L andry went out onto the sidewalk to stand in the hot afternoon sun and smoke a cigarette. He had to get the taste of other people's lies out of his mouth, burn out the stink of what they had done.
Chad Seabright had copped to everything, giving up his claims of innocence in order to hurt Erin. He claimed Erin had come to him with the plan. They would fake her kidnapping, and collect the ransom from Bruce Seabright. If he didn't pay one way, he would pay another: with his reputation, with his marriage. At the same time, Don Jade would be implicated and ruined, and Paris Montgomery would get what she wanted-Jade's business and Trey Hughes' stables.
A simple plan.
The three of them had sat down together and come up with the scripts for the videotapes as if they were shooting a movie for a film class. According to Chad, the beating had been Erin's idea. She had insisted he actually strike her with the whip for the sake of realism.
It was Erin's idea. It was Paris Montgomery's idea. It wasn't Chad's fault.
Nothing was ever anybody's fault.
Chad had been deceived and used by Erin. He was an innocent. Erin's mother hadn't raised her right. Bruce Seabright didn't love her. Paris Montgomery had brainwashed her.
Paris Montgomery had yet to be questioned, but Landry would eventually have to listen to her while she cried and told him how her father made her play the skin flute when she was three, and how she lost out on being the homecoming queen in high school, and how that all warped her.
Chad claimed not to know anything about Tomas Van Zandt or about the death of Jill Morone. Landry figured that would turn out not to be anyone's fault either.
What Landry wanted to know was: If nothing was ever anybody's fault, then how was it people ended up murdered, orphaned, lives destroyed? Paris Montgomery and Erin Seabright and Chad Seabright had made decisions that had ruined people's lives, ended people's lives. How was all that nobody's fault?
60
In the uncertain hour before the morning
Near the ending of the interminable night…
I recalled those lines again as I sat tucked up against the back of the chaise on my patio, watching the sunrise the day after Chad Seabright had cut a deal with the state's attorney.
Chad had turned on Erin. Erin had turned on Paris Montgomery. Paris had fingered Van Zandt as Jill Morone's killer, trying to win herself points with the state's attorney. They all deserved to rot in hell.
I thought of Molly, and tried to apply T. S. Eliot's words as a caption to what she was going through, and to the journey of her life. I tried not to dwell on the irony that it had been Molly who had fought to bring her family back together by hiring me to find her sister, and at the end of it, Molly was the only one left.
Bruce Seabright was dead. Krystal's mind had shattered. If she had ever been of any real support in Molly's life before, it was doubtful she ever would be again. And Erin, the sister Molly had loved so much, was lost to her forever. If not by a prison term, by Erin's betrayal.
Life can change in a heartbeat, in an instant, in the time it takes to make a wrong decision… or a right one.
I had given Molly the news about Erin's involvement in the plot the night before and held her in my arms while she cried herself to sleep.
She came out onto the patio then, wrapped in an enormous green blanket, climbed onto the chaise, and curled up beside me without saying a word. I stroked a hand over her hair, and wished I had the power to make that moment last a long, long time.
After a while I finally asked, "So what do you know about this Aunt Maxine person?"
The Sheriff's Office had located Krystal Seabright's only living relative in the area, a sixty-something widow in West Palm Beach. I was to drive Molly to her in the afternoon.
"She's okay," Molly said without enthusiasm. "She's… normal."
"Well, that's highly overrated."
We were silent for a time, just looking off across the fields at the sunrise. I searched awkwardly for words.
"You know I'm terribly sorry for everything that happened in the end, Molly. But I'm not sorry you came to me that day and asked me to help you. I'm a better person for knowing you.
"And if I don't like this Maxine broad," I added in my crankiest tone. "You're coming straight home with me."
Molly looked up at me through her owlish little glasses and smiled for the first time since I'd known her.
Great-aunt Maxine lived in a nice complex of apartments, and seemed as advertised: normal. I helped Molly in with her things and stayed for a cup of coffee and a fresh oatmeal cookie. Normal.
Molly walked me out, and we suffered through good-bye.
"You know, you can call me anytime for anything, Molly," I told her. "Or even for nothing at all."
She smiled a soft, wise smile and nodded. Behind the lenses of her glasses, her earnest blue eyes were shimmering with tears. She handed me a small card cut out of a piece of stationery. She had printed her name and new address and phone number beside a tiny sticker of a purple pansy.
"You have to send me your final bill," she said. "I'm sure I owe you quite a lot of money. I'll have to pay you in installments. We can work something out."
"No," I murmured. "You don't owe me anything at all."
I hugged her tight for a long while. If I could have, I would have cried.
B y the time I returned to the farm, the day was slipping away, the sun pouring molten orange along the flat western horizon. I parked my car and wandered down to the barn.
Irina had Feliki in the cross-ties, dressing her legs with witch hazel and alcohol, and wrapping them for the night.
"How's tricks?" I asked.
"Is fine," she said, her concentration on making the right front bandage match perfectly with the left.
"I'm sorry, I haven't been much help lately," I said.
She looked up at me and smiled softly. "Is fine, Elena. It doesn't matter. I know the things that matter."
I was tempted to ask her the meaning of life.
She moved to the mare's hind legs and sprayed on the alcohol concoction.
"Have the police yet found the Belgian?" she asked.
"No. It seems he simply vanished with Lorinda Carlton's rental car. They'll get him eventually."
"He pays for his crimes, I think," Irina said. "I believe in karma. Don't you?"
"I don't know. Maybe."
"I think yes."
She was singing when I left the barn.
Landry had parked himself in a lounge chair by the pool. He was watching the sun set through his shades. I sat down beside his legs and blocked his view.
"What do you know, Landry?"
"People are scum."
"Not all of them."
"No. I like you, Estes," he said. "You're a good and decent human being."
"I'm glad you think so. I'm glad I think so too," I confessed, though I didn't think he probably understood the depth of what that really meant to me.
Or perhaps he did.
"Trey Hughes rolled on Jade today," he said. "He says it was Jade's idea to off the old lady so Trey could inherit. Not his fault the guy followed through with it."
"Of course not. And what does Jade have to say?"
He just shook his head. "Did you get Molly settled in?"
"Yes. She'll be all right. I miss her," I confessed.
Landry reached out and touched my hand. "You'll be all right too."
"I know. Yes. I will be. I will be. I am."
"You are," he agreed, his hand squeezing mine. "What do you say we get to know each other?"
I smiled the half smile and nodded, and we walked toward the guest house hand in hand.
Life can change in a heartbeat.
