Elena Estes - Dark Horse Part 23

The look on his face made my stomach clutch.

"What is it?" I asked quietly, braced for the worst. And that was just what I heard.

"A girl's body has been found at the equestrian center."

There is nothing so humbling to a self-proclaimed cynic than to be so deeply affected by something as to be knocked breathless by it.

I literally felt the blood drain from my head when Landry told me about the body. He left me standing in the hall and went to tell Bruce Seabright.

Was it Erin? How had she died? Had she died because I'd failed her? What a selfish thought. If Erin wasdead, the blame went first to the perpetrator, second to Bruce Seabright. In terms of culpability, I rankedway down the list. I thought perhaps it wasn't Erin, and in the next microsecond thought it couldn't beanyone else.

"What's happened?"

Molly suddenly appeared at my side. My tongue, which was usually quicker than my brain, was stuck in my mouth.

"Is it about Erin?" she asked, frightened. "Did somebody find her?"

"We don't know." It was the truth, but it tasted like a lie, and it must have sounded like one too. Molly

took a step back from me.

"Tell me. I deserve to know. I'm not some-some stupid child everyone has to talk around and hidethings from," she said angrily. "No, you're not, Molly," I said. "But I don't want to scare you without knowing all the facts." "You already have."

"I'm sorry." I took a breath to buy a moment so I could think through my delivery of the news.

"Detective Landry just had a call from his captain. A body has been found at the equestrian center."

Her eyes went huge. "Is it Erin? Is she dead? It's because of the police. On the tape they said no police!"

"We don't know who it is, Molly," I said, taking hold of her by the shoulders. "But I can tell you, no onehas killed Erin because Landry is here. The kidnappers have no way of knowing who he is or that he'sfrom the Sheriff's Office."

"How do you know?" she demanded. "Maybe they're watching the house. Maybe the house is

bugged!" "That's not what's happened. The house is not bugged. That only happens in the movies. In real life,criminals are lazy and stupid. And whoever this dead body is, she's been dead longer than Landry hasbeen in this house," I said. "I'm going to the show grounds now. I'll let you know as soon as I find outwhat's what."

"I'm coming with you," she said stubbornly. "Absolutely not." "But she's my sister!" "And I'm doing my job. I can't have you there, Molly, for a whole list of reasons. And I don't want you there for a whole list of reasons."

"But I hate just sitting here," she argued. "Erin's in trouble. I want to help."

"If you want to help, keep your eyes open for any kind of a delivery. If the kidnappers send another

video, we need to know about it the second it lands. That's your a.s.signment. All right?"

I understood her frustration. She was the one person who had taken action to find Erin, and now she was being made to feel helpless.

"All right," she said on a sigh. I started to turn away. "Elena?"

"What?"

She looked up at me with wide eyes. "I'm really scared."

I touched her head as if I were giving some kind of benediction, wis.h.i.+ng I had that kind of power, and

knowing too well that I didn't. "I know. Hang in there. We're doing everything we can."

Landry came out of the office. Bruce Seabright did not emerge. I wondered if he was giving Krystal thenews over the intercom. "I'll call as soon as I know anything," I said to Molly, and went out the door, Landry right behind me. "Do you know where barn forty is?" he asked. "Yes. It's at the rear of the property. Follow me. I'll take you in the back way. It'll be much faster. Do you have any details?"

He shook his head. "Not that made any sense to me. The lieutenant said somebody dug her up. I don't

know what that means-if it's a fresh body or a skeleton or what."

"We'll find out soon enough," I said, going around the front of my car. That sounded like a lie too. Every minute I didn't know felt like an hour. Because of Molly. I didn't want to have to tell her her sister was dead.

I took a route from Binks Forest through Aero Club-a housing development for people with their own planes-on to Palm Beach Point, to the dirt road that led to the back gate of the equestrian center. The gate where Erin Seabright had been s.n.a.t.c.hed nearly a week before. Barn forty was in The Meadows, just beyond that gate.

As it was every weekend during the season, the area was bustling with riders and grooms and dogs and kids; cars and trucks and golf carts and motor bikes. The biggest crowd, however, was gathered around a rusty yellow front-end loader and a dump truck parked near one of the three-sided muck pits out in front of the tents. I could see a number of blue s.h.i.+rts. Security. A white and green county cruiser had parked in the mud at the edge of the road.

I pulled into a parking spot opposite the excitement, grabbed a hat out of my backseat, and got out of the car. Landry stopped in the road and opened his window. I leaned down and said, "You don't know me."

He rolled his eyes. "My fondest wish."

He drove ahead and pulled up alongside the radio car.

My heart was thumping as I neared the scene. I asked a girl with a ponytail sticking out the back of a baseball cap if she knew what had happened.

She looked excited. "They found a dead body."

"G.o.d. Does anybody know who it is?"

"Someone said a groom. I don't know."

I moved past her and threaded my way around the crowd. The security guards were telling people to go back to what they had been doing. The driver of the dump truck was sitting on his running board, blank-faced, hands hanging down between his knees. The driver of the front-end loader was standing beside his machine, gesturing as he spoke with a security guard, the deputy, and Landry.

