Elena Estes - Dark Horse Part 8

One-stop shopping."

Like flipping a switch, Van Zandt's face went from courtly to stormy; the gray eyes as cold as the North

Sea, and frighteningly hard. "Don't say such stupid things," he snapped. I stepped away from him. "It was a joke." "Everything with you is a joke," he said in disgust. "And if you can't take one, Van Zandt," I said, "f.u.c.k you." I watched him struggle to put Mr. Hyde back in his box. The mood swing had come so quickly, I couldn'

t believe it hadn't given him whiplash. He rubbed a hand across his mouth and made an impatient gesture. "Fine. It's a joke. Ha ha," he said, still clearly angry. He started toward the tent. "Forget it. Come." I didn't move. "No. Apologize." "What?" He looked at me with disbelief. "Don't be silly." "Keep digging that hole, Van Zandt. I'm stupid and silly, and what else?" The muscles in his face quivered. He wanted to call me a b.i.t.c.h or worse. I could see it in his eyes. "Apologize." "You shouldn't have made the joke," he said. "Come." "And you should apologize," I countered, fascinated. He seemed incapable of performing the act, and amazed that I was insisting. "You are being stubborn." I laughed out loud. "I'm being stubborn?" "Yes. Come." "Don't order me like I'm a horse to be moved from one place to another," I said. "You can apologize or you can kiss my a.s.s."

I waited, expecting an explosion, not sure what would happen after it came. Van Zandt looked at me, then looked away, and when he turned back toward me he was smiling as if nothing had happened.

"You're a tigress, Elle! I like that. You have character." He nodded to himself, suddenly enormously

pleased. "That's good." "I'm so glad you approve." He chuckled to himself and took my arm again. "Come along. I'll introduce you to Jade. He'll like you." "Will I like him?"

He didn't answer. He didn't care what I liked or didn't like. He was fascinated that I had challenged him. I was sure he didn't get much of that. Most of his American clients would have been wealthy women whose husbands and boyfriends had no interest in horses. Women who gave him undue credit simply because he was European and paid attention to them. Insecure women who could be easily charmed and manipulated, impressed by a little knowledge, a little Continental elegance, and a big ego with an accent.

I had witnessed the phenomenon firsthand many times over the years. Women starved for attention and approval will do a lot of foolish things, including parting with large sums of money. That was the clientele that made unscrupulous dealers a h.e.l.l of a lot of money. That was the clientele that made dealers like Van Zandt snicker and sneer "stupid Americans" behind the client's back.

Park Lane came out of the tent with Jill the groom in tow just as we were about to step into the aisle. Van Zandt snapped at the girl to watch where she was going, muttering "stupid cow" only half under his breath as the horse dragged her away.

"D.J., why can you not find any girls with brains in their heads?" he asked loudly.

Jade stood at the open door to a tack stall that was draped in green and hung with ribbons won in recentshows. He calmly took a drink of Diet c.o.ke. "Is that some kind of riddle?" Van Zandt took a beat to get it, then laughed. "Yes-a trick question." "Excuse me," I said politely, "but do I look like I'm standing here with a p.e.n.i.s?" "No," Paris Montgomery said, coming out of the tack stall. "A couple of d.i.c.ks." Van Zandt made a growling sound in his throat, but pretended good nature. "Paris, you're the quick one with the tongue!"

She flashed the big grin. "That's what all the fellas say."

High humor. Jade paid no attention to any of it. He was looking at me. I stared back and stuck out my

hand. "Elle Stevens." "Don Jade. You're a friend of this character?" he asked, nodding at Van Zandt. "Don't hold it against me. It was a chance meeting." The corner of Jade's mouth flicked upward. "Well, if there's a chance, Tomas will be right there to take it."

Van Zandt pouted. "I don't wait for opportunity to come and knock on the door. I go and invite it politely.

"And this one came to steal your groom," he added, pointing at me.

Jade looked confused.

"The cute one. The blonde," Van Zandt said.

"Erin," Paris said.

"The one that left," Jade said, still looking at me.

"Yes," I said. "Apparently someone beat me to her."

He gave no kind of reaction at all. He didn't look away or try to express his sadness that the girl had left.Nothing. "Yeah," Paris joked. "Elle and I are going to start a support group for people without grooms." "What brought you looking for Erin in particular?" Jade asked. "She didn't have very much experience."

"She did a good job, Don," Paris said, defending the missing girl. "I'd take her back in a heartbeat." "A friend of a friend heard your girl might be looking to make a change," I said to Jade. "Now that theseason has started, we can't be too fussy, right?"

