Chapter 6 Loose Thread

Two days earlier

D ave disconnected the call with his wife, inwardly vowing to peel back the layers of the Prophet’s identity as fast as possible so he could return home all the sooner. And while he was at it, he’d do whatever he could to help the Jacobsons out of whatever trouble they were in.

So far, Jan Jacobson hadn’t been very forthcoming over the phone about the details. At first, he’d simply assumed she was in denial about her husband’s suicide. Some people had crazy ways of dealing with their grief, and denial was one of those ways. After his ambush on the airstrip, however, he was concerned there might be more to her claim that it wasn’t, in fact, suicide.

He was about to find out exactly how much more there was to it. A glance at his watch indicated that his cab would arrive in the next five minutes. He bent closer to the mirror mounted on the wall of his extended stay motel room to run a hand over his smooth jaw. He’d stepped out of the shower and shaved only minutes earlier, carefully maneuvering his razor around the jagged scratch running from his left cheekbone to his chin. He must’ve scraped it on something inside the turboprop plane when he’d tackled the first two gunmen. It gave him an even tougher appearance than his shaved head did. He could only hope his business suit and dress shirt toned it down a bit. He didn’t want to scare the Jacobsons the first time he’d laid eyes on them in over twenty-five years.

Instead of waiting for his cab driver to call or honk, he stepped outside to the covered walkway running alongside the motel. As luck would have it, his yellow cab was pulling into the parking lot when he was locking up.

He waved it down and took a seat in the back. “Triple J Ranch.” He rattled off the address.

The driver, a young guy with a blonde mullet, gave a low whistle. “The media are climbing all over that place like fleas on a stray dog.” He gave Dave a once-over through his rearview mirror. “Are you from a television station?”

“Nope.” Dave leaned back in his seat. “Old family friend.”

“Nice cover story.” The kid nodded in approval as he gunned the motor and left the parking lot in a skid of gravel. “For real, though. What station do you work for, sir?”

Dave was normally a need-to-know kind of guy, but something about the driver’s open-faced curiosity made him give an honest answer. “I went to high school with Jordan. Really nice guy.”

His driver scowled. “Yeah, that lawsuit against his family is pretty rotten. Gimme a break! The guy’s dad is dead. ”

Dave’s interest piqued. “Agreed. What’s up with the lawsuit? Anything new happen while I was flying here?”

The driver shrugged before jamming on his brakes at a stoplight. Dave had to brace his feet against the floorboard to avoid flying forward.

“Not really.” The guy shook his hair back, making Dave suppress a snort of derision.

A mullet? Dude, if I had hair, I’d pick a much cooler style than that!

The guy went on to mumble something about how there was no way Jason Jacobson was guilty of bribery.

Bribery? Yep, Jan Jacobson was definitely up to her ears in something more than denial over her husband’s untimely death.

“He was the nicest person in the world,” the cab driver lamented. “Everyone loved him. He went to church, fed the homeless, and donated to charities all over town. There’s no way he would’ve paid anyone to throw a race, just so his own kid would win.” He shook his head vehemently, making his stringy hair slap against his cheeks and eyes. “No way!”

They reached the entrance of a one-lane paved road. A tall rectangle made of logs framed the entrance. At the top of it, three large iron J’s were mounted. They drove another quarter mile or so and reached a bigger ranch than Dave had been expecting. A white metal barn sprawled in front of them. Commercial grade. Not cheap. The Triple J Ranch looked like it was operating in the black. Nothing about its appearance shed any light on how or why its owners might’ve become embroiled in allegations of bribery.

The cab drew to a halt at the entrance of the horse barn. The driver rattled off the final cost for the trip there. Dave handed him a few dollar bills. “Keep the change.”

“Thanks!” The man wadded up the money and stuffed it in one of the front pockets of his cargo pants. “Hope you’ll call me when you’re ready to head back to the motel.” He held out a business card. “You can request my cab. My cab number is on the card.”

“Sure thing.” Dave didn’t mind patronizing the same cab driver if he was available when he called. He especially appreciated the fact that he hadn’t attempted to pull a gun on him after their arrival.

It’s the small things in life.

Jan Jacobson rushed out a side door of the white metal barn before Dave made it to the front entrance. “Dave!” She walked his way with her arms outstretched. “It’s so good to see you again, hon!”

