Yes, the other girl was gone too. Had he known Erin Seabright very well?
No, he didn't. He was nothing to those girls because he could not speak English very well.
That makes things hard, I said. People don't respect you. It never occurs to those people that you could feel the same way about them because they don't speak Spanish.
Young girls think only of themselves and the men they want.
Erin had her eye on Senor Jade, yes?
Yes.
Did Senor Jade have his eye on her?
No answer.
Or maybe Van Zandt was the one?
Javier only did his job. He didn't mind the business of other people.
That was the best way to be, I agreed. Why borrow trouble from others? Look at Jill. She said she knew something about Stellar's death, and look what happened to her.
The dead tell no tales.
His gaze flicked past me. I turned to find Trey Hughes coming up behind me.
'By golly, Ellie, you're a woman of many talents,' he said. He seemed subdued, not his usual drunken, jovial self. 'Speaking in tongues.'
I lifted a shoulder. 'A language here, a language there. It's nothing every girl in boarding school doesn't get.'
'I've got all I can do with English.'
'You're not riding?' I asked, taking in his casual attire. Chinos, polo shirt, deck shoes.
'Paris is taking him today,' he said, reaching past me to touch the gray's nose. 'She can undo all the confusion I wreaked on him in the last go-round Friday.'
He looked at my outfit and lifted a brow. 'You don't exactly look yourself today either.'
I spread my hands. 'My disguise as one of the common folk.'
He smiled a sleepy kind of smile. I wondered if he had taken the mood elevator down with a little chemical assistance.
'I heard a little rumor about you, young lady,' he said, watching me out of the corner of his eye as he fed a stalk of hay to his horse.
'Really? I hope it was juicy. Am I having a flaming affair with someone? With you?'
'Are you? That's the hell of getting old,' he said. 'I'm still having fun, but I can't remember any of it.'
'Then it's always new and fresh.'
'Always look on the bright side.'
'So what did you hear about me?' I asked, more interested in whom he had heard it from. Van Zandt? Bruce Seabright? Van Zandt would spread the news to turn people against me for his own sake. Seabright would have told Hughes because he valued his client more than he valued his stepdaughter.
'That you're not who you seem to be,' Hughes said.
'Is anyone?'
'Good point, my dear.'
He came out of the stall and we walked to the end of the aisle to stand looking out. The sky had gone gray with the threat of rain. Across the road the water of the lagoon rippled silver under the skimming breeze.
'So, who am I supposed to be-if I'm not who I seem?' I asked.
'A spy,' he said. He didn't seem upset, but strangely calm. Perhaps he was tired of playing the game too. I wondered just how key a player in all this he was, or if he had simply allowed himself to be swept along by someone else's current.
'A spy? That's exciting,' I said. 'For a foreign country? For a terrorist cell?'
Hughes gave an elaborate shrug, tipping his head to one side.
'I knew that I knew you,' he said quietly. 'I just couldn't quite place the face. The old brain doesn't fire like it used to.'
'A mind is a terrible thing to waste.'
'I'd get a transplant, but I keep forgetting to call.'
It was a terrible thing, I thought as we stood there side by side. Trey Hughes had had it all going for him: good looks, quick wit, money to do or be anything. And this was what he had chosen to become: an aging alcoholic wastrel.
Funny, I thought, people who had known me along the way might say a similar thing: She had every advantage, came from such a good family, and she threw it all back in their faces. For what? Look at her now. What a shame.
We can never know another person's heart, what gives them strength, what breaks them down, how they define courage or rebellion or success.
'How do you think you know me?' I asked.
'I know your father. I've had occasion to call on his services over the years. The name made it click. Estes. Elle. Elena Estes. You had the most glorious mane of hair,' he reminisced. He had a faraway look as he stared through the haze of his memory. 'A friend tells me you're a private eye now. Imagine that.'
'It's not true. Call the licensing board and ask. They don't know me by any name.'
'Good business to be in,' he said, ignoring my denial. 'Christ knows there's never any shortage of secrets around here. People will do anything for a dime.'
'Kill a horse?' I asked.
'Kill a horse. Kill a career. Kill a marriage.'
'Kill a person?'
He didn't seem shocked by the suggestion. 'The oldest story in the world: greed.'
'Yes. And it always ends the same way: badly.'
'For someone,' he said. 'The trick is not to be that someone.'
'What character do you play in this story, Trey?'
He tried a weary smile. 'The sad clown. All the world loves a sad clown.'
'I'm only interested in the villain,' I said. 'Can you point me in a direction?'
He tried to laugh, but didn't have the energy for it. 'Sure. Go into the hall of mirrors and take a left.'
'A girl is dead, Trey. Erin Seabright's been kidnapped. It's not a game.'
'No. It's more like a movie.'
'If you know something, now's the time to tell it.'
'Honey,' he said, staring out at the water. 'If I knew anything, I wouldn't be where I am today.'
He walked away from me then, got in his convertible, and drove slowly away. I watched him go, thinking I had been wrong at the start of this, when I had said everything led back to Jade. Everything led back to Trey Hughes- the land deal with Seabright, Erin getting the job with Jade, Stellar. All of it came back to Trey.
And so, the big money question was: was he at the center of the storm because he was the storm, or had the storm blown up around him?
Trey had an eye for the girls. That was no secret. And scandal was his middle name. God knew how many affairs he'd had in his lifetime. He'd had an affair with Stella Berne while Michael was his trainer. He'd been with her the night his mother died. It wasn't hard to imagine him having his eye on Erin. But kidnapping? And what about Jill Morone?
I couldn't imagine any of it. I didn't want to. Monte Hughes III, my first big crush.
I know your father. I've had occasion to call on his services over the years.
What the hell had he meant by that? Why would he have needed the services of a defense attorney the caliber of my father? And how would I find out? Call my father after all these years of bitter silence and ask him?
So, Dad, never mind that I defied you at every turn and dumped my education to become a cop. And never mind that you were always a lousy, distant, uninvolved parent, disappointed in me for the simple fact that I was not a child of your own making. Water under the bridge. Tell me why Trey Hughes has needed your esteemed expertise.
My father and I hadn't spoken in a decade. It wasn't going to happen now.
I wondered if Landry had interviewed Trey. I wondered if he'd run his name through the system as a matter of