"True enough. You have horses here, Elle?" "No, though Z. here is trying to remedy that." "V.," Van Zandt corrected me. "I like Z. better," I said. "I'm going to call you Z." He laughed. "Watch this one, Jade. She's a tigress!" Jade hadn't taken his eyes off me. He looked beneath the stupid hat and past the chic outfit. He wouldn't be easily fooled. I found I didn't want to look away from him either. Magnetism hummed from within him like electricity. I thought I could feel it touching my skin. I wondered if he had control of it; could turn it on and off, up and down. Probably. Don Jade hadn't survived at his game without skill.

I wondered if I was up to matching him.

Before I had to answer that question, a more imminent danger swaggered into the picture.

"G.o.d in heaven! What kind of s.a.d.i.s.t put my cla.s.s at this uncivilized hour of the day?"

Stellar's owner: Monte Hughes III, known as Trey to friends and hangers-on. Palm Beach playboy.

Dissolute, debauched drunk. My first big crush when I'd been young and rebellious, and had thought

dissolute, debauched, drunken playboys were romantic and exciting. Sungla.s.ses hid undoubtedly bloodshot eyes. The Don Johnson Miami Vice haircut was silver andwind-tossed.

"What time is it, anyway?" he asked with a lopsided grin. "What day is it?"

He was drunk or on something or both. He always had been. His blood had to have a permanent alcohol level after all the years of indulgence. Trey Hughes: the happy drunk, the life of every party.

I held myself very still as he came toward us. There was little chance he would recognize me. I'd been a

young thing when last he'd seen me-twenty years before-and the term "pickled brain" didn't mean preservation of any kind. I couldn't say he'd ever really known me, though he had flirted with me on several occasions. I remembered feeling very impressed with myself at the time, ignoring the fact that Trey Hughes flirted with every pretty young thing to cross his path.

"Paris, honey, why do they do this to me?" He leaned into her and kissed her cheek. "It's a conspiracy, Trey."

He laughed. His voice was rough and warm from too much whiskey and too many cigarettes. "Yeah, I

used to think I was paranoid, then it turned out everyone really was out to get me." He was dressed to ride in buff breeches, a s.h.i.+rt and tie. His coat bag was slung over his shoulder. Helooked exactly the same to me as he had twenty years ago: attractive, fifty, and self-abused. Of course,he'd been thirty at the time. Too many hours in the sun had lined and bronzed his face, and he'd gonegray at an early age-a family trait. He had seemed das.h.i.+ng and sophisticated to me back when. Now hejust seemed pathetic.

He leaned down and peered at me under the brim of my hat. "I knew there had to be a person under there. I'm Trey Hughes."

"Elle Stevens."

"Do I know you?"

"No. I don't think so." "Thank G.o.d. I've always said I never forget a beautiful face. You had me thinking I might be getting OldTimer's."

"Trey, your brain is too drenched in alcohol for it to contract anything," Jade said dryly.

Hughes didn't so much as glance at him. "I've been telling people for years: I drink for medicinalpurposes," he said. "Maybe it's finally paying off. "Never mind me, darling," he said to me. "I never do." His brows drew together. "Are you sure . . . ?" "I'm a new face," I said, almost amused at my own joke. "Have you ever been to Cleveland?" "G.o.d, no! Why would I go there?" "I was sorry to hear about Stellar." "Oh, yeah, well . . ." he rambled, making a dismissive gesture with his hand. "s.h.i.+t happens. Right, Donnie?" The question had a barb to it. He still didn't look at Jade. Jade shrugged. "Bad luck. That's the horse business." C'est la vie. C'est la mort. Such is life. Such is death. His grief was underwhelming. "G.o.d bless General Fidelity," Hughes said, raising an imaginary gla.s.s. "Provided they cough up." Again, there was a bite to his words, but Jade seemed unaffected. "Buy the Belgian horse," Van Zandt said. "You'll then say: Stellar who?" Hughes laughed. "It's not enough I've given you my Mercedes. Now you're spending my money before it even gets into my pocket, V.?"

"That seems wisest, knowing you, my friend."

"All my dough's going into the new barn," Hughes said. "Casa de Money Pit."

"What good is a fancy stable with no horses to put in it?" Van Zandt asked.

"Let someone like Mr. Jade here come in with a truckload of clients to pay the mortgage and buy me a

new speedboat," Hughes answered. "Like half of Wellington."

True enough. A great many Wellingtonians paid a year's mortgage with the exorbitant rents they chargedfor the three or four months the winter people were in town. "Trey, get on your horse," Jade ordered. "I want you sober enough to complete the course." "h.e.l.l, D.J., booze is the only thing that gets me around. I couldn't do it sober." He looked around, searching. "Erin, my peach," he called. "Be a doll and bring my n.o.ble steed along."

"Erin doesn't work here anymore, Trey. Remember?" Paris said, taking his coat bag and handing him his hard hat.

"Oh, right. You got rid of her."

"She left."

"Huh." He looked off into the middle distance, smiling to himself. "Seems like I just saw her." He glanced

around to see that the coast was clear and said to Paris in a stage whisper: "Honey, why couldn't you lose the little heifer instead?"