She was many years older than the last time he’d seen her, but she still looked like the Jan Jacobson he remembered. Countless lines stretched around her eyes and lips from years of overexposure to the sun. She’d always been super skinny, never wore makeup, and smelled like horse leather and saddle soap. Her jeans still had dirt stains on them, and her boots were still scuffed. Her hug, however, had changed. It felt weaker than he remembered. Vulnerable somehow, and her smile looked strained.

He enveloped her in a bear hug. “I’m sorry about your loss, Jan. I truly am.” In hindsight, he probably should’ve ordered flowers to be sent ahead of his visit.

“Thank you,” she choked, stepping back. Glancing furtively around them, she lowered her voice. “Follow me to my office. We’ll talk there.”

She led him inside the building, past horse stalls lining both sides of the center aisle. She nodded at an employee who was mucking stalls and greeted another employee who was brushing down a horse. They looked like they’d just gotten back from a trail ride.

Jan’s office was located in the back of the building. Her desk looked like a cyclone had hit it. Papers and folders were strewn everywhere. Half a dozen empty cardboard coffee cups were plopped in random spots on top of them.

“Have a seat. Please.” She waved him into a red vinyl chair with a torn cushion.

Dave sat. “On my way here, the cab driver mentioned something about bribery allegations.”

Jan’s mouth grew pinched. “It’s not true. None of it’s true.”

He certainly didn’t want to believe it was true, but he merely leaned forward in his seat, silently encouraging her to continue.

She hiked one skinny hip against her messy desk, spreading her hands in agitation. “The owner of one of the biggest horse racing stables in the country, Horseshoe Valley, is claiming my husband bribed a few of their riders to throw their pre-season races so that our son would win. It’s a completely bogus claim, of course. They’re just trying to get the Texas Racing Commission to disqualify Jordan and prevent him and his horse from competing in this year’s races. With the way he and Western Storm performed the last two years and the improvements they’ve continued to make, the sky is truly the limit for them. Maybe I’m biased, but I think they might even have a Triple Crown in their future.”

A Triple Crown? “That’s impressive!” Dave straightened, glancing around the room. He knew Jordan’s family had left Heart Lake so their son could compete on the horse racing circuit, but Dave hadn’t personally followed Jordan’s career. In hindsight, he wished he had. It sounded like the guy was really good at what he did for a living.

Jan huffed out a breath. “Even more impressive is how Jordan nursed Western Storm back to health before he started racing him. I think that’s what this is really about.” She folded her arms angrily. “Until an ambitious news anchor started digging her nose into Western Storm’s background, very few people knew that Western Storm used to run for Horseshoe Valley. Their cutthroat jockeys abused him for a couple of seasons, then the owners had him slotted for a kill pen. Long story short, my husband and Jordan worked with a horse sanctuary a few summers ago to extract him from the kill pen right before…” She stopped and drew a deep breath. “They saved his life, Dave.”

“That’s quite a story.” Dave could easily picture the kindhearted horse trainer he remembered and his horse whisperer of a son doing something like that.

Jan slapped the air, continuing her rant. “As soon as the story hit the news, Horseshoe Valley’s PR team did everything they could to squelch it. Between me, you, and the doorpost, the crooked operation they run wouldn’t have withstood much public scrutiny. Then, out of nowhere, rumors started circulating about my husband’s declining mental health, and now he’s dead. A coincidence? I think not!”

Dave frowned as he listened. As much as he sympathized with her loss, he preferred to stick to the facts alone. Irrefutable facts were the only thing that would stand up in court. He carefully worded his next question to try to coax something more concrete out of her. “How did Jason and Jordan come into contact with Western Storm in the first place?”

“Good question.” Her lips flatlined. “Unfortunately, the answer I’m about to give you won’t help our case. A few summers ago, we sent Jordan to one of Horseshoe Valley’s advanced training clinics. It was before we knew about their cruel treatment of their livestock, of course.” She gestured wryly. “It was a week-long training camp. Because of my son’s autism, he tends to wander off alone instead of hanging around to socialize with others. During some of his wandering after one of their training sessions, he stumbled across Western Storm in a remote pasture out back.”

Dave nodded slowly. “I’m gonna need to see all the documentation you own on Western Storm, and I mean everything. His file from the sanctuary. Adoption paperwork. Clinic records. The whole works.”

“I’ve got all of that.” She waved at her ransacked desk. “I pulled an all-nighter to scrape it together for you. You’re welcome to take it and keep it as long as you need it. Our initial hearing with the racing commission will take place on Friday.”

