Part 18 (1/2)

”Sasha was fragile, like a gla.s.s doll.” She smoked a little more, contemplating. ”If a man did this thing to

me, I would not kill myself. I would cut off his p.e.n.i.s and feed it to the pigs.”

”Very effective.”

”Then I would kill him.”

”A little luckier in your aim with that horseshoe and you might have,” I said.

Irina poured another three fingers of the Stoli and sipped at it. I thought about Van Zandt abusing his

authority over a young girl that way. Most adults would have had a difficult time dealing with his mercurial temperament. An eighteen-year-old girl would have been in way over her head. He deserved exactly what Irina had imagined for him.

”I'd like to say I'll hold him down while you kick him,” I said. ”But Sean will expect you to apologize, Irina.”

”He can kiss my Russian a.s.s.”

”You needn't be sincere.” She thought about that. If it had been me, I would still have told Sean to kiss my a.s.s. But I couldn'tafford to alienate Van Zandt, especially not in the light of what Irina had told me. Her friend Sasha wasdead. Maybe Erin Seabright was still alive.

”Come on,” I said before she could have a chance to set her mind against it. ”Get it over with. You can

kill him on your day off.”

I led the way out. Sean and Van Zandt were standing on the gra.s.s near the mounting block. Van Zandt was still red in the face, rubbing his arm where the horseshoe had struck him.

Irina unhooked Tino from the grooming stall and led the gelding out.

”Sean, I apologize for my outburst,” Irina said, handing him the reins. ”I am sorry to have embarra.s.sed

you.” She looked at Van Zandt with cold disdain. ”I apologize for attacking you on Mr. Avadon'sproperty.” Van Zandt said nothing, just stood there scowling at her. The girl looked at me as if to say, See what a swine he is? She walked away, climbed the stairs to the gazebo at the end of the arena, and drapedherself on a chair. ”The czarina,” I said. Van Zandt sulked. ”I should call the police.” ”But I don't think you will.”

”She should be locked up.”

”Like you locked up her friend?” I asked innocently, wis.h.i.+ng I could stick a knife between his ribs.

His mouth was trembling as if he might cry. ”You would believe her lies about me? I have done nothing wrong. I gave that girl a job, a place to live-”

Herpes . . .

”She stole from me,” he went on. ”I treated her like a daughter, and she stole from me and f.u.c.ked me in the a.s.s, telling lies about me!”

The victim yet again. Everyone was against him. His motives were always pure. I didn't point out to him that in America if a man treated his daughter the way he had treated Sasha, he would go to prison and come out a registered s.e.x offender.

”How ungrateful,” I said.

”You believe her,” he accused.

”I believe in minding my own business, and your s.e.x life is not and never will be my business.”

He crossed his arms and pouted, staring down at his ta.s.seled loafers. Sean had mounted and was in the arena warming up.

”Forget about Irina,” I said. ”She's only hired help. Who cares what grooms have to say? They should be like good children: seen and not heard.”

”These girls should know their place,” he muttered darkly as he unzipped his camera case and took out a video camera. ”Or be put in it.”

A s.h.i.+ver ran down my spine like a cold, bony finger.

As we stood and watched Sean work the horse, I knew neither of us had our mind on the quality of the animal. Van Zandt's mood had gone to a very dark place. He had to be thinking about damage control to his reputation, probably believing Irina-and maybe I-would spread the Sasha story around Wellington and he would lose clients. Or maybe he was simply fantasizing about strangling Irina with his bare hands, the bones in her throat cracking like small dry twigs. Irina sat in the gazebo smoking, one long leg swinging over the arm of the big wicker chair, never taking her glare off Van Zandt.

My thoughts were running in another direction. I wondered if Tomas Van Zandt had thought Erin Seabright should be glad to accept his advances, or if he had ”put her in her place.” I thought about my feeling that Erin had dumped Chad, and wondered if Van Zandt or someone like him might have made her promises, then broken them in the most terrible way. And I wondered again if all these terrible possibilities had been made possible by Bruce Seabright.

Erin hadn't fit his idea of the perfect daughter, and now she was out of his way. If she turned up dead, would he feel a moment's guilt? If she never turned up at all, would he feel a second's responsibility? Or would he be pleased for a job well done?

I thought about my own father and wondered if he would have been relieved to have his ungrateful daughter simply disappear. Probably. I had loudly opposed everything he was, everything he stood for. I' d thumbed my nose at him and taken up a profession putting away the people he defended in court, the people who provided for the lifestyle I'd grown up in. Then again, maybe I had disappeared for him. I hadn't seen or spoken to him in years. For all I knew, I had ceased to exist in his mind.

At least my father hadn't set me up for doom. That had been my own doing entirely.

If Bruce had set Erin up with Trey Hughes, and Hughes had set her up with Jade, and via Jade she had been exposed to Van Zandt, Erin had never really had any say in her destiny. The irony was that she had thought she was gaining independence, taking control of her life. But the longer she was missing, the longer the odds were she would come out of this with a life at all.

By the time Sean had finished showing Tino, Sean's coach had arrived to teach him, leaving me to see Van Zandt off the property.

”Do you think your client from Virginia will be interested?” I asked.

”Lorinda Carlton?” He gave the Continental shrug. ”I will tell her to be, so she will be,” he said. The word of Van Zandt, amen. ”She's not a talented rider, but she has a hundred thousand dollars to spend. All I have to do is convince her this horse is her destiny and everyone will live happily ever after.”

Except the woman who bought a horse she couldn't handle. Then Van Zandt would convince her to sell that one and buy another. He would make money on both deals, and the cycle would begin again.

”You shouldn't reveal your trade secrets,” I said. ”You'll disillusion me.”

”You are a very smart woman, Elle. You know the ways of this horse world. It's a hard business. People are not always nice. But I take care of my clients. I am loyal to them and I expect them to be loyal to me. Lorinda trusts me. She gives me the use of her townhouse while I am here for the season. See how grateful my friends are to me?”

”That's one word for it,” I said dryly.

And he would blithely betray the trust of his grateful friend so he could foster a more lucrative relations.h.i.+p with Sean Avadon. He told me without batting an eye, as if it were nothing to him, and in the next breath he spoke of loyalty as if he were the poster boy for personal virtue.

”Are you free for dinner, Elle?” he asked. ”I'll take you to The Players. We can talk about what kind of horse I want for you.”

I found the suggestion revolting. I was exhausted and in pain and fed up to my eyeb.a.l.l.s with this nauseating character and his bipolar mood swings. I wanted to do what Irina had done, jump on him and pummel him and call him every vile name I could think of. Instead, I said, ”Not tonight, Z. I have a headache.”

He looked hurt and angry again. ”I am not a monster. I have integrity. I have character. People in this business, they get angry, they spread rumors. You should know better than to believe them.”

I held up a hand. ”Stop. Just stop, will you? Jesus. I'm tired. My head hurts. I want to spend my evening in the Jacuzzi with no one talking at me. As impossible as this might be for you to grasp, it's not about you.”