory stood stock-still, paralyzed with fear at such a close encounter with a horse.

Joker didn't seem to notice. Instead, he moved over to sniff the other side of her head. Then, more like a friendly Great Dane than a horse, he gave her a swipe on the cheek with his tongue.

“Joker! Mind your manners!” Andrew scolded. “She does not want your sugars!”

Mallory wiped away Joker's “sugars” with the backside of her arm. She saw that the horse had taken a step back, and, honest to goodness, looked as sheepish as a dog who'd eaten the morning newspaper. “Does that mean he likes me?” she asked.

“Yeah,” Andrew said. He regarded the horse and then Mallory with a measure of surprise. “Yeah, and that's amazing! He's standoffish with most everybody but me. Even Maegan, and she can charm almost any horse.”

“Wow. Then, I guess I should count that as a high honor,” she told him. “I thought horses could tell you were scared of them.”

Andrew reached up and gave Joker a welcome scratch in what was apparently a favorite spot. The horse leaned in and nuzzled him...then stretched out his nose and touched Mallory's hair.

Her heart hammered less than it had the first time, but still she stood quietly. When she saw Andrew make a move to pull the horse back, she said, “No. Please. Maybe it's my hair color.”

“Oh, your hair. I remember. It smells like strawberries, and Joker loves 'em. That's what I'd use to reward him when I was first training him.”

Inexplicably Mallory felt a sense of letdown. Joker hadn't liked her, hadn't felt the strange kinship of abandoned orphans that she'd felt for him. He'd only liked her shampoo—

“Wait. How do you know what my hair smells like?”

Andrew cleared his throat, stared at the horse. “You know. When we...when we kissed. In the truck.”

Of course. His own scent of wood smoke and clean soap came back to her as strongly as if they were still in the cab of his truck. Before she could figure out how to fill the resulting awkward silence, Joker leaned back in for another hit of her strawberry shampoo.

“I guess I should go.”

“No, no, wait—if you don't mind. He likes you. I mean, not just your shampoo. You're wearing sneakers for a change. And I need to walk him to cool him off. Sometimes when he knows it's time to call it quits, he gets cantankerous, but if you'll walk with us—”

She burst out laughing again. “What? Am I horse bait?”

Andrew's lips pressed together. Some of the cheerfulness dimmed in his eyes. “Only if you want to be. I guess you don't. After all, you haven't taken me up on those riding lessons.”

His derisive observation made her mind up for her. “Will it spook him if I climb the fence?” Mallory asked.

“Not if you do it slow. Do you even know how to climb a fence?”

Mallory sniffed. “How hard can it be?” And with that, she put one foot up on the bottom rail and began to swing herself over. Joker didn't seem too unhappy that she was joining them—in fact, he gave her another big fat snuffle and a welcoming nicker.

“Ha,” she said to Andrew. “Guess I showed you. How is it that you can have so much faith in a horse and none in me?”

“I— That's not exactly fair, is it?” he asked.

“Exactly where do I need to lead this horse?” Mallory began walking backward, Joker obediently trotting after her. “Because it seems to me that me and my strawberry hair form an irresistible combination.”

“I can't believe it. Only a few weeks ago, you were shaking in your stilettos fifty feet from a horse. And now look at you.” Andrew shook his head. “You want to lead him?”

Mallory's confidence melted away. “Uh, I'm not that brave.”

“Okay. But how about that riding lesson? I can teach you how to take Joker's bridle off, and how to groom him. That's part of my first lesson anyway.”

Mallory swallowed. Andrew's eyes seemed to hold a dare. “You mean me? In an itty-bitty stall with that great big old critter?”

“What happened to ‘me and my strawberry hair being an irresistible combination,' huh?” He pointed behind her. “And the stables are where you're supposed to be leading him. But take the long way because I'm—I mean
he's
—all out of breath.”