E.".

"I was married once," Landry offered. "And I lived with a woman for a while. It didn't work out. Youknow: the job, the hours, I'm difficult. Blah, blah, blah." "I never tried. Go straight to 'I'm difficult. Blah, blah, blah.' " He smiled wearily and produced a cigarette and a lighter from his pocket. "Car pack?" I asked. "Gotta get that corpse taste out." "I used to drink," I confessed. "To cleanse the palate." "But you quit?" "I gave up everything that could dull pain." "Why?" "Because I believed I deserved to hurt. Punishment. Penance. Purgatory. Call it what you like." "Stupid," Landry proclaimed. "You're not G.o.d, Estes." "A welcome relief to all true believers, I'm sure. Maybe I thought I should beat Him to the punch." "You made a mistake," he said. "I don't believe the Pope is infallible either." "Heretic."

"I'm just saying, you've got too much good in you to let one bad mistake shut it all down." The half smile tugged at the corner of my mouth. "I know," I said. "I know that now. Thanks to Molly." Landry glanced back over his shoulder at the house. "What are you going to tell her about Erin?" "The truth," I said on a sigh. "She won't stand for anything less." The prospect drove me to my feet. As exhausted as I was, still I was restless, frustrated at the injustices of Molly Seabright's life and the inadequacy of my people skills. Crossing my arms against the damp

night air, I walked to the edge of the patio.

"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 lether 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.

a.s.sistant 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 s.h.i.t wants to take the fall. Fine. Let him rot. His father was an a.s.shole. He's an a.s.shole. 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 allegedrape. 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 impa.s.sively. "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 embarra.s.s 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 ma.s.sive bruising and tearing in your v.a.g.i.n.a. You didn't."

Her expression was that of someone trapped in a nightmare. "I can't believe this is happening to me," shemurmured 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-" "I haven't done anything wrong!" Erin said to her. "I don't have anything to hide. It wasn't my fault!" Landry looked at Roca and rolled his eyes. "So how did Chad hook up with Jade, Erin? As far as I can see, the only thing Don Jade and Chad Seabright have in common is knowing you. I can't picture thembeing friends." "Ask them!" she snapped. "Maybe they fell for each other. I wouldn't know." "And they were both in on it with Paris Montgomery, right? They held you in a trailer in her backyard." Erin put her face in her hands. "I don't know!"

"Erin is the victim in this," Onjo said. "She's the last person who should be sitting in jail." "That's not what Chad is saying," Roca said. "That's not what Paris is saying. They're both saying thekidnapping was Erin's idea. Paris came up with the plot to kill the horse and implicate Jade. Erin pushedher to fake the kidnapping to extort money from her stepfather and drive a wedge between Seabright andher mother, as well as to implicate Jade in a crime that would ruin his career."

"And you know what?" Landry said. "That story makes a lot more sense to me than Chad and Jade as sociopathic secret bis.e.xual lovers."

"This is a nightmare!" Erin sobbed. "They raped me!" Landry sighed, got up, stretched his shoulders, rubbed his face. "I'm just having a hard time with that,Erin."

Onjo pushed her chair back and stood up. She was no taller standing than sitting. "This is barbaric, and it

's over." She called to the guard outside the door. "You're not going to stay for the movie?" Landry asked, gesturing toward the television and VCR on ametal cart in a corner of the room.

Onjo scowled at him. "What are you talking about? What movie?"

"They made videos," Erin said. "They made me do things. It was horrible."

"I don't think they made this one for public consumption," Roca said. "You may want to reconsider your

strategy, Erin. I tend to give the best deal to the person telling me the fewest lies."

Landry pushed the play b.u.t.ton on the VCR.

"You're a very talented actress, Ms. Seabright," he said. "If you hadn't turned to a life of crime, you

might have made it all the way to triple-X p.o.r.n."

The tape was a copy of the one that had been in the video camera Elena had saved from the trailer.

Behind the scenes of the alleged kidnapping. Outtakes. The actors rehearsing.

The image that filled the television screen was of Erin posing suggestively on the bed, smiling seductively

at the camera. The same bed she had been chained to in the videos that had been sent to Bruce Seabright. The same bed she had huddled into in the video that showed her taking a beating so brutal,

even hardened cops had been shocked to see it.

Maria Onjo watched the tape, the color in her face draining away with her defense.

Erin looked from her attorney to Landry. "They made me do that. I had to do exactly what they said or

they beat me!" she cried. "You think I wanted to do that?"

Her own image stared out at her from the television screen as she touched herself between her legs, then licked her fingers.

"Yeah," Landry said. "I do."

A male voice in the background on the tape mumbled something, then he and Erin both laughed.

Erin shoved her chair back from the table and got up to pace. A caged, cornered, angry little animal. "I

had to play along," she said. "I was afraid they would kill me! What is wrong with you people? Why won't you believe me? It was Chad. I know that now. He was punishing me."

Something struck the one-way mirror from the back side. Erin and Onjo jumped. Landry looked at Roca.