Elena Estes - Dark Horse Part 19

She'd gone into Players, knowing Jade would be there, thinking he would invite her for a drink, and she could flirt with him and let him know how she'd helped him out with that cop. He was supposed to have been thankful and impressed with her quick thinking, and grateful for her loyalty. And they were supposed to have ended up at his place, where he would f.u.c.k her brains out. Phase one in her plan to get rid of Paris.

But everything had gone wrong, because she could never get a break. The whole stupid world was against her. Jade hadn't arrived yet when she got there, and the maitre d' had wanted to throw her out. She could tell by the way he looked her up and down, like he thought she was some cheap hooker or something. He hadn't believed her when she told him she was meeting someone. And the waitress and the bartender had put their heads together and snickered at her as she sat at a table, waiting like an idiot drinking Diet c.o.ke because they wouldn't go for her fake ID and serve her booze. Then that creep Van Zandt had showed up, half-drunk, and invited himself to sit with her.

What a jerk. All the mean, rotten things she'd heard him say about her, and he thought he could just suddenly pretend to be nice to her and charm his way into her pants. He'd never taken his eyes off her cleavage for the first fifteen minutes. And when she told him she was waiting for someone else, he had the nerve to be offended. Like she'd ever want to have s.e.x with an old guy like him. So what he'd slipped her a couple of drinks? That didn't mean she owed him a b.l.o.w.j.o.b, which was what he had wanted. If she was going to suck d.i.c.k tonight, it wasn't going to be his.

And then Jade had finally walked in. And he'd looked at her with such disgust, she had wanted to shatter like a piece of gla.s.s. His angry words rang in her ears as if he'd screamed them at her, when in reality he'

d asked her out into a quiet hall and had never raised his voice above a near whisper.

"What were you thinking, coming in here dressed like that?" he demanded. "You're my employee. Thethings you do in public reflect on me." "But I was just-" "I don't want the words street wh.o.r.e a.s.sociated with my barn." Jill had gasped as if he'd slapped her. That was when Michael Berne had come into the hall. She had seen him from the corner of her eye, pretending to make a phone call, watching them.

"I see clients here," Jade went on. "I conduct business here."

"I j-just w-wanted to see you," she'd said, her breath hitching in her throat as tears welled up. "I

w-wanted to tell you about-" "What's the matter with you? Thinking you can come here and interrupt my evening?" "B-but I have t-to tell you- I know about Stellar-" "If you need to speak with me about something, we'll do it at the barn during business hours." "B-but-" "Is everything all right here?" Michael Berne asked, b.u.t.ting in like it was any of his business, the skinny freckled dork. "This doesn't concern you, Michael," Jade said. "The young lady seems upset." But when he looked at her, Jill had known he didn't care whether or not she was upset. He had looked at her the same way every other man had looked at her tonight-like she

was selling it and she ought to be cutting her prices.

She had glared up at him through a wavy sheen of tears and said, "b.u.t.t out! We don't need you around here or anywhere else!"

Berne had moved away. "You ought to take your personal business somewhere private, Jade," he said

like a prissy fruit. "This is really unprofessional."

Jade had waited until Berne was out of sight, then turned on her again, angrier than before. "Get out of here. Get out of here before you embarra.s.s me any more than you already have. We'll talk about this tomorrow, first thing in the morning. If I can stand the sight of you."

He might as well have cut her with a knife. The pain had gone as deep inside her as if he had.

f.u.c.k him, Jill thought now. Don Jade was her boss, not her father. He couldn't tell her how to dress orwhere she could and couldn't go. He couldn't call her a wh.o.r.e and get away with it. All the hard work she did for Don Jade, and this was the way he treated her. She would have been his partner-in bed and out. She would have been loyal to him. She would have done anything for him. But he didn't deserve her or her loyalty and devotion. He deserved to have people betray him and stab him in the back. He deserved whatever happened to him.

An idea slowly began to take shape in Jill's mind as she sat there in her car. She didn't have to put up with being treated like dirt. She didn't have to stand for being called names. She could get a job with any stable she wanted. f.u.c.k Don Jade.

She drove out of the parking lot and took a left on South Sh.o.r.e, heading for the equestrian center, paying no attention to the car that pulled out behind her.

