Dark Horse

30

He must be rounder, softer in the downward transitions."

Van Zandt had parked along the road-a dark blue Chevy, not the Mercedes-and stood leaning on the fence, watching me. My stomach flipped at the sight of him. I had hoped to next see him-if not on the news, being taken into custody by the authorities-at the equestrian center in a throng of humanity.

He climbed carefully over the board fence and came toward the ring, his eyes hidden by mirrored sunglasses, his expression flat and calm. I thought he still looked ill, and wondered if it was killing that upset his system, or the danger of being caught. Or perhaps it was the idea of having a loose end dangling. Me.

I glanced at the parking area adjacent to the barn. Irina's car was gone. She had left while I'd been engrossed in my ride.

I hadn't seen any sign of Sean. If he had returned home from his night out, he was sleeping late.

"You must be looser in your back so that the horse may be looser in his back," Van Zandt said.

I wondered if he knew, and knew in a fatalistic corner of my soul that he did. The possibilities ticked through my mind as they had every hour since my blunder at the town house: He had found the prescription and recognized my name from Sidelines, or Lorinda Carlton had recognized the name. The magazine might have been in the town house somewhere. They might have looked at the photograph together. Van Zandt might have recognized the horse, or my profile, or put the puzzle pieces together from the mention of Sean's farm. He might have found the jacket and the prescription, assumed Elena Estes was a cop conducting a search while he'd been in the interview room with Landry; called his attorney and asked to have the name checked out. Shapiro would have recognized my name.

It didn't matter how he might have found me out. What mattered was what he was going to do about it. If he knew I had been in his home Saturday night, then he knew I had seen the bloody shirt. I wished now I had kept the thing and damned the admissibility consequences. At least he would be in jail for the moment, and I would not be alone with a man I believed to be a murderer.

"Try again," he said. "Pick up the canter."

"We were just finishing for the day."

"Americans," he said with disdain, standing at the edge of the ring with his hands on his hips. "He is hardly warm. The work is only just beginning. Pick up the canter."

My natural inclination was to defy him, but staying aboard the horse seemed preferable to a level playing field where he had six inches and sixty pounds on me. At least until I could get a better read on him and what he may or may not know, it seemed best to humor him.

"On the twenty-meter circle," Van Zandt instructed.

I put the horse on a circle twenty meters in diameter, tried to breathe and focus, though my hands were so tight on the reins, I thought I could feel my pulse in them. I closed my eyes for two strides, exhaling and sinking into the saddle.

"Relax your hands. Why are you so tense, Elle?" he asked in a silky voice that made a chill go down my back. "The horse can sense this. It makes him also tense. More seat, less hand."

I made an attempt to react accordingly.

"What brings you out so early?"

"Aren't you happy to see me?" he asked.

"I would have been happy to see you at dinner last night. You stood me up. That doesn't win you any points with me."

"I was unavoidably detained."

"Taken to a desert island? A place with no phones? Even the police let you make a phone call."

"Is that where you think I was? With the police?"

"I'm sure I don't know or care."

"I left word with the maître d'. I couldn't call you. You have not given me your number," he said, then changed tones in the next breath. "Collect, collect, collect!" he demanded. "More energy, less speed. Come! Sit into him!"

I gathered the horse beneath me until I held him nearly on the spot, his feet pounding the sand in three-beat time. "Are you trying to make up to me with a free riding lesson?"

"Nothing is free, Elle," he said. "Carry him into the walk. Like setting down a feather."

I did as instructed-or tried to, rather-and failed because of my tension.

"Don't let him fall out of the gait that way!" Van Zandt shouted. "Is your horse to be on its forehand?"

"No."

"Then why did you let this happen?"

The implied answer was that I was stupid.

"Again! Canter! And more energy in the transition, not less!"

We went through the exercise again and again. Each time, something was not quite worthy, and that something was glaringly my fault. Sweat became lather on D'Artagnon's massive neck. My T-shirt was soaked through. My back muscles began to cramp. My arms were so tired, they trembled.

I began to question my wisdom. I couldn't stay on the horse all day, and by the time I got off, I was going to flop on the ground, limp, boneless, like a jellyfish washed ashore. For his part, Van Zandt was punishing me, and I knew he was enjoying it.

"… and make him float into the walk like a snowflake landing."

Again I brought the horse to the walk, holding my breath in anticipation of another outburst.

"Better," he said grudgingly.

