Carrie Creek’s Chance

E. S. Burton

Description

In the third book in the GlenMary Farm series, the owner of a Kentucky horse racing facility must help the police solve a murder mystery before a killer strikes again.
Ties between GlenMary Farm and Carrie Creek Stud have always been close. The beautiful racing facility, located outside Paris, Kentucky, is owned by Janice Harmon’s good friend Winifred (Carrie) Peale. Carrie, who has been harboring a secret wish to take a horse to the “Big Time,” has finally bred Chance, a born winner. Even better, serendipity has delivered the charming bachelor, Ramsey Cummins, to her doorstep to help make her dream come true.
An already skeptical Janice Harmon becomes alarmed during the syndication party at Carrie Creek when Ramsey’s body is discovered in the stallion barn and the funding for the syndication goes missing. As a search for answers begins, a second murder occurs at GlenMary House. Although the deaths appear unrelated, it soon becomes evident that the farm is playing a larger role in the mystery than anyone imagined. After Chief Inspector Simon Hollingsworth summons Janice to help, she sifts through scant evidence for the truth as the clock ticks away. Will she be able to prevent a third murder and mend the fences around Carrie that suspicion and deceit have destroyed, before it is too late?
In the third book in the GlenMary Farm series, the owner of a Kentucky horse racing facility must help the police solve a murder mystery before a killer strikes again.

Sujets

• Suspenso
• Detective
• Mystery
• Murder
• Suspense
• Fiction

Informations

• Publié par: iUniverse
• Date de parution: 26 octobre 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781663240620
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

Carrie Creek’s Chance
GLENMARY FARM SERIES
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
E. S. Burton
 
 
 

 
CARRIE CREEK’S CHANCE
GLENMARY FARM SERIES
 
Copyright © 2022 E. S. Burton.
 
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
 
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
 
 
 
iUniverse
1663 Liberty Drive
Bloomington, IN 47403
www.iuniverse.com
844-349-9409
 
Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.
 
Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.
Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.
 
ISBN: 978-1-6632-4061-3 (sc)
ISBN: 978-1-6632-4060-6 (hc)
ISBN: 978-1-6632-4062-0 (e)
 
Library of Congress Control Number: 2022910643
 
 
iUniverse rev. date:   09/08/2022
CONTENTS
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Epilogue
 
The profession of book writing makes horse racing
seem like a solid, stable business.
John Steinbeck
 
