Tami Hoag - Dark Horse

It's my case. I know what I'm doing…

I knew what Landry would say. He would tell me to wait for him. Go sit in my car like a good girl.

I've never been a good girl.

It's my case. I know what I'm doing…

The last time I had thought that, I had been very wrong.

I wanted to be right.

Slowly, I went up the metal stairs that over time had sunken into the sandy earth and settled away from the trailer, leaving a gap of several inches between the two. Standing to the side of the door, I knocked twice, and called out "Police."

Nothing happened. I couldn't hear any movement within the trailer. No shotgun blasts came through the door. It occurred to me Van Zandt might be inside, hiding out until he could catch his plane to Brussels. He might have been Paris Montgomery's partner in it all, helping her to oust Jade and secure her place in Trey Hughes' life, while Van Zandt indulged himself in his hobby of dominating young girls. Perhaps the ransom was to have been his fee for helping to ruin Don Jade.

And Erin's role in the game? I wasn't sure now, in light of what Landry had told me about the videotapes of her being raped and beaten. The tape of her abduction, which I had watched a dozen times, made me question whether Erin was truly a victim. Perhaps Paris had lured her into the plot with the opportunity to punish her parents, and once the plan was in motion had given her over to Van Zandt. The idea sickened me.

Standing to one side, I held my breath as I opened the door a crack with my left hand.

Billy Golam jerks open the door, wild-eyed, high on his own home cooking-crystal meth. He's breathing hard. He's got a gun in his hand.

A bead of sweat ran down between my eyebrows and skittered off my nose.

Leading with the Glock, I ducked into the trailer and swept the barrel of the gun from left to right. There was no one in the first room. I took in only the swiftest impression of the furnishings: an old steel desk, a pole lamp, a chair. All of it covered in dust and cobwebs. Piles of old newspapers. Discarded paint cans. The stale, musty smells of dust and cigarettes and mildew growing beneath the old linoleum floor assaulted my nose. The sounds of the machinery outside seemed to resonate and amplify inside the tin can trailer.

Cautiously, I moved toward the second room, still leading with the gun.

I hadn't seen the video of Erin's beating, but I knew from Landry's description this was where it had taken place. A bed with a metal-framed headboard sat against the back wall. A filthy, stained mattress with no sheets. Bloodstains.

I pictured Erin there as Landry had described her: naked, bruised, chained by one arm to the headboard, screaming as her assailant beat her with a whip. I pictured her as a victim.

A few feet from the foot of the bed stood a tripod with a video camera perched atop it. Behind the tripod a table littered with empty soda cans, half-empty water bottles, opened bags of chips, and an ashtray full of butts. There were a couple of lawn chairs, one with a copy of In Style magazine left on the seat, the other with clothes tossed carelessly over the arm and back and dropped on the floor beside it.

A movie set. The stage for a twisted drama with a final act yet to be played out.

The roar of the machines outside had ceased. I felt the silence like a presence that had just come through the door. The skin on my arms and the back of my neck prickled with awareness.

I moved to stand beside the wall next to the doorway into the first room, the Glock raised and ready.

I could hear, but not see the exterior door open. I waited.

Movement in the front room. The sound of shoes scuffing and thumping on the old linoleum. The rattle of the old paint cans knocking together. The smell of paint thinner.

I wondered, if I stepped through the doorway, who I would confront. Paris? Van Zandt? Trey Hughes?

I moved into the doorway and leveled my gun on Chad Seabright.

"You're going to lose your seat on the student council for this."

He stared at me as paint thinner puddled on the floor around his shoes.

"I'd ask what you're doing here, Chad, but that seems obvious."

"No," he said, shaking his head, eyes wide. "You don't understand. It's not what you think."

"Really? I'm not watching you prepare to destroy evidence of a crime?"

"I didn't have anything to do with it!" he said. "Erin called me from the hospital. She begged me to help her."

"And you-a complete innocent-just dropped everything to commit a felony for her?"

"I love her," he said earnestly. "She screwed up. I don't want her to go to prison."

"And what would she go to prison for, Chad?" I asked. "She's supposed to be the victim in all this."

"She is," he insisted.

"But she told you to come here and burn the place? She told the detectives she didn't know where she'd been held. How is it you knew to come here?"

I could see the wheels spinning in his mind as he scrambled for an explanation.

"Why would Erin be in trouble, Chad?" I asked again. "Detective Landry has the videotapes of her being beaten and raped."

"That was her idea."

"To get beaten? To be raped? That was Erin's idea?"

"No. Paris. It wasn't supposed to be real. That's what Erin said. It was supposed to be like a hoax. That's what Paris told her. To ruin Jade so she could take over his business. But everything got way out of hand. Paris turned on her. They almost killed her."

"Who are 'they'?"

He looked away and heaved a sigh, agitated. Sweat greased his forehead. "I don't know. She only talked about Paris. And now she's scared Paris will try to take her down with her."

"So you'll burn the crime scene and everyone calls it even. Is that it?"

His Adam's apple bobbed as he swallowed. "I know how it looks."

"It looks like you're in it up to your eyeballs, Junior," I said. "Up against the wall and spread 'em."

"Please don't do this," he said, blinking back tears. "I don't want any trouble with the cops. I'm supposed to go to Brown next fall."

"You should have thought of that before you agreed to commit arson."

"I was only helping Erin," he said again. "She's not a bad person. Really, she isn't. She just- It's just that- She always gets a raw deal. And she wanted to get back at my father."

"And you didn't?"

"I'll graduate soon. It won't matter what he thinks. Erin and I can be together then."

"Up against the wall," I said again.

"Can't you have a little sympathy?" he asked, crying now, taking a step toward the wall.

"I'm not the sympathetic sort."

I moved farther into the room as Chad moved toward the wall that divided the spaces. A slow dance of unwilling partners trading places. I kept the gun on him. My gaze darted to the side as I stepped past the open door.

Paris Montgomery was coming up the steps.

As I turned my head, Chad turned and charged me, his face twisted with rage.

My gun went off as he hit my forearms and deflected my aim. I stumbled backward, his weight coming against me, paint cans and stacks of old newspapers tripping me. My breath went out of me as we hit the floor, the back of my head banging so hard I saw stars.

The Glock was still in my right hand, my finger jammed through the trigger guard. The gun was out of position, my trigger finger bent at an unnatural angle. I couldn't shoot, but brought the gun up and slapped the body of it as hard as I could against Chad Seabright's head. He grunted, and blood ran from a gash in his cheek as he tried to get a hand around my throat.

I swung and hit him again, the barrel of the Glock tearing across his right eye. The eyeball exploded, fluid and blood raining out of the collapsing tissue. Chad screamed and threw himself off me, hands over his face.

I rolled away from him, trying to get my legs under me, slipping through paint thinner, clawing at anything that might give me purchase.