"Enough," I said, letting the reins out to the buckle. "Are you trying to kill me?"

"Why would I do such a thing to you, Elle? We are friends, are we not?"

"I thought so."

"I thought so too."

Past tense. Intentional, I thought, not a misuse of the language that was probably third or fourth on his list.

"I called the restaurant later in the evening," he said. "The maître d' told me you never came."

"I was there. You weren't. I left," I lied. "I didn't see the maître d'. He must have been in the men's room."

Van Zandt considered the story.

"You are very good," he said.

"At what?" I watched him as I walked D'Artagnon on the circle, waiting for the gelding's breathing to slow.

"At the dressage, of course."

"You just spent half an hour screaming at me to get one decent transition."

"You need a strong coach. You are too willful."

"I don't need to be abused."

"You think I am abusive? An asshole?" he asked with a lack of emotion that was more disturbing than his usual attitude. "I believe in discipline."

"Putting me in my place?"

He didn't answer.

"What brings you out so early?" I asked again. "It couldn't be to apologize for last night."

"I have nothing to apologize for."

"You wouldn't recognize the occasion if it slapped you in the face. Did you come to see Sean about Tino? Is your client down from Virginia yet?"

"She arrived last night. Imagine her shock when she arrived at the house to interrupt an intruder."

"Someone broke into your house? That's terrible. Was anything stolen?"

"Oddly, no."

"Lucky. She wasn't hurt, was she? I saw a story on the news just the other night about an elderly couple being robbed in their home by two Haitians with machetes."

"No, she was not injured. The person ran away. Lorinda's dog gave chase through the lawns, but came back with only a jacket."

My stomach rolled again. My arms pebbled with goose bumps despite the heat.

"Where is your groom?" Van Zandt asked, looking toward the barn. "Why is she not here to take your horse?"

"Taking a coffee break," I said, wishing that were true. I watched Van Zandt's gaze go to the parking area where my BMW sat alone.

"A good idea, coffee," he said. "Put the horse in the cross-ties. We can have a cup of coffee together and make new plans."

"He needs to be hosed off."

"The Russian can do it. That's her job, not yours."

I considered picking up the reins and running him down. Easier said than done. He would be a moving target, and D'Ar would try to avoid hitting him. Even if I could knock him down, then what? I would have to go over a fence to get off the property. I didn't know if D'Artagnon would jump. He might as easily refuse at the fence and throw me.

"Come," Van Zandt ordered. He turned and started for the barn.

I didn't know if he had a weapon. I knew I did not. If I went into the building with him, he would have a big advantage.

I gathered the reins. My legs tightened around D'Artagnon's sides. He danced beneath me and blew through his nostrils.

A flash of color near the fence caught my eye and my attention. Molly. She had propped her bike and climbed through the fence, and was now running toward me.

I raised a finger to my lips in the hopes of keeping her from calling out my name. As if it mattered. My training as the child of a defense attorney: never admit anything. Even in the face of overwhelming evidence: deny, deny, deny.

Molly pulled up, looked at me, looked at Van Zandt, who had just noticed her. I climbed off D'Artagnon and held my hand out toward the girl.

"It's Miss Molly the Magnificent!" I exclaimed. "Come to call on her Auntie Elle."

Uncertainty filled her eyes, but her expression was a blank. Too much practice with volatile situations between Krystal and the men in her life. She came to me, breathing hard, her forehead shiny with sweat. I put my arm around her narrow shoulders and gave her a squeeze, wishing I could make her invisible. She was here because of me, and now because of me, she was in danger.

Van Zandt looked at her with something like disapproval. "Auntie Elle? You have family nearby?"

"Honorary Auntie," I said. My fingers tight on her arm, I said to Molly, "Molly Avadon, this my friend Mr. Van Zandt."

I didn't want Van Zandt to associate her with Erin. And I also thought it might be one thing for Van Zandt to make me disappear, but he might think twice about killing a relative of Sean's. He had to believe with the conceit of a sociopath that he had a good chance of getting away with what he'd done so far. Otherwise I thought he would already have been on a plane to Brussels or places unknown. If he still believed he could come away unscathed, he could still have a business here, could still hobnob with the rich and famous.

Molly looked again from me to Van Zandt, and said hello with cool reserve.

Van Zandt smiled a brittle smile. "Hello, Molly."