Whoa! Dave’s eyebrows rose. That was only three days from now. It wasn’t much time to slog through a mountain of paperwork and prepare a defense. However, he would do his best. “Alright then.” He rubbed his hands together briskly. The paperwork she was handing over to him was a good start, but it wasn’t nearly everything he would need — not since Jan was insisting her husband’s death involved foul play. If there was any truth to her claim, it most certainly would have bearing on the case.

He didn’t want to be broadsided by any surprises during the hearing, so he planned to use the limited time he had left to cover as many bases as possible. “I’m also gonna need to have a look at your husband’s death certificate, any medical reports around the time of his passing, any autopsy reports…”

A shadow passed across Jan’s face as she pointed at her desk. “It’s all there, hon. That and a whole lot more.” She shook her head in growing distress. “I also printed out the threats both Jason and I received from the Prophet. Like I told you, he died one week on the dot after receiving his. If the same thing is going to happen to me, I, um…” She swallowed hard. “I have four days left.”

Dave withdrew the standard agreement, outlining the legal assistance he was prepared to offer her. “I’m not gonna let that happen, ma’am.” That was why she’d called him into town, wasn’t it? He carefully explained the agreement and the costs of doing business with him.

She didn’t ask any questions. She simply signed where he pointed and handed the forms back to him.

The skin beneath her eyes looked bruised, and there were shadows in her eyes that seemed to go to her very soul. “Listen, Dave. About the threat from the Prophet, when it’s my turn to go, it’s my turn to go. I’m mostly worried about what’s going to become of Jordan if anything happens to me. He never married and probably never will, thanks to his autism. The one thing that keeps him going is the horses.” She drew a shuddery breath. “That’s why I’m not going to sit around and do nothing while those…” she shook a trembling finger at no one in particular, “while those creeps malign my husband’s character and disqualify an innocent jockey.”

Dave wished there was something he could say to offer a modicum of comfort, but nothing came to mind. “I’m gonna do everything I can to help you and Jordan.” That was the only promise he could make to her right now. He glanced toward the open door. “Where is he, by the way?” He was surprised Jordan hadn’t already made an appearance.

A smile softened Jan’s expression. “With Western Storm, of course.” Despite the worry lines wrinkling the corners of her eyes, she gave a sniff of humor. “If we put a cot in his stall, he’d sleep right beside his horse.”

“Mind if I go say hi to him?” Dave wasn’t sure if his nerdy, introverted former lab partner from high school chemistry class would even remember him.

“Not at all.” She straightened and turned around to gather the paperwork she was sending back with Dave to the motel. “A visit from an old friend might be just what he needs to snap him out of the funk he’s fallen into.”

“I imagine he’s taking the loss of his dad pretty hard, eh?” Sadly, it was something Dave could relate to all too well.

“Of course.” Jan piled all the folders and papers into one messy stack. “I reckon that’s the most logical explanation for the way he’s been acting.” Her tone suggested there was more to the story.

Dave narrowed his gaze at her. “Acting how, exactly?”

“Cagey,” she exploded, moving around her desk to rummage in a back closet. She returned with a dusty brown backpack and stuffed the papers and folders into it “Worried. Preoccupied. More distant than usual. A few times lately, he disappeared for hours on end and wouldn’t say where he’d been after he returned.” A scowl twisted her features. “He’s keeping secrets from me, and I don’t like it.”

Though Dave could understand her concerns, it was anyone’s guess what had caused Jordan’s change in behavior — grief, autism, middle age… “What’s your motherly intuition saying? ”

Her answer was surprisingly blunt. “My motherly intuition picked up on a downward spiral with Jordan long before his father’s death.”

Dave’s gut told him they were finally getting somewhere. “Care to elaborate?”

She zipped the backpack and shoved it into his hands. “I know this is going to make me sound like a woman carrying a grudge, and maybe I am, but so be it. My son’s behavior was remarkably different after he returned home from the training clinic at Horseshoe Valley Ranch.”

Dave slung the backpack over one shoulder and gestured for her to continue.

She shook her head helplessly. “Like I said, he’s been more withdrawn in recent months. More agitated. More suspicious.”

“Of what?” Dave didn’t know much about autism, but he mentally added it to his list of things to read up on. He had a doctor friend who specialized in stuff like that. He’d give him a call and beg for some professional insight on Jordan’s diagnosis.