Molly could hear Bruce and her mother arguing. She couldn't make out all the words, but the tone was unmistakable. She lay on the floor of her bedroom, near the air-conditioning duct. Her room was right above Bruce's office, where he often summoned her mother or Chad or Erin to shout at them for their latest sin against him. Molly had learned long ago to make herself inconspicuous to the men her mother dated. She made no exception for Bruce, even if he was technically now her father. She didn't think of him that way. She thought of him as someone whose house she happened to live in.

The argument was about Erin. Her sister's name had stood out in the rise and fall of the conversation. Something was definitely up. Her mother had already been upset when Molly had gotten home from school, pacing, nervous, darting out the back door to smoke one cigarette after another. Dinner had been delivered from Domino's. Krystal hadn't eaten any of it. Chad had bolted down enough to choke a wolf, then beat it out of the house before Bruce got home.

And when Bruce walked in the door, Krystal had immediately asked to speak to him in his office.

Molly's stomach was churning with worry. She had made out Erin's name and had heard the word "police." Her mother's tone had gone from urgent to angry to hysterical to tears. Bruce just sounded angry. And intermingled with the voices was a mechanical sound, like the VCR going on, going off, rewinding. Molly couldn't imagine what it meant. Maybe Krystal had found a p.o.r.no tape in Chad's room. But then, why had she heard Erin's name, not Chad's?

Heart pounding, Molly left her room and crept down the back staircase. The house was dark except for the light coming from the office. She made her way down the hall on her tiptoes, holding her breath. If the office door opened, she was caught. The family room was adjacent to the office. If she could just slip in there . . . She ducked into the corner behind the ficus tree and crouched down against the wall.

"We are not calling the police, Krystal," Bruce said. "First of all, I don't believe it's real. It's some kind of hoax-"

"But what if it isn't?"

"They said don't call the police."

"My G.o.d, I can't believe this is happening," Krystal said, her voice trembling.

"I don't know why not," Bruce said. "She's your daughter. You know she's never been anything but trouble."

"How can you talk that way?"

"Easily. It's true."

"You can be so f.u.c.king cruel. I don't believe it. Ouch! You're hurting me! Bruce!"

Tears welled up in Molly's eyes. She hugged her knees to her chest and tried not to shake.

"I've asked you not to use foul language, Krystal. You can't be a lady with the mouth of a sailor." Krystal rushed to apologize. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm upset. I didn't mean it." "You're irrational. You have to get control of yourself, Krystal. Think this through logically. The tape says no police." "What will we do?" "I'll handle it." "But I think-" "Has anyone asked you to think?" "No." "Who makes the decisions in this house, Krystal?" Krystal drew a shaky breath. "The person who is best equipped to make them." "And who is that person?" "You." "Thank you. Now leave it to me. Go take a pill and go to bed. There's nothing we can do tonight." "Yes," Krystal said softly. "I think I will do that." Molly knew from past experience her mother would take more than one pill, and she would wash it down with vodka. She would retreat into her own little world and pretend everything in her life was lovely and fine. Molly, meanwhile, felt sick to her stomach. Everything she'd heard frightened her. What had Erin done now? Something terrible, if Krystal wanted to call the police.

"I'm going for a drive to clear my head," Bruce said. "I had a terrible day. Now this." Molly held very still, praying neither of them would come into the family room for any reason. She heard her mother's heels on the tile in the hall. Krystal always went up the main staircase because it was beautiful and she had always dreamed of living in a beautiful house. Bruce walked past the family room on his way to the kitchen. Molly stayed still until she heard him go out the door to the garage. She waited to hear his car start and for the garage door to close, and then she waited a little longer. When she was sure he had gone, she crept out of her hiding place and went into his office. No one was allowed in Bruce's office when Bruce wasn't there. He expected everyone to respect his privacy even though he regularly invaded everyone else's. This was his house, and he never let any of them forget it. Molly turned on the desk lamp and looked around at the bookshelves and the walls covered with photographs of Bruce shaking hands with important people, with Bruce's awards for this and that having to do with his job and with his service to the community. Everything in the room was placed exactly as Bruce wanted it, and he would know if one little thing got moved a fraction of an inch.

