Free Deception by Carolyn Haines Page B

eyes, behind her glasses, locked on Connor. “It ain’t my place to judge, but maybe he should. More men ought to. The longer I live, the more I see that men go about their business, doin’ their important work. If Mr. Clay had looked at Ms. Talla a few times, he’d have seen she was suffering. But that’s a man. They never get the blame.”
    “I’d better check the horses.” Connor stepped away from Willene. The expression on the older woman’s face was sad, almost tormented. Willene had been as much a part of the household as any blood member. She’d suffered like all the rest. The tragedy of Talla Sumner’s death was two years old, but it was as fresh and bitter as if it had happened only hours before.
    “I’ll be at the barn,” Connor said, as she walked out the door. Clay Sumner had deceived her, but not as grandly as she’d deceived herself. She’d known that the money was too good for a simple teaching/training job. She’d known it all along.
    She took her time walking down the path that wove through the pecan trees and past several beds of brilliant salvias, petunias, and lavender.
    Tinker was in the paddock, and she caught the mare and walked her into the barn. An afternoon ride would help her think. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the dimness of the barn, but when she did, she found Jeff forking shavings into a wheelbarrow. He moved slowly to the first stall on the west side.
    “I thought the horses would get more air here,” he said. “They like to look out and see what’s going on.”
    “Thanks.” Connor hesitated. Maybe Jeff could give her an objective view of the past. “Jeff, have you worked for the Sumners long?”
    “Ten years or so.” He paused, leaning on his pitchfork, perfectly willing to take a break from his work. “I found Mrs. Sumner’s body.”
    The remark was so startling, so unexpected that Connor felt her eyes widen. “What happened?”
    He shrugged, moving the muscles of his chest beneath his T-shirt. “Nobody really knows. There’s been lots of suspicion, but no hard evidence.”
    “You found her?”
    “I came in early to throw some feed to the horses, and there she was, hanging from a rafter. There was a tack trunk under her feet and her heels were hitting against the side of it, just tapping. One of her slippers had fallen off, and the other was just barely hanging on.” He put the pitchfork against the stall and walked closer to Connor.
    The pupils of his eyes were dilated in the darkness of the barn. Connor shifted closer to Tinker, her hand automatically stroking the horse’s neck. “How horrible.”
    “It’s funny, but I remember how her toenails were painted red. I’d never known Ms. Talla to paint her toenails.” His smile was slow, wolfish. “I knew a lot about Ms. Talla. She was a woman who found what she liked and took it. She didn’t give a damn for the consequences.”
    Jeff was only an arm’s reach away. He was watching her, waiting to see the impact his words had on her. For one unreasonable second, Connor wanted to run. She wanted to hitch up her trailer, load her horses, and leave, scattering what was left of Clay Sumner’s fifteen thousand dollars out the window as she drove away.
    Her breath was short. “Why would someone who was terrified of horses come to the barn to kill herself?”
    Jeff shrugged again. “Talla wasn’t afraid of the horses, she just hated them. The more beautiful they were, the more she despised them. At any rate, she must have been doped out of her mind that night, else why would she walk off a tack trunk with a lunge line around her neck?”
    “Had she been ill in some way? Feverish?” There had to be some better reason. As far as Connor could see, the woman had had the major ingredients for happiness—two healthy children, a husband, security, social standing.
    “Mrs. Sumner had a fever all right,” Jeff said, nodding. “She burned with it. Wasn’t nothin’ the doctors could cure, either.