Hoofprints (Gail McCarthy series) by Laura Crum Read Free Book Online Page B

after Bret, who was disappearing into the throng around the cash registers, I turned to Gina. She was in her early forties, a weathered-looking woman who trained and competed on her own horses in reined cowhorse classes-very successfully. Gina was one of the few amateurs who could beat the pros.
    The man with her looked familiar-middle forties, overweight, and paunchy with it; his olive-skinned coarse-featured face had a brutish, forceful confidence that struck a chord. In a second I had it. Tony Ramiro, a well-known cowhorse trainer, a man I'd met once-when he'd stiffed me for my fee.
    Something about the proprietary hand he had on Gina's shoulder sent an obvious signal. Shit, I thought. What was old Tony doing here? He trained near Sacramento, from what I remembered when I was trying to track him down to send him a bill. And what was Gina doing with the skunk?
    She was clearly dressed to impress; I'd never before seen her out of battered work clothes (much like my own), and her pressed jeans, polished boots, clingy sweater, and overemphasized makeup were a new departure, as far as I was aware. Her short dark hair, with the gray just beginning to show, had been freshly permed into a fluffy mop and the whole effect was unfamiliar and (I thought) unappealing. But the story was an old one and easily readable-Gina and Tony were now an item.
    Gina was performing introductions, unaware that Tony and I had met, and I wondered if I ought to bring up the hundred dollars he owed me for the emergency call to treat a bowed tendon on one of his show horses-at the Santa Cruz County Fair, almost a year ago. Tony was watching me as though he recognized me, all right, and wished he hadn't. Oh well, no use embarrassing Gina; I could take it up with him later.
    "We've met," was what I said, and Gina, unaware of our mutual silent hostility, went on. "Gail, I read in the evening paper that you found Ed and Cindy Whitney."
    "That's right." In a split second, all my tangled feelings about discussing the murders rushed back, and I realized that far from being over, my predicament was just beginning. I'd never thought about the papers; if they'd printed my name in connection with such a shocking crime, I'd be asked about it for the next month at least.
    Recalling that I had several times seen Gina with Cindy at horse shows and had always assumed they were friends, I started, awkwardly, to say how sorry I was, but Gina cut me off.
    "It's terrible. It shouldn't happen to anyone." She sounded sincere, but not sorrowful, and if she was feeling any grief it didn't show. Her eyes were fixed on mine and she said, "I need to talk to you."
    I looked at her, puzzled. "Okay."
    "Not now." She glanced at Tony, who was ostentatiously pretending not to listen and looking impatient. "We're on our way to a movie. Tomorrow. I've got a horse I want you to look at. I'll call in the morning and make an appointment. "
    "Well, okay, fine."
    At my words, Tony made a restless movement and Gina unlocked her eyes from mine with a visible jolt. "We'll be late," she said. "We'd better go."
    He put an arm around her and shepherded her briskly toward the parking lot; I stared after them, wondering what was behind her odd intensity, and, for the second time, what in the hell she was doing with him. I would have said she had better judgment.
    Back inside the restaurant, I found Bret ensconced at a corner table, watching girls. Amazingly, he'd remembered to order and had apparently paid for my dinner. Gratefully I dug into it, suddenly aware that I was starving. As I munched, tuning out Bret's comments about the girls who walked by, I puzzled over Gina Gianelli and Tony Ramiro, and Gina's strange behavior. I hadn't come up with any bright explanations, and was only halfway through my dinner when my pager went off.
    Bret looked up from his Italian sausage sandwich. "What's the deal?"
    "I'm on call tonight." Taking a couple more hasty bites, I got up. "I'll be right back."
    Outside at