Desert Rose by Victoria Hardesty & Nancy Perez

Author:Victoria Hardesty & Nancy Perez
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Publication Consultants

CHAPTER | TWENTY-TWO

Friday night at the rodeo in Prescott added up to another eighty bucks for the men. Pat had his first ride in the bronc division. He was good enough to hang in there long enough for points and got dumped pretty hard coming off the stallion. He bruised his right shoulder but it wouldn’t stop him from riding again on Saturday. His buddies met him at the gate, and they walked to the concession area for something cold to drink.

“If our luck holds like this,” Merle said cheerfully, “we’ll have enough to get back home with spare cash in our pockets for a change.”

Pat laughed. “That ground is hard out there guys. Watch yourselves. I’d love to get home with a few dollars left so I can take a day or two to heal up before we have to get to work again.

****

The detective working the case in Apple Valley got a call from the deputy who talked to the Arizona highway patrol officer. He got the highway patrol officer’s phone number and called him back right away. After he identified himself, he asked, “Are you sure the horse trailer was empty?”

The Arizona officer thought about it for a half a second, “I think it was empty. Usually, you see urine or horse poop coming out the back of those trailers if they’ve been on the road for a while. I’ve seen enough of them on Interstate 10. There was nothing like that on this trailer. I didn’t see any motion or hear anything from inside it either. Those stock trailers make a racket when livestock inside moves around. Why is this important?”

“To be honest with you, we have a half million dollar horse missing right now. If he is in that horse trailer, at least we know where he is. If he’s not in that trailer, he’s most likely been abandoned out here in the Mojave Desert. We’re going to have to find him very quickly, or we may not find him alive.”

“Oh, wow, I had no idea. Was the truck and horse trailer traveling with another vehicle of any kind? The one I saw at the rest stop was parked right next to another truck towing a travel trailer. Could this be your guys?”

“It sure could!” the detective said. “Is there any chance you got a license on film from your dash camera when you drove through that parking lot? We have the last four numbers of the truck plate for one of the trucks. We’re assuming they are both from Texas and our witnesses were not sure of the year for either of them. They confirmed they are both Dodge trucks made in the late 1990’s. One of the trucks was pale or very faded yellow. The other was a faded metallic green on the top with a gray bottom. The yellow truck had a smear of red paint on the driver’s door, both were extended cab trucks, and the yellow one hauled the horse trailer.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.