Edge of Midnight by Charlene Weir Page A

Batteries were working. Car was clean, like it had recently been washed and vacuumed inside
    A strong smell of what she assumed was hay, grass of some kind anyway, made her sneeze. A small room just to her right. Officelike, old wooden desk, shelves with cardboard file boxes, pegs on one wall. Stalls on both sides of the center aisle. All empty, except one with straw on the floor. A ladder went to a loft above and she climbed just high enough to see what was up there. Stacks of hay, or maybe straw. A fit of sneezing attacked her and she backed down.
    Okay, nothing for it now but the car trunk. Hadn’t she read this scenario a million times? Idiot woman goes off to deserted place like old barn and finds body. She pressed a spot on the key and the trunk lid popped up an inch or two. Big intake of breath. She nudged it open. It contained nothing more sinister than old newspapers.
    Cary slammed the trunk lid. She needed to talk with Arlette. Since she couldn’t call from Kelby’s house, she had to find a public phone. Where was the nearest? In town, of course, but she didn’t know how far that was, or exactly how to get there. She couldn’t walk to a neighbor and ask. That would be the same as wearing blinking neon lights in big letters saying “something not right here.” A second thought had her opening the trunk again to retrieve the stack of local newspapers. At least they contained the printed word, and she needed something to read. She slammed the trunk lid again and stepped from the barn.
    A high-pitched scream sliced through the predawn stillness.

 
    11
    By six o’clock, the pounding in Susan’s head and the crackling in her ears had reached a point where she wanted to bang her head against the wall or soak it in a bucket of water. She shut down her computer and navigated the hallway, tacked a hard right and went into George Halpern’s office.
    When she came in, he dropped his pen on the desk and rose to his feet. Gray hair circled a tonsurelike bald spot, pale blue eyes, kind, sympathetic, always ready to help anyone in need. Even thirty-some years in law enforcement didn’t shake his faith in the innate goodness of humankind. She’d lost that faith the second day on the job, when she arrested a woman who set her baby in the sink and poured boiling water over him.
    â€œHow’s Tim?”
    â€œSerious condition. Burns over thirty percent of his body.” Susan lowered herself to a chair so he could sit back down.
    â€œPoor boy.” George shook his head.
    George had grown up in Hampstead, lived here all his life and knew everything about everybody. Whenever she wanted information about a local, he was better than the computer for facts, gossip, and rumor. “You know anything about an outfit calling itself Leading the Way? Miniature horses to lead the blind.”
    He smiled. “I believe we call that ‘vision-impaired.’” He leaned back in his chair and tented his fingertips over a flat stomach. “Veronica Wells. Parents were farmers here for years, then like so many others, they couldn’t make it. Her father recently died and her mother went to live with her sister in Colorado. Ronny just moved back, bringing those horses. Always was a horse woman. Competition riding as a kid. Blue ribbons for cutting and roping, even jumping.”
    Opening her mouth slightly, Susan moved her jaw back and forth to make her ears pop, hoping she could hear better. It didn’t help.
    â€œRonny always had horses, probably loves those four-legged beasts better than people. I went to see her when she got back, extend a welcome. We’ve been friends forever, since high school, me and my wife and Ronny and her husband.”
    â€œHorses to lead the blind,” Susan said. The thing about George was, sometimes you got more information than you needed.
    â€œRonny told me the first mini was a gift. A friend gave it to her for her birthday. Then