Dark Horse (40 page)

58

All I could say
to Molly as I hugged her tight was that it was over.
It’s over. It’s over. It’s over
. But that was a lie of such grand proportions, all lies that had come before it were dwarfed in comparison. Nothing was over for Molly, except having a family.

Krystal, fragile in the best of times, had shattered under the pressure. She blamed her husband for what she believed had happened to Erin. The kidnapping, the rape. Landry told me she had suspected Bruce of sending Paris Montgomery to her to rent the Loxahatchee house where the whole drama had been staged.

She had reached her limit. In the end, one might have tried to put a nobler face on it and said Krystal had defended her daughter, had taken revenge for her. Sadly, I didn’t believe that at all. I believed killing Bruce had been punishment not for ruining her daughter, but for ruining her fairy tale.

I only ever wanted a nice life.

I wondered whether Krystal would have stayed with Bruce if she had found out that what they had all been put through had been orchestrated at least in part by her daughter. I suspected she would have put the blame squarely on Erin and no one else. She would have found a way to excuse Bruce’s sins and keep her pretty life intact.

The human mind has an amazing capacity for rationalization.

Landry sent Krystal to the Sheriff’s Office in a cruiser, then drove Molly and me to Sean’s farm. Not a word was said about calling Child Protective Services, which was standard operating procedure in a case like Molly’s.

We rode in silence most of the way, drained of our emotions and our energies, weighed down by the magnitude of what had gone on. The only sound in the car was the crackle of Landry’s radio. An old familiar noise for me. For a moment I felt as nostalgic for it as I ever had for any song from my adolescence.

As we turned in at the Avadonis gate, Landry used his cell phone to call Weiss at the airport. There was still no sign of Van Zandt, and the plane was ready to taxi onto the runway.

Exhausted, Molly had fallen asleep leaning against me in the backseat. Landry scooped her out and carried her into the guest house. I led the way to the second small bedroom, thinking what an odd family unit we made.

“Poor kid,” he said as he and I walked back outside onto the little patio. “She’ll grow up in a hurry.”

“She’s already done that,” I said, sitting down sideways on a delicate iron chaise with a thick cushion. “That one was a child for a minute and a half. Do you have kids?”

“Me? No.” Landry sat beside me. “You?”

“Always seemed like a bad idea to me. I’ve watched too many people screw it up. I know how badly that hurts.”

I knew he was watching me, trying to read into me, into my words. I looked up at the stars and marveled at the vulnerability I had just shown him.

“Molly’s great, though,” I said. “Figures. She raised herself watching the Discovery Channel and A and E.”

“I was married once,” Landry offered. “And I lived with a woman for a while. It didn’t work out. You know: the job, the hours, I’m difficult. Blah, blah, blah.”

“I never tried. Go straight to ‘I’m difficult. Blah, blah, blah.’ ”

He smiled wearily and produced a cigarette and a lighter from his pocket.

“Car pack?” I asked.

“Gotta get that corpse taste out.”

“I used to drink,” I confessed. “To cleanse the palate.”

“But you quit?”

“I gave up everything that could dull pain.”

“Why?”

“Because I believed I deserved to hurt. Punishment. Penance. Purgatory. Call it what you like.”

“Stupid,” Landry proclaimed. “You’re not God, Estes.”

“A welcome relief to all true believers, I’m sure. Maybe I thought I should beat Him to the punch.”

“You made a mistake,” he said. “I don’t believe the Pope is infallible either.”

“Heretic.”

“I’m just saying, you’ve got too much good in you to let one bad mistake shut it all down.”

The half smile tugged at the corner of my mouth. “I know,” I said. “I know that now. Thanks to Molly.”

Landry glanced back over his shoulder at the house. “What are you going to tell her about Erin?”

“The truth,” I said on a sigh. “She won’t stand for anything less.”

The prospect drove me to my feet. As exhausted as I was, still I was restless, frustrated at the injustices of Molly Seabright’s life and the inadequacy of my people skills. Crossing my arms against the damp night air, I walked to the edge of the patio.

“On the first day of this, I remember thinking Molly was about to get a lesson in life. That she would learn the way everyone learns that she can’t count on anyone but herself in this world: by being let down by someone she loved and trusted. I wish now I could change that for her.”

Landry came to stand beside me. “You can,” he said. “You have. She trusts you, Elena. You haven’t let her down. You won’t.”

