Elena Estes - Dark Horse Part 2

I had no memory of being photographed. I had certainly never been interviewed, though the writer seemed to know things about me I didn't know myself. The caption read: Private investigator Elena Estes enjoys an early-morning ride on D'Artagnon at Sean Avadon's Avadonis Farm in Palm Beach Point Estates.

"I've come to hire you," Molly Seabright said. I turned toward the barn and called for Irina, the stunning Russian girl who had beat me out for the groom's job. She came out, frowning and sulky. I stepped down off D'Artagnon and asked her to please take him back to the barn. She took his reins, and sighed and pouted and slouched away like a sullen runway model.

I ran a gloved hand back through my hair, startled to come to the end of it so quickly. A fist of tension

began to quiver in my stomach. "My sister is missing," Molly Seabright said. "I've come to hire you to find her." "I'm sorry. I'm not a private investigator. This is some kind of mistake." "Why does the magazine say that you are?" she asked, looking stern and disapproving again. She didn't trust me. I'd already lied to her once. "I don't know." "I have money," she said defensively. "Just because I'm twelve doesn't mean I can't hire you." "You can't hire me because I'm not a private investigator." "Then what are you?" she demanded. A broken-down, busted-out, pathetic exsheriff's detective. I'd thumbed my nose at the life I'd been raised in, been ostracized from the life I'd chosen. What did that make me? "Nothing," I said, handing the magazine back to her. She didn't take it. I walked away to an ornate park bench that sat along the end of the arena and took a long drink from the bottle of water I'd left there.

"I have a hundred dollars with me," the girl said. "For a deposit. I expect you have a daily fee and that

you probably charge expenses. I'm sure we can work something out."

Sean emerged from the end of the stable, squinting into the distance, showing his profile. He stood with one booted leg c.o.c.ked and pulled a pair of deerskin gloves from the waist of his brown breeches.

Handsome and fit. A perfect ad for Ralph Lauren.

I headed across the arena, anger boiling now in my stomach. Anger, and underlying it a building sense of panic.

"What the f.u.c.k is this?" I shouted, smacking him in the chest with the magazine. He took a step back, looking offended. "It might be Sidelines, but I can't read with my nipples, so I can't say for certain. Jesus Christ, El. What did you do to your hair?"

I hit him again, harder, wanting to hurt him. He grabbed the magazine away from me, took another quickstep out of range, and turned to the cover. "Betsy Steiner's stallion, Hilltop Giotto. Have you seen him?He's to die for."

"You told a reporter I'm a private investigator." "They asked me who you were. I had to tell them something." "No, you didn't have to. You didn't have to tell them anything." "It's only Sidelines. For Christ's sake." "It's my name in a G.o.ddam magazine read by thousands of people. Thousands of people now know where to find me. Why don't you just paint a big target on my chest?"

He frowned. "Only dressage people read the dressage section. And then only to see if their own names are in the show results."

"Thousands of people now think I'm a private investigator."

"What was I supposed to tell them? The truth?" Said as if that were the most distasteful option. Then I

realized it probably was. "How about 'no comment'?" "That's not very interesting." I pointed at Molly Seabright. "That little girl has come here to hire me. She thinks I can help her find her sister."

"Maybe you can."

I refused to state the obvious: that I couldn't even help myself.

Sean lifted a shoulder with lazy indifference and handed the magazine back to me. "What else have you

got to do with your time?"

Irina emerged from the barn, leading Oliver-tall, elegant, and beautiful, the equine version of Sean. Sean dismissed me and went to his teak mounting block.

Molly Seabright was sitting on the park bench with her hands folded in her lap. I turned and walked to the barn, hoping she would just go away. D'Artagnon's bridle hung from the ceiling on a four-p.r.o.nged hook near an antique mahogany cabinet full of leather-cleaning supplies. I chose a small damp sponge from the work table, rubbed it over a bar of glycerine soap, and began to clean the bridle, trying to narrow the focus of my mind on the small motor skills involved in the task.

"You're very rude."

I could see her from the corner of my eye: standing as tall as she could-five-feet-nothing-her mouth atight little knot. "Yes, I am. That's part of the joy of being me: I don't care." "You're not going to help me." "I can't. I'm not what you need. If your sister is missing, your parents should go to the cops." "I went to the Sheriff's Office. They wouldn't help me either." "You went? What about your parents? They don't care your sister is missing?" For the first time Molly Seabright seemed to hesitate. "It's complicated." "What's complicated about it? She's either missing or she's not." "Erin doesn't live with us." "How old is she?" "Eighteen. She doesn't get along with our parents." "There's something new." "It's not like she's bad or anything," Molly said defensively. "She doesn't do drugs or anything like that.