“Everybody,” Jan exploded. “It’s like he’s lost his ability to trust anyone anymore.” She looked like she was tasting something bitter. “Sometimes I feel like he blames me for his father’s death!”

Dave’s eyebrows flew upward. “Have you spoken to his doctors about this?”

She made a growling sound. “Yes, but all they ever do is up his medication dosages.” She fisted her hands on her hips. “I already lost my husband. I don’t need the medical world turning my son into a sedated vegetable who no longer recognizes his own mother!”

Though his heart ached for her, he felt like they were treading into matters that likely had nothing to do with the case. “I hope you don’t mind me sharing that I’m a man of faith. Not only will I be preparing your defense for the upcoming hearing, I’ll be praying for you and Jordan every step of the way.” He prayed for all of his clients. All too often, they were grappling with problems that only prayer could solve.

There was a momentary flash of something in her eyes that he couldn’t define that made him wonder if his talk about prayer had made her uncomfortable. He moved to the door, ready to hunt down Jordan. After that, he’d return to the motel and get to work. “Is Western Storm’s stall on the left or the right as I head out?”

“Neither.” Jan pointed in the opposite direction. “It’s in the smaller barn behind this one. You’ll understand why when you get there.” Her face reddened. “With what you’re about to see, please keep in mind that his father and I both vetoed the idea of Jordan moving into a regular ol’ horse stall.”

Dave held up his hands in defense. “No judgment, ma’am.”

“You say that now,” she sighed.

He left the large white barn by the rear exit and traversed the short walkway that connected it to the smaller barn Jan had mentioned. Pausing outside the door, he rapped his knuckles on it. There was no answer, so he knocked using his fist.

A man’s voice answered faintly.

Dave couldn’t make out what he said, so he twisted the doorknob experimentally and found it unlocked. He pushed open the door and popped his head inside. “Yo, Jordan! You in here?”

Again, there was a faint answer that Dave couldn’t understand .

To his amazement, the entryway on the other side of the door housed a bed — a very neatly made bed with a pristine navy blue comforter. There wasn’t a single snag, pick, or wrinkle in sight. The toes of a pair of sneakers and a pair of dress shoes were lined up perfectly beneath the bed.

Beside the bed was a small desk that held a silver laptop resting in the closed position. A game controller was sitting on top of it, perfectly centered, with no pens or pencils lying nearby. No papers. No other clutter of any sort was on the desktop.

Dave smiled at the realization that this was what Jan Jacobson had been so worried about him seeing. Her son had, quite literally, moved into the barn where they housed Western Storm.

“Jordan? You around?” Dave stepped into the barn, eyeing the pair of stalls beyond the makeshift bedroom. “I’m a friend from high school. Dave Phillips. Not sure if you remember me or not.” He moved around the bed to open the first stall. A clothing rack on wheels rested there. Every hangar in it was white plastic, facing left, and hanging exactly two fingers apart. Definitely Jordan’s doing.

A horse leaned his head over the other stall, trumpeting out a blast of alarm. At first, Dave assumed he’d startled the massive reddish-brown stallion. As he faced the stall, however, he noticed the door wasn’t clasped all the way.

Through the sliver of opening, he could see a dark-haired man sprawled on his back on the floor. His eyes were closed. The stallion bent his head over him, slinging his mane back and forth in agitation. He dipped his head lower to nudge the man’s shoulder with his nose. A piteous nicker escaped him. It almost sounded like a human sob.

Dave pushed the stall door open further and rushed forward to take a knee beside the man. “Jordan?” Jan’s backpack and the strap of his leather briefcase slid from his shoulder to the floor.

Though it had been many years since they’d last seen each other, there was no question he was staring into the flushed features of none other than Jordan Jacobson. Though his friend’s eyes were closed, his lips were moving.

“You alright?” Dave bent his head over Jordan’s mouth to listen.

“Not…an…accident,” he muttered in a slurred voice.

Not sure what he meant by that, Dave reached over to press two fingers to the inside of Jordan’s wrist. His pulse was beating much more rapidly than normal, and his skin was hot to the touch. “Man, Jordan! What happened to you?” Dave glanced wildly around the stall, trying to figure out if he’d fallen.

The stallion dipped his head closer again, nearly slamming into Dave’s face. “Whoa there, big guy.” Dave held up a hand to put some space between them.

The horse nickered frenziedly and lowered his head to the other side of Jordan, knocking over two orange plastic bottles that had been resting on the floor there. They toppled against the concrete, scattering the pills they contained.

