Barnstorming (Gail Mccarthy Mysteries) Read Online Free Page B

ahead I could see the bright openness of another small meadow.
    And suddenly Sunny came to a stop. His head came up; his ears pricked so sharply that they almost touched at the tips. And then he nickered.
    Now this was surprising. Sunny didn’t nicker under saddle. Not once that I could remember had he done this. I craned to see ahead through the trees. One day last spring Sunny and I had met a coyote pup at this very spot. Both horse and coyote had been intrigued with each other—but Sunny had certainly not nickered.
    I couldn’t see anything. I bumped with my heels, but Sunny stood as if rooted to the spot and nickered again. This time an answering nicker rang out. Up ahead, in the meadow.
    Once again I bumped with my heels against Sunny’s sides and clucked to him. Sunny’s head lifted a fraction more, and he stepped forward. Both of us stared intently down the trail, peering through the screen of trees as we walked on. There was another horse there somewhere.
    In another fifty feet we emerged from the shrubbery into the sunny wide-open golden grass of what I called the “warm meadow.” Our trail ran right through the middle of this meadow until it reached the spot where four single-track paths came together. Standing near this junction, grazing, was a white horse, wearing a saddle and a bridle. She lifted her head and nickered softly when she saw us.
    I stared. Sunny stared. Surely that was Dolly. I recognized the mare, and the saddle. But where was Jane? It didn’t seem like her to turn her horse loose to graze dragging the bridle reins.
    “Hey, Dolly,” I said in a conversational tone. “Where’s your person?”
    The mare lifted her head and looked at me. I wasn’t exactly expecting an answer to my question, and yet it seemed as if the horse had heard and understood.
    She took a couple of steps down the trail, and then her hoof came down on the dragging reins, jerking her in the face. Dolly’s head flew up, but she was an old horse and she’d been around. She lifted her hoof, releasing the rein, and kept on down the trail at a walk. I followed her.
    Past the trail junction, on down the valley. Sunny eyed the trail that led to home, but followed the mare fairly willingly. I wondered if I should get off and catch the riderless horse, but Dolly seemed to be managing okay.
    “Jane!” I called. The sound seemed to echo off the hills around me. No one answered.
    This was weird. Where the hell was Jane?
    And then Dolly stopped. Her head went down. I rode past the small scrubby pine tree by the side of the trail and saw the figure lying on the ground behind the tree. Blue jeans, boots, dark blond hair streaked with gray—face down. Dolly was sniffing her hair.
    In a second I was off of Sunny and tethering him by the reins to a tree branch. Sunny stood quietly while I stepped past the white mare and reached down for Jane. I turned her over.
    Jane’s body was heavy in my arms, her head rolled back limply. Her eyes were open, not seeing me, glazed, the pupils fixed. I knew she was dead, even as my eyes searched frantically for a cause. Had she had a heart attack or a stroke, fallen and broken her neck?
    But no, the bright red blood splotching the small hole in her chest gave the answer. My heart pounded; I could feel a strange rushing in my ears. Even as I pressed my fingers to Jane’s neck to feel for a pulse, I sat down abruptly on the dry grass. Jane had been shot. And no doubt it was the shot I heard.
    I was having a hard time looking at her sightless eyes. I closed my own and tried to focus on feeling for the heartbeat in her carotid artery. Nothing.
    She was dead. What to do? My head was spinning.
    You will not pass out, I told myself firmly. I looked around.
    The familiar scrub was suddenly ominous. The person who had fired this shot could be hiding anywhere. They could be watching me right now. I took a deep breath.
    Panic would help nothing. Running away would serve no purpose.
    Pay attention, I told