"Ms. Estes?"

Landry held the door back by way of invitation.

He was a compact, athletic-looking man, mid-forties, with a meticulous quality about him. There was stillstarch in his shirt at nearly four P.M. His hair was cropped almost military-short; black, heavily salted withgray. He had a stare like an eagle's: penetrating and slightly disdainful, I thought. Or perhaps that was myparanoia showing.

I had known several of the seventeen detectives in Robbery/ Homicide, the major case squad, but I hadn't known Landry. Because of the nature of their work,

narcotics detectives usually keep-or are kept-to themselves, their paths crossing with the other

detectives only over dead bodies.

We went up the stairs to the second floor without speaking. There was no one behind the gla.s.s in the small vestibule that led to the Robbery/Homicide squad room. Landry let us in with a card key.

Steel desks grouped together made islands across the expanse of the room. Most of the desks were empty. I recognized no one. The gazes that flicked my way were hooded, flat, and cold. Cop eyes. The look is always the same, regardless of agency, regardless of geography. The look of people who trust no one and suspect everyone of something. I couldn't tell what they were thinking. I knew only that some of the gazes lingered too long.

I took the seat Landry indicated beside his desk. He smoothed a hand over his tie as he settled into his chair, his eyes never leaving my face. He clicked his computer on and settled a pair of reading gla.s.ses on the bridge of his nose.

"I'm Detective Landry," he said, typing. "I'll be taking your statement. I understand you want to report

someone missing."

"She's already been reported missing. Erin Seabright. Her sister spoke with you a couple of days ago.

Molly Seabright. She told me you were rude and condescending and of no help to her."

Another chapter from The Elena Estes Guide to Winning Friends and Influencing People.Landry pulled his gla.s.ses off and gave me the stare again. "The kid? She's twelve." "Does that somehow change the fact that her sister is missing?" "We don't take complaints from children. I spoke on the phone with the mother. She didn't want to file.

She says the daughter isn't missing."

"Maybe she killed the girl," I said. "You're not going to look for her because her murderer doesn't wantto file a complaint?" His brows pulled together. "You have reason to think the mother killed her?" "No. I don't think that at all. I'm saying you didn't know differently and you blew the girl off." "So you came here to pick a fight with me?" he said, incredulous. "Are you mentally ill? What have you got to do with these people? Are they relatives of yours?"

"No. Molly is a friend."

"The twelve-year-old."

"She asked me to help her. I happen to believe she has good reason to think her sister is missing."

"Why is that?"

"Because her sister is missing. She hasn't been seen since Sunday."

I filled him in on the Don Jade saga and the death of Stellar. Landry was angry with me. Impatience

hummed in the air around him. He didn't like that I'd done his job for him, even if he didn't believe he'd had a job to do. Cops can be territorial that way.

"You think something happened to this girl because of a dead horse." He said it as if it were the most ludicrous theory he'd ever heard. "People are killed for their shoes," I said. "People are killed for turning down the wrong street. This dead horse by himself is worth a quarter of a million dollars in insurance money, and the sale of his replacement to his owner is probably worth nearly that much in sales commissions alone. I don't find it hard to believe someone would resort to violence for that kind of money, do you?"

"And the trainer says the girl quit her job and moved to Ocala." "The trainer who probably had the horse killed and stands to profit handsomely by the next deal." "Do you know that she didn't move to Ocala?" Landry asked. "No. But it seems unlikely." "Have you been to her apartment? Were there signs of a struggle?" "I've been to her apartment. There's nothing there." "Nothing. As if she moved out?" he suggested. "Maybe. But we won't know if someone doesn't look for her. You could put a call in to Ocala." "Or you could drive up there and look for her." "Or you could call the local PD or SO or whatever they have in Ocala." "And tell them what? That this girl might have moved up there and taken a job? She's eighteen. She can do whatever the h.e.l.l she wants."

"Give them a heads-up on her car."

"Why? Has it been stolen?"

