Hoofprints (Gail McCarthy series) Read Online Free Page B

Right now he knew I was in a rotten mood, not conducive to scratching his ears.
    Shaking my head at myself, I walked in through the back door of the office. The rubble on my desktop was about knee-deep; I shoved it around, thinking that if I were a good person, I'd catch up on some long-overdue paperwork. I'd left the back door open and the sunny summer day poured into the room behind me. It was noon and, as usual, the fog had cleared. A Santa Cruz summer afternoon-seventy-two degrees, and the nicest weather in the world. I stared out the door thoughtfully, wondering if paperwork was such a good idea after all.
    As I watched, a truck drove in. It was an old red Ford pickup, faded-looking but clean. Bret Boncantini was driving it.
    The red truck swung casually into one of the spots marked STAFF ONLY, and Bret got out deliberately, not hurrying, making a point of it. He held himself up, shoulders back, stomach in. Sunglasses masked his eyes, but I knew they would be moving from one thing to another, quickly, curiously. Checking it out, he would have said. The same old Bret.
    I sat at my desk and Bret walked confidently in the back door-again marked STAFF ONLY. Bret was a great one for back doors. He looked at me and grinned. "You look like you're working hard."
    I had to smile. Then I thought of Cindy, and the smile died quickly. Bret and Cindy had been friends.
    Might as well get it over with. "Bret, Ed and Cindy Whitney were murdered-sometime last night, I guess."
    "Are you serious?" Bret's voice reflected disbelief.
    "I found them this morning. Shot-both of them."
    "Jesus." He sat down slowly in an empty chair. "I was over there yesterday afternoon." We stared at each other a moment. Bret was nothing if not quick. "I guess I'll have to go talk to the police."
    "And you'd better do it right away."
    He didn't say anything. He was gazing out the back door and his eyes weren't focused; they were watching something inside his mind. Sunlight made a sheen on the fringe of hair above his eyes.
    Bret was something to look at. His smooth brown skin, brown hair streaked with blond, and square chin could have come out of an ad for California living. His eyes were green-brown, with lashes longer than most women's. They were laughing eyes, eyes that said, you and me, we understand things.
    I'd known Bret since we were children; we'd grown up together as neighbors, and somehow our friendship, casual, undefined, and unlikely, had stood the test of time. Maybe because I was impervious to his sexual charms. Most women, however, weren't.
    Cindy had been no exception. Bret was one of her favorites. She had met him somewhere-everybody had. Bret had become a fixture in the local horse world. He shod horses, rode colts from time to time, did spells of work for various horse trainers, always quitting in the end. He left town for long periods-he'd been gone for the last two months-and then reappeared. From what I understood, he'd been a blackjack dealer in Tahoe, a cowboy on a high desert ranch in Nevada, and a logger up near Yosemite, among other things. Now and then he would drop a quick comment about where he'd been and what he'd done, but in general he was uncommunicative about his other lives. Bret lived in the here and now.
    "I didn't know you were in town," I said.
    "Got in yesterday," he answered automatically. He didn't volunteer anything more, and I could see his mind was still somewhere else.
    It would have been typical of Bret to have gone to Cindy's house right away. He often visited her, and I understood that the kind of free and easy hospitality she delivered had suited him right down to the ground. In the same way, his instant, playful charm had suited her. They had had, I thought, a mutually beneficial relationship. Bret kept Cindy from getting bored, and Cindy provided Bret with lots of free meals and all the beer he wanted. For a drifter like Bret, these were the essentials.
    People had speculated about Cindy and Bret-how close