Clutching the video camera against me, I tried to run toward him, my legs like rubber, weak from effort and relief.
“Elena!”
He grabbed me by the shoulders and pulled me along with him, dragging me away from the burning trailer toward Paris Montgomery’s patio.
“Jesus Christ,” he breathed, sitting me in a chair, going over me with his eyes, with his hands. His hands were trembling. “I thought you were in there.”
“I was,” I said, coughing. “Chad Seabright set the fire. He’s in this with Paris and Erin. Did you get him? Did you get them?”
He shook his head. “No one in the house but her dog.” The Jack Russell was at the patio doors bouncing up and down like a ball as it barked incessantly.
Sirens screamed at the front of the house. A deputy came running around the side of the garage. Landry went to meet him, holding up his shield. As I sat coughing the smoke out of my lungs, I watched him motion toward the house. The deputy nodded and drew his weapon.
“Are you hurt?” he asked me as he came back and crouched down in front of me again. He touched my cheek where the paint can had struck me. I couldn’t feel it, didn’t know if any damage had been done. I guessed not as Landry moved on, inspecting me.
“I broke my finger,” I said, holding up my right hand. He took the hand gently and looked at the finger. “I’ve had worse.”
“You goddam knothead,” he muttered. “Why didn’t you wait for me?”
“If I had waited for you, Chad would have burned the place—”
“Without you in it!” he said, standing. He paced a little circle in front of me. “You never should have gone in there, Elena! You could have compromised evidence—”
“We would have ended up with nothing!” I shouted back, pushing to my feet.
“We?” he said, stepping into my space, trying to intimidate me.
I stood fast. “It’s my case. I brought you into it. That makes
we.
Don’t even think of trying to shove me out again, Landry. I’m in this for Molly, and if it turns out her sister was a willing participant in this thing, I’m going to strangle Erin Seabright with my own two hands. Then you can put me in prison and I’ll be out of your way for the next twenty-five years.”
“You were almost out of my way permanently!” he yelled, swinging an arm in the direction of the fire. “You think that’s what I want?”
“It’s what everybody in the SO wants!”
“No!” he shouted. “No! Me. Look at me. That’s not what I want.”
We were toe to toe. I glared up into his face. He stared at me, his expression slowly, slowly softening.
“No,” he whispered. “No, Elena. I don’t want you out of my life.”
For one rare moment, I didn’t know what to say.
“You scared the hell out of me,” he said softly.
Likewise, I thought, only I meant in the present tense. Instead, I went back to the other topic. “You said you’d share. My case first.”
Landry nodded. “Yes. . . . Yes, I did.”
Trucks from the Loxahatchee fire department arrived, the lead truck barreling into the backyard. I watched the firemen leap to action as impassively as if they were on a movie screen, then looked down at my hands. I still held the video camera. I held it out to Landry.
“I saved this. You’ll get fingerprints.”
“This was where they held her?” he asked, looking back at the trailer.
“Chad said Erin was in on it at first, but that Paris turned against her. But if Paris turned against her, why isn’t she dead?”
“I guess we’ll have to ask Paris that question,” he said. “And Erin. Do you know what Paris is driving?”
“A dark green Infiniti. Chad has a black Toyota pickup. And he’s missing an eye. He might turn up at a hospital.”
Landry arched a brow. “Missing an eye? You gouged out his eye?”
I shrugged and looked away, the horrible image still so strong in my mind it turned my stomach. “A girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do.”
He rubbed a hand over his mouth and shook his head. “You’re some kind of tough, Estes.”
I’m sure I didn’t look tough in that moment. The weight of the emerging truth of the case was weighing down on me. The adrenaline rush of the near-death experience had passed.
“Come here,” Landry said.
I looked up at him and he touched my face with his hand—the right side, the side that I could feel. I felt it all the way to the heart of me.
“I’m glad you didn’t die,” he murmured. I had the feeling he wasn’t talking about now, about the trailer.
“Me, too,” I said, leaning my head against his shoulder. “Me, too.”
52
Landry put an APB out
for Paris Montgomery and Chad Seabright. All county and state units on the road would be on the lookout for the money-green Infiniti and Chad’s Toyota pickup. Additional alerts had gone to the Coast Guard, and to the West Palm Beach and Fort Lauderdale airports, as well as to all small airports in the vicinity.
One of the reasons south Florida has always been a conduit for drugs is the fact that there are many ways in and out, and a quick exit can take you to another country in short order. Paris Montgomery knew a lot of people in the horse business, a lot of very wealthy people, people who owned planes and boats.
And she knew one who was shipping horses to Europe that very night: Tomas Van Zandt.
“Has he been located?” I asked Landry. We sat in his car in the front yard of Paris Montgomery’s rented house.
