High in Trial - By Donna Ball Page 0,58
else would break the old record for fastest weaves. Someone would get a double-Q. Someone would be high in trial. Titles would be given out by the dozen. Dogs would go home with squeaky toys and their owners would tack another ribbon on the wall and swell with pride. Years of training would pay off today, or not, dreams would come true, or not, and every competitor here would go home with the best dog in the world. This was why I loved this sport. For this moment.
Cisco made a high sharp sound in his throat and his ears went forward. I shook myself out the reverie of longing to follow his intense gaze, but I really didn’t have to wonder what had caught his attention. Sarah was standing on the other side of the ring from us with Brinkley, and Cisco’s tail was swinging like a fan on high speed at the sight of him. She was in deep conversation with a man who had his back to us, and as I watched, Brinkley noticed Cisco and gave a sharp bark of greeting. Sarah looked at him and then at us. She waved and then, surprisingly, said something to the man and pointed to me.
He turned and looked straight at me. My heart stopped.
It was the big-shouldered man who’d been with Marcie last night at the hotel. He started walking toward us, and as he did, the gap in his half-zipped windbreaker widened just long enough to reveal the curve of a leather shoulder holster and the unmistakable glint of a gun.
* * *
Maude looked at Buck with something almost like sympathy on her face. Sympathy for the blank incomprehension that must have shown in his eyes, or sympathy for what she knew she was about to say would do to him.
She said, “Isn’t there a saying about chickens that come home to roost? What are the odds that young man should be tried on a capital offense before the one judge who could have testified to his innocence? Yet, in another way, it was almost inevitable.” She smiled vaguely. “You see, men like Jonathan aren’t fashioned to be less than honorable. It isn’t in their DNA. If they stray, or even try to stray, from that very rigid line that’s their truth, it’s as though they have an invisible compass that pulls them back, correcting the course. Most of the time that compass is their own conscience. But sometimes it takes the form of the hand of God.”
Buck said slowly, “You’re saying Judge Stockton was in the car—the one Berman hit that night? But that doesn’t make any sense. Why didn’t he report the accident? If not that night, then later when he realized the car was material evidence in a case… What was the big deal? Why keep it a secret?”
“He was supposed to be at a conference in Seattle that weekend,” she explained simply. Her hands were laced together lightly before her, her shoulders firm and square. The golden retriever, reading something in her posture, sat at her side with shoulders straight and head high, mimicking her stance. “I was supposed to be at a dog show. Instead, we were together at a lodge in the mountains. It wasn’t the first time. We were quite, quite desperately in love and had been for years.”
It was a long time before Buck could speak, though half-formed thoughts buzzed around and collided in his head like broken-winged insects. He couldn’t quite look at her, this woman he thought he knew, had known for all of his life. But he couldn’t judge her, either. He wanted to, but he couldn’t.
He said after a time, with difficulty, “So he broke the law, lied to two officers of the court, and sent an innocent man to prison to protect you.”
She drew in a sharp breath. “Oh dear, no. I wanted to come forward. When I realized—I was the one who recognized Berman when the case came across Jonathon’s desk six months later, and when I put the timeline together, I realized he couldn’t possibly have been here committing a robbery and sixty miles away on the Centerline Road at the same time. I knew we had to speak up… but by then we couldn’t, you see.”
Into Buck’s stunned and unwelcoming silence she explained gently, “By then, Jessica had been diagnosed with cancer. Jonathon, Raine—they were all she was living for. If the truth had come out, if she’d learned about us, it