Dave snatched up the bottles to scan their descriptions. One was a prescription for a muscle relaxant. The other was for a tranquilizer.

Man, oh, man! Had Jordan overdosed on his meds? Dave dropped the bottles and leaned over his high school friend again. Straightening his closest arm and bending his opposite knee, he rolled him gently to his side. Then he dove for his cell phone and called 911 .

The operator picked up and politely asked how she could help him.

“I’m with a friend who may have overdosed on some prescription meds,” Dave barked into the phone. He swiftly gave her the address to Triple J Ranch. “Please send an ambulance. Hurry!”

Both he and Jan accompanied Jordan to the hospital, where Jordan’s stomach was pumped. According to the attending physician, the cocktail of medicine Jordan had taken was a deadly combination, especially considering the quantities he’d taken. He was fortunate to be alive.

Jan was beside herself, weeping and muttering to herself as she paced the waiting room. “It doesn’t make any sense,” she declared over and over again. “I keep his medicine under lock and key. I don’t know how he got his hands on it.”

Dave waved her over and tried to get her to sit down beside him. “Where exactly do you keep his medicine, Jan?” Maybe if he could get her talking, it would help calm her down.

She rounded on him and snapped, “In the house, which he almost never steps inside anymore! There’s not a crowbar big enough to pry him out of that barn and away from his horse most days.”

Dave patted the seat beside him again. He’d been doing some research on his phone about muscle relaxers and tranquilizers. Considering his medical condition, the tranquilizers made sense. But muscle relaxers? Why muscle relaxers?

Jan Jacobson finally plopped into the seat next to Dave. “I don’t get it. The threats Jason and I received from the Prophet were for us, not our son!”

Dave had been thinking the same thing. He’d ask more about the muscle relaxer prescription later. Reaching for the backpack at his feet, he rummaged through it for the two notes in question. Smoothing them open against his knee, he examined them side by side.

Both were printed on eight-and-a-half by eleven-inch sheets of paper. Though Dave was no expert on computer paper, a few things were immediately apparent. Number one, the paper was a heavier weight than standard computer paper. Number two, it was coated with a glossy finish that made the printed letters practically gleam. Number three, it was the same kind of paper Gil had described over the phone while telling Dave about the death threat intended for him before he’d departed for Dallas.

There was one logical conclusion. All three death threats had come from the same person. The fact that there was nothing humorous about the messages triggered a new theory.

Dave found himself asking what if? What if there was both a real Prophet and a fake one? What if the real Prophet was sending one set of messages to pre-determined targets, while the fake Prophet or Prophets were making up all the hilarious memes online intended for a less specific audience?

Dave pulled out another random piece of paper from the backpack and flipped it over so he could write on it. “When did you say Jason received this threat?”

Jan watched him write. “About a month ago. Why?”

“And you received yours three days ago, right?”

She nodded.

He used her answer to continue creating a timeline. He added the date of Jason Jacobson’s death, the time period afterward in which the prophet memes had gone viral, as well as the threats that had been sent to Heart Lake for Jillian and himself. Then he studied the timeline. After a moment of deliberation, he added the date that Jordan had attended the training camp at Horseshoe Valley Ranch. He also added Jordan’s trip to the hospital.

“What are you doing?” Jan practically radiated curiosity.

“Building a case.” What does it look like I’m doing?

A disturbing picture was emerging. Though he couldn’t prove anything without additional evidence, the timeline presented a whole new set of possibilities he hadn’t previously considered.

What if the online trend of issuing hilarious threats had been deliberately started to discredit the real Prophet? To essentially turn him into a joke that the police themselves would refuse to take seriously?

If Dave ignored the events attributed to the online trend, what was left was a real person sending real threats to real people. He read them one by one, trying to determine what each threat had accomplished.

According to his timeline, Jason Jacobson had received the first threat in the mail and died a week later. What sort of criminal would tip off the target before the crime was committed? What had the criminal hoped to accomplish? One theory rose to the top as the most likely theory. It was possible someone had been trying to intimidate Triple J Ranch into dropping out of this year’s upcoming races ahead of the commission meeting. And when that had failed, it was lights out for Jason.

