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he floor to stop at Maeve’s ashen-faced corpse and the blood puddled around her. “Holy Christ!” His Adam’s apple worked, then he swung his dark gaze at Trent. “What the fuck happened here?”
“You don’t know?”
“Hell, no!” His lips tightened, and he appeared agitated, even desperate. “Why don’t you fill me in?”
“We just found her,” Jules said, wary.
“You have any idea why there was a fire in Omen’s stall?” Trent cut in.
“Fire?” Flannagan repeated, as if just noticing the singed straw and the strong odor of smoke that wafted through the stalls. “What the hell?” Flannagan’s features pulled tight, his mouth twisting down at the corners as he shot a look at the box where the big horse was usually housed. “Omen wasn’t hurt?”
“Just a scratch. Cut himself escaping. We found him outside the gate.” Eyeing Flannagan cautiously, Trent motioned to the opening of Omen’s stall with the beam of his flashlight. “It was hanging wide open.”
Jules remembered Lynch’s notes in Flannagan’s file. Affinity for weaponry. Military background. Not hired by several law enforcement agencies. Flannagan, with his military buzz cut and honed wrestler’s physique, worked with the animals every day. Here. The stable was his milieu. All three kids who had died, had been attacked in his domain. He could have murdered Maeve earlier and returned in an attempt to throw suspicion away from him.
Jules’s skin crawled. She didn’t trust this man, plain and simple. Was he a cold-blooded killer?
Flannagan glanced again at the dead girl and a muscle worked in his jaw. “I suppose we’d better get hold of Lynch.”
“Get him,” Trent suggested, “and while you’re at it, round up Deputy Meeker, send him out here. We’ll need to cordon off the stable until the detectives and crime investigators get here.”
“So we’re just going to leave her?” Flannagan was incredulous as he lifted his lantern higher, spreading more light over the area, illuminating Maeve’s gray corpse. Ghostly shapes disappeared, transforming into feedbags and dangling bridles; lumpy, distorted images became saddles stretched across sawhorses.
“For now we leave her as we found her. Until the crime investigators have a look. We’ll have to keep everyone out of the stable to preserve the integrity of the scene.”
Flannagan frowned down at the body and sighed through his nose. “You don’t think she just slit her wrists?”
“After setting a fire in Omen’s stall and setting him free, then dousing the place with retardant?” Trent asked. “No, I don’t think so.”
Flannagan looked over at Jules. Silvery eyebrows formed one suspicious line. “So what were the two of you doin’ in here?”
“Checking on the stock after the power went out,” Trent replied without missing a beat.
“Yeah?” Flannagan wasn’t buying it.
Trent didn’t seem to notice. “I’ll find the battery-powered heater and set it up, keep the place from freezing. But the temperature’s already dropping in here. Let’s get winter blankets on these horses.” While Flannagan was still eyeing Jules, Trent opened a cupboard and began hauling out blankets. Jules was right beside him. Flannagan, too, went to work, snapping blankets on each of the animals in their stalls.
“Let me get this straight. You two were together when the fire broke out, is that what went down?” Flannagan asked as he stepped out of Scout’s stall, his harsh gaze riveted to Jules, as if he wanted her to feel that she might be wearing some kind of scarlet letter.
“That’s right,” she said.
“In the middle of the frickin’ night?”
“Yes.” She wasn’t backing down an inch. Let Flannagan think what he damned well wanted.
Trent nodded as he latched the gate to Arizona’s box, then scratched the mare’s nose as she shoved it over the top rail. “We were working on a project for my pod when the power went out.”
“Were ya, now?” Flannagan’s smile was a humorless white slash in the semidarkness, his sneer audible as he repeated, “A project?”
“That’s what I said.”
“After lights-out?” Flannagan said. “I’ll remember that one.”
“Do. In the meantime, just find Lynch and Meeker. You got walkie-talkies, Flannagan?” Trent double-checked the latch on Nova’s stall.
Flannagan nodded. “Back at my place.”
“Bring them,” Trent instructed. “We need to be in contact. I’ve got a set that I’ll pick up later.”