I had reached the front of the mob. Beyond the loader, the muck pit was half dug out. Sticking out of the pile was a human arm. Female, purple fingernails, a cuff of bracelets sparkling in the blazing sun. A horse blanket had been thrown over whatever other body parts had been exposed.

"Miss?" Landry said, coming over to me. "The guard said you might be able to help us. If you could . . ."

"Oh- I don't know. I'm sure I couldn't," I said for the benefit of the spectators who were looking at me and wondering who the h.e.l.l I was.

Landry took me by the arm and led me, protesting, toward the muck pit. When we were out of earshot of the crowd, he said, "The guy was cleaning out this pit and dug her up. Buried in s.h.i.+t. There's respect for the dead. He says this pit hasn't been cleaned out since Thursday, but it was emptied to the ground then."

"If it's Erin, I want ten minutes alone with Bruce Seabright and a large serrated knife." "I'll hold him down, you cut his heart out." "Deal." Making a face at the smell of manure and urine, he leaned over the body and lifted the edge of the horse blanket.

I steeled myself for the worst. The body was white and stiff. Smudged mascara, blue eye shadow, and

berry-red lipstick gave the face the impression of a macabre work of art. There was a thumb-sized bruise on the cheek. Her mouth was partially open, crumbled chunks of old manure spilling out.

I let go of my held breath, relieved and sickened at once. "It's Jill Morone."

"You know her?"

"Yes. And guess who she worked for."

Landry frowned. "Don Jade. She told me yesterday she was sleeping with him."

"Yesterday? What were you doing out here?" I asked, forgetting the audience, forgetting the role I was

supposed to be playing. He looked perturbed and wouldn't meet my eyes. "Following up on your a.s.sault." "Gee. And I thought you didn't care." "I care that you caused me paperwork," he complained. "Get out of here, Estes. Go play dilettante.

Make yourself useful."

I put on a tragic face for the onlookers and hurried away to my car, where I called Molly Seabright to tell her her sister wasn't dead . . . as far as I knew. Then I set off to Don Jade's barn in search of a killer.

When I arrived at the Jade stalls there was a major cleanup under way. Paris was supervising as the Guatemalan man carried articles of clothing out of a stall and dumped them into a muck cart. She alternated snapping at the man with snapping at someone on the other end of her cell phone.

"What do you mean clothing isn't covered? Do you know what this stuff is worth?"

I looked at the pile in the muck cart. White and buff show breeches; an olive green three-season wool

jacket, probably custom-made; custom tailored s.h.i.+rts. All of it worth a lot of money. All of it stained with manure.

"What happened?" I asked.

Paris clicked her phone shut, furious, dark eyes burning with anger. "That rotten, ugly, stupid, fat girl."

"Your groom?"

"Not only has she not shown up, not gotten the horses groomed, did not clean the stalls yesterday when

Javier was gone; she did this." She thrust a finger at the pile of ruined clothing. "Spiteful, hateful, little-"

"She's dead," I said.

Paris pulled up mid-tirade and looked at me like I'd sprung a second head. "What? What are you talkingabout?" "Haven't you heard? They found a body in the manure pile at barn forty. It's Jill." She looked at me, then looked around as if there might be a hidden camera somewhere. "You're kidding, right?"

"No. I drove in the back way. The cops are there now. I'm sure they'll be here soon enough. They know she worked for Don."

"Oh, great," she said, thinking about the inconvenience, not the girl. I saw her catch herself mentally and

put on an appropriate expression of concern. "Dead. That's terrible. I can't believe it. What happened to

her? Did she have an accident?" "I don't suppose she accidentally buried herself in horses.h.i.+t," I said. "She must have been murdered. Iwouldn't move anything around here if I were you. G.o.d knows what the detectives will think."

"Well, they can't think any of us would kill her," she said huffily. "She's the only groom we had left." As if that was the only reason not to kill her. "Why do you think she made this mess?" I asked, pointing at the clothes. "Spite, I'm sure. Don said he saw her at The Players last night and he reprimanded her for something.

Oh, my G.o.d," she said, eyes widening. "You don't think she was killed here, do you?" I shrugged. "Where else would she have been?" "I don't know. She might have been meeting a guy in one of the other barns or something." "She had a boyfriend?" Paris made a face. "She talked about guys like she was the village s.l.u.t. I never believed she had one." "Looks like she had one last night," I said. "You jumper people have all the excitement. Murder, mayhem, intrigue . . ."

Javier asked her in Spanish if he should keep cleaning the stall. Paris looked in through the bars. I looked too. The stall was a mess of churned-up muck and pine shavings and leather oil.

"Is that blood?" I asked, pointing. There were some drops that might have been blood splashed on curls

of white pine bedding. It might have belonged to the dead girl. It might have belonged to her killer. It might have belonged to the horse that normally occupied the stall. Only a lab would tell us for sure. Who knew what else had already been dug out of the stall and hauled away.