Molly checked over her shoulder as she picked up the remote for the television and VCR. She hit the play b.u.t.ton and waited, so nervous she was shaking all over.

The movie started without any credits or t.i.tles or anything. A girl standing by a gate on a back road. Erin. Molly watched in horror as a van pulled up and a man in a mask jumped out and grabbed her and threw her into the van.

A strange mechanical voice came out of the speakers: "We have your daughter. Don't call the police-"

Tears flooding her gla.s.ses, Molly hit the stop b.u.t.ton, hit eject, scrambled onto a chair, and reached up to snag the video out of the machine. She wanted to cry out loud. She wanted to throw up. She did neither.

Clutching the tape, she ran through the house to the laundry room and grabbed her jacket off the hook. She wrapped the tape in the jacket and tied the jacket around her waist. She was shaking so badly, she didn't know if she would have the strength to do what she had to. All she knew was that she had to try.

She opened the garage door, climbed on her bike, and took off, pedaling as hard as she could down the street and into the night.

Despite the fact that every law enforcement agent in Palm Beach County hated me, I did still have contacts in the profession. I called an FBI agent I knew from the field office in West Palm. Armedgian and another agent had coordinated with PBSO narcotics on a case that involved heroine dealers in West Palm Beach and a connection in France. Armedgian had handled all the work between our respective offices, the FBI liaison in Paris, French authorities, and Interpol. The case had lasted six months, and in that time, Armedgian had become not only a contact, but a friend-the kind of friend I could call and ask for information.

I called him at the end of the day and reintroduced myself. It's Estes. Remember me? We'll always have Paris . . . Of course, he said, though there was a pause first, and a tension in his voice.

I asked him to get me what he could on Tomas Van Zandt and World Horse Sales from Interpol. Again the pause. Was I back on the job? He thought I'd left the profession, after . . . well, after . . .

I explained to him I was helping out a friend who had gotten mixed up with this character in a business deal, and I'd heard the guy was a crook. I wasn't asking for anything but to find out if he had a record. That didn't seem too much, did it?

Armedgian made the customary noises of complaint and fear of discovery and censure. Federal agents were the kids in school who really did worry that going to the lavatory without a hall pa.s.s would put a black mark in their permanent records that would ruin their lives. But in the end he agreed to do the deed.

Tomas Van Zandt hadn't become what he was overnight. It wasn't unreasonable to a.s.sume if he had terrorized one girl, he had terrorized others. Maybe one of them had dared to go to the authorities. Then again, part of his control over Sasha Kulak had been the fact that she was a stranger in a strange land, and probably there illegally.

It made me furious to think about it. He was a predator preying on vulnerable women, whether they were his employees or his clients. And the truly infuriating thing about that was the fact that vulnerable women often either refuse to see the danger in a man like Van Zandt, or convince themselves they have no recourse but to suffer through. And a sociopath like Van Zandt could smell that a mile away.

I picked up his business card and looked at it. It was late, but I could still call him on his cell phone, apologize again for Irina's behavior, ask to meet him for a drink. . . . Maybe I'd get lucky and have to kill him in self-defense at the end of the evening.

I was reaching for the phone when something hit my front door with force. My hand went for the Glock I

'd laid on the table to clean. My mind raced through scenarios in the blink of an eye. Then the poundingstarted and a small voice penetrated the wood. "Elena! Elena!" Molly. I pulled the door open and the girl fell inside as if she'd been blown to the house by a hurricane. Her hair was matted with sweat. She was as pale as parchment. "Molly, what's wrong? What's happened?" I guided her to a chair and she melted into it like a limp noodle, so out of breath she was panting. "How did you get here?" "My bike." "G.o.d. It's the dead of night. Why didn't you call me if you needed to see me?" "I couldn't. I didn't dare." "Have you heard something from Erin?" She pulled off the jacket she'd worn tied around her waist and fumbled through the folds of cloth. Her hands were shaking violently as she fished out a videotape and thrust it at me. I took the thing to the VCR, rewound it, and hit the play b.u.t.ton. I watched the drama unfold as I knew Molly had, but with a quality to my sense of dread I knew she didn't have because she hadn't lived as long as I had or seen the things that I had seen. I watched her sister knocked to the ground and shoved into the white van. Then came the voice, mechanically altered to disguise or to frighten or both: "We have your daughter. Call the police, she dies. Three hundred thousand dollars. Directions later." The picture went to static. I stopped the VCR and turned to look at Molly. Molly the Mini-Exec was gone. Molly the adult in disguise was nowhere in sight. Sitting at my table, looking small and fragile, was Molly the child, twelve years old and terrified for her big sister. Tears trapped behind the lenses of her Harry Potter gla.s.ses magnified the fear in her eyes.

