Dark Horse

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.

It 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.