Moving on to the threat against Jillian’s unborn child…what had it accomplished? She’d received it right before she and Dave had been about to depart on their honeymoon, the same night Jan had called, begging him to fly to Da llas. It was also the same night Dave had received a threat on the front doorstep back at home, one he’d failed to see before departing for the airport. Any normal person would’ve probably hunkered down and gone into defensive mode after receiving all the threats he and Jillian had. Cancelled their flight. Stayed home. Not taken the case in Dallas. And when the threats hadn’t worked, it had been lights out for Dave. Almost.

That’s it! He blinked as the proverbial lightbulb flashed on inside his head. Maybe the Prophet hadn’t been sending threats, per se, so much as warnings. But why?

One detail that didn’t fit the timeline was the fact that Jordan Jacobson hadn’t received a threat from the Prophet.

Or had he?

Dave turned to meet Jan’s gaze. “I need to pay another visit to the barn where Jordan has been staying.” He paused. “If that’s okay with you.”

“Why wouldn’t it be?” She scowled at him.

“You sure you’re okay with me leaving you alone at the hospital?”

She nodded wearily. “Doc said Jordan is going to pull through. Since he’s okay, I’m okay.”

He was already pulling out the business card that the cabbie from earlier had left with him. Dialing the number, he reserved a ride back to Triple J Ranch.

Less than an hour later, Dave stepped back inside Jordan’s living quarters inside the small horse barn. Since Jordan was a neat freak, it didn’t take long to search the room. He quickly found what he was looking for — a ream of high- gloss printing paper. Only a few sheets were missing from it.

He also found something he wasn’t expecting. When he opened Jordan’s laptop, it wasn’t password protected. It flashed straight to the home page, which contained a carefully arranged collage of #prophet memes. The files dotting the bottom of the page, however, weren’t the least bit humorous. They were named after people Dave knew — Jason Jacobson, Jan Jacobson, Jillian Phillips, and Dave Phillips. Inside each folder was the respective letter that had been sent in warning to each recipient.

Dave leaned back in the chair in front of Jordan’s desk, wondering what conclusion he was supposed to draw. Either Jordan Jacobson was the infamous Prophet, or somebody had gone to a lot of trouble to make it look that way.

Presumably after he’d overdosed.

And died.

Also on Jordan’s computer was an encrypted folder without a name. It was labeled with a simple zero.

Fortunately, Dave had taken some computer classes in college and knew a thing or two about how to get around encryption walls. Within minutes, he was inside the folder. What he found there made his blood run cold.

There were snapshots of dozens of winning gambling receipts for last year’s biggest horse races in the U.S. — the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness Stakes, and the Belmont Stakes. Also included in the folder were countless photos of injured horses. There were fractured legs, lacerated flanks, and swollen areas around the hooves. All the wounds were indicative of abuses inflicted while the horses were being ridden. Notably, each horse pictured was a horse that matched one of the winning gambling receipts. Unless he was reading this wrong, someone had been fixing races by abusing horses to guarantee they would lose…and then betting against them. It was heinous, unconscionable, and inhumane.

The last series of photos featured a horse Dave recognized. It was that of Western Storm. According to the time stamp on them, they’d been taken around the time Jordan and his father had rescued him from Horseshoe Valley Ranch.

The disturbing folder had been aptly named. Its contents truly amounted to a zero, as in Ground Zero where all the Jacobsons’ troubles had begun.

Apparently, Jordan and his dad had stumbled across more than an abused horse. They’d uncovered a brutally dangerous horse gambling ring, and Jason Jacobson had paid for it with his life.

And now they’re trying to tie up the last loose thread.

No wonder Jordan Jacobson was currently fighting for his life in the hospital! What was contained on his laptop could potentially put a lot of people behind bars, starting with the co-owners of Horseshoe Valley Ranch. Dave unplugged the laptop and zipped it inside the backpack. It was time to take what he knew to the police.

A heavy knock sounded on the windowed door. Dave had locked it behind him after entering the building. Because of the shade pulled down over the window, there was no way to see who was on the other side.

“You in there, Jordan?” a man called menacingly.

Dave’s instincts told him it was time to move. Not only was Western Storm’s stall door open, the back door of the barn was also standing wide open. It was a miracle the horse hadn’t already taken off.

There was no time to properly saddle him, so Dave took a running jump and mounted him bareback. Nudging him with his knees, he leaned forward and spoke quietly to get him moving. “Let’s go, boy.”

They were soon trotting across the back pasture. Seconds later, an explosion sounded behind him, sending the horse into a gallop. Darting a glance over his shoulder, Dave saw that the barn where Jordan had been living was an inferno of smoke and flames.