Buckhead Girls

"What happened? I was riding my topnotch show horse. Then I woke up in the hospital. My brother says I ran my car into a tree. Why can't I remember?"

38-year-old portrait painter Audrey lives in Buckhead, Atlanta's multimillionaires' district. One day she stumbles upon a murder in progress and ends up with amnesia trying to escape. Her wealthy girlfriends try to help but can’t figure out their own problems, especially when it comes to their shady husbands.
Who’s threatening Audrey's life? Whom can she trust? Is the man she’s attracted to – the affluent, debonair Zane – her mortal enemy or the love of her life?

CHAPTER 1

Duking it out with unscrupulous, evil men was never high on my to-do list.
But a lurching roller coaster of premonition hung over me like the clouds over Buckhead. From my vantage point on the ridge that evening, the Atlanta district morphed into a monument to wealth, greed leading to crime, and occasional murder.
Little did I know the seamier side of my cherished hometown was about to get in my face and change my life forever.
I let out the reins and squeezed my thighs around Spellbinder’s flanks. Snorting to acknowledge my command, he let go at a gallop down the bridle path. I leaned forward a tad in the saddle and gave him his head.
The cool breeze he created blew through my hair and buffeted my face. I felt the rhythm of his powerful muscles beneath me. He was a great stallion, a Hanoverian, a gift from my coach at the end of my competition days. She taught me how to read every twitch of his muscles and him, every shift of my body.
Stabling Spellbinder in a riding club near Atlanta’s Buckhead, I paid for his board by giving riding lessons and grooming horses. The club’s indoor riding arena or manège was an impressive wooden building and came with an elegant restaurant.
They all met here – everyone who wanted to make a difference in that clique called the Buckhead Bucks. If you stymied your inhibitions, you might be in good company. But you could also get into trouble – the kind born of pride and excess, those godparents of human misery. Though I treasured the place, I felt misfortune on the way.
Dusk was falling fast. Spellbinder’s gallop ate up the last stretch of the sandy road and slowed just a hair before turning into the home stretch. Covered in sweat and dust, snorting and throwing his head, he was eager as we approached the stables, with its waiting measure of oats and fragrant hay. Applying pressure on the reins and stirrups, I slowed him to a canter. In moments such as these, my thoughts seemed bright and clear.
Mine was a solitary life dedicated to bringing up my seventeen-year-old daughter, for whom I was no longer an authority in any area. Now in my late-thirties, I was unable to establish a permanent relationship, outside of that with my horse.
“A man isn’t exactly a mount, Mom,” Clare complained, rolling her eyes when I informed her Mr. A, B, or C wasn’t going to visit us anymore. It was a varying case of this one having the wrong gait; that one, the wrong bloodlines; and the next being too weak to surmount obstacles.
From now on, I’d put an end to the old fears that haunted me and start a new life. I’d paint portraits on commission, working as a serious artist. I’d find a man of real character, one who wasn’t so full of himself he couldn’t cross the street without strutting his peacock feathers. That sort of the male of the species must not all be extinct. And I’d buy and renovate that old cottage near Blue Ridge Lake we saw on our last vacation.
With these resolutions, I squeezed Spellbinder’s sides once again. At a trot, we charged over the last yards of road.
The wooden fence’s ajar gate loomed in the semi-darkness in front of the empty paddock. Bare bulbs above the stable doors poorly lit the yard and hardly invaded the depths of the manège’s great roof.
Two cars, my worn-out Toyota and an off-road BMW, were in the parking lot. Spellbinder pushed the gate open with his broad chest. Pulling the reins out of my hands, he lowered his head and slowly headed for his box. A little light escaped through the open door, revealing a few people moving way back in the shadows.
I jumped off the saddle at the stable door and, as quietly as possible, slid it open. His horseshoes clattering on the concrete, Spellbinder went up to his stall. I removed his saddle and tack. His thick lips tickled the palm of my hand as he gently munched a few offered sugar cubes and I whispered my declarations of love in his ear. Minutes later, newly brushed and shiny, Spellbinder crunched on his oats. He turned his head and looked at me with big, thoughtful eyes that said, Stay with me. Lugging the saddle to the exit, I already missed him.
As I hung the saddle and tack next to the door, I could hear several men’s voices. Their silhouettes stood out in the semi-glow of the low-wattage light bulb at the end of the concourse. Their voices rose in anger and then died down a little, perhaps because I came into view. They were probably arguing over the usual topic, money, I thought.
I got into my Toyota and my fourth attempt finally fired up the engine. What a stupid invention, the car. Wasn’t it better when we always enjoyed the company of great horses for thousands of years? I pressed on the gas pedal and headed into the woods.
Minutes later, shock and amnesia would obliterate my accident from my memory. When I recalled the details much later, it all still seemed like a bad dream.
The headlights illuminating the passing trees on the rough road, I became drowsy from the day’s workout. The thought that I had forgotten something startled me awake. I stepped on the brake pedal and felt along the seat in the dark. Of course. My pocketbook wasn’t there. Idiot me, I left it on a nail in Spellbinder’s stall. Everything from my ID to my bank cards and cell phone was in that dumb pocketbook.
Grumbling to myself, I put the car into reverse and backed up the winding road. I parked in front of the locked gate. The stable light was still on but the gatehouse was dark. The night watchman must have been making his rounds, with any luck, without the two mastiffs that loved harassing me.
I squeezed between the gate slats and headed to the stables. A pair of horses stomped restlessly and snorted upon seeing me. Murmuring to sooth them, I got to Spellbinder’s stall. The pocketbook wasn’t on the nail. Spellbinder turned around in the stall and, munching a mouthful of hay, came up to me. Pleased I had come back, he nickered.
