Dark Horse

by Tami Hoag

  “Yeah,” Landry said. “I’ll bet Erin Seabright would too.”

  Chapter 46

  I went back to the day it all began. The day Stellar was found dead in his stall. The day Erin Seabright was snatched from the back gates of the Palm Beach Polo Equestrian Center. I laid it all out in black and ecru on sheets of expensive stationery I found in the writing desk. A timeline. When Jade had allegedly purchased the cell phone. When Erin and Chad had argued. When Stellar had been found dead. When Erin had been taken. Everything I knew about the case, I wrote down and I spread the sheets out in order on my bedroom floor.

  I had become focused on the idea that everything had come out of the death of Stellar, but looking at the timeline, reflecting on what I knew, I realized that it wasn’t so. The kidnapping plan was already in motion when Stellar died. Someone had purchased the disposable cell phone. Someone had lined up the trailer where Erin had been held, had gathered the video and audio equipment, had procured the ketamine to drug Erin and found the van used in the abduction. An elaborate plan with at least two people involved.

  I wanted to know everything that had transpired that Sunday, the day of Stellar’s death and Erin’s abduction. I wanted to know what had gone on between Erin and Jade that day and prior to it. I wanted to know where Trey Hughes had been that day, and Van Zandt.

  I looked at my timeline and all the things I did know. No matter how many times I went over it, the simplest explanation was not the best. But I knew plenty of people would have been happy to stop there. Landry among them.

  I have never been able to do things the easy way.

  I went back into the living room, pulled out the tape of the kidnapping, and shoved it into the VCR.

  Erin standing at the back gate, waiting. She watched the van approach. She stood there as the masked man got out. She said, “No!” Then she ran. He grabbed her.

  I rewound the tape and played it again.

  I thought about the things she had told Landry, and the things she had not told him.

  I thought about who had come under suspicion and who had not.

  Don Jade was sitting in jail. Bruce Seabright was under a microscope. Tomas Van Zandt, known predator, suspected murderer, was nowhere to be found.

  I went back to the writing desk and dug through the mess I’d made to find the piece of paper I had taken from Van Zandt’s trash. The flight schedule of horses being shipped to Brussels. The plane was scheduled to leave that night at eleven. I would have to give that information to Landry. And Landry would have to pass it on to Armedgian.

  Screw that. I wasn’t giving Armedgian anything. If I could find a way to make him look like an idiot, I would. God knew, after the fiasco at The Players, neither Armedgian nor Dugan was going to have anything to do with me anyway.

  I decided, when the time came, I would go to the airport and wait for Van Zandt myself, then call in Landry. If Tomas Van Zandt thought he could get away with murder in my country, he could think again.

  Chapter 47

  He had no idea how long he had been in the trunk of the car. Night had become day. He knew that because of the heat. The fucking Florida sun was beating down on the car, the temperature in the trunk becoming unbearable.

  He was going to die in this horrible place because of that Russian cunt. Two of them. Their faces blended together in his brain. He went in and out of delirium from the pain and the heat.

  He would have tried to break out, but he couldn’t move. He didn’t know how many of his bones were broken. He would have tried to scream, but the lower half of his face was encased in tape. Many times in the hours past he had feared he would vomit and choke to death.

  Like the fat groom. Stupid little whore. She had been ready to have sex with Jade. She should have been willing to have sex with him. Some of his beating was her fault. Kulak had known about her death.

  An accident. Not murder. If he had gotten rid of her body the way he had wanted, no one would ever have known. No one would have asked questions about where was Jill. Who in the world could give a shit about that one?

  If he hadn’t been talked into dumping the body into that manure pit, plenty of what had happened wouldn’t have. And maybe he would not now be waiting to die.

  He could hear sounds outside the car. Machinery running, men’s voices. Russians speaking Russian. Fucking Russians.

  Something struck the car, rocking it, then it began to move forward. The noise of the machinery grew louder, like a beast from hell devouring everything in its path. The noise grew deafening—the roaring of the beast, the crunching of metal as the front end of the car collapsed.

  He knew what was coming. He knew, and he started screaming, even though the sound could not escape his own head. He screamed the names of every woman who had turned against him.

  Women. Stupid, ungrateful bitches. The bane of his existence. Many times he had said women would be the death of him. As always, he was right.

  Chapter 48

  The scene was as nightmarish as anything Landry had ever watched. Erin Seabright, tied spread-eagle on the bed, screaming and crying as one of her captors violated her.

  Dugan, Weiss, Dwyer, and he stood in a half circle, arms crossed, watching the tape play, their faces like stone. At the top of the half circle, Bruce Seabright sat on a chair, his complexion the color of putty.

  Landry punched the power button off and slammed a fist against the side of the television. He wheeled on Seabright.

  “You sick son of a bitch.”

  “I’ve never seen that before in my life!” Seabright shouted, coming to his feet.

  “Landry . . .” Dugan warned.