I stood up. I was angrier than he was and glad he couldn't see it on my face. "Okay, Landry. You don't

give a s.h.i.t this girl has vanished, couldn't care less that she might be dead, and you have no interest in a

six-figure fraud case. What am I paying taxes for?" "Insurance fraud isn't insurance fraud until the insurance company says so. And the girl isn't missing if she's eighteen and willingly moved elsewhere-unless her family reports her missing."

"Her family did report her missing. Her sister reported it. That fact aside, you're saying if she's estranged from her family and something happens to her, only she could report her own disappearance. That's absurd. You're going to let G.o.d-knows-what happen to this girl because her mother is a self-absorbed airhead who's just happy to be rid of her.

"I guess I can see that," I said sarcastically. "After all, it might take an hour or two out of your busy day investigating purse s.n.a.t.c.hings to make a couple of phone calls, do some background checks, ask a few questions-"

Landry stood now too. His face was growing red beneath his tan. Everyone in the office was watching us. In my peripheral vision I could see one of the sergeants had come out of his office to watch. In the background a phone rang unanswered.

"Are you trying to tell me how to do my job, Estes?"

"I've done your job, Landry. It's not that hard."

"Yeah? Well, I don't see you working here now. Why is that?"

The phone stopped ringing. The silence in the room was the silence of outer s.p.a.ce: absolute.

Half a dozen valid answers trailed through my head. I gave none of them. Only one answer counted-to the people in this room and to me. I didn't work here anymore because I'd gotten one of our own-one of their own-killed. Nothing trumped that.

Finally, I nodded. "All right. You win," I said quietly. "Cheap Shot of the Day Award goes to Landry. I figured you'd be a big a.s.shole, and I was right. But Erin Seabright is missing, and someone has to care about that. If it has to be me, so be it. If that girl ends up dead because I couldn't find her quickly enough and you could have, that one will be on your head, Landry."

"Is there a problem here?" the sergeant asked, coming over. "Oh, yeah," he said, stopping in front of me. "I'm looking at it. You've got a h.e.l.l of a nerve coming into this building, Estes."

"Sorry. I didn't realize crime fighting had become by invitation only. Mine must have gotten lost in the mail."

The path to the door seemed to elongate as I walked away. My legs felt like columns of water. My hands were shaking. I went out of the squad room, down the hall, and into the ladies' room, where I slumped over a toilet and vomited.

A handful of moments pa.s.sed as I leaned against the wall of the stall, closed my eyes, and held my face in my hands. I was hot, sweating, breathing hard. Exhausted. But I was still alive, literally and metaphorically. I had bearded the lions in their den and survived. I probably should have been proud of myself.

I pushed myself to my feet, went and washed my face and rinsed my mouth with tap water. I tried to concentrate on my small victory. James Landry wouldn't be able to put Erin Seabright so easily out of his mind tonight, if for no other reason than that I had challenged him. If confronting him resulted in one phone call that turned up one lead, it would have been worth the effort and what it had cost me emotionally.

As I walked out to my car, I wondered dimly if I was developing a sense of purpose. It had been so long since I'd had one, I couldn't be sure.

I got into the BMW and waited. Just when I was ready to decide Landry had made his exit while I was hugging the porcelain life preserver, he came out of the building, sungla.s.ses hiding his eyes, a sport coat folded over one arm. I watched him get into a silver Pontiac Grand Am and roll out of the parking lot. I pulled into traffic two cars behind him, wanting to know who I was dealing with. Did he go straight home to a wife and kids? Could I play that parental angle on him? He hadn't been wearing a ring.

He drove straight to a cop bar on Military Trail. Disappointingly predictable. I didn't follow him inside, knowing my reception would probably be openly hostile. This was where the rank and file blew off steam, complained about their superiors, complained about civilians, complained about their ex-spouses. Landry would complain about me. That was all right. I didn't care what James Landry thought of me . . . as long as thinking of me made him think of Erin Seabright too.

Unlike me, Sean still enjoyed embarra.s.sing his proper Palm Beach family by occasionally showing up at the charity b.a.l.l.s that are the life of Palm Beach society during the winter season. The b.a.l.l.s are lavish, over-the-top affairs that cost nearly as much to put on as they raise for their various causes. The net for the charity can be shockingly low, considering the gross, but a good time will be had in the process. If one goes for that sort of thing-designer gowns, designer jewels, the latest in cosmetic surgery, the posturing and the catty mind games of the ridiculously rich. Despite having been raised in that world, I had never had the patience for it.

