One Hoof In The Grave [Carriage Driving 02] by Carolyn McSparren Page B

over my mouth. He had to be dead.
    Didn’t he?
    I started to shout for help. Then I didn’t.
    The fog seemed to steal not only sight but sound.
    Anybody could be standing behind a pine watching me. For that matter, someone could be standing in the open six feet away in the fog. I wouldn’t see them and probably wouldn’t hear them. Then I felt warm breath on the back of my neck. I yelped and scrambled away on my backside.
    Startled, Raleigh’s lead horse, the one who’d dropped grass on my shoulder, snorted and butted me with his nose. The team pulling their driverless carriage was standing practically on top of me. I made it to my feet and backed out of range. Either they weren’t all that well trained to stand, or they’d come looking for the nearest human being that could climb onto the carriage and take the reins.
    I am generally calm during a crisis. That ability to turn off emotion is what makes me a good show manager, so I took hold of the coupling rein that held the leaders together and quietly led them away from the bundle of flesh that had been Giles Raleigh. When they were far enough away, I gave them the ‘stand’ command again, this time with more authority in my voice. “Do not come find me,” I said. Then I forced myself to go back to Raleigh.
    The last thing I wanted to do was touch him, but I had to know if he had a pulse. I knelt beside him, touched the pulse point under his throat with two fingers, felt around. Nothing.
    Since the stake driven up into his skull was still in place, there was almost no blood. The cable still ran through the pad eye and held the stake near to the ground. Raleigh must have been lying on the ground or kneeling when he was struck. Could his carriage have run over the spike, yanking it from the ground then left it lying point up? Raleigh fell out of his carriage and onto it somehow? Next to impossible, but better than the alternative, that someone had driven it into his head.
    “What the hell?” I heard a male voice someone out in the arena, loud enough to penetrate the fog. “What the Sam Hill are you guys doing out here by yourselves? Where is Raleigh?”
    “Over here,” I called. “It’s Raleigh. He’s hurt.” Actually, I was as sure as I could be that he was dead, but I wasn’t about to tell my erstwhile rescuer that.
    Georgia Bureau of Investigation agent Geoff Wheeler propped his feet on his dusty coffee table, blew on his mug of black coffee, opened the Sunday Atlanta Journal and pulled out the comics section. He bit into his third jelly doughnut from the box of Krispy Kremes. He might just finish the box.
    He should be contentedly watching a non-blacked out Atlanta Braves game and drinking a couple of beers. He should have Merry Abbott curled up on the sofa beside him.
    He considered driving north to Mossy Creek and her sofa, only he’d probably fall asleep at the wheel and wind up in a ditch. His plane had landed in Atlanta too late to call her last night, and when he’d tried this morning he’d gotten her voice mail—‘gone to a horse show. Please leave a message.’ She’d left a number for emergencies, but she probably wouldn’t return his call until she got home to Mossy Creek, if then.
    Life had been a damn sight less complicated before he’d met Merry. He could go off on a deep cover assignment and not feel the isolation. He could enjoy working down south or on one of the barrier islands and not wish for an assignment around Dahlonega or Bigelow.
    He’d met her a year ago when her father was murdered outside of Mossy Creek. He’d been instantly attracted to her, but involvement with murder suspects was definitely against Georgia Bureau of Investigation rules.
    And Geoff was a stickler for rules. He had to be. Break the rules, and some defense attorney would have your ass for favoritism and get your airtight case tossed out. Juries did not enjoy wondering about the credibility of a police witness.
    Once Hiram Lackland’s murder had