Breaking Free (Thoroughbred Legacy #10) Read online

  He cupped her face. “You did the right thing.”

  He crouched down to look at Zach. The boy was deathly white, his leg bent at a horrifying angle. “Hey, buddy. Let’s see how you’re doing.”

  “Hey, Sergeant.” Zach attempted a smile, but it came out a groan.

  Dylan checked his pulse. Thready. His face was cut. He was physically in shock.

  “You hurt your back at all?”

  “Don’t…think so,” Zach managed through clenched teeth. “Just…the leg. I can move everything else.”

  Dylan quickly shone his flashlight through the bushes, looking for something they could use to splint his leg and transport him out. He shouldn’t risk moving him, but with the fire coming, and no help to be had from the valley, they had no choice.

  “What made you come down here?” he asked Heidi as he picked up a fairly straight stick.

  “We saw something glittering down in the river, through the trees. It looked like it could be a car that had gone down from the tracks on the opposite side of the gorge. We were worried someone may be hurt, and we thought we could take the trail real carefully. That’s when the snake slithered over the path, and Zach’s horse reared, dragging him down here before bolting.”

  Dylan panned his torch across the dark and glistening vegetation of the gorge, the chortle of the river increasing as the level of the water surged with storm rain.

  Then it caught his eye.

  A reflection of light. Maybe a mirror bouncing back his beam. The glint of chrome. Heidi was right—it looked like an upended vehicle. He knew there was a remote four-wheel-drive trail up on the opposite end, accessible from another point much farther north along the Hunter. It was possible the vehicle had gone over the cliff on the other side of the gorge.

  “Go check it out,” Megan said, coming up behind him with her flashlight. “I know first aid, Dylan. I can splint his leg with Heidi.”

  He caught her eye.

  “Go. Quick. Someone could be hurt, and the water is rising.”

  He scrambled down a very steep section, and then over rock, landing thigh-deep in muddy storm water, the current tugging at his pants. Within minutes this very narrow section of gorge could fill with dangerously swift rapids. He had to move fast. He directed his flashlight along the bank and saw it.

  A truck—a battered dark-blue Holden—was partly submerged in the river, the cab sticking out. His beam illuminated the license plate. The first two letters were N and W—the same as Louisa’s Holden.

  Dylan’s heart raced.

  Was this the missing vehicle? The one that might have been mistaken for Louisa’s dark-gray one because of bad lighting on the night of the blaze?

  Dylan shone his light up the opposite bank. It was almost a vertical cliff, dense with growth. The way the trees grew in this part of the gorge, the truck would not have been visible from above. It could have been driven out here and pushed over the cliff and into the gorge as police roadblocks went up all over the Hunter after the Lochlain fire broke out.

  Dylan waded through the swirling water, directing his flashlight into the interior of the cab, which was fast filling as the river rose. There was no one inside, but three empty turpentine cans floated in the cab. The Lochlain arson accelerant had been turpentine. He peered closer, his beam glinting off something silvery white—a CD stuck down behind the seat. He reached in through the open driver’s window, and plunged his arm into the water. He managed to snag the CD with the tips of his fingers.

  He read the label with his flashlight—Lochlain Security. Adrenaline dumped into his system. It was the missing security footage from the inside of the Prestons’ barn, possibly a recording of evidence of the actual murder.

  He slid the CD into the breast pocket inside his coat and scrambled quickly back up the bank.

  Megan and Heidi were making good work of splinting Zach’s leg using strips of fabric torn from a spare shirt Zach had in his backpack.

  “Looks like it’s the truck from the arson,” he said. “Have you got anything in these backpacks I can use to bag some evidence?” he asked, dumping out Heidi’s pack.

  Three empty beer cans rolled out and clattered down into the gorge. He tensed, glanced at the kids. Megan’s hand restrained him gently.

  “Let it go,” she whispered against his cheek.

  He nodded. Megan was right. He had to learn to let quite a few things go. He’d found his kid unharmed, and he was going to turn his life upside down now to keep her that way.

  He inhaled deeply, took Heidi’s digital camera from the pack along with a second plastic shopping bag that had held the kids’ lunch. It was better than nothing.

  He scrambled back down, water almost up to his hips now. He tried to wrench open the door, but the current held it firm. He strained in to reach the turpentine cans, got one before the water rose farther, washing the other two downriver. He had to move faster. He managed to open the glove compartment, pulling out insurance papers enclosed in plastic. He photographed the truck as best he could, including the battered plate from the upended front. But now he could also sense smoke thickening, and the sky was beginning to glow an ominous orange. Dylan clambered back up the bank with the turpentine can in the bag tied to his belt loop, convinced that they would find that this truck belonged to Sanford, and that he was working for syndicate connections. The evidence would exonerate Louisa.

  “What have you got?” Megan asked.

  He placed his hand on her wet face, looking into her eyes. “Proof of your aunt’s innocence,” he said. “Finally.”

