No one moved. Huddling on the curb in a threadbare top hat, a man lowered his head into his hands. Another officer draped an oversize yellow jacket over the man’s shoulders and turned to jot a note on a thick pad. With a series of short sirens, an ambulance glided to a stop nearby.

“Keep walking, people,” the officer on the sidewalk said.

The enormous mound in the street loomed, unmoving. Chestnut-colored legs extended, sleek and shiny in the mist. They were inexpressibly fragile and yet so graceful. Silver horseshoes glinted in the streetlight.

What color was Jonas’s horse? Gnawing the inside of her cheek, she strained to picture the animal hitched at the back of the Farmers’ Market. How could she not remember? The corners of her eyes stung. She wiped her cheeks, surprised to discover her fingers were damp. She approached the officer on the sidewalk. “Excuse me, sir.”

“All right, move along.”

The officer sounded almost bored.

The wind gusted again, and a piece of newspaper tumbled down the street. It smacked wetly against the tarp and stuck. She wanted to run to the horse and remove it. She wanted to lift the plastic and gaze into the animal’s lifeless eyes. She wanted to know what happened.

“Tessa?” Jenn beckoned from several feet beyond.

She held up one finger and stepped closer to the officer. “Excuse me?” she repeated.

He turned. “Yes, ma’am?”

He was younger than she expected, with coffee-colored skin and dark circles under wide brown eyes. The man wasn’t bored. He was tired. “I’m sorry, sir. I just…” She gestured to the form in the street. The inside of her mouth was cottony despite the fine mist diffusing the streetlights. “What happened?”

The young man’s expression softened. “Looks like he was electrocuted, miss.”

Wide-eyed, she gaped at the mountain of flesh. “Electrocuted? How?”

The cop took off his hat and flicked it toward a manhole. “Best we can tell, when the horse stepped on that manhole cover, he got zapped. The electric company is working underground about a block away. Must have been some kind of short, and with the standing water on the street and those metal horseshoes?” He shrugged. “Talk about the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“You’d need an astronomical amount of electricity to kill a horse,” Adam said.

Pivoting, she discovered Adam right behind her.

With a hand on her elbow, he urged her to leave.

Rooted to the sidewalk, she stared at the animal. Passing headlights reflected in water pooled on the tarp. In her periphery, she saw the man in the top hat escorted, staggering and sobbing, to the ambulance. She shuttered her eyes against the incessant flashing, but the red glare penetrated her lids. A headache she fought since Electric Canopener struck their first chord erupted in full force.

The second officer joined them. “Clear out, people. Nothing to see.”