“You’re a big tease, you know?” I pushed the stall door open. “Move over, colt, if you want to live.”
Hoping he hadn’t trampled it, I pushed Spellbinder aside and was relieved to find the pocketbook intact. Unfortunately, it lay at the bottom of the stall’s wooden wall in a pile of horse manure.
“You just had to dump on it, you malicious, revolting mule?” I wiped the bag on some clean straw and then kissed his inquisitive muzzle.
All of a sudden, a set of irate male voices erupted from the other end of the stables.
“That wasn’t the deal!” the first voice yelled. “Pay up or die!”
“Tell him to not fuck around!” another one growled.
“Get out of my way, dumbass!” the first barked.
“Night, buddy. I’m not mad. See you day after tomorrow,” I whispered to Spellbinder, as I exited the stall. The goal now was to get away unnoticed.
The quarreling men’s voices bounced off the walls, as they screamed at each other now all at once. I used the noise as cover as I slowly slid the grating stall door. Spellbinder’s lips touched my hand in parting.
The roar that resounded in the next second erupted so suddenly my heart stopped, along with my breathing. The horses bucked like mad. With distended nostrils and bulging eyes, Spellbinder reared.
My heartbeat thumping in my temples, I turned instinctively toward the silhouettes at the far end of the stable. One of the men ran bent over, zigzagging toward me.
Behind him, a tall, broad-shouldered figure in a black jacket came into the light and lifted something in his hand. The object spat fire and another roar swept through the barn. Something struck the pillar above me and a large splinter sliced into my forehead. I was powerless to move but my brain was screaming, Scram, dope. What are you waiting for?
The film slowed down, the action lasting an eternity. The racing, tall black man was a few yards away, his mouth taped and his hands tied behind his back. He gaped at me with incredulity and horror.
The broad-shouldered fellow in the black jacket raised his arm again, as if he were a marksman at a firing range. I squinched up my eyes so as not to see the bullet coming for me. But at this point, a man in a red jacket tackled the gunman and smacked him onto the concrete floor. They wrestled frantically.
The runaway stumbled and fell down in front of me. His brown eyes pleading, he vainly tried to say something through the duct tape. At the other end of the stable, yet another man thrust a pitchfork in Red Jacket’s back. The gored man howled in an unearthly voice, released his enemy, and spun around. He was stabbed again, this time in the stomach. He stretched out on the concrete, choking convulsively.
Nausea stronger than fear engulfed me. I spun around and flew to the exit, frantically hoping the murdering henchmen weren’t paying attention to me.
“Stop, bitch!”
In a few milliseconds, I was at the door, glancing over my shoulder. The two men dashed down the corridor between the stalls.
“Stop!” one of them roared again.
His companion raised his weapon and fired. The bullet smacked into the wood frame just as I was slamming the door.
I raced as if I had wings across the cobbled courtyard to the gate. A question flashed through my brain, How many times would I have to fire up the Toyota’s balking engine? Maybe not even once. After all, bullets are faster.
My brain registered two shaggy four-legged creatures emerging from the darkness from behind the manège and closing fast. Fifteen, ten, five yards to the gate. The mastiffs would clamp down on my legs in an instant.
Where was that watchman? Why didn’t he recall his hounds? I threw myself on my belly, squeezing between the lowest two rails of the fence. In the corner of my eye, I could see the men bolting from the stable. Bared canine fangs reached for my arms and legs.
“Back off!” I yelled, kicking at the dogs’ big heads.
My actions amazingly yielded results. The mastiffs sprang back, giving me enough time to get through the rails. The yelling, cursing men were getting ever closer. The mastiffs tucked their tails and disappeared into the darkness. Nice of them to attack a defenseless woman, it dawned on me with impotent anger.
I climbed into my Toyota. Gunshot merged with my windshield splintering every which way. I cringed at the wheel and, praying for a miracle, turned the key. The engine growled and fell silent. I twisted the key a second time, a third. Not looking back, I heard screams and the next bang. It whistled close to my ear, shattering the side window.
From the side, I could see a figure racing up with a raised pitchfork. At the same time, the engine finally caught and the Toyota moved like a greyhound released from its leash once I stomped down on the gas pedal. The pitchfork whizzed through the air, its prongs hooking on either side of the B-pillar. For a split second, I saw my assailant’s face contorted with rage.
I careened into the woods, too fast for my skillset. My terrified brain registered in the rearview mirror the image of men racing back to the all-terrain BMW. All the while, the security guard tied the ferocious mastiffs and opened the gate. The blasted son of a bitch was in cahoots with them.
The Toyota skidded in the sandy curves as if it were on ice, barely skimming by trees. My pulse pounded in my temples and, even with the air coming through the destroyed windows, I was gasping for breath. Headlights flashed in my mirrors. I knew I hadn’t a chance competing with an off-road BMW.
My life didn’t flash before me. I felt none of those things… only regret and anger. “No way, you sickos!”
I kept from fishtailing and the headlights in the rearview mirror went out for a moment. I had only a few seconds to make some decision my whole life would depend on. Ahead, I saw a narrow gap between the birches. I turned off the lights, straightened the steering wheel and stomped on the gas pedal. The Toyota jumped the rut-filled road and clipped the white trunks on both sides of the chassis. Sheet metal grated and the two side mirrors sheared off. I managed to keep my hands on the steering wheel and made out the approaching shadow of mighty hickory trees. There was a flash of blinding light, followed by darkness and silence. I didn’t feel a thing. It was magnificent. If I had not lost contact with the world, I would have been a goner.