I wished I could have been that certain of myself.

His pager went off. He checked the number, pulled his phone off his belt, and returned the call.

“Landry.”

I watched his face, sensed his tension.

When he ended the call he turned to me and said, “Erin and Chad were picked up on Alligator Alley, halfway to Venice. She’s claiming Chad abducted her.”

59

You’re eighteen,”
Landry said. “In the eyes of the law, you’re an adult. You made bad choices that have big consequences, and now you’re going to pay. The question is, are you going to take the big fall, or are you going to try to make life easier for all of us?”

Chad Seabright stared at the wall. A heavy gauze patch covered the socket where his left eye had been. “I can’t believe any of this is happening,” he muttered.

A state trooper had spotted Chad’s pickup speeding on the highway known as Alligator Alley, the road that connected Florida’s east coast with the Gulf Coast. A chase had ensued. A roadblock had eventually stopped them. The pair had been returned to the gracious accommodations of the Palm Beach County justice system, where both of them had been seen and treated in the infirmary.

Now they sat in back-to-back interview rooms, each wondering what story the other was telling.

Had Bruce Seabright survived, Landry did not doubt that Chad would have had a lawyer the caliber of Bert Shapiro sitting at his elbow. But Bruce Seabright was dead, and Chad had taken the first public defender out of the pool.

Assistant State’s Attorney Roca tapped her pen on the table impatiently. “You’d better start talking, Chad. Your girlfriend has been telling us quite a tale in the other room. How you kidnapped her to extort money from your father. We have the videotape of you beating her.”

“I think I should see that tape,” the public defender said.

Roca looked at him. “It’s quite convincing. She’ll be a very sympathetic witness.”

“That’s a lie,” Chad said, sulking, petulant, scared. “Erin wouldn’t do that to me.”

“Wouldn’t do what?” Landry asked. “Tell us how you grabbed her out of the hospital while the guard was trying to put out the fire you set?”

Chad shook his head emphatically.

“You don’t think Erin would tell us how you raped her and kept her doped up on ketamine?” Roca said.

The public defender sat there like a toad, his mouth opening and closing, no words coming out.

Landry sighed and stood up. “You know, I’ve just about had it with this,” he said to Roca. “This little shit wants to take the fall. Fine. Let him rot. His father was an asshole. He’s an asshole. Get him out of the gene pool. Go make a deal with the girl. You know a jury will get out the hankies for her.”

Roca pretended to consider, then looked to the PD. “Talk to your client. The charges are going to be a potpourri of felonies: kidnapping, rape, attempted murder, arson—”

“I never raped anybody,” Chad said. “I only went to that trailer yesterday to help Erin.”

“To destroy evidence for her because she was the mastermind of the whole plot?” Roca said.

Chad closed his eye and tipped his head back. “I
told
you: Erin told me she was in it to start, but Paris turned on her. I didn’t have anything to do with it! None of this is my fault. I was just trying to help Erin. Why should I be punished for that?”

Landry leaned across the table, looming over him. “People are dead, Junior. You tried to kill a friend of mine. You’re going away.”

Chad put his head in his hands and started to cry. “It wasn’t my fault!”

“And what about the tape we took out of your father’s home office, Chad? The tape showing the alleged rape. The tape that was conveniently left on a bookshelf. How did it get there?”

“I don’t know!”

“I do,” Landry said. “You put it there.”

“I didn’t! I didn’t have anything to do with it!”

Landry sighed in disgust. “Well, you know what, Chad? I know for a fact that you did. You can either take responsibility and do yourself a favor here, or you can dig that hole deeper with every lie that comes out of your mouth.”

He went to the one-way mirror in the wall, raised the blinds, and flicked a switch on the intercom.

Roca stood up. “Think about it, gentlemen. The best deal goes first. He who hesitates loses.”

W
hy would Chad take you from the hospital, Erin?” Landry asked.

“He must have been the other one,” the girl said in a voice as weak as a kitten’s. She kept her eyes downcast, as if she were afraid or ashamed. Tears fell like tiny crystal beads down her cheeks. “He must have been the other kidnapper. That must be why he never talked. He knew I would know it was him.”

“And so he walked into your hospital room in broad daylight, and kidnapped you a second time so you couldn’t tell anyone how you couldn’t identify him in the first place?” Landry said.