It's just that she has her own opinions, that's all. And her opinions aren't Bruce's opinions . . ." "Who's Bruce?" "Our stepfather. Mom always sides with him, no matter how asinine he is. It makes Erin angry, so she moved out."

"So Erin is technically an adult, living on her own, free to do whatever she wants," I said. "Does she have a boyfriend?"

Molly shook her head, but avoided my eyes. She wasn't so sure of that answer, or she thought a lie

might better serve her cause. "What makes you think she's missing?" "She was supposed to pick me up Monday morning. That's her day off. She's a groom at the show grounds for Don Jade. He trains jumpers. I didn't have school. We were going to go to the beach, but she never came or called me. I called her and left a message on her cell phone, and she never called me back."

"She's probably busy," I said, stroking the sponge down a length of rein. "Grooms work hard."

Even as I said it I could see Irina sitting on the mounting block, face turned to the sun as she blew a lazy stream of cigarette smoke at the sky. Most grooms.

"She would have called me," Molly insisted. "I went to the show grounds myself the next day- yesterday. A man at Don Jade's barn told me Erin doesn't work there anymore."

Grooms quit. Grooms get fired. Grooms decide one day to become florists and decide the next day they' d rather be brain surgeons. On the flip side, there are trainers with reputations as slave masters, temperamental prima donnas who go through grooms like disposable razors. I've known trainers who demanded a groom sleep every night in a stall with a psychotic stallion, valuing the horse far more than the person. I've known trainers who fired five grooms in a week.

Erin Seabright was, by the sound of it, headstrong and argumentative, maybe with an eye for the guys. She was eighteen and tasting independence for the first time. . . . And why I was even thinking this through was beyond me. Habit, maybe. Once a cop . . . But I hadn't been a cop for two years, and I would never be a cop again.

"Sounds to me like Erin has a life of her own. Maybe she just doesn't have time for a kid sister right now."

Molly Seabright's expression darkened. "I told you Erin's not like that. She wouldn't just leave."

"She left home."

"But she didn't leave me. She wouldn't."

Finally she sounded like a child instead of a forty-nine-year-old CPA. An uncertain, frightened little girl. Looking to me for help.

"People change. People grow up," I said bluntly, taking the bridle down from the hook. "Maybe it's your turn."

The words. .h.i.t their mark like bullets. Tears rose behind the Harry Potter gla.s.ses. I didn't allow myself to feel guilt or pity. I didn't want a job or a client. I didn't want people coming into my life with expectations.

"I thought you would be different," she said.

"Why would you think that?"

She glanced over at the magazine lying on the shelf with the cleaning supplies, D'Artagnon and I floating across the page like something from a dream. But she said nothing. If she had an explanation for her belief, she thought better of sharing it with me.

"I'm n.o.body's hero, Molly. I'm sorry you got that impression. I'm sure if your parents aren't worried about your sister, and the cops aren't worried about your sister, then there's nothing to be worried about. You don't need me, and believe me, you'd be sorry if you did."

She didn't look at me. She stood there for a moment, composing herself, then pulled a small red wallet from the carrying pouch strapped around her waist. She took out a ten-dollar bill and placed it on the magazine.

"Thank you for your time," she said politely, then turned and walked away.

I didn't chase after her. I didn't try to give her her ten dollars back. I watched her walk away and

thought she was more of an adult than I was.

Irina appeared in my peripheral vision, propping herself against the archway as if she hadn't the strength to stand on her own. "You want I should saddle Feliki?"

Erin Seabright had probably quit her job. She was probably in the Keys right now enjoying her newfound independence with some cute good-for-nothing. Molly didn't want to believe that because it would mean a sea change in her relations.h.i.+p with the big sister she idolized. Life is full of disappointments. Molly would learn that the same way as everyone: by being let down by someone she loved and trusted.

Irina gave a dramatic sigh.

"Yes," I said. "Saddle Feliki."

She started toward the mare's stall, then I asked a question for which I would have been far better off

not having an answer.

"Irina, do you know anything about a jumper trainer named Don Jade?"

"Yes," she said casually, not even looking back at me. "He is a murderer."

The horse world is populated by two kinds of people: those who love horses, and those who exploit horses and the people who love them. Yin and yang. For every good thing in the world, there is something bad to counterbalance. Myself, I've always felt the bad far outweighs the good, that there is just enough good to buoy us and keep us from drowning in a sea of despair. But that's just me.

