Palm Beach Polo Equestrian Center is like a small sovereign nation, complete with royalty and guards at the gates. At the front gates. The back gates stood open during the day and could be reached from Sean's farm by car in five minutes. People from the neighborhood regularly hacked their horses over on show days and saved themselves the cost of stabling-ninety dollars a weekend for a pipe-and-canvas stall in a circus tent with ninety-nine other horses. A guard making night rounds would lock the gate at some point late in the evening. The guard hadn't made his rounds yet that night.

I drove through the gates, a yellow parking pass stolen from Sean's Mercedes hanging on my rearview mirror, just in case. I parked in a row of vehicles along a fence opposite the last of the forty big stabling tents on the property.

I drove a sea-green BMW 318i convertible I bought at a sheriff's auction. The roof sometimes leaked in a hard rain, but it had an interesting option that hadn't come from the factory in Bavaria: a small, foam-lined metal box hidden in the driver's door panel, just big enough to hold a good-sized bag of cocaine or a handgun. The Glock nine millimeter I kept there was tucked into the back of my jeans, hidden by my shirttail as I walked away.

On show days the show grounds are as busy and crazy as the streets of Calcutta. Golf carts and small motorcycles race back and forth between the barns and showrings, dodging dogs and trucks and trailers, heavy equipment, Jaguars and Porsches, people on horses and children on ponies, and grooms walking charges done up in immaculate braids and draped in two-hundred-dollar cool-out sheets in the custom colors of their stables. The tents look like refugee camps with portable johns out front, people filling buckets from pump hydrants by the side of the dirt road, and illegal aliens dumping muck buckets into the huge piles of manure that are carted away in dump trucks once a day. People school horses on every available open patch of ground, trainers shouting instructions, encouragement, and insults at their students. Announcements blare over the public address system every few minutes.

At night the place is a different world. Quiet. Almost deserted. The roads are empty. Security guards make the rounds of the barns periodically. A groom or trainer might drop by to perform the ritual night check or to tend an animal with a medical problem. Some stables leave a guard of their own posted in their elaborately decorated tack room. Baby-sitters for horseflesh worth millions.

Bad things can happen under cover of darkness. Rivals can become enemies. Jealousy can become revenge. I once knew a woman who sent a private cop everywhere with her horses after one of her top jumpers was slipped LSD the night before a competition offering fifty thousand dollars in prize money.

I'd made a couple of good busts at this show grounds when I'd worked narcotics. Any kind of drug-human or animal, remedial or recreational-could be had here if one knew whom and how to ask. Because I had once been a part of this world, I was able to blend in. I had been away from it long enough that no one knew me. Yet I could walk the walk and talk the talk. I had to hope Sean's little joke in Sidelines hadn't taken away my anonymity.

I made the dogleg turns from the back area known euphemistically as "The Meadows," the tent ghetto where show management always sticks the dressage horses that ship in for only several shows each season. From those back tents it takes twenty minutes to walk to the heart of the show grounds. Earth-moving equipment sat parked at one corner, backed into freshly cleared land amid the scrubby woods. The place was being expanded again.

Lights glowed in the tents. A woman's melodic laugh floated on the night air. A man's low chuckle underscored the sound. I could see the pair standing at the end of an aisle in tent nineteen. Elaborate landscaping at the corner of the tent set the stage around a lighted stable sign with one golden word on a field of hunter green: JADE.

I walked past. Now that I had found Jade's stalls, I didn't know what I was going to do. I hadn't thought that far ahead. I turned on the far side of tent eighteen and doubled back around, coming up through the aisles of nineteen until I could hear the voices again.

"Do you hear anything?" The man's voice. An accent. Maybe Dutch, maybe Flemish.

I stopped breathing.

"Gut sounds," the woman said. "She's fine, but we'll go through the drill with the vet anyway. Can't be seen looking careless after Stellar."

The man gave a humorless laugh. "People have made their minds up about that. They believe what they want."

"The worst," the woman said. "Jane Lennox called today. She's thinking of putting Park Lane with another trainer. I talked her out of it."

"I'm sure you did. You're very persuasive, Paris."

"This is America. You're supposed to be innocent until proven guilty."

"Innocent always if you're rich or beautiful or charming."

"Don is beautiful and charming, and everyone believes he's guilty."

"Like O.J. was guilty? He's playing golf and fucking white women."

"What a thing to say!"

"It's true. And Jade has a barn full of horses. Americans…" Disdain.

"I'm an American, V." An edge to the tone. "Do you want to call me stupid?"

"Paris…" Smarmy contrition.

"Stupid Americans buy your horses and line your pockets. You should show more respect. Or does that just prove how stupid we are?"

"Paris…" Smarmier contrition. "Don't be angry with me. I don't want you angry with me."

"No, you don't."

A Jack Russell terrier came sniffing around the corner then and stared at me while he raised his leg and peed on a bale of hay, considering whether or not to blow my cover. The leg went down and the dog went off like a car alarm. I stood where I was.

The woman called out: "Milo! Milo, come here!"

Milo stood his ground. He bounced up and down like a wind-up toy every time he barked.

The woman rounded the corner, looking surprised to see me. She was blond and pretty in dark breeches and a green polo shirt with a couple of gold necklaces showing at the throat. She flashed a thousand-watt toothpaste-ad smile that was nothing more than jaw muscles flexing.

"Sorry. He thinks he's a Rottweiler," she said, scooping up the Russell. "Can I help you?"

"I don't know. I'm looking for someone. I was told she works for Don Jade. Erin Seabright?"

"Erin? What do you want with her?"

"This is kind of awkward," I said. "I heard she was looking for another job. I have a friend in the market for a groom. You know how it is during the season."

"Do I ever!" She gave a dramatic, put-upon sigh, rolling the big brown eyes. An actress. "We're looking too. Erin quit, I'm sad to say."

"Really? When was that?"

"Sunday. Left us high and dry. Found something more interesting up in Ocala, I guess. Don tried to talk her out of it, but he said her mind was made up. I was sorry to hear it. I liked Erin, but you know how flighty these girls can be."

"Huh. I'm surprised. The way I understood it, she wanted to stay in the Wellington area. Did she leave an address-to have her paycheck sent?"

"Don paid her before she left. I'm Don's assistant trainer, by the way. Paris Montgomery." Keeping the dog tucked against her, she held a hand out and shook mine. She had a strong grip. "And you are…?"

"Elle Stevens." A name I had used undercover in my past life. It fell off my tongue without hesitation. "So, she left Sunday. Was that before or after Stellar went down?"

The smile died. "Why would you ask that?"

"Well… a disgruntled employee leaves and suddenly you lose a horse-"

"Stellar bit through an electrical cord. It was an accident."