Tami Hoag - Dark Horse

"What are you saying?"

"You had night check the night Jill was killed. You left my bed to go do it. Just like you did the night before, when Berne's horses were turned loose."

"You're confused, Trey," Paris said, an edge in her voice.

"Generally, yes. Life's easier that way. But not about this."

She took another step toward me, her patience wearing thin. "Put the fucking gun down!"

I heaved a sigh and slowly crouched down as if to set the gun on the floor, then ducked and rolled sideways.

Paris fired twice, one of the bullets hitting the floor near me and spitting up shards of travertine marble.

I switched my gun to my left hand, trying to steady it with my right, came to my feet, and rushed her before she could adjust her position to fire at me a third time.

"Drop it, Paris! Drop it! Drop it!"

She turned and bolted for the stairs at the far end of the balcony. I ran after her, pulling up short as she turned the corner and fired off a shot behind her.

Cautiously, I peered around the corner, looking down on an empty stairwell faintly illuminated by the glow of the security light. She could have been waiting beyond the landing, tucked against the wall, waiting for me to charge after her. I could see myself turning the corner on the landing and the bullet hitting me square in the chest, my blood the only color in a black-and-white scene.

I went instead to the end of the balcony and looked down. She was gone. I ran down the stairs. The engine of Trey's Porsche roared to life as I hit the ground. The headlights blinded me as the car leapt toward me.

I brought my gun up and put a round through the windshield, then dove to the side.

Paris tried to swing the Porsche around, tires spinning, dirt and gravel spraying out behind it. The car skidded sideways and slammed violently against the side of the concrete building, setting off the horn and alarm system.

Paris shoved the door open, fell out of the vehicle, got up and started to run down the driveway, a hand pressed to her left shoulder. She stumbled and fell, got up and ran another few steps, then stumbled and fell again. She lay sobbing on the ground within sight of the sign proudly announcing construction of Lucky Dog Farm.

"No, no, no, no, no!" she whimpered over and over as I reached her. Blood ran between her fingers from the bullet wound in her shoulder.

"The game is over, Paris," I said, looking down at her. "You're out of luck, bitch."

Molly sat curled up in a little knot on her bed, knees pulled up beneath her chin. She was trembling and trying hard not to cry.

She listened to the fight going on below her, their voices coming up through her floor. Bruce shouting. Things crashing. Hateful and angry, her mother shrieking like something from a nightmare, like nothing Molly had ever heard. An eerie, high-pitched tone that rose and fell like a siren. She sounded insane. Bruce called her insane more than once.

Molly feared he might be right. That maybe the tight band that had held Krystal together all this time had just broken, and everything she had held repressed inside her had come bursting out.

As the shrieking rose again, Molly jumped off the bed, locked her door, and struggled to shove her nightstand in front of it. She grabbed the phone Elena had given her, scrambled back to her spot against the headboard, and dialed Elena's cell phone.

She listened to the phone ring unanswered. Tears spilled down her cheeks.

Below her the noise abruptly stopped and a strange, horrible silence took its place. Molly strained her ears for any kind of sound, but the silence pressed in on her until she wondered if she'd gone deaf.

Then came a small, soft voice drifting up through the vent as if from another dimension. "I only ever wanted a nice life… I only ever wanted a nice life…"

Landry arrived on the heels of the ambulance that had been called for Paris. My shot through the windshield had clipped her shoulder. She had lost some blood, but she would live to see another day, and another and another-all of them from a prison cell, I hoped.

Landry got out of his car and came directly to me, holding a finger up at the deputy who had secured the scene, warding him off for the moment. Deputy Saunders, my escort from the night Michael Berne's horses had been turned loose, stood watching me, not willing to accept my word for my innocence.

Landry dismissed him, his focus on me.

"Are you all right?"

I gave him the half smile. "You must be tired of asking me that. I'm fine."

"You've got more lives than a cat," he muttered.

I filled him in on what had happened, what had been said, my take on it all.

"What made you come here in the first place?" he asked.

"I don't know. I thought Paris might try to get to Trey. It all revolved around him-around Trey, around his money, around this place."

I looked back at the barn, the massive walls washed in the colored lights from the ambulance and county radio cars. Trey was being escorted in handcuffs to one of the cruisers.

"I believe Trey and Jade cooked up a scheme to kill Sallie Hughes so Trey could inherit and build this place. I confronted Trey about it. He didn't even bother to deny it. That's why he's stayed loyal to Jade. He didn't have a choice. Paris wanted Jade out of the way so she could have it all. And in the end, none of them will end up with anything," I said. "All the deceit, all the scheming, all the pain they caused-it's all for nothing. Everybody loses."

"Yeah," Landry said as the ambulance rolled out with a cruiser behind it. "Cases like this one make me wish I'd listened to my old man. He wanted me to be a civil engineer."

"What did he do for a living?" I asked.

His mouth quirked. "He was a cop. What else? Thirty years on the Baton Rouge PD."

"No sign of Van Zandt yet?" I asked as we walked back toward our cars.

"Not yet. The guy at the cargo hangar told us Van Zandt's horses arrived by commercial shipper a while ago, but they haven't heard from Van Zandt all day. You think he was in it with Paris?"

"I still believe he killed Jill. But Trey said Paris got out of his bed to go check the horses that night. Jill's body was left to be found, and whoever put it there knew everyone would connect it to Jade. That furthers Paris' plan."

"We know Van Zandt was at The Players that night," Landry said. "He was all over the girl. Say he followed her out, thinking to pick up the pieces after Jade had broken her heart. Maybe she said no and he didn't want to hear it. She ends up dead."

"Paris comes on the scene and convinces Van Zandt to dump the body in the manure pit," I speculated. "Was he involved in the rest of it? I don't know. Chad tried to tell me someone had actually raped Erin, that Paris had let things get out of hand. Maybe Van Zandt came into it and took over."

"If that's what happened, I'm sure she'll spill it," Landry said. "She's in custody, he's not. Nothing ruins a partnership faster than threat of jail time. Good work, Estes."

"Just doing my civic duty."

"You should still have a badge."

I looked away. "Oh, well, don't you say the sweetest things? I wouldn't express that opinion around the SO, if I were you."

"Fuck 'em. It's true."

I felt embarrassed that his compliment meant so much to me.

"Any news of Chad and Erin?" I asked as my phone rang.

Landry shook his head.

"Estes," I said into the phone.

"Elena?"

The tremulous sound of her voice sent fear through me like shards of glass. "Molly? Molly, what's wrong?"

I was already hustling toward Landry's car. I could see the concern on his face as he kept pace with me.

"Elena, you have to come. Please come!"

"I'm on my way! What's happening?"