For my granddaughter
Audrey Jacqueline
 
GLENMARY FARM SERIES
BOOK 3
PROLOGUE
Winifred Peale leaned against the fence, her arms resting casually on the top rail. Although her eyes took in the scene unfolding before her, her mind was not entirely there. Dressage had come naturally to Emily, whereas she, after a year, was still struggling with the basics. That was youth. Rather than amused by the thought, she felt the stirrings of something strange, something she’d begun to feel more and more often lately. Time was passing much too fast. Mid-forties wasn’t old, or at least that’s what people said, but then something silly like this dressage thing, and she began to feel it was. Hormones, no doubt. Those nasty little creatures that coursed unseen through the body and made a person feel and do the most bizarre things°…things she’d thought only teenagers engaged in, not mature, sensible women. When she was in her twenties and just getting the stud going, she’d been grateful for the long business trips Frank made. Carrie Creek was her life and horses her passion. Now, suddenly, she found she resented his absences, felt hurt that he wasn’t around to join in, to share the joys as well as the burdens. It was beginning to seem, after all these years, Carrie Creek, not Frank, was to remain the foundation of her life.
The farm had come down to her in the natural order of things: great grandfather to grandfather, the lineage only broken by the death of her parents in a plane crash. She’d been three at the time. Her memory of them, hazy at best, was made up of small vignettes, being tossed in the air by her father; being tucked in at night by her mother. She was at Carrie Creek when the tragedy occurred, and she never went home. By the age of five she and her pony, Crackers, were romping across the countryside, jumping the narrow ditches and smaller fences erected especially for her. Because Grandmother Carrie died before Winifred came into the world, the social graces were provided by an exclusive school for girls, and, when she entered seventh grade, a boarding school. But the boarding school had had no horses, and, after three attempts to run away, she was ‘politely expelled,’ her education to be completed at the high school in the nearby town of Paris, Kentucky.
Grandfather Carrie was a good man, but, having had only the experience of raising a son to fall back on, he was never quite sure what a little girl needed. Horses he knew about, so he bought them for her, then gave her a generous allowance to get whatever else she required. Thus, little Winifred Carrie, surrounded by horses and servants and privilege, grew up essentially on her own. She’d never felt lonely, even at the tender age of twenty-two when her grandfather died. She was dating Frank at the time, and two years later they married. Life continued much as it had been, she busy with turning the farm into a thoroughbred stud, and Frank, like her grandfather, disappearing for weeks at a time on business. No babies arrived, but she never gave it much thought. There were plenty of fillies and colts to fill the void.
Lately, however, she’d begun to feel differently. It would be nice to have a daughter like Emily, someone to share what she’d spent a lifetime building. And it would be nice if Frank took an interest over and above censuring her for all the money she spent on the stud. She was tired of going to the races without a man by her side, surrounded by couples who, like her barely remembered parents, laughed and joked and kissed when their horse won or consoled when it didn’t. She was getting soft and, heaven forbid, conventional, and she hated it. What did she need with a man interfering in the stud! But how did one reconcile the feelings of loneliness with the desire to be left alone? One couldn’t have it both ways.
Winifred automatically called out ‘good work,’ as Emily completed a perfect side pass. The sound of her voice, just the effort to speak, seemed to bring her back to the present.
Mavis McGuire, her best friend and, by her thinking, the best trainer in the world, gestured a thumbs up. The double affirmation caused the girl’s face to break into a wide grin.
“Do that at the show and you’ll get a blue.”
“They don’t give ribbons in dressage,” Emily called back, and, with her new-found sassiness, put The Rogue into a sit trot.
“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” Mavis shot back. “Relax. You’re still too far forward. Lean back and stretch your heels down°…that’s better°…a twenty-meter circle°…good°…stay out of his mouth, please°…”
Winifred smiled and turned away. She’d check with Jeff and see how the breezing went this morning. Usually, she was hanging over the track rail as the sun came up, stopwatch in hand, but she hadn’t felt like it this morning—another whisper from the Grim Reaper?
The temperature in the arena had been barely tolerable but cool compared to the uncut August sun. As she threw a leg over the steel door of the old, World War II jeep and slid into the driver’s seat, her hip felt as if it had been branded. Even the air that blew threw her hair as she headed for the racing stable was too warm to be refreshing. There was consolation in the tall cool Tom Collins that would await her when she was done. And then it hit her. She’d promised Janice Harmon she’d come to supper at GlenMary House. Glancing at her watch, she muttered a mild oath. Forget Jeff, there was barely time for a shower.
CHAPTER 1
“A nother epistle from Scotland.”
Margaret Carpenter dangled a sheet of notepaper between thumb and forefinger, her face mirroring the mild disgust in her voice. The small piece of plain white stationery was covered from edge to edge, top to bottom, in the small, neat script Janice Harmon was all too familiar with. It was obvious the sheet had once been half of a normal sized sheet of paper, for the bottom edge had the uneven marks of a rather dull scissors. The leftover half sheet of last week’s missive, no doubt. The thrifty Scot strikes again! Janice turned from the file cabinet, lips slightly pursed, brow slightly furrowed.
“Again?”
“Again.” Margaret handed her the letter.
The two women had been closeted in the small office located just off the main foyer of GlenMary House for most of the morning, taking care of the paperwork connected with running the retirement home. Their grumpiness might be in part attributed to the fact it was nearing the noon hour and they were more than ready to break for lunch. With a weary sigh, Janice perused the letter’s contents.
“Same old tune, same old lyrics,” she commented dryly. “Meghan Douglas has the patience of a five-year-old waiting for Santa. Fill the vacancies ! I wonder what the next miracle she’d like us to perform will be.
“I suppose we could always relinquish our retirement home status and become a boarding house,” Margaret suggested.
“It’d be a mistake, Maggie. Seniors and young people just don’t mix.” Then, with an apologetic look, she quickly made a verbal exception.
“It’s okay,” Margaret assured her. “In another week, the children and I will be in Rose Cottage. And, of course, you’re right. We’d lose all our seniors if any of the new boarders had an Andy in the mix.”
“Not to worry,” Janice admonished. “Your little man will settle down once he gets in about third or fourth grade.”
“What’s that give me—two, maybe three years?” She sighed. “I can