“No. Armedgian’s guys scored the fuckup of the century there.”
I told him about the horses flying to Europe. “My bet is they both try getting out of the country tonight.”
“We’ve alerted the airlines,” Landry said.
“You don’t understand. Flying cargo is a whole different ball game. If you ever want a good scare thinking about terrorism, fly transatlantic with a bunch of horses sometime.”
“Great. Weiss and the feds can go sit on the cargo terminal.”
The Loxahatchee fire chief approached the car as Landry reached for his cell phone. He was a tall man with a heavy mustache. Out from under the gear, I imagined he would be slender as a post.
“Treat it as a crime scene, chief,” Landry said out the window.
“Right. Arson.”
“That too. Have you located the owner of the property?”
“No, sir. The owner is out of the country. I’ve contacted the property management company. They’ll get in touch with the owner.”
“Which property management company?” I asked.
The chief leaned down to look across at me. “Gryphon Property Management. Wellington.”
I looked at Landry as his cell phone rang. “Time to have another chat with Bruce. Is he still in custody?”
“No. They cut him loose. Landry,” he said into the phone. The muscles in his face tightened and his brows pulled low. “What the hell do you mean, gone? Where was the fucking guard?”
Erin,
I thought.
“When?” he demanded. “Well, that’s just fucking fantastic. Tell that deputy when he gets his head out of his ass, I’m gonna rip it off his shoulders and shout down the hole!”
He snapped the phone shut and looked at me. “Erin’s gone. Someone set a fire in a trash can on the other side of the nurses’ station and the deputy at her door left his post. When he came back, she was gone.”
“She’s with Chad.”
“And they’re running.” Landry started the car. “I’ll drop you at the emergency room. I’ve got to roll.”
“Leave me at my car,” I said. “I’ll drive myself.”
“Elena . . .”
“It’s a finger, Landry. I’m not going to die of it.”
He heaved a sigh and closed his mouth.
I
t was a slow night in the ER. My finger was x-rayed and found to be dislocated rather than broken. The doctor shot my hand full of lidocaine and manipulated the finger back into a straight line. I refused the cumbersome splint in favor of taping the finger to its neighbor. He handed me a prescription for painkillers. I gave it back.
On my way out I stopped at the desk and asked if anyone had come in with a severe eye injury. The clerk told me no.
I checked my watch as I walked out of the hospital. Five hours until Van Zandt’s plane left for Kennedy Airport, then on to Brussels.
Every uniform in Palm Beach County was looking for him, looking for Paris, looking for Chad and Erin. Meanwhile, Don Jade was out on bail, and Trey Hughes had written the check.
It all revolved around Trey Hughes—the land deal, Stellar, Erin—and to my knowledge, no one was looking for him. I went in search. If he was at the center of it all, maybe he held the key.
Last I’d known, Trey had a house in the Polo Club, a gated community near the show grounds that caters to horse people with money. I headed in that direction, taking the back streets that would swing me past Fairfields on the way.
The gate stood open at Lucky Dog Farm. I could make out the shape of a car near the construction boss’s trailer. I turned in and my headlights washed over the back of Trey’s classic Porsche. I killed the engine and got out, the Glock in my left hand.
The only light I could see was the big security light on the pole, but somewhere nearby Jimmy Buffett was singing a song about the joys of irresponsibility.
I followed the sound, walking the length of the huge, dark stables, and around the end. A second-story balcony ran the length of the building, overlooking the jumping field. Candles and lanterns illuminated the scene. I could see Trey dancing, the end of his omnipresent cigarette a glowing orange dot in the dark.
“Come on up, honey!” he called. “I thought you’d never get here! I started the party without you.”
I climbed the stairs, keeping my eyes on him. He was high. On what, I couldn’t know. Cocaine had been his thing in the eighties. It was making a comeback when I’d checked out of the Narcotics division. Nostalgia among the tragically hip.
“What are we celebrating, Trey?” I asked as I stepped onto the balcony.
“My illustrious and stellar life,” he said, still dancing. He held a bottle of tequila in one hand. His aloha shirt hung open over a pair of khaki pants. He was barefoot.
“Stellar,” he said, and started to laugh. “What a bad joke! Shocking!”
The song ended and he fell back against the railing and took a long pull on the bottle.
“Were you expecting me?” I asked.
“No, actually I was expecting someone else. But you know, it doesn’t really matter, does it?”
“I don’t know, Trey. I think it might—depending on your reasons. You were expecting Paris?”
He rubbed his face, tiny embers of cigarette ash floating around his head like fireflies. “That’s right. You’re the private eye, now. The gumshoe. The private dick—or is that politically incorrect? It really should be private pussy, shouldn’t it?”
