Her high heels clicked on the parquet floor as she walked down the hall to the bathroom to get her car keys. There shouldn't be people like Bart, she thought, her long-legged stride causing her blond shoulder-length hair to sway gently from side to side. There shouldn't be hunters and victims. There shouldn't be terrorists killing innocent children. It was so damned Machiavellian. So barbaric. Hadn't civilization progressed at all? Oh, damn, she silently swore, glancing out the terrace door next to her bedroom, the rain still hadn't let up. Her hair would frizz up like crazy again.
CHAPTER 4
I t was an appalling day to be out. His father had warned him in his customary quiet way. His stable master had been less polite. “Day for a damned fool to kill himself,” he'd said.
“Shorten the leathers a shade then, Leon. That'll keep me alive.”
“Shit. Take more than that today,” Leon muttered, but he'd seen the restrained fire in his employer's eyes, and had done as he was told. When Charles Fersten's mouth clamped shut in that thin straight line, everyone did his bidding or stayed out of sight.
For the fifth day in succession, cold, driving rain swept the northern Minnesota countryside. There were pools of water on the practice track near the stables, and the first curve of the private steeplechase course visible from the paddock resembled a snipe bog.
“Positive you want Tarrytown?” Leon tried one last time to dissuade his employer.