Tami Hoag - Dark Horse

"On the first day of this, I remember thinking Molly was about to get a lesson in life. That she would learn the way everyone learns that she can't count on anyone but herself in this world: by being let down by someone she loved and trusted. I wish now I could change that for her."

Landry came to stand beside me. "You can," he said. "You have. She trusts you, Elena. You haven't let her down. You won't."

I wished I could have been that certain of myself.

His pager went off. He checked the number, pulled his phone off his belt, and returned the call.

"Landry."

I watched his face, sensed his tension.

When he ended the call he turned to me and said, "Erin and Chad were picked up on Alligator Alley, halfway to Venice. She's claiming Chad abducted her."

You're eighteen," Landry said. "In the eyes of the law, you're an adult. You made bad choices that have big consequences, and now you're going to pay. The question is, are you going to take the big fall, or are you going to try to make life easier for all of us?"

Chad Seabright stared at the wall. A heavy gauze patch covered the socket where his left eye had been. "I can't believe any of this is happening," he muttered.

A state trooper had spotted Chad's pickup speeding on the highway known as Alligator Alley, the road that connected Florida's east coast with the Gulf Coast. A chase had ensued. A roadblock had eventually stopped them. The pair had been returned to the gracious accommodations of the Palm Beach County justice system, where both of them had been seen and treated in the infirmary.

Now they sat in back-to-back interview rooms, each wondering what story the other was telling.

Had Bruce Seabright survived, Landry did not doubt that Chad would have had a lawyer the caliber of Bert Shapiro sitting at his elbow. But Bruce Seabright was dead, and Chad had taken the first public defender out of the pool.

Assistant State's Attorney Roca tapped her pen on the table impatiently. "You'd better start talking, Chad. Your girlfriend has been telling us quite a tale in the other room. How you kidnapped her to extort money from your father. We have the videotape of you beating her."

"I think I should see that tape," the public defender said.

Roca looked at him. "It's quite convincing. She'll be a very sympathetic witness."

"That's a lie," Chad said, sulking, petulant, scared. "Erin wouldn't do that to me."

"Wouldn't do what?" Landry asked. "Tell us how you grabbed her out of the hospital while the guard was trying to put out the fire you set?"

Chad shook his head emphatically.

"You don't think Erin would tell us how you raped her and kept her doped up on ketamine?" Roca said.

The public defender sat there like a toad, his mouth opening and closing, no words coming out.

Landry sighed and stood up. "You know, I've just about had it with this," he said to Roca. "This little shit wants to take the fall. Fine. Let him rot. His father was an asshole. He's an asshole. Get him out of the gene pool. Go make a deal with the girl. You know a jury will get out the hankies for her."

Roca pretended to consider, then looked to the PD. "Talk to your client. The charges are going to be a potpourri of felonies: kidnapping, rape, attempted murder, arson-"

"I never raped anybody," Chad said. "I only went to that trailer yesterday to help Erin."

"To destroy evidence for her because she was the mastermind of the whole plot?" Roca said.

Chad closed his eye and tipped his head back. "I told you: Erin told me she was in it to start, but Paris turned on her. I didn't have anything to do with it! None of this is my fault. I was just trying to help Erin. Why should I be punished for that?"

Landry leaned across the table, looming over him. "People are dead, Junior. You tried to kill a friend of mine. You're going away."

Chad put his head in his hands and started to cry. "It wasn't my fault!"

"And what about the tape we took out of your father's home office, Chad? The tape showing the alleged rape. The tape that was conveniently left on a bookshelf. How did it get there?"

"I don't know!"

"I do," Landry said. "You put it there."

"I didn't! I didn't have anything to do with it!"

Landry sighed in disgust. "Well, you know what, Chad? I know for a fact that you did. You can either take responsibility and do yourself a favor here, or you can dig that hole deeper with every lie that comes out of your mouth."

He went to the one-way mirror in the wall, raised the blinds, and flicked a switch on the intercom.

Roca stood up. "Think about it, gentlemen. The best deal goes first. He who hesitates loses."

W hy would Chad take you from the hospital, Erin?" Landry asked.

"He must have been the other one," the girl said in a voice as weak as a kitten's. She kept her eyes downcast, as if she were afraid or ashamed. Tears fell like tiny crystal beads down her cheeks. "He must have been the other kidnapper. That must be why he never talked. He knew I would know it was him."

"And so he walked into your hospital room in broad daylight, and kidnapped you a second time so you couldn't tell anyone how you couldn't identify him in the first place?" Landry said.

She put a trembling hand over her mouth and cried. Her public defender, a plump motherly woman named Maria Onjo, patted her on the shoulder.

Landry watched impassively. "Chad tells us you and he are in love. That you went with him willingly."

Erin's jaw dropped. "No! That's not true! I- We-had a relationship for a while. Before I moved out of the house." She shook her head at her own stupidity. "We only did it to make Bruce crazy. He couldn't stand the idea of his perfect boy involved with me," she said bitterly. "Chad was furious when I broke it off with him. He told me. He told me he wouldn't let me go."

Maria Onjo offered her a box of tissues.

"Erin," Roca said. "Chad claims you were in on the kidnapping, not him. That the whole thing was a play to discredit Don Jade, and to embarrass and extort money from your stepfather, and that things got out of hand."

"Out of hand?" Erin said, incredulous and angry. "They raped me!"

"And you didn't notice that one of them was Chad?" Landry said. "The guy you'd been involved with, slept with."

"They kept me drugged! I told you that. Why won't you believe me?"

"It might have something to do with the fact that the doctor who examined you the night you came in couldn't conclusively say you'd been raped."

"What? But-but- You saw the tape."

"Oh, I saw it," Landry said. "It was horrible, brutal, vicious. And if it was real, you should have had massive bruising and tearing in your vagina. You didn't."

Her expression was that of someone trapped in a nightmare. "I can't believe this is happening to me," she murmured to herself. "They beat me. They raped me. Look at me!"

She shoved her sleeves up to show the red welts the whip had left.

"Yeah," Landry said. "That's very convincing. So, you're telling us Don Jade and Chad were partners in your kidnapping, along with Paris Montgomery. How does Chad know Don?"

"I don't know."

"And why would he be partners with the man who stole you away from him?" Landry asked. "I don't get that."

He could see her frustration level rising. Her breathing was becoming shallow and rapid.

The PD gave Landry a glare. "You can't expect Erin to make your entire case for you, Detective. She can't know the minds of the people involved in this."

"I don't know about that, Ms. Onjo. Erin was intimate with Chad, worked for Don Jade, claimed to be in love with him. Seems to me if anyone could know the answer to these questions, it would be Erin."

Onjo patted the girl on the back. "Erin, you don't have to do this at all-"