"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?"
In the background I could hear pounding, like someone banging on a door.
"Molly?"
And then a strange and terrible keening sound that ended with her name.
"Hurry!" Molly said.
The last thing I heard before the line went dead was an eerie voice: "I only ever wanted a nice life… I only ever wanted a nice life…"
57
Okay," Landry said. "Here's how we're playing it. I'm going in first with the uniforms."
I let him talk, not caring what he said, not caring what his plan was. All I could think of was Molly.
If someone had harmed that child…
I thought of Chad and Erin running at large. If they had come back to the house-
"Elena, did you hear me?"
I didn't answer him.
He turned in at the driveway and ran the car onto the lawn. A radio car turned in behind us. I was out of the car before it was stopped.
"Dammit, Estes!"
The front door was open. I went through it without a care to what danger might be on the other side.
"Molly!"
Landry was right behind me. "Seabright? It's Landry."
"Molly!"
I took the stairs two at a time.
If someone has harmed that child…
L andry went toward Seabright's home office. The house was eerily silent, except for a small, faint sound coming from beyond the office doors.
"Seabright?"
Landry moved along the wall, gun drawn. In his peripheral vision, he saw Elena bolt up the steps.
"Seabright?" he called out again.
The sound was growing more distinct. Singing, he thought. He sidled along the door, stretching his arm as long as he could to reach the doorknob.
Singing. No, more like chanting. "All I ever wanted was a nice life."
Molly!"
I had no idea which of the closed doors belonged to her. I stood to the side and opened the first one I came to. Chad's room.
If someone has harmed that child…
I shoved open another door. Another unoccupied bedroom.
"Molly!"
If someone has harmed that child…
The third door opened an inch and hit something. I shoved at it.
"Molly!"
If someone has harmed that child…
The doors to the study fell open, revealing a gruesome tableau. Krystal Seabright stood behind her husband's desk, covered in blood. Blood streaked her bleached hair, her face, the pretty pink dress she had been wearing when Landry had seen her earlier. Bruce Seabright was slumped over his otherwise immaculate desk, a butcher's knife sticking out of one of perhaps fifty stab wounds in his back, neck, and head.
"Jesus God," Landry murmured.
Krystal looked at him, her eyes glassy and wide.
"I only ever wanted a nice life. He ruined it. He ruined everything."
I f someone has harmed that child…
I pulled back, took a deep breath, and rammed the door with my shoulder as hard as I could.
"Molly!"
The block on the other side of the door gave a few inches, enough for me to wedge into the opening and shove it a few inches more. Someone had piled half the furniture in the room as a blockade.
"Elena!"
Molly ran into me full force. I fell to my knees and caught her in my arms and held her as tightly as I had ever held anyone in all my life. I put my arms around Molly Seabright and held her while she cried, and held her for a long time after that.
For her… and for myself.
58
All I could say to Molly as I hugged her tight was that it was over. It's over. It's over. It's over. But that was a lie of such grand proportions, all lies that had come before it were dwarfed in comparison. Nothing was over for Molly, except having a family.
Krystal, fragile in the best of times, had shattered under the pressure. She blamed her husband for what she believed had happened to Erin. The kidnapping, the rape. Landry told me she had suspected Bruce of sending Paris Montgomery to her to rent the Loxahatchee house where the whole drama had been staged.
She had reached her limit. In the end, one might have tried to put a nobler face on it and said Krystal had defended her daughter, had taken revenge for her. Sadly, I didn't believe that at all. I believed killing Bruce had been punishment not for ruining her daughter, but for ruining her fairy tale.
I only ever wanted a nice life.
I wondered whether Krystal would have stayed with Bruce if she had found out that what they had all been put through had been orchestrated at least in part by her daughter. I suspected she would have put the blame squarely on Erin and no one else. She would have found a way to excuse Bruce's sins and keep her pretty life intact.
The human mind has an amazing capacity for rationalization.
Landry sent Krystal to the Sheriff's Office in a cruiser, then drove Molly and me to Sean's farm. Not a word was said about calling Child Protective Services, which was standard operating procedure in a case like Molly's.
We rode in silence most of the way, drained of our emotions and our energies, weighed down by the magnitude of what had gone on. The only sound in the car was the crackle of Landry's radio. An old familiar noise for me. For a moment I felt as nostalgic for it as I ever had for any song from my adolescence.
As we turned in at the Avadonis gate, Landry used his cell phone to call Weiss at the airport. There was still no sign of Van Zandt, and the plane was ready to taxi onto the runway.
Exhausted, Molly had fallen asleep leaning against me in the backseat. Landry scooped her out and carried her into the guest house. I led the way to the second small bedroom, thinking what an odd family unit we made.