  No one spoke as Dylan led the way on foot, moving as fast as he could with Zach precariously balanced on his horse and in a great deal of pain. Megan and Heidi followed on their horses.

  He prayed they would make it back to the Hunter River in time. But as they found the trail that would lead down to Huntington Stud, fire crested the ridge with a fierce rumbling roar—a ribbon of leaping red-orange flames despite the falling rain. The sense of heat was instant.

  “We have to go that way, to the south!” Dylan yelled, running now, stones clattering out from under his feet, the horses close to bolting.

  “The river will be too deep!” yelled Megan.

  “Then we swim!”

  They raced as the fire ate down the ridge towards them, gaining distance. Two kangaroos tore past them, crashing through the undergrowth.

  He could feel the warmth of the fire now. God, would they make it?

  They reached a section of the river much farther south and closer to the back end of Fairchild’s nine hundred acres than to Huntington Stud.

  The water here was wide and dark, swirling with bobbing upended trees.

  The roar and the crackle intensified. He heard a whoosh as eucalyptus, dense with flammable vapor, literally exploded behind them.

  The others were dead silent, watching him, trusting him not to panic.

  “Now! Cross now! Follow me!”

  Leading Zach and his horse, Dylan entered black water that reflected the orange glow from the fire like swirling molten metal. The current yanked at his jeans and his horse’s hooves sunk deep into silt, but the animal was still able to wade. Dylan quickly shucked his coat. He had no choice but to swim alongside his mount. He hoped Megan and Heidi would make it across more easily. They were good riders. Better than him.

  “Stay close!” he yelled. “Swim the horses if you have to.”

  He turned to Zach, deathly pale in the saddle. “I’ve got you, mate. Relax. And above all, do not panic.”

  Tension balled in Dylan’s throat as the river sucked his feet from under him. He hung onto the mane of the horse, using a powerful side kick to stay abreast. The animal snorted as it paddled, the whites of its eyes wide with terror.

  More eucalyptus exploded with a whoosh as fire cracked and leaped down toward the bank. Dylan prayed it didn’t grow fierce enough to jump the river to the studs on the other side before they had a chance to escape.

  His horse
suddenly found footing again on the opposite bank, snorting as it scrambled up through the mud. Dylan found his own feet, water dragging heavily in his clothes as he waded out.

  He heard a cry, glanced back. Heidi’s mount had lost its footing, and panicked, swimming downstream fast. For a split second Dylan froze, trying to make sense of what was happening in the dark swirls of water.

  “Let the horse go!” he screamed.

  But Heidi couldn’t—her foot appeared to be caught in the tack, and she was being dragged under by the current.

  Shock slammed through Dylan. But before he could move, Megan had shed her coat, slid free of her own horse, and was swimming fast with the current towards Heidi, her hat floating out into the river. She reached Heidi, managing to free her leg while avoiding the wildly kicking rear hooves of the terrified horse.

  It swam off into the dark, aiming vaguely for the Fairchild bank farther downriver.

  Heart in throat, Dylan quickly secured his own horse to a post, and he went in after them, aiding them to shore. The fire was raging along the far bank as they emerged onto Fairchild property, miles away from the manor house.

  Megan’s horse stumbled out of the water farther downriver, racing wildly over the field silhouetted by the blaze. In the distance, above the roar of the fire, they heard the dull thud of a helicopter.

  “Heidi,” Dylan said urgently. “Take this flashlight, get on this horse with Zach, and move it!” He knew the pain would be terrible for Zach, but being caught by the fire would be worse. “Alert Fairchild staff. Get help for Zach.”

  Heidi mounted behind Zach, holding tight to him. The kids’ faces were pale and frightened, hair plastered to their heads. Heidi gathered the reins, the horse dancing agitatedly under her, and she hesitated, torn between racing off and staying with her dad and Megan.

  “Go!” He slapped the horse’s rump and it bolted, the flashlight bobbing into the dark.

  He grabbed Megan’s hand, caught her eyes. “Ready?”

  She nodded, and they ran for their lives. Megan stumbled in boots too big over acres and acres of uneven tinderbox-dry fields. The acrid scent of fire rasped in their throats, lungs burning, the plastic bag containing the empty turpentine can thumping against Dylan’s thigh.

  As they neared the first set of outbuildings, they paused to catch their breath. Megan bent over, panting, coughing. They could hear the chopper cutting through smoke again, probably taking loads of water from Lake Dingo.

  “Thank you,” he rasped. “You saved Heidi…you could have drowned yourself back there.”

  She looked up into his eyes, her face smudged with mud and soot. “I’d rather drown than see you lose your kid, Dylan.”

  His eyes burned. He grasped her hand, and they ran again, coming over a rise to see generator-powered spotlights blazing out from the Fairchild manor house and bathing everything in white light. A bull-horn alarm sounded repeatedly as black silhouettes scuttled over the lawns.

  The thud of the chopper grew deafening, the pilot risking lack of visibility to dump his load just across the bank.