I found Sean in his closet-which is larger than the average person's bedroom-in an Armani tuxedo, tying his bow tie.

"What's the disease du jour?" I asked.

"It starts with a P."

"Pinkeye?"

"Parkinson's. That's a hot one with the celebs these days. This will be a younger crowd than some of the more traditional diseases." He slipped his tux jacket on and admired himself in the three-way mirror.

I leaned against the marble-topped center island and watched him primp. "One of these years they're going to run out of afflictions."

"I've threatened my mother I'm going to put on a ball for genital herpes," Sean said.

"G.o.d knows half the population of Palm Beach could benefit."

"And the other half would catch it at the after-party parties. Want to be my date?"

"To catch herpes?"

"To the ball, Cinderella. Your parents are sure to be there. Double your scandal, double your fun."

The idea of seeing my mother and father was less appealing than going into the Sheriff's Offices had been. At least facing Landry had the potential for something good to come of it.

My mother had come to see me in the hospital a couple of times. The maternal duty of a woman without a maternal bone in her body. She had pushed to adopt a child for reasons that had nothing to do with a love of children. I had been an accessory to her life, like a handbag or a lapdog.

A lapdog from the pound, my heritage was called into question by my father every time I stepped out of line-which was often. He had resented my intrusion on his life. I was a constant reminder of his inability to sire children of his own. My resentment of his feelings had only served to fuel the fires of my rebellion.

I hadn't spoken to my father in over a decade. He had disowned me when I'd left college to become a common cop. An affront to him. A slap in his face. True. And a flimsy excuse to end a relationship that should have been unbreakable. He and I had both seized on it.

"Gee, sorry," I said, spreading my arms wide. "I'm not dressed for it."

Sean took in the old jeans and black turtleneck with a critical eye. "What happened to our fashion plate of the morning?"

"She had a very long day of p.i.s.sing people off."

"Is that a good thing?"

"We'll see. Squeeze enough pimples, one of them is bound to burst."

"How folksy."

"Did Van Zandt come by?"

He rolled his eyes. "Honey, people like Tomas Van Zandt are the reason I live behind gates. If he came

by, I didn't hear about it." "I guess he's too busy trying to sweet-talk Trey Hughes into spending a few million bucks on horses." "He'll need them. Have you seen that barn he's building? The Taj Mahal of Wellington." "I heard something about it." "Fifty box stalls with crown molding, for G.o.d's sake. Four groom's apartments upstairs. Covered arena.

Big jumping field."

"Where is it?"

"Ten acres of prime real estate in that new development next to Grand Prix Village: Fairfields."

The name gave me a shock. "Fairfields?"

"Yes," he said, adjusting his French cuffs and checking himself out in the mirror again. "It's going to be a

great big gaudy monstrosity that will make his trainer the envy of every jumper jockey on the East Coast.I have to go, darling." "Wait. A place like you're saying will cost the earth." "And the moon and the stars." "Can Trey really live that large off his trust fund?" "He doesn't have to. His mother left nearly the entire Hughes estate to him."

"Sallie Hughes died?"

"Last year. Fell down the stairs in her home and fractured her skull. So the story goes. You really ought to keep up with the old neighborhood, El," he scolded. Then he kissed my cheek and left.

F airfields. Bruce Seabright had just that morning been on his way to close a deal at Fairfields.

I don't like or trust coincidence. I don't believe coincidence is an accidental thing. In college I had once attended a lecture by a well-known New Age guru who believed all life at its most basic molecular structure is energy. Everything we do, every thought we have, every emotion we experience, can be broken down to pure energy. Our lives are energy, driving, seeking, running, colliding with the energy of the other people in our small worlds. Energy attracts energy, intent becomes a force of nature, and there is no such thing as coincidence.

When I feel like believing strongly in my theory, I then realize I have to accept that nothing in life can truly be random or accidental. And then I decide I would be better off believing in nothing.