The Black Sheep and the Hidden Beauty. Donna Kauffman

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      “And you came to this amazing conclusion because her vet came out to see her horse. Her pregnant horse,” Mac said.

      He’d started to tell Mac the story before Kate arrived, but hadn’t gotten further than mentioning Kenny’s visit. Rafe turned and picked up several folders he’d stacked on the patio table. “You didn’t see her face when he showed up.” He slid two copies of a report out from the top folder and handed one to each of them. “I did.”

      “You’re putting together reports on her?” Kate looked up, alarmed. “Rafe, I’m glad that you want to make sure she’s on the up-and-up. So do I. But I need her, and I don’t want you to go pissing her off by digging into her background and—”

      “First off, she has no idea I’m digging. I’m a little better than that.”

      Mac spoke up, finally serious. “He’s a lot better than that.” He squeezed Kate’s shoulder, then opened his own report. “What did you find?” He was all business now, and Rafe finally relaxed a little.

      “Thank you,” he said, to which Mac just looked up and grinned unrepentantly.

      “Oh, I’m far from being done razzing you about this, but if you really think something is up here, then at the very least, I want to hear about it.”

      “Good.” Rafe turned to Kate. “How much of a background check did you run on her?”

      She frowned. “I did the standard check. Her report came back clean. And her references were all in order. Why?”

      “Don’t worry, she doesn’t have a criminal record or anything, but did you make contact with her previous employer?”

      She nodded. “I always run references, yes.”

      “Who did you talk to at Charlotte Oaks?”

      “I don’t recall his name off the top of my head. He was the head trainer there, or one of them. John something-or-other. It’s listed on her application if you want me to check. As I recall, he didn’t gush, but I gathered he wasn’t exactly the chatty type anyway. He gave her a solid recommendation, though. Said she was a hard worker, showed up on time, did what was asked of her. It was enough for me.”

      “Did you ask him about her departure? Was it questioned in any way? The timing of it?”

      “What do you mean?” Kate asked. “Because of her horse being pregnant? I didn’t ask him about that and he didn’t mention it. I’m sure if he’d had any issues with her leaving, he’d have said something. I didn’t get the impression she left them in the lurch or anything. In fact, she just seemed like another employee. It’s a good-sized operation, from what I could tell.”

      “But she left a good-sized operation because her horse was pregnant, when you’d think she’d stay and let them help take care of her. Especially if there were any concerns.”

      “Were there?”

      “I haven’t been able to track it down, but from what I overheard, her horse had trouble the last time she was pregnant.”

      Kate’s brow furrowed. “She didn’t mention that part to me.”

      “I know. She didn’t want to jeopardize you taking her on.”

      “Well, she has her own vet, as you know, so maybe it wasn’t as big an issue as you think.”

      “A vet she was surprised to see show up, and who she wasn’t entirely comfortable having here. She even made a point to say she’d bring her horse over to him in the future.”

      “Maybe she’s worried about stepping on toes, using her own vet instead of ours.”

      “Maybe. But even the vet was concerned that she’d left Charlotte Oaks, that she should have stayed for her horse’s sake. And then he made some reference to something bad happening there, which might have had something to do with her leaving.”

      Kate’s frown deepened. “Nothing that I heard about. Again, I didn’t ask more than the standard questions, but they certainly didn’t have anything negative to say.”

      “Maybe they didn’t know.”

      Mac opened his file. “It says she left there last October. She’s only been here since early March, barely two months. What did she do in between?”

      “She thought she had something lined up working for a friend,” Kate answered, reading over Mac’s arm. “But that didn’t pan out, so she stayed with some other friends, worked for a family friend of hers briefly, but there was nothing available long-term until she heard about the spot here.”

      “Which means she left Charlotte Oaks without a solid game plan in place,” Rafe said, “with a pregnant horse who could need special care. Why do that?”

      Kate shook her head. “She said she’d known for some time she wasn’t going to progress there, that the good-old-boys club was just too tight for her to break in. When her horse got pregnant, it seemed a good time to leave so she could find a place less hectic for her mare to gestate while trying to figure out what to do next. To be honest, it seemed quite plausible at the time. And nothing surfaced to say otherwise.” Kate looked at Mac, then back at Rafe. “I’m usually a pretty good judge of people. She’s a hard worker, a self-starter, and better with horses than anyone I’ve ever seen.”

      “You also think she’s too good to be true. Your instincts are good ones, Kate—don’t ignore them.”

      “You know there are a million reasons why she might have wanted to get away from that facility with her horse when she did. As I said, it’s a big operation and she was one of many junior trainers trying to get a leg up and not succeeding as well as she’d hoped. Who knows what else may have added to her decision to leave when she did. Maybe there was harassment, maybe she was involved with someone and it didn’t work out. Or maybe it’s just what she said it was—a dead-end job, and she had a horse who could use some peace and quiet for a while. If a surprised look about her vet showing up unannounced is all you’re going on, then I’d have to say—”

      “You don’t think it’s odd she didn’t mention the problem pregnancy when she took the job?”

      “Not really. Maybe she didn’t want to hurt her chances by making me worry she was bringing in a potential problem. She’d already missed out on her last job opportunity. Maybe that was why she was surprised to see her vet. She’d told me she had an old family friend who would take care of her horse, but nothing about there being a problem. Maybe that look you intercepted had to do with her worrying that he’d say something to the wrong person about her horse having problems with her last foal before she could let him know what was what.”

      “What did she say about that lost job opportunity?”

      “She didn’t say specifically, but I gathered it didn’t turn out to be what she was looking for. She turned it down, not the other way around. She gave me a reference, but, to be honest, I didn’t call that one. She’d been with Charlotte Oaks long enough and her employment there was steady, problem free. And, frankly, I really liked her and didn’t want there to be anything to keep me from hiring her.”

      Rafe and Mac shared a look.

      “What?” СКАЧАТЬ