One of the firefighters who was locking equipment into the truck spied Shea and peeled away from his job.
His brother Robert.
Even in his protective gear, Shea would recognize him anywhere.
Though all of Patrick’s sons resembled him, Robert was the one who was what all the relatives referred to as “the spitting image,” even down to his quick, straight-backed gait. “What the hell happened?” Shea demanded once Robert was within earshot.
“Don’t know.” Robert unclasped his strap and pulled off his helmet, then lowered his hood to reveal sweat-dampened hair and a face covered with grime and soot. Slightly shorter than Shea, Robert was blessed with the same wavy black hair, intense blue eyes and knife-edged jaw that every Flannery brother shared. “A call came in about an hour ago.” He let out a breath and rubbed the back of his neck. “Man, I couldn’t believe it was Shannon’s place. Heard the address and nearly peed my damned turnout pants.”
“But you didn’t see her?”
“No. Just heard that she was pretty messed up. Cuddahey caught a glimpse of her.” He glanced back to the fire truck where Kaye Cuddahey was working with a nozzle. Shea knew her. Tall and good-looking, with a sharp tongue, three kids and two ex-husbands who weren’t worth fifty cents added together.
“Smoke inhalation? Burns?”
“No. The word is that she was messed up, probably trampled by the horses. Cuddahey said she looked like she’d been beaten with a Louisville Slugger.”
“Beaten?” Shea repeated, his skin crawling as if scorched by flame. “By whom?”
“Don’t know yet.”
“But it doesn’t make sense.” He scratched at his chin. “She’s always real careful around the animals. They trust her.” He trained his gaze on the blackened heap that had been the shed. Why had the building gone up so suddenly? And why would it look like someone had bludgeoned Shannon?
Shea’s back teeth ground as he ran through the possible scenarios in his head. Horses. It had to have been the frantic horses who, in their crazed panic to run to safety, had knocked her down and galloped over her, their heavy hooves cutting and bruising her, even breaking her bones and nearly killing her. Yeah, that had to be it.
Or was it something else? his mind nagged.
Something much more sinister.
The night got under his skin…the smell of doused fire, the hush of the wind, the feeling that something very wrong was happening.
He stared at the smoldering ruins and wondered how all of this had happened. His eyes narrowed under the glare of the harsh security lights and remaining lanterns. Everything looked worse in the fake blue light. More forbidding. More malicious.
A bad taste climbed the back of his throat.
An old fear took shape in his mind.
He didn’t like the turn of his thoughts. Ugly thoughts that traveled into d
eadly territories he didn’t want to explore. Ever.
“Because of the fire,” Robert was saying, “my guess is that the horses probably panicked as she was letting them out. Deep down, they’re wild animals and the fear of fire’s pretty damned primal. She could have slipped. One could have knocked her down. The rest could have trampled her.”
“Maybe,” Shea allowed, but he wasn’t buying it. At least not all of it. Shannon, like everyone else in the Flannery family, knew about the dangers of fire. She would know how her animals would react. Despite her own fear, she would have been extremely careful.
Something felt off about all of this.
Way out of kilter.
“Where was she found?”
“In the stable.” Robert nodded toward the building less than fifteen feet from the rubble of the shed. “Near the back door, the big one that leads to the corral.”
Yellow tape surrounded the long two-storied building. Shea had been in the horse barn a couple of times when she’d taken in a particularly nasty animal that Santana was working with. The stables could house up to a dozen horses with six stalls on either side of a center walkway that opened to the parking lot on one end, a large paddock on the other. Near the back door were several closets for leads and bridles, the tack that was used on a daily basis, as well as feed grain and a locked cabinet of veterinary medicines. Overhead was the loft that, depending upon the time of year, was filled with hay and straw.
The wall closest to the remains of the shed was blackened, several windows shattered.
“Lucky she didn’t lose it as well,” Shea thought aloud.