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 alleged rape. 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 impassively. '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 embarrass 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 massive bruising and tearing in your vagina. You didn't.'
Her expression was that of someone trapped in a nightmare. 'I can't believe this is happening to me,' she murmured 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 them being 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 the kidnapping was Erin's idea. Paris came up with the plot to kill the horse and implicate Jade. Erin pushed her to fake the kidnapping to extort money from her stepfather and drive a wedge between Seabright and her 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 bisexual 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 a metal 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 button 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 porn.'
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.'
