I had thrown around the royal we enough to imply the sheriff’s detectives and I were working in concert. She felt trapped. I hoped she would do what most good Midwestern girls would do in this situation-yield to authority and tell the truth.
Lisbeth looked around for witnesses, then back at the ground, embarrassed or ashamed or both. “Sometimes things get out of control. Everybody’s drunk or high or something. And they take the party to someone’s house, and there’s sex.”
“Like an orgy?”
The Big Sigh again. “Yes, like that.”
“And you didn’t want to go, but Irina didn’t care?”
“Something like that,” she said, her voice dropping off as we neared the Star Polo trailer again. She pulled the horse into his slot among the others and started to remove his tack.
I hung back, sensing I had pushed her as far as I could for the time being. I couldn’t say what she had told me surprised me at all. When people know they don’t have boundaries, they seldom set heir own. Too much money, idle time, and the devil’s workshop, etc, etc.
Was that what had happened the night Irina disappeared? The party had gotten out of control, the sex turned a little too rough, he game turned deadly?
Nothing fazed Irina. Combine her jaded sense of the world with her alleged desire to snag a wealthy American husband… It didn’t surprise me that she would have joined in the games-or that Lisbeth, with her down-home sensibilities, would not. On the other hand, for Lisbeth to know what she knew, she could have been a past participant. That would account for the embarrassment and/or shame.
I looked for witnesses and stepped in beside the horse. “Lisbeth, who went to those parties?” I asked quietly.
“All of those guys,” she mumbled, glancing nervously over her shoulder. “The Club.”
“What club? The Polo Club?”
“No. Mr. Brody and his friends. They call themselves the Alibi Club.”
An unpleasant feeling slithered through me when she said it. The Alibi Club. I had called Bennett Walker the Alibi Man. Now there was a club. Wealthy bad boys covering one another’s asses when there was trouble. There sure as hell was trouble now.
“Lisbeth!” Jim Brody barked from the back of a horse. “What the hell’s taking you so long? Manuel needs you over here.”
“Yes, Mr. Brody. Right away.” The girl took her opportunity to get away from me.
Jim Brody and I locked gazes for a moment. He was trying to figure out if he should know me, if he should bother to.
“Elena!” Barbaro jumped off a horse and tossed the reins to a groom. He was a vision of virility, in white breeches and tall boots. The animal in his element. “I’m so glad you’ve come!”
His smile was wide and white, his hair tousled. But the smile stalled when I turned to face him fully.
“What happened?” he asked, gently cradling my face in his hands.
“I tripped and fell,” I said. “I should make up a better story instead of admitting what a klutz I am, but there it is.”
“Is it very painful?”
His thumb brushed the outer corner of my mouth on the right side-the side with feeling-and something like electricity skimmed over every undamaged nerve in my body.
“Only to my pride,” I said.
His gaze lingered on my mouth long enough to make me think he might kiss me, but he kissed my cheek instead-the one I couldn’t feel.
“Elena, this is Mr. Brody, my patron.” He planted a gloved hand on my shoulder to guide me toward Brody. “Mr. Brody, my lovely new friend, Elena Estes.”
“Estes?” Brody said as he climbed off his horse. “Any relation to Edward Estes?”
Here was the moment I had been dreading. With Bennett involved in all of this, I couldn’t pretend to be someone else. And if Jim Brody knew my father, then my father was going to hear about me from one of his cronies. I hoped to God he didn’t decide to play the wounded party, waiting for the return of his prodigal child.
“Not by choice,” I said sweetly, forcing the half smile, trying to look like trouble, the fun kind. “He used to be my father.”
Brody’s brows went up and he barked a laugh. “Stick around for drinks. I want to hear the rest of that story.”
He climbed up on a mounting block and got on a fresh horse. Whatever his amusement at me, he wasn’t going to let it get in the way of his polo match.
“He knows your father?” Barbaro asked, surprised.
“Small world.”
“Your father enjoys polo?”
“My father enjoys power. He used to race boats. Maybe he still does, I don’t know.”
“How can you not know?” he asked, puzzled.
“I haven’t spoken to my father in twenty years,” I admitted. “Shouldn’t you be getting on a horse?”
He waved a hand in the direction of the field. “I’m sitting out this chukker. These friends of Mr. Brody’s, all are wealthy men who enjoy the game but are not so good with the mallet. They set up the match so in every other chukker each team gets one professional. The rest of the match they spend swinging at one another.”
He stopped talking and focused his full attention on me, taking in the look: Chanel ballet flats, slim white linen cigarette pants, a simple black ballet-neck top with three-quarter sleeves.
“Very chic,” he said, smiling. “Simple, elegant, confident.”
“Well, that’s just me in a nutshell.”
Barbaro chuckled. “Elegant and chic, yes. Simple, I don’t think so.
“Come, sit,” he said. “My car is on the sidelines.”
His car was a British racing-green Aston Martin convertible with buttery tan leather interior and a flag of Spain decal on one corner of the windshield. He held the door for me.
“Nice ride,” I said, settling in.
“I leased it for the season. That way I get a new toy every year.”
“And what do you do when the season is over?”
“I go someplace else and lease another. I’m going to Europe to play for the summer. I have my eye on a Lamborghini.”
“Polo is very good to you,” I commented.
“Modeling has been very good to me. Polo is my passion,” he said. “So, tell me why you have not spoken to your father in so long.”
“Because we don’t have anything to say to each other. It’s as simple as that,” I said. “It’s no big deal. It’s not like we’re related or anything.
“I was adopted,” I explained.
“But he is the only father you have known?”
“Edward Estes owned the house I grew up in. He had no interest in me beyond how I might be useful to him. And I made a point not to be useful to him at all.”
Barbaro said nothing. He looked very serious as he tried to figure me out.
“I can’t believe your good friend didn’t fill you in on some of this last night,” I said.
“All he said was that the two of you were once engaged.”
I laughed. “What a pretty liar you are. You even manage to look innocent. I outright accused him of being a rapist with the potential to be a murderer, and you’re telling me neither one of you brought that up after I left?”
He dragged a hand through his hair and looked away, uncomfortable. “He told me he was wrongly accused and you believed the worst about him; beyond that, I did not want to hear anything from him about you.”
I didn’t really believe him, but it was an interesting position he vas taking. I watched him openly and wondered what he was all about.