“I don’t think Paris will be here tonight, Trey. She’s been unavoidably detained.”
“Yeah? What’s she up to?”
“Running from the law,” I said. “She and Chad Seabright tried to kill me today.”
He squinted at me, waiting for the punch line. “Honey, what have you been smoking?”
“Come on, Trey. You’ve been to her place a hundred times. I know about your affair. Don’t try to tell me you don’t know anything about the trailer, about Erin.”
“Erin? Somebody kidnapped her. The whole fucking world’s going to hell on a sled.”
I shook my head. “It was all a play. Didn’t you know? A play for you.”
I could see his face in the candlelight. He was trying to find his way through the fog in his brain. Either he didn’t know what I was talking about, or he wanted to convince himself he didn’t know.
“A three-act play,” I said. “Deceit, double-crosses, sex, murder. Shakespeare would have been proud. I don’t know the whole script yet, but it begins with a quest for the holy land—Lucky Dog Farm—and its king—you.”
The last of his puzzled smile faded away.
“Here’s what I know so far: The story opens with a girl named Paris who wants very much to be queen. So much so that she plots to ruin the one person standing between her and the fulfillment of her dreams: Don Jade.
“It shouldn’t be that hard to do, she thinks, because he’s already got a bad reputation. People are ready to believe the worst about him. They’ll believe he would kill a jumper who wouldn’t bring top dollar. Insurance fraud? He’s done it before and gotten away with it.
“His groom disappears. He’s the last person to see her. Turns out she’s been kidnapped. And when she gets away, who does she name as one of her abductors? Don Jade.
“Surely, Paris thinks, now Trey will dump him. Jade will be in prison soon, at any rate. And she’ll become queen of Lucky Dog Farm.”
“That’s not a very funny story,” Trey said. He put his cigarette out on the cast stone railing and flicked the butt out into the night.
“No. It isn’t. And it’s not going to have a happy ending either,” I said. “Did you think that it would?”
“You know me, Ellie. I try not to think. I’m just a Dixie cup on the sea of life.”
He sniffed and rubbed his face again. A round patio table squatted like a mushroom in front of an open set of French doors that led into a dark room. A dozen candles burning on the table spilled their light over a glass tray of cocaine that had been cut into lines. Near the tray lay a .32 caliber Beretta pistol.
“What’s the gun for, Trey?” I asked, reassured by the weight of my own weapon—even if it was in the wrong hand.
“Rats,” he said, digging another cigarette out of his pocket. He flicked a lighter and took a drag, exhaling into the night sky. “Maybe a little Russian roulette later.”
“That’ll be a very short game,” I said. “That’s an automatic weapon.”
He smiled and shrugged. “The story of my life: stuck in a rigged game.”
“Yeah, you’ve got it hard. How much did you inherit when Sallie died? Eighty million? A hundred?”
“With a string attached to every one,” he said.
“They don’t seem to be holding you back from spending.”
“No.”
He turned and looked out at the property, nothing to see but a patchwork in varying shades of black.
“Why did you bail Jade out, Trey? Why did you get him Shapiro?” I asked, moving to stand down the railing from him.
He flashed a smile. “Because your father was unavailable.”
“You’ve never been more loyal than a tomcat your whole life. Why stick by Don Jade?”
“He made me what I am today,” he said with another crooked smile.
“He killed Sallie, didn’t he?” I said. “You were with Michael Berne’s wife, fucking your alibi, and Jade was at the house, hiding in the shadows. . . . And now you can’t walk away.”
“Why would I walk away from all this?” he asked, spreading his arms wide. The cigarette bounced on his lip. “I’m king of the world!”
“No, Trey,” I said. “You were right the first time. You’re the sad clown. You had it all. And you’re going to end up with nothing.”
“You know a little something about that, don’t you, Ellie?” he said.
“I know all about it. But I’m climbing out of that hole, Trey, and you’re going to end up buried in it.”
I pulled my phone off the pocket of my jeans and tried to dial Landry’s number, my right hand awkward, still half-numb and under the numbness a hot, throbbing pain waiting to come fully to life. Landry needed to know Trey had been expecting Paris. She had probably thought to come to him for a car the cops wouldn’t be on the lookout for. Perhaps she thought to come to him for money to live on in Europe. Or perhaps she would try to convince Trey to go with her. Wealthy fugitives on the lam in Europe’s glamour capitals.
I took a couple of steps back from Trey, switching hands with phone and gun, my eyes on him, the pathetic playboy, Peter Pan corrupted utterly by time and self-indulgence.
Landry’s line was ringing as Paris Montgomery came out of the darkness beyond the open French doors. Without hesitation, she scooped the Beretta off the patio table and pointed it right at my face.