  Landry didn’t hear him, he didn’t hear Weiss’ phone ring. He was hardly aware anyone else was in the room. He saw only Bruce Seabright, and he wanted to beat him to death with his bare hands.

  “What? You were saving it for later?” Landry said. “Planning your own little film festival?”

  Seabright shook his head vehemently. “I don’t know how that thing got in my office.”

  “You put it there,” Landry said.

  “I didn’t! I swear!”

  “The kidnappers sent it to you, just like they sent the first one.”

  “No!”

  “And if it had been left up to you, no one would have seen either of them.”

  “That— that’s not true—”

  “You lying sack of shit!” Landry shouted in his face.

  Dugan tried to step between them, shoving at Landry’s chest. “Detective Landry, step back!”

  Landry stepped around him. “It wasn’t bad enough you wanted rid of her? You wanted to see her tortured too?”

  “No! I—”

  “Shut up!” Landry shouted. “Shut the fuck up!”

  Seabright stepped back, small eyes popping with fear. The backs of his legs hit the folding chair he’d been sitting on, and he stumbled and fell awkwardly back down onto it.

  “Landry!” Dugan shouted.

  Dwyer stepped in front of him, holding up a hand. “James—”

  “I want a lawyer!” Seabright said. “He’s out of control!”

  Landry stilled himself, slowed his breathing, stared at Bruce Seabright.

  “You’d better call God, Seabright,” Landry said tightly. “It’s going to take more than a lawyer to get your sorry ass out of this crack.”

  J ade’s bail hearing took twenty minutes. Five minutes for business and fifteen minutes for Shapiro to hear himself talk. For what a guy like that charged by the hour, Landry supposed he ought to at least give the appearance of being worth more than the average suit.

  Landry stood at the back of the courtroom, taking roll of the attendees. He was still trembling from the adrenaline and rage that had burned through him in the conference room. Like counting sheep, he counted heads. Shapiro’s entourage of lawyers-in-waiting, the assistant state’s attorney, a small pack of reporters, and Trey Hughes.

  The prosecutor, Angela Roca, stated her intentio
n to take the case before the grand jury and asked for bail in the amount of a million dollars.

  “Your Honor,” Shapiro whined. “A million dollars! Mr. Jade is not as wealthy as his clients are. For all intents and purposes, that would amount to denying bail altogether.”

  “Fine by us, Your Honor.” Roca said. “Mr. Jade has been identified by his victim as a kidnapper and rapist. Additionally, the Sheriff’s Office considers him a suspect in the brutal murder of one of his employees.”

  “With all due respect, Your Honor, Mr. Jade can’t be penalized for a crime for which he has not been charged.”

  “Yeah, I caught that one in judge school,” the Honorable Ida Green said sarcastically. Ida, a tiny redheaded New York transplant, was one of Landry’s favorite judges. Nothing impressed Ida, including Bert Shapiro.

  “Your Honor, the prosecution’s case—”

  “Is none of my business. This is a bail hearing, Mr. Shapiro. Need I enlighten you as to basic proceedings?”

  “No, Your Honor. I remember vaguely from law school.”

  “Good. You didn’t waste your parents’ money. Bail is set at five hundred thousand, cash.”

  “Your Honor—” Shapiro began.

  Ida waved him off. “Mr. Shapiro, your client’s clients spend that much on a horse without batting an eye. I’m certain if they are as devoted to Mr. Jade as you are, they’ll help him out.”

  Shapiro looked pissed.

  Roca took the inch and went for the mile. “Your Honor, as Mr. Jade has lived in Europe and has many contacts there, we consider him to be a flight risk.”

  “Mr. Jade will surrender his passport. Anything else, Ms. Roca?”

  “We request Mr. Jade be required to submit to a blood test and give a hair sample for the purposes of comparison to evidence in custody, Your Honor.”

  “Make it so, Mr. Shapiro.”

  “Your Honor,” Shapiro argued. “This is a gross invasion of my client’s person—”

  “A colonoscopy is a gross invasion, Mr. Shapiro. Hair and blood samples are so ordered.”

  The proceedings ended with a bang of the gavel. Trey Hughes got up, went to the front of the courtroom, wrote a check for the clerk, and Don Jade was a free man.

  Chapter 49

  I rewound the tape again.

  I wondered if Landry’s people had found any of the other videotapes Erin had spoken of in Bruce Seabright’s possession. If they had, I hoped he would be arrested and charged with something—hindering, withholding evidence, conspiracy, something, anything. Regardless of the outcome of Erin’s ordeal, regardless of the origin or motive of what had happened, Bruce Seabright had exhibited a depraved indifference to human life.

  I thought about the tape of Erin’s beating, which I had not seen, but which Landry had described to me as brutal. An eye for an eye, Bruce, I thought.

  I hit the play button for the one tape I had.

