Free Final Scream by Lisa Jackson

tinkling sound of Angie’s laughter. Through the dusty window he watched them leave, Jed behind the wheel, Angie wedged between the two boys. She was laughing gaily, one arm slung around Bobby’s neck, the other around Jed’s shoulders.
    Brig walked out of the garage and nearly stumbled over Willie Ventura, who was peering through the lacey branches of a row of arborvitae planted as a hedge between the house and garage.
    “Angie—” Willie said, his lips moving, as he stared after the car.
    “What about her?”
    Willie visibly jumped and he looked at Brig as if he expected to be beaten. Swallowing hard, eyes darting away from Brig’s intense stare, Willie trembled. “She…she gone.”
    “Yeah, with those two creeps. I know.”
    Willie’s eyes quit moving so frantically. “You don’t like Bobby?”
    “Don’t really know him. Don’t want to.”
    “He’s bad.”
    “Is he?” Brig wasn’t really interested, but he kept the conversation going just because he thought Willie wanted to talk and that in and of itself was a breakthrough. Willie didn’t speak much and usually avoided Brig.
    Willie stared after the car. “Trouble.”
    “That’s what you said about me when I first came.”
    Nodding, Willie watched the car roll out of sight. He didn’t move until the dust kicked up by the Corvette’s wide tires had settled back on the lane. “You’re trouble, too,” he said and sniffed. “But different.” He glanced at Brig, seemed suddenly embarrassed, then found the riding mower. “Got to work.”
    “Yeah, you and me both.”
     
    Cassidy was bored. Her best friend, Elizabeth Tucker, was still away at camp, and she’d already spent more time than she wanted to in town with her mother. Dena, deciding that Cassidy needed to get away from the house and stable, had taken her into Portland, where they’d driven all over the city, poking around antique stores in Sellwood, nosing through shops downtown, and dropping into one store after another. They ate lunch in the dining room of the Hotel Danvers, then joined rush hour traffic for the drive home.
    Now, hours later, Cassidy had the start of a headache. She felt sticky and tired and wished she could climb onto Remmington’s broad back, take off over the fields and ride the trails of the foothills to Bottleneck Canyon, where a pool formed in the Clackamas River and she could strip off her clothes and dive into the clear cool depths.
    She could ride another horse, she supposed, but it wouldn’t be the same. The sun was setting over the western hills, long shadows stretching over the valley floor. Near the stable, half-grown foals scampered in a herd of mares, who busied themselves by switching flies away with their tails.
    Most everyone had gone for the day; it was Friday and her mother and father had driven back to Portland for dinner and a play, Derrick was with Felicity and most of the hands had gone home. Except for Brig. He was still in a single paddock, astride Remmington, trying to get the stubborn colt to obey him. And Willie was probably lurking around somewhere, though she hadn’t seen him all afternoon.
    Cassidy walked up to the fence and climbed onto the top rail. Brig glanced up at the sight of her, nodded a quick greeting, then ignored the fact that she was staring at him.
    He clucked his tongue and the horse responded, trotting forward for a second before he stopped dead in his tracks, legs stiff.
    “Move it, you miserable piece of horseflesh.”
    Muscles quivered beneath Remmington’s dusty sorrel coat. The colt’s ears flicked and his eyes rolled.
    “Don’t even think about it,” Brig warned.
    Too late. Remmington grabbed the bit between his teeth, bowed his long neck and kicked up his heels. Dust flew. Birds scattered. Cassidy’s stomach clenched. The horse snorted angrily as he bucked across the dry ground. Brig, swearing, muscles straining, held on.
    Cassidy watched in fascination.
    Remmington whirled and raced from one end of the