The Tattered Thread

CHAPTER TWENTY

  Tasia stopped galloping Integrity and brought the horse down to a slow walk. She led him over to where Sam was working with the new quarter horse, and they started talking. Her laughter sounded so good even from a distance, and it managed to lift Elaine’s spirits.

  But seeing Marlon driving off in his brown sedan brought Elaine’s thoughts back to the less positive. As he tried to get through the gate, television and newspaper reporters along with various camera crews surrounded his car. They were trying to make him give a statement. Three vans had the logos of local television stations on them, and two had been sent by cable stations. Numerous unmarked cars were parked on the side of the road.

  Marlon kept his windows rolled up and had the good sense to keep his car moving. He managed to get out in one piece, but while the gates were open, every camera out there was trained on Tasia. The flashes were blinding. Most of the cameras were big with massive telephoto lenses, like the ones used courtside during tennis matches. Elaine started to regard Tasia in a new light, as a media plaything and as tabloid fodder. The world couldn’t seem to thrive without dirt, and the proof of that gathered just outside the gates.

  The intensity of the press agents’ persistence in trying to get a story sent Elaine’s mind hurling back into the past. Not being able to forget Carl Kastenmeier for more than thirty minutes at a time, she remembered an argument he’d had with Tasia over the time she was beginning to spend with Zach.