Tami Hoag - Dark Horse

Erin just looked at her lap and shook her head.

"Erin, how many videotapes did they make of you while you were in the trailer?"

"I don't know. Three or four. It was so humiliating. They made me beg. They did things to me. They hit me." She started to cry again. "It was horrible."

That son of a bitch, Landry thought. Three or four tapes. Seabright had handed over one besides the tape he had picked up at the ransom drop.

"Erin, did either of the men have sex with you?"

The tears came harder. "They k-kept drugging me. I couldn't do anything about it. I c-couldn't stop them. I c-couldn't d-do anything."

"We're going to try really hard to do something about it now, Erin. We'll work together-you and me-to build the case against them. Deal?"

She looked up at him with tear-filled eyes and nodded.

"Get some rest," Landry said as he started for the door.

"Detective Landry?"

"Yes?"

"Thank you."

Landry walked out hoping he would be able to really give her something to thank him for sooner rather than later.

I was waiting down the hall when Landry came out of Erin's hospital room. He didn't look surprised to see me. He stopped outside her door, took out his cell phone, and made a call that lasted about three minutes. When he ended the call, he glanced in the opposite direction down the hall, toward the nurses' station, then came toward me.

"What's she saying?" I asked as we walked toward the emergency exit.

"She says it was Jade, but that the kidnappers wore masks the whole time and they kept her doped up on ketamine. She never actually saw Jade. She can't identify the other guy at all. She says he rarely spoke."

"That doesn't sound like Van Zandt," I said. "I've never met anyone who liked the sound of his own voice better than Tomas Van Zandt."

"But she'd know his voice, because of the accent," Landry said. "Maybe he's smarter than he looks." He sighed and shook his head. "She won't make a good witness."

He was frowning, and I could tell I had only a fraction of his attention. He was mentally replaying what Erin had told him, trying to find a way to work it into a lead or lead him to a piece of evidence.

"She doesn't need to be a good witness, yet," I reminded him. "You've got enough for Jade to be arraigned. Maybe you'll come up with some forensic evidence."

"Yeah. Don't strain yourself in your enthusiasm," he said sarcastically.

I shrugged. "What do you have on him I don't know about? Have you come up with anything from his condo?"

He said nothing.

"Anything from the girls' apartment?"

"Some snapshots of Jade. One of him and Erin together. Someone wrote on the back: 'To Erin. Love, Don.' Jill had the pictures stashed. She had scratched out Erin's face and name with a ballpoint pen."

"All the girls love Donnie."

"I don't see it, myself," Landry muttered.

"Have you found whether or not he owns or rents property other than the condo?"

"He wouldn't be stupid enough to hold Erin on property that could be traced back to him. And I couldn't get that lucky."

"How did she get away?"

"She says they let her go. They figured they weren't getting the money, so they tossed her in the back of the van, drove her around, and dumped her like an old rug."

"So, she can't say where they held her."

"No. A trailer house. That's all she knows."

"Could you tell anything from the last videotape? Any background sounds?"

"There was some noise in the background. The techno-geeks are trying to figure it out. Sounded like heavy machinery to me."

"What did Erin say about it?"

He looked out the window. "That she wasn't sure. That they kept her drugged. Special K, she says. It's easy to come by," Landry said. "Especially for people who work around veterinarians."

"But it's not a sedative we use on horses," I told him. "It's commonly used on small animals."

"Still, the access is there."

"What about Chad?"

"He never left the Seabright house last night," Landry said, opening his phone again. "Besides, Erin and Chad had an intimate relationship. You think she wouldn't recognize him while he was raping her?"

"Maybe he was the silent one. Maybe he just watched the partner do her. Maybe they had her so drugged up, she wouldn't have recognized Santa Claus if he was bending over her."

Landry scowled at me while he checked his messages. "You know what? You're a pain in the ass, Estes."

"Yeah, like that's news." I slipped down from the ledge. "Well, what the hey, Landry. Just kill them all and let God sort 'em out."

"Don't tempt me. Half the people involved in this girl's life belong in prison, if you ask me," he muttered as he listened to the phone. "We'll be executing a search warrant at the Seabright house in a couple of hours. I'll be sure Dugan includes drugs as part of the warrant inventory."

"What else are you looking for?"

"Erin keeps saying the kidnappers called Bruce Seabright multiple times, and that they made more than one video in the trailer. Three or four, she says."

"Jesus God, what's he doing with them?" I asked. "Selling them on eBay?"

"Yeah, and he'll claim he was just trying to defray the cost of the ransom," Landry muttered. "Asshole."

I sat down on the deep window ledge, the early morning sun hot on my back, and thought about Bruce Seabright's possible involvement. "So, let's say Seabright wanted Erin gone. He sets up the kidnapping scheme with no intention of ever bringing the cops in, or ever bringing Erin home. Why wasn't she killed right away? They could have made the tapes in an hour, killed her, and dumped her.

"Then I get involved and bring you in," I went on. "Now Bruce has to play along. Again, why not just have the accomplice get rid of her?"

"Because now we're watching him, asking questions. The accomplices see cops nosing around and they get scared."

"So they let Erin go so she can help you build a case against them?" I shook my head. "That doesn't make any sense."

"I'm playing with the cards I've got, Estes," Landry said impatiently. "Erin says it was Jade. I'm going with that. It'd be stupid not to. If the thing tracks back to Bruce Seabright, I'll go with that too. Felony makes strange bedfellows."

I didn't say anything. Occasionally, I do realize the value of discretion. Landry had his suspect and his circumstantial evidence. He had a half-sure victim and doubts of his own.

"I've got to go," he said, closing his phone. "The state's attorney wants a meeting before Jade's arraignment."

I thought I might be able to slip into Erin's room after he'd gone, but I could see the deputy assigned to the post had already come back from his coffee break.

"Landry?" I asked as he started down the hall. He glanced back at me. "Any sign of Van Zandt yet?"

"No. He never came back to the town house." He started to turn away and I called him back a second time.

I took Erin's bracelet from my pocket and held it out to him. "I found this on the floor of the examination room Erin was in last night. Ask her about it. Maybe it was a gift from Jade."

He took it from me, his fingers brushing mine. He nodded.

"Thank you," I said. "For filling me in."

Landry tipped his head. "Your case first."

"I thought you didn't share."

"First time for everything."

He looked at the bracelet in his hand, then walked away.

I left the hospital and took a drive around the parking lot with an eye peeled for a navy blue Chevy, but Van Zandt wasn't there. Nor was Krystal Seabright's white Lexus or Bruce's Jaguar. Ever the loving parents. Erin had told them to go, so they'd gone. Off the hook.

I have never understood people who have children but don't raise them, don't nurture them, don't help them become human beings. What other reason is there? To carry on the family name? To get a welfare check? To preserve proof of a relationship? Because that was what one was supposed to do at a particular time in one's life: get married, have kids. No one ever explained why.