She was trying very hard to be brave as she waited for something from me. That almost frightened me more than the video had.

I crouched in front of her, my hands braced on the arms of the chair. "Where did you get this, Molly?"

"I heard Mom and Bruce fighting about Erin," she said quickly. "When they went out of his office, I went in, and I found it."

"They've seen it."

She nodded.

"What did they do?"

The tears rolled out the sides of the gla.s.ses and down her cheeks. She spoke in a very, very small voice. "Nothing."

"They didn't call the police?"

"Bruce said he would handle it. Then he sent Mom to bed." She shook her head in disbelief. I could see the anger rise up inside her, bringing color to her face. "And he went for a drive to clear his head, because he had a bad day! I hate him!" she cried, slamming a small fist on the table. "I hate him! He won 't do anything because he doesn't want her back! Erin's going to die because of him!"

The tears came in earnest now, and Molly fell against me, throwing her arms around my neck.

I've never known how to comfort people. Perhaps because I wasn't taught by example. Or perhaps I had always taken my own personal pain so deeply within me, I wouldn't allow anyone to touch it. But Molly's pain was overflowing, and she gave me no choice but to share it with her. I closed my arms around her and stroked her hair with one hand.

"It won't be up to him, Molly," I said. "You've got me, remember?"

In that moment I knew real fear. This was no longer a case I didn't want with a probable outcome of no big consequence. It wasn't a simple matter of working a job. I had a connection to this child in my arms. I had made a commitment. I who had wanted nothing more than to hide with my misery until I could find the nerve to check out.

I held her tighter, not for her, but for me.

I made a copy of the videotape, then we put Molly's bike in my trunk and headed for Binks Forest. It was nearly midnight.

Jill let herself into Jade's tack room and turned on the small lamp that sat on an antique chest. She grabbed a jug of leather oil from the supply shelves, twisted off the top, pulled open the drawer with Jade 's show breeches in it, and doused the pants with oil. She knew from looking in the catalogs those breeches cost at least two hundred dollars each. She threw open the armoire, pulled out his two custom-made jackets, and soaked them both, then did the same with his freshly pressed, custom-made s.h.i.+rts.

It didn't seem enough. She wanted more satisfaction.

She was supposed to have cleaned the stalls at the end of the day because Javier, the Guatemalan guy, had to leave early. But Jill didn't like pitching s.h.i.+t, and so she had simply stirred the bedding around to cover it. She snickered now as she went to the first stall and took out Trey Hughes' gray horse. She put the horse in the empty stall where Stellar had lived, then took a pitchfork into the gray's stall and uncovered the piles of manure and the spots wet with urine. The smell of ammonia burned her nose and she smiled a malicious smile.

Setting the fork aside, she went back to the tack stall and grabbed up the pile of clothes.

Jade would have a fit when he found this mess. He would know she had done it, but he wouldn't be able to prove it. And he was supposed to be in the showring in the morning. He wouldn't have any clothes.

His horses wouldn't be ready. And Jill would be busy lying on the beach, getting a tan and looking for a hot guy.

She spread the clothing out in the stall, over the piles of s.h.i.+t and spots of pee, then went around and around the stall, stomping on Don Jade's expensive clothing, grinding it into the mess. This would teach him not to treat people like servants. He couldn't humiliate her and get away with it. Big a.s.shole. He was going to regret what he'd done to her. She could have been his ally, his spy. Instead, he could rot.

"f.u.c.k you, Don Jade. f.u.c.k you, Don Jade." She chanted the words as she marched around the stall.

She had no fear of being caught by Jade. He was back at that snotty club, trying to impress some client or some woman. Paris was supposed to have night check, but Jill knew for a fact she hardly ever did it when it was her turn.