She put a trembling hand over her mouth and cried. Her public defender, a plump motherly woman named Maria Onjo, patted her on the shoulder.

Landry watched impassively. “Chad tells us you and he are in love. That you went with him willingly.”

Erin’s jaw dropped. “No! That’s not true! I— We—had a relationship for a while. Before I moved out of the house.” She shook her head at her own stupidity. “We only did it to make Bruce crazy. He couldn’t stand the idea of his perfect boy involved with me,” she said bitterly. “Chad was furious when I broke it off with him. He told me. He told me he wouldn’t let me go.”

Maria Onjo offered her a box of tissues.

“Erin,” Roca said. “Chad claims you were in on the kidnapping, not him. That the whole thing was a play to discredit Don Jade, and to embarrass and extort money from your stepfather, and that things got out of hand.”

“Out of hand?” Erin said, incredulous and angry. “They raped me!”

“And you didn’t notice that one of them was Chad?” Landry said. “The guy you’d been involved with, slept with.”

“They kept me drugged! I told you that. Why won’t you believe me?”

“It might have something to do with the fact that the doctor who examined you the night you came in couldn’t conclusively say you’d been raped.”

“What? But—but— You saw the tape.”

“Oh, I saw it,” Landry said. “It was horrible, brutal, vicious. And if it was real, you should have had massive bruising and tearing in your vagina. You didn’t.”

Her expression was that of someone trapped in a nightmare. “I can’t believe this is happening to me,” she murmured to herself. “They beat me. They raped me. Look at me!”

She shoved her sleeves up to show the red welts the whip had left.

“Yeah,” Landry said. “That’s very convincing. So, you’re telling us Don Jade and Chad were partners in your kidnapping, along with Paris Montgomery. How does Chad know Don?”

“I don’t know.”

“And why would he be partners with the man who stole you away from him?” Landry asked. “I don’t get that.”

He could see her frustration level rising. Her breathing was becoming shallow and rapid.

The PD gave Landry a glare. “You can’t expect Erin to make your entire case for you, Detective. She can’t know the minds of the people involved in this.”

“I don’t know about that, Ms. Onjo. Erin was intimate with Chad, worked for Don Jade, claimed to be in love with him. Seems to me if anyone could know the answer to these questions, it would be Erin.”

Onjo patted the girl on the back. “Erin, you don’t have to do this at all—”

“I haven’t done anything wrong!” Erin said to her. “I don’t have anything to hide. It wasn’t my fault!”

Landry looked at Roca and rolled his eyes. “So how did Chad hook up with Jade, Erin? As far as I can see, the only thing Don Jade and Chad Seabright have in common is knowing you. I can’t picture them being friends.”

“Ask them!” she snapped. “Maybe they fell for each other. I wouldn’t know.”

“And they were both in on it with Paris Montgomery, right? They held you in a trailer in her backyard.”

Erin put her face in her hands. “I don’t know!”

“Erin is the victim in this,” Onjo said. “She’s the last person who should be sitting in jail.”

“That’s not what Chad is saying,” Roca said. “That’s not what Paris is saying. They’re both saying the kidnapping was Erin’s idea. Paris came up with the plot to kill the horse and implicate Jade. Erin pushed her to fake the kidnapping to extort money from her stepfather and drive a wedge between Seabright and her mother, as well as to implicate Jade in a crime that would ruin his career.”

“And you know what?” Landry said. “That story makes a lot more sense to me than Chad and Jade as sociopathic secret bisexual lovers.”

“This is a nightmare!” Erin sobbed. “They
raped
me!”

Landry sighed, got up, stretched his shoulders, rubbed his face. “I’m just having a hard time with that, Erin.”

Onjo pushed her chair back and stood up. She was no taller standing than sitting. “This is barbaric, and it’s over.” She called to the guard outside the door.

“You’re not going to stay for the movie?” Landry asked, gesturing toward the television and VCR on a metal cart in a corner of the room.

Onjo scowled at him. “What are you talking about? What movie?”

“They made videos,” Erin said. “They made me do things. It was horrible.”

“I don’t think they made this one for public consumption,” Roca said. “You may want to reconsider your strategy, Erin. I tend to give the best deal to the person telling me the fewest lies.”

Landry pushed the play button on the VCR.