  And through the smoke, they saw a wraith-like solitary figure down near the river outbuildings, dressed in ghostly white, a wet towel covering her head, a wet scarf over her nose and mouth. Louisa! Guarding her farm with a giant hose that pumped water via a generator from nearby Lake Dingo as fire swept the opposite ridge.

  Dylan stared in shock. They raced down to her, and he took her shoulders. “My God, woman, you should be in bed! You should be evacuated!”

  “Rubbish!” she spat at him. “I’m fine. I’ve been bloody fine for days confined to that damned hospital.”

  They’d been playing him, but Dylan knew it, and he’d played right along, hoping to find more evidence before charging her and shipping her to prison. His humanity had cost him.

  “I sent Heidi and the boy inside,” Louisa snapped at them both, her eyes fierce and defiant. “Mrs. Lipton is calling for a medic on the radio. Won’t get anyone, though. We’ll have to take him in ourselves later. If we can hold this thing back.” She glared at the blaze that raged in the hills on the opposite bank as if she could force it to retreat by sheer will alone. “Here, hold this!” She shoved the hose into his hand. “Keep wetting those barns.”

  “Louisa,” Megan said firmly. “You’re shaking. This stress could cause you to—”

  “I tell you what stress is, girl! Seeing this place go up in flames—” She pointed to her house. “My life. Everything. It’s all I’ve got.” Her voice cracked and she coughed behind her scarf, eyes watering.

  And Megan understood.

  Louisa’s love of this farm and her horses had become a substitute for her love for Kent, for her lost baby. She’d built this estate on those foundations of loss. And she’d built it fierce and solid. And she’d done it alone.

  “If it goes, I go with it. No bones about that. Patrick has left already—he’s helping drive a convoy of horses to the rugby fields in Pepper Flats before smoke gets too thick on the highway. The other horses have been corralled in the emergency pasture near the lake.”

  Megan glanced at Dylan as it hit her. “Anthem!”

  “I sent Anthem with Patrick.”

  For a moment Megan was dumbfounded. “You went and got Anthem? Sent her with your best Thoroughbred horses?”

  “For Pete’s sake, Megan, that horse has been through enough. I wasn’t going to let her face another fire.”

  Megan stared at Louisa.

  “I’m no fool,” Louisa yelled over the sound of the chopper bearing down on them.

  Dylan moved closer to the outbuildings with the hose.

  “I knew what you were doing with that cop’s kid and that horse!” she shouted. “Mrs. Lipton told me. And who am I to stand in the way of a bleeding heart.”

  Megan hugged Louisa on impulse.

  “What’s in the packet that man has tied to himself, anyway?” Louisa said gruffly, hiding her own emotion.

  She took her aunt’s frail shoulders in her hands and looked into her eyes. “Evidence, Louisa. Evidence that will exonerate you. He’s a good cop. He was just doing his job.”

  Louisa stared in silence, then gave a curt nod.

  And side by side they stood there, the three of them, fighting patches of fire that leaped and spotted on their side of the bank. Swatting it with sacks, wetting their clothes and the outbuildings, breathing through cloth that covered their faces, thankful for the fact the grass had been shorn down to the quick in emergency preparations.

  Up at the house, farmhands pumped water over the roof and into gutters while grooms kept an eye on the horses racing around wildly in the large cropped pasture near the lake, knowing that if fire struck, the horses would run from it and double back to stand on already burned patches. It was a last resort.

  Heidi came running over the lawn to join them. Dylan tried to send her back up to the house. She refused. And this time he let her make her own choice—to stand with the adults and fight. Side by side.

  In the dark hours before dawn, the wind suddenly shifted, and with most of the fuel in the wildlands consumed, the fire began to die back up the ridge.

  They stood in silence. Everyone on the farm. Soot-blackened, with raw throats, they watched the red monster retreat, leaving a charred, smoking moonscape in its wake.

  And as Dylan’s hand sought hers, Megan saw a sheen of tears over Louisa’s dry cheeks as she pulled the scarf away from her face.

  She put her arm around Louisa, and the four of them walked in silence back to the manor house.

  Dylan hesitated at the front door, the court order suddenly weighing heavy on his mind, his legal status here in question. Reality intruding. He also needed to make sure his mother was okay, and safely with Mitch as planned.

  Heidi looked at him, puzzled. “You coming in, Dad?”

  Megan shot her aunt a look.

  “Come in, Dylan.” It was the first time Louisa had used his name. “I think we could all use a brandy
.” She held his eyes steadily. “And I have something I need to show you.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Dylan had managed to radio Mitch to ensure June had been safely evacuated as planned. Now, exhausted and ready for a hot shower, he took the shot of brandy Louisa handed him. They were standing in the Fairchild library where he’d arrested her eleven days ago. It seemed a lifetime had passed since then.

  Heidi had opted to go with Zach to Elias Memorial—one of the laborers had also been injured, and the estate manager was acting as ambulance driver. Dylan had let her go, making good on his vow to give Heidi more choice in her life. What he’d really wanted was to have her with him, especially after this night.