It didn't occur to Jill that someone from another stable might come through the barn, or that a security guard might be making rounds. She almost never got caught doing stuff. Like keying stupid Erin's car. Everyone a.s.sumed Chad did it because Chad had been there that night and he and Erin had argued. And Jill had once had a job at a Wal-Mart where she had stolen all kinds of stuff, right under her manager's nose. It served the store right, getting ripped off, if they were stupid enough to hire a guy as dumb as that guy had been.

"f.u.c.k you, Don Jade. f.u.c.k you, Don Jade," she chanted, happily grinding his clothes into the muck.

And then the stable lights went out.

Jill stopped marching and stood very still. She could feel her heart beating. The sound of it in her ears made it impossible to hear if someone was coming. As her eyes adjusted she could make out shapes, but the stall she was in was too far to the back of the tent to get much light from the big light pole out by the road.

Some of the horses turned around in their stalls. Some nickered-nervously, Jill thought. She felt around the wall blindly, trying to find the pitchfork. She'd left it on the far side of the stall. She turned her back to the door as she groped for it.

It happened so fast, she couldn't react. Someone rushed in behind her. She heard the rustle of the stall bedding, felt the presence of another person. Before she could scream, a hand was over her mouth. Her own hands closed desperately on the handle of the pitchfork, and she twisted around, trying to wriggle from her captor's grasp, breaking the hold, stumbling backward, swinging the pitchfork in a wide arch, hitting something. Her grip on the handle was too near the end of it, giving her little control or strength in her swing, and it flew out of her hands and thumped against the canvas wall.

She tried to scream then, and couldn't. As in a nightmare, the sound died in her throat. In that split second she knew she was going to die.

Still, she tried to run for the door. Her legs felt as heavy as lead. Her feet tangled in the clothes on the floor of the stall. Like a la.s.so around her ankles, the clothes pulled her feet out from under her. She fell forward, heavily, knocking the wind from her lungs. Her attacker came down on top of her from behind.

There was a sound-a voice-but she couldn't hear it above the pounding in her ears and the wrenching sound from her own throat as she tried to breathe and sob and beg. She felt the miniskirt being pulled up over her b.u.t.t, a hand digging between her legs, tearing at the too-small thong.

She tried to pull herself forward. There was a terrible pressure in the middle of her back, then against the back of her head, forcing her head down, pus.h.i.+ng her face into the manure she was supposed to have cleaned out of the stall that day. She couldn't breathe. She tried to turn her head and couldn't; tried to suck in air and her mouth filled with s.h.i.+t; tried to vomit and felt a terrible burning in her chest.

And then she didn't feel anything at all.

The Seabrights' neighborhood was silent, all the big lovely homes dark, their inhabitants blissfully ignorant of the dysfunction next door. There were still lights on downstairs on one end of the Seabright home. The second story was dark. I wondered if Krystal really was sleeping.

Bruce had "sent her to bed," Molly had said. As if she were a child. Her daughter had been abducted and her husband told her to go to bed. He would handle it. If Krystal hadn't seen the tape, I wondered if Bruce would have simply thrown it in the trash like a piece of junk mail.

Molly let us in the front door and led the way to Bruce Seabright's home office, the source of the lights. The office door stood open. Bruce was inside, muttering under his breath as he searched the bookcases near the television.

"Looking for this?" I asked, holding up the video. He spun around. "What are you doing here? How did you get into my house?" His glare hit on Molly half hiding behind me. "Molly? Did you let this person in?" "Elena can help-" "Help with what?" he said, choosing denial even while I stood there with the tape of his stepdaughter's kidnapping in hand. "We don't need her help for anything." "You think you can handle this on your own?" I asked, tossing the tape on his desk. "I think you can leave my home or I can call the police." "That threat doesn't work with me. I thought you learned that lesson this morning." His mouth pulled into a tight knot as he stared at me with narrowed eyes. "Elena used to be a detective with the Sheriff's Office," Molly said, moving out of my shadow. "She knows all about those people Erin worked with, and-" "Molly, go to bed," Seabright ordered curtly. "I'll deal with you tomorrow, young lady. Eavesdropping on conversations, coming into my office without permission, bringing this person into my home. You've got a lot to answer for."

Molly kept her chin up and gave her stepfather a long look. "So do you," she said. Then she turned and