“You’re a very talented actress, Ms. Seabright,” he said. “If you hadn’t turned to a life of crime, you might have made it all the way to triple-X porn.”

The tape was a copy of the one that had been in the video camera Elena had saved from the trailer. Behind the scenes of the alleged kidnapping. Outtakes. The actors rehearsing.

The image that filled the television screen was of Erin posing suggestively on the bed, smiling seductively at the camera. The same bed she had been chained to in the videos that had been sent to Bruce Seabright. The same bed she had huddled into in the video that showed her taking a beating so brutal, even hardened cops had been shocked to see it.

Maria Onjo watched the tape, the color in her face draining away with her defense.

Erin looked from her attorney to Landry. “They made me do that. I had to do exactly what they said or they beat me!” she cried. “You think I
wanted
to do that?”

Her own image stared out at her from the television screen as she touched herself between her legs, then licked her fingers.

“Yeah,” Landry said. “I do.”

A male voice in the background on the tape mumbled something, then he and Erin both laughed.

Erin shoved her chair back from the table and got up to pace. A caged, cornered, angry little animal. “I had to play along,” she said. “I was afraid they would kill me! What is wrong with you people? Why won’t you believe me? It was Chad. I know that now. He was punishing me.”

Something struck the one-way mirror from the back side. Erin and Onjo jumped. Landry looked at Roca.

On the screen, Chad Seabright walked around in front of the video camera and joined Erin on the bed. They kneeled face-to-face on the stained mattress.

“How do you like it, baby?” he asked.

Erin looked up at him and smiled like a vixen. “You know how I like it. I like it rough.”

They both started to laugh. Two kids having fun. Actors rehearsing.

Landry glanced over at the one-way mirror, nodding to someone on the other side, then went to the door and opened it on the excuse of telling something to the guard outside.

“You fucking bitch!” Chad Seabright screamed into the room as a deputy pulled him past in handcuffs. Seabright tried to jerk away, lunging toward the interview room. “I loved you! I loved you!”

He tried to spit at her from ten feet away. Landry stepped to the side, frowning in distaste.

“Some people just aren’t well brought up,” he commented as he closed the door.

Onjo puffed up. “This is outrageous! Terrorizing my client with her attacker—”

“Give it up, Counselor,” Roca said wearily. “A jury takes one look at this tape, and your client can kiss her movie future good-bye.”

“I want a deal!” Chad shouted. “I want a deal!”

Erin jumped up from her chair. “Shut up! Shut up!”

“I did it for you! I loved you!”

Erin glared at him with venomous disdain. “You stupid fucking idiot.”

L
andry went out onto the sidewalk to stand in the hot afternoon sun and smoke a cigarette. He had to get the taste of other people’s lies out of his mouth, burn out the stink of what they had done.

Chad Seabright had copped to everything, giving up his claims of innocence in order to hurt Erin. He claimed Erin had come to him with the plan. They would fake her kidnapping, and collect the ransom from Bruce Seabright. If he didn’t pay one way, he would pay another: with his reputation, with his marriage. At the same time, Don Jade would be implicated and ruined, and Paris Montgomery would get what she wanted—Jade’s business and Trey Hughes’ stables.

A simple plan.

The three of them had sat down together and come up with the scripts for the videotapes as if they were shooting a movie for a film class. According to Chad, the beating had been Erin’s idea. She had insisted he actually strike her with the whip for the sake of realism.

It was Erin’s idea. It was Paris Montgomery’s idea. It wasn’t Chad’s fault.

Nothing was ever anybody’s fault.

Chad had been deceived and used by Erin. He was an innocent. Erin’s mother hadn’t raised her right. Bruce Seabright didn’t love her. Paris Montgomery had brainwashed her.

Paris Montgomery had yet to be questioned, but Landry would eventually have to listen to her while she cried and told him how her father made her play the skin flute when she was three, and how she lost out on being the homecoming queen in high school, and how that all warped her.

Chad claimed not to know anything about Tomas Van Zandt or about the death of Jill Morone. Landry figured that would turn out not to be anyone’s fault either.

What Landry wanted to know was: If nothing was ever anybody’s fault, then how was it people ended up murdered, orphaned, lives destroyed? Paris Montgomery and Erin Seabright and Chad Seabright had made decisions that had ruined people’s lives, ended people’s lives. How was all that nobody’s fault?