Paris rolled her eyes. "Get on your horse, Trey."

She called to the Guatemalan man in Spanish to bring the gray horse, and the entourage began to move out of the aisle. I turned to follow. Jade was still standing there, still watching me.

"It was nice meeting you, Elle. I hope we see you around-whether V. sells you a horse or not." "I'm sure you will. I'm intrigued now." "Like a moth to a flame?" he said. "Something like that." He shook my hand, and I felt that current pa.s.s through me again. I watched the pack of them make their way toward the schooling ring. Van Zandt walked alongside the gray, bending Hughes' ear about the jumper in Belgium. Hughes listed to one side on the horse's back.

Paris glanced backward, looking for Jade to catch up. I started the hike back to my car, wis.h.i.+ng I had time to go home and take a shower, to wash off the taint.There was a slick oiliness to Jade's crowd that should have had a smell to it, the same way I've alwaysbelieved snakes should have a smell to them. I didn't want to have anything to do with them, but thewheels were turning now. The old familiar buzz of anxious excitement in my head. Familiar, not altogetherwelcome.

I'd been on the sidelines a long time. I lived one day to the next, never knowing whether I would decide I'd lived one day too many. I didn't know if I had my head together enough to do this. And if I didn't,Erin Seabright's life could hang in the balance.

If Erin Seabright still had a life.

You got rid of her, Trey Hughes had said. An innocent enough statement on the face of it. A figure of speech. And from a man who didn't even know what day it was. Still, it struck a nerve.

I didn't know if I should trust my instincts, they'd been so long out of use. And look what happened the last time I trusted them, I thought. My instincts, my choice, and the consequences. All bad.

But it wouldn't be my action that did the damage this time. It would be inaction. The inaction of Erin Seabright's mother, of the Sheriff's Office.

Someone had to do something. These people Erin Seabright had known and worked for were far too dismissive when it came to the subject of her, and far too cavalier when it came to the subject of death.

The address Molly had given me as Erin's was a three-car garage some entrepreneurial sort had converted into rental property. Geographically, it was only a few miles from the Seabright home in Binks Forest. In every other respect it was in another world.

Rural Loxahatchee, where the side roads are dirt and the ditches never drain; where no one had ever met a building code they wouldn't ignore. A strange mix of run-down places, new middle-cla.s.s homes, and small horse properties. A place where people nailed signs to tree trunks along the road advertising everything from "Make $$$ in Your Own Home" to "Puppies for Sale" to "Dirt Cheap Stump Grinding."

The property where Erin had lived was overgrown with tall pines and scrubby, stunted palm trees. The main house was a pseudo-Spanish ranch style, circa mid-seventies. The white stucco had gone gray with mildew. The yard consisted of dirty sand fill and anemic, sun-starved gra.s.s. An older maroon Honda sat off to one side on the driveway, filthy and dotted with hardened gobs of pine sap. It looked like it hadn't gone anywhere in a long while.

I went to the front door and rang the bell, hoping no one would be at home in the middle of the day. I would have been much happier letting myself into the garage-c.u.m-guest house. I'd had enough human interaction to last me the day. I swatted a mosquito on my forearm and waited, then rang the bell a second time.

A voice like a rusty hinge called out: "I'm around the back!"

Small brown geckos darted out of my path and into the overgrown landscaping as I walked around the side of the garage. Around the back of the house was the obligatory pool. The screened cage that had been erected to keep bugs out of the patio area was shredded in sections as if by a giant paw. The door was flung wide on broken hinges.

The woman who stood in the doorway was long past the age and shape anyone would care to see her in a two-piece swimming suit, but that was what she was wearing. Flab and sagging skin hung on her bent frame like a collection of half-deflated leather balloons.

"What can I do for you, honey?" she asked. A New York transplant in giant Jackie-O sungla.s.ses. She must have been pus.h.i.+ng seventy, and appeared to have spent sixty-eight of those years sunbathing. Her skin was as brown and mottled as the skin of the lizards that lived in her yard. She was smoking a cigarette and had two hugely fat ginger cats on leashes. I was momentarily stunned to silence by the sight of her.

"I'm looking for my niece," I said at last. "Erin Seabright. She lives here, right?"

She nodded, dropped her cigarette b.u.t.t, and ground it out with the toe of her aqua neoprene scuba diver's boot. "Erin. The pretty one. Haven't seen her for a couple of days, darling." "No? Neither has her family. We're getting kind of worried." The woman pursed her lips and waved my concern away. "Bah! She's probably off with the boyfriend." "Boyfriend? We didn't know she had a boyfriend." "What a surprise," she said sarcastically. "A teenage girl who doesn't tell her family anything. I thought they were on the outs, though. I heard them fighting out in the yard one night."

"When was that?"

"Last week. I don't know. Thursday or Friday maybe." She shrugged. "I'm retired. What do I know