"I promised Molly we'd go to the horse show today," I said. "I'd better take a rain check on that coffee, Z. I don't see Irina, and I have to get this horse put away."

He frowned at that, considering his options.

"Let me help you, then," he said, taking D'Artagnon's reins.

Molly looked up at me with worried eyes. I thought I should tell her to slip away, to run for help. Van Zandt turned back toward us before I could do it.

"Come, Miss Molly," he said. "You are interested in horses? Like your Uncle Sean?"

"Kind of," Molly said.

"Come, then, and help with taking off this horse's boots."

"No," I said. "If she gets stepped on, it's my fault." I looked at Molly, trying to will her to read my mind. "Molly, honey, why don't you run to Uncle Sean's house and see if he's up?"

"He is not home," Van Zandt said. "I called as I was driving here. I got his machine."

"That only means he didn't answer," Molly said. Van Zandt frowned and continued on toward the barn with the horse.

I bent as if to brush a kiss against Molly's cheek and whispered in her ear, "Call nine-one-one."

She turned and ran for the main house. Van Zandt glanced over his shoulder and watched her go.

"Isn't she a doll?" I said.

He didn't comment.

We went into the barn and he put D'Artagnon into the grooming stall, removing his bridle and putting on his halter. I went to the opposite side of the horse and crouched to pull one of his boots off, keeping my feet under me and one eye on Van Zandt.

"You owe me dinner," I said.

"You owe me for a lesson."

"Are we even then?"

"I don't think so," he said. "I don't believe I'm through teaching you, Elle Stevens."

He came around the front of the horse. I moved behind the horse to the other side and bent to pull off another boot.

"You are if I say so."

"There are many kinds of lessons," he said enigmatically.

"I don't need a mentor. Thanks anyway."

I moved to the cabinet with the grooming supplies and surreptitiously pulled out a scissors. I wouldn't hesitate to stab him with it if he made a wrong move.

Maybe, I thought, I should stab him anyway-the best defense being a good offense. He was a murderer. Why run the risk of him hurting me, hurting Molly? I could step in close, shove the scissors to their hilt in his stomach at his navel. He would bleed out before he could do more than realize I'd killed him.

I would plead self-defense. The 911 call would establish I had felt in danger. Van Zandt was already known to the Sheriff's Office as a murder suspect.

I could call on my father to defend me. The press would eat it up. Father and prodigal child reunited as he fights to save her from the death chamber.

I had never purposefully taken a life. I wondered if I would feel remorse, knowing what I knew about Van Zandt.

"We could have made a good team, you and I," he said.

He moved back around the front of the horse.

I palmed the scissors and watched him come toward me.

My arms were trembling with fatigue and nerves. I wondered if I would have the strength to drive the blade into his body.

"You make it sound as if I'm never going to see you again," I said. "Are you going somewhere? Am I?"

He still had the sunglasses on. I couldn't see his eyes. His face was without expression. I didn't think he would kill me here, now. Even if he was willing to kill Molly too, he couldn't know for certain Sean wasn't in the house.

"I am not going anywhere," he said, stepping closer.

"Tomas!" Sean's voice rang down the aisle. Relief washed through me like a tidal wave, taking my strength with it. "I thought you might never come back! No one has tried to injure you this time, have they?"

"Only his pride," I said, leaning against the cabinet, setting the scissors aside. "I've denied him the joy of becoming my coach."

"Oh, my God!" Sean laughed. "Why would you want that job? She eviscerated the last one and served his remains in a spaghetti sauce with fava beans and a fine Chianti."

"She needs taming," Van Zandt said, finding a thin smile.

"And I need to be twenty again, but that's never going to happen either," Sean said, coming to me. He kissed my cheek and gave my arm a reassuring squeeze. "Darling, Molly is waiting impatiently. Why don't you run? I'll see to D'Artagnon."

"But I know you need to get going too," I said. "You have that luncheon today, don't you?"

"Yes." He gave Van Zandt a look of apology. "Riders Against Rheumatoid Rumps, or some equally worthy cause. Sorry to give you the bum's rush, Tomas. Call me tomorrow. We'll do dinner or something. Maybe when your client from Virginia arrives we could all go out."

"Of course, yes," Van Zandt said.

He came to me, put his hands on my shoulders, and kissed my cheeks. The right one, the left one, the right one. Like the Dutch. He looked at me and I thought I could feel the hate in his gaze, even through the mirrored lenses. "Until later, Elle Stevens."