Some of the finest people I've known have been involved in the horse business. Caring people who would sacrifice themselves and their own comfort for the animals who relied on them. People who kept their word. People with integrity. And some of the most loathsome, hateful, twisted individuals I've ever known have been involved in the horse business. People who would lie, cheat, steal, and sell their own mother for a nickel if they thought it would get them ahead. People who would smile to your face, pat you on the back with one hand, and stab you in the back with the other.

From what Irina told me, Don Jade fit into that second category.

Sunday morning-the day before Erin Seabright didn't show to pick up her little sister to go to the beach -a jumper in training with Don Jade had been found dead in his stall, the victim of an allegedly accidental electrocution. Only, according to gossip, there was no such thing as an accident where Don Jade was involved.

I went online and tried to learn what I could about Jade from articles on horsesdaily.com and a couple of other equestrian sites. But I wanted the story in full, uncensored, and I knew exactly who to call.

If Don Jade defined my second category of horse people, Dr. Dean Soren defined the first. I had known Dr. Dean for a lifetime. Nothing went on in the horse world Dean Soren didn't know about. He had begun his veterinary career in the year aught on the racetrack, eventually moving on to show horses. Everyone in the business knew and respected Dr. Dean.

He had retired from his veterinary practice several years before, and spent his days holding court in the cafe that was social central of the large stable he owned off Pierson. The woman who ran the cafe answered the phone. I told her who I was and asked for Dr. Dean, then listened as she shouted across the room at him.

Dr. Dean shouted back: "What the h.e.l.l does she want?"

"Tell him I need to ask him a couple of questions."

The woman shouted that.

"Then she can d.a.m.n well come here and ask me in person," he shouted back. "Or is she too G.o.ddammed important to visit an old man?"

That was Dr. Dean. The words charming and kindly were not in his vocabulary, but he was one of the best people I had ever known. Whatever softer elements he lacked, he more than made up for in integrity and honesty.

I didn't want to go to him. Don Jade interested me only because of what Irina had said about him. I was curious, but that was all. Curiosity wasn't enough to make me want to interact with people. I had no desire to leave my sanctuary, especially in light of the photo in Sidelines.

I paced the house, chewing at what was left of my fingernails.

Dean Soren had known me off and on most of my life. The winter season I was twelve, he let me ride along with him on his rounds one day a week and act as his a.s.sistant. My mother and I had moved to a house in the Polo Club for the season, and I had a tutor so that I could ride every day with my trainer, and not have a school schedule interrupt my horse show schedule. Every Monday-rider's day off-I would bribe the tutor and slip off with Dr. Dean to hold his instrument tray and clean up used bandages. My own father had never spent that kind of time with me. I had never felt so important.

The memories of that winter touched me now in an especially vulnerable place. I couldn't remember the last time I had felt important. I could hardly remember the last time I had wanted to. But I could remember very clearly riding beside Dr. Dean in the enormous Lincoln Town Car he had tricked out as a rolling vet clinic.

Perhaps it was that memory that made me pick up my car keys and go.

The prime property Dr. Dean owned was populated by hunter/jumper people in one large barn and by dressage people in the other. The offices, Dr. Dean's personal stable, and the cafe were all located in a building between the two large barns.

The cafe was a simple open-air affair with a tiki bar. Dr. Dean sat at the centermost table in a carved wooden chair, an old king on his throne, drinking something with a paper umbrella in it.

I felt light-headed as I walked toward him, partly afraid to see him-or rather, for him to see me-and partly afraid people would come out of the woodwork to stare at me and ask me if I was really a private investigator. But the cafe was empty other than Dean Soren and the woman behind the counter. No one ran over from the barns to gawk.

Dr. Dean rose from his chair, his piercing eyes on me like a pair of lasers. He was a tall, straight man with a full head of white hair and a long face carved with lines. He had to be eighty, but he still looked fierce and strong.

"What the h.e.l.l's wrong with you?" he said by way of a greeting. "Are you in chemotherapy? Is that what happened to your hair?"

"Good to see you, too, Dr. Dean," I said, shaking his hand.

He looked over at the woman behind the counter. "Marion! Make this girl a cheeseburger! She looks like h.e.l.l!"

Marion, unfazed, went to work.

"What are you riding these days?" Dr. Dean asked.

I took a seat-a cheap folding chair that seemed too low and made me feel like a child. Or maybe that