Read Online Horse Thief by Bonnie Bryant - Free Book Online

crime before our turns. Then we have the lunch break before the final two rounds, and we’ll use that time to give each other updates on what we found out. Now let’s really get down to business. Who had the best motive for taking the money? Who’s on our list of suspects? I, for one, still put my money on Veronica.”
    “I’ve been thinking,” said Lisa. “The person who took the money must have been in the room when Max was lecturing us about proper behavior. Remember? We were all dragged in there and then Stevie found the money on the floor and Max put it up on the shelf with the CARL jar.”
    “Lots of people go in and out of that office,” said Carole. “It could have been anyone.”
    “No, Lisa’s right,” Stevie said thoughtfully. “When Max put that money away, he shoved it far behind those books. He did the same thing with the CARL jar. The people in that room were the only ones who saw him hide the money.”
    “That really narrows the list of suspects,” said Carole. “Especially since you can exclude us.”
    “And Phil,” Stevie reminded her. Carole and Lisa agreed.
    “So that leaves Denise, Veronica, Celeste, Howard, Mo, and Kurt. Max doesn’t count, of course, because whywould he steal from himself?” said Lisa, checking off the names on her fingers.
    “You can cross Denise off the list, too,” suggested Carole. “She would never do anything like this.”
    “I agree,” Stevie said, but she suddenly looked worried.
    “What is it?” Carole asked.
    “I just remembered,” answered Stevie. “When I was trying to talk to Phil a little while ago, I saw Denise hurry past. She looked awful—white-faced and jittery and really nervous. She bumped into me and barely even noticed. In fact, she’s been like that all week—except she looked even worse when I saw her. I thought it was just the stress of the rally getting to her, but now …”
    The three girls looked at each other. “And she
does
need money for her college tuition,” Carole said slowly, voicing the thought in all of their minds. She hated to say it out loud. Denise had been such a good friend to them, but they also couldn’t forget how desperate she had looked when talking about her tuition.
    “Look,” Lisa said reasonably. “We’ll just leave her on the list for now because we don’t know anything. But I don’t really think five hundred dollars would solve Denise’s tuition worries.” Her friends nodded uneasily.
    Stevie changed the subject. “How about Veronica?” she reminded them. “She has the motive—she wants toget even with Phil for his teasing—and she had the opportunity, since she could have easily slipped back into the office after we helped Mo with her tack.”
    “She’s done worse things before,” Carole said quietly. Veronica’s behavior had often gotten herself, her horses, and The Saddle Club into a lot of trouble.
    “So Veronica’s on the list as well. What about the Mendenhall riders?” Lisa said.
    “We don’t really know anything about them,” Carole said thoughtfully.
    “We know that Celeste and Kurt are pretty unpleasant,” answered Lisa, “and that Mo thinks Celeste is capable of some awful things.”
    “Right,” said Stevie. “The same Mo who wouldn’t give Max any kind of an explanation about all that yelling, so now he’s annoyed at us!”
    “I saw Celeste before her turn in the rally, and she was looking like she would do anything to win,” Lisa said. She told Carole and Stevie about Celeste’s smug satisfaction at the effect of the theft on the other riders.
    “That means we can’t rule out Howard, either,” said Carole. “We’ve already seen that Howard will do practically anything for Celeste. Maybe even steal.”
    Stevie clapped her hands together. “Enough talking—more action!” she declared. “We’ve got our suspects, and now we’ve got to get that money back for Max andCARL. We have to investigate people while they’re here, now, at the scene of