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Laurie Loveman's Firehouse Family Series
Category:
Mystery/Suspense
Publisher: CreateSpace
ISBN-10: 1450585388
Type: Fiction
Pages: 700
ISBN-13: 9781450585385
Price: $3.99 (eBook)
Over the space of several weeks in the summer of 1935, 13 starving horses and ponies, along with one very fat pony and a goat, are left in Woodhill, Ohio. The unknown person behind the arrival of the horses earns the nickname, The Horse Fairy, but The Horse Fairy is not out to save lives; he is gangster Bobby Darvey, who is determined to harm Laura Darvey and Fire Chief Jake McCann.
Gangster Bobby Darvey is obsessed with destroying Laura Darvey and Fire Chief Jake McCann. In Las Vegas, Bobby hires Nina Hernandez and her daughter, Ramona, to be a cook and maid for his Aunt, who lives in Woodhill. Since Ramona is a horsewoman, Bobby intends to use her to learn the best time to torch Laura’s horse barn with all the horses—and Laura—in it. Nina and Ramona are driven to Woodhill by Bobby’s top man, Benjy Talbot, who on the trip, falls in love with Nina.
Using a false name, Bobby finances a local man’s plan to oust Jake as chief. As part of his plan, Bobby hires men to buy sick horses from local auction barns and take them to Laura’s farm so their infections will kill her horses. Instead of bringing sick horses, the men bring starved horses to town, and Laura, Ramona, and many Woodhill residents work to bring them back to health.
Benjy and Jake end up working together to thwart Bobby’s plans to abduct Jake and Laura from Laura’s farm. What they don’t plan on is having a volunteer firefighter with a grudge of his own setting Laura’s barn on fire.
Excerpt
Bobby said to Bill, “A few years ago your fire chief was caught in a compromising situation. You know anything about that? Was anything in the local paper about it?”
“No, Mr. Darvey. I’ve been a volunteer on the fire department since the chief came from New York. He allowed me and three other guys to be volunteers when we’re home from college in the summers. I know he had an, uh, something going on with a married woman, but there was never anything about it in the Express, at least that I know of.”
Bobby turned again to Benjy. “Where are the rest of the photographs, the ones we didn’t send?”
“We had about twenty minutes’ warning that the setup was going to be raided, so our guys destroyed all the plates and negatives and photographs they had in the setup and got out with about two minutes to spare.”
“No, I mean, what about the pictures I had in Florida that we didn’t send?”
Benjy shook his head. “You sent all of them.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Yes, you did.”
“Are you sure?”
“Absolutely.”
Bobby slammed his fist onto the table. “Damn! I was hoping I could try that thing again.”
“What was that?” Joey asked.
“Damn,” Bobby said again before finishing off his drink and calling the waiter over for a refill. When the waiter had come and gone with drink orders from the table, Bobby said, “A few years back I sent some really great, compromising photos of McCann’s twin brother to all the big shots in Woodhill—and said it was McCann—the fire chief McCann—showing him with two broads.” Bobby paused and gave Bill another chilling look. “In case Cooke hasn’t told you yet, this kinda stuff doesn’t go past here, you got that?”
Bill swallowed, trying to dislodge a huge lump in his throat, and nodded. This was more frightening than the biggest fire Bill had ever seen. He was sitting at a table with two very rich men who could do anything they wanted to do, to whomever they wanted, without regard to cost. They could kill people on a whim. His boss, Bobby Darvey, was capable of destroying lives without killing anyone. I’m sitting at a table with a bunch of murderers, Bill thought, and became more frightened with each passing minute, even though the talk turned to other topics.
After awhile, though, the fear receded, or at least lessened to a point that Bill could handle the physical manifestations. By the time he and Cooke and Wolowitz left the table, after Bobby and Joey had told some really funny stories about other gangsters and their schemes, Bill was back to enjoying the excitement of his job. No one else in Woodhill got to have dinner with rich, powerful men, in fancy restaurants in a place as popular as those on Short Vincent Street.
Benjy watched the three men departing. It had been a close call with Bobby and those photographs. What the hell was Bobby thinking of doing now? Wasn’t it enough he had the two Brigade leaders working to get rid of McCann? Why was he spending so much time on scheming against McCann and Dan’s ex-wife? It was becoming an obsession and Benjy didn’t know how to handle it. But one thing was for certain: Benjy knew he had to make absolutely certain none of those extra photographs still existed.
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