  How many times had I watched this? I didn’t know. Enough that I should have seen every detail there was to see, yet I felt compelled to play it again and look for things I hadn’t, couldn’t, wouldn’t see. Again and again, and still something bothered me, a feeling that nagged at the edge of my consciousness, and another I as yet could not put a finger on.

  The van approaches. Erin stands there.

  The van stops. Erin stands there.

  A masked man jumps out. Erin says, “No!”

  She tries to run.

  I hit pause, freezing the image. A thick band of snow ran across the faces of Erin and her pursuer as they ran toward the gate. Without seeing her expression or his mask, the shot might have taken on any meaning. Out of context, the two people might have been lovers chasing each other out of joy. They might have been people running from a disaster or to the rescue of others. Without expression, they were two torsos in faded jeans.

  The sluggishness of Erin’s reactions bothered me. Was it disbelief? Was it fear? Or was it something else?

  I let the tape run forward, watching the man catch her roughly from behind and spin her around. She kicked him hard. He backhanded her across the face with enough force to knock her almost off her feet.

  Horrible. Absolutely horrible. Violence that was completely real. I couldn’t deny it.

  I watched him shove her down from behind and drive her face-first into the dirt. I watched him jab a needle into her arm. Ketamine. Special K. Drug of choice of rave-goers, date rapists, and small animal vets.

  Erin had used party drugs in the past. She herself had told Landry it was the drug that had been used on her. How would she have known that unless her captors graciously filled her in, unless she had a working knowledge of the drug herself?

  I thought about the things Erin had told Landry, the things she had not told Landry, the pieces of her story that didn’t all fit the same puzzle.

  She was sure Jade was one of the kidnappers, but she had never actually seen him. She was sure it was him—the man she’d had a thing for, the man she had supposedly dumped Chad for. Yet, without ever seeing his face, she could believe he would brutalize her. Why? Why would she think it? Why would he do it?

  And while she was dead certain Jade was one of her captors, she didn’t have a clue about his partner.

  Then, after raping her, beating her, drugging her, and not getting the ransom for which they had gone to such elaborate lengths, her abductors simply drove her around and let her go. Just like that. And not only had they let her go, they had given her clothes back to her, even her bracelet.

  I didn’t believe her. I didn’t believe her story, and I would have given anything to change that gut feeling. I wanted to doubt my own instincts as I had doubted them every day since Hector Ramirez had been killed. What irony that through this case I had gained back a belief in myself, and yet, I wanted nothing more than to be wrong.

  I thought of Molly and wished I could have cried.

  I would have prayed to be wrong, but I have never believed any higher power ever listened to me.

  Feeling ill, I rewound the tape and forced myself to watch it again, this time in slow motion, so that I might even more closely scrutinize it, looking for something I was afraid I wouldn’t find.

  The quality of my equipment was average. Landry would have a much better look at the tape with all the high-tech equipment at the lab. Still, as I watched the tape second by second, I had a good view. Throughout the filming, the camera had remained focused fairly tightly on Erin, she appeared to be no more than eight or ten feet away. I could see that her hair was pulled back in a clip, she was wearing a tight red T-shirt that showed off her flat belly. Her jeans had a little white spot on one thigh.

  As her assailant caught her by the arm, I could see she was wearing a watch. But I didn’t see the one thing I wanted desperately to see.

  Prowling the guest house like a caged cat, I thought of the people involved in Erin’s life: Bruce, Van Zandt, Michael Berne, Jill Morone, Trey Hughes, Paris Montgomery. I wanted Bruce to be guilty. I knew Van Zandt was a murderer. Michael Berne had a motive to ruin Don Jade, but kidnapping made no sense. Jill Morone was dead. Trey Hughes was the center of all their universes. And then there was Paris Montgomery.

  Paris and her backhanded loyalty to Don Jade. She had as much to gain by Jade’s ruination as Michael Berne—even more. She had labored in Jade’s shadow for three years with her cover-girl smile and her love of fine things and her hunger for the spotlight. She had run his life, run his barn, run interference.

  I thought of the small, destructive “truths” Paris had confessed to me about the death of Stellar, even as she defended Don Jade. If she would say those things to me, what slivers of doubt was she putting into Trey Hughes’ mind every time she slept with him?

  On the morning Jill Morone’s body had been found, Paris had been supervising Javier’s cleanup of the crime scene. Even as she called their insurance adjuster about the damage to Jade’s clothing and personal effects, she’d had Javier cleaning up the mess. I wondered now if
news of Jill’s murder had been a surprise to her at all.

  I thought of the supposed rape and Landry’s feeling that it might have been staged. I thought of Jill’s body buried in the manure pit at barn forty, where it would surely be found. And when it was found, who would be the first suspect? Don Jade.

  His clients might tolerate a few scandals, but the murder of a girl? No. Kidnapping? No. And with Jade out of the picture, and few wealthy patrons to believe in him, who would benefit most? Paris Montgomery.