The Man in the Courtyard

Chapter 02 - The Man in the Courtyard

Declan locked down Ashgrove in seven minutes.

Rowan knew because she counted.

She had learned to count under stress years ago, when panic took the body and left the mind with only numbers. Three breaths before touching a panicked horse. Five seconds before answering a cruel question. Ten steps to the nearest exit in any room where men drank too much and spoke too softly.

At one minute, Declan called the gates.

At two, every road camera was being pulled.

At three, the perimeter guards discovered the north service door had been left unlatched.

At four, Cormac, Midnight Reel’s primary groom, could not be found.

At five, Bridey appeared at the stable entrance with a medical box in one hand and a face like a woman who had been expecting disaster but not the hour of its arrival.

“Sit,” she told Rowan.

“I’m fine.”

Bridey looked at Declan. “Tell her.”

Declan’s mouth tightened, but he did it. “Sit.”

Rowan almost laughed. Not because anything was funny. Because men were predictable. Give them one drop of blood and they rediscovered the belief that a woman’s body was public property during emergencies.

“I can bandage my own arm.”

“You can,” Bridey said. “But you’ll do it wrong because you’re angry.”

That ended the matter.

Rowan sat on an overturned feed bucket while Bridey cut the torn cloth cleanly around the wound. The housekeeper moved with brisk tenderness, and the tenderness bothered Rowan more than the scissors.

Declan stood in the doorway, watching the courtyard.

His phone rang three times. He refused every call.

“Was it from the loft?” Bridey asked.

Rowan nodded.

Declan turned.

“You saw the shooter?”

“I saw a reflection.”

“Enough to identify him?”

“No.”

“Enough to know it was one of ours?”

Rowan held his stare while Bridey wrapped the gauze around her arm.

“That service door didn’t unlock itself.”

The silence after that was not surprise.

That was the first thing Rowan noticed.

No one at Ashgrove seemed shocked that betrayal had found an entrance.

They only seemed tired that it had stopped pretending.

A stable lad named Finn was discovered fifteen minutes later in the old carriage room. Seventeen years old, white as chalk, with straw stuck to his sleeves and a brass casing clutched in one fist.

He had not fired the shot.

Even Declan could see that.

Finn shook too badly to lie well.

“I found it by the loft stairs,” the boy said. “I was going to bring it to Mr. Declan, I swear. Then I saw Cormac running toward the west field, and I thought—”

“You thought what?” Declan asked.

Finn looked toward Rowan, then away.

“I thought if I said his name out loud, I’d end up in the pond like Mr. Sheehan.”

The air changed so abruptly Rowan forgot her arm.

Bridey’s hand stopped on the bandage knot.

Declan’s eyes moved slowly to Rowan.

He had not known.

Of everything that had happened since the bullet tore her sleeve, that startled her most.

“You didn’t tell him your father worked here,” Bridey said softly.

Rowan looked at the old woman. “There are a great many things people don’t tell at Ashgrove.”

Declan’s voice lowered. “Your father was Liam Sheehan.”

She hated the way he said the name.

Carefully.

As though it were a gun placed on a table.

“Trainer. Exercise rider. Scapegoat. Depends which newspaper you prefer.”

Finn looked miserable.

“I’m sorry, miss.”

“For what?” Rowan said. “You didn’t write the lie.”

Declan took the casing from the boy’s hand using a white handkerchief from his pocket. The brass looked tiny in his palm. Ordinary. Almost harmless.

Rowan had always thought bullets were rude that way.

They destroyed lives without looking impressive.

“This is from our rifle cabinet,” Declan said.

Bridey closed the medical box too sharply.

“The cabinet in your father’s study?”

Declan nodded once.

“The one that has been locked since he died.”

No one spoke.

Then Midnight Reel screamed.

Not a whinny. Not a startled call.

A full, furious sound that rang through the stable like a warning bell.

Rowan was on her feet before Bridey could stop her.

The horse struck the stall door once, twice, and then went rigid, nostrils wide, eyes fixed on the corridor behind Declan.

At the far end, a shadow disappeared around the corner.

This time, Declan did not move in front of Rowan.

He moved with her.

And that was how they found the message nailed to Midnight Reel’s tack trunk.

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Three words on a strip of white paper.

Let him fall.