Wicked Treasure (Treasure Chronicles Book 3) Read online

  An elderly woman with the shimmer of death crossed by the dining room windows. Her pace never shifted, always the same gait, a constant meander. So long as she didn’t ask him for help, he could let her ghostly self keep going all she wanted.

  A servant carried a silver bowl of eggs toward Clark. “Would you care for some, sir?”

  “Yes, please. Thanks.” He leaned back so she could ladle the scrambled eggs onto his plate.

  Clark pushed his chair back so he could read the newspaper in his lap. Grishams and Treasures Join the Royal Family on the Summer Plantation. The headline featured a blurred image of Jas and his mother getting out of a steamcoach.

  “How did you sleep?” the queen asked.

  “Wonderfully. The fans make it much cooler here,” Amethyst answered.

  “After staying at the inn, it seemed almost too quiet,” Alyssa added.

  “But the fans were loud.” Zachariah’s voice rose over the plate clatter.

  “Sir?” A Bromi man approached from the doorway with a folded paper. He bowed to the queen, then to Jas, before handing it to Clark.

  “What’s that?” Jeremiah asked.

  Clark unfolded it over the newspaper. “A telegram from my mother.” His breath came quicker. It still seemed as though every missive from her traveled from death.

  She had to be happy living with Eric. His parents had the life they’d deserved. Eric built up a factory while Judith nurtured a garden. She set up a house for them. Meals filled her full and clothes adorned her body.

  He knew his father would spoil her.

  Clark, your father and Garth have gone to the president. Stop. The water from the main river is poisoned. Stop. Be careful. Stop. It is not known yet. Stop.

  Which river? Waterways, although fewer than in the east, crossed all over the west. “Brass glass.”

  “What is it?” Jeremiah snapped.

  “She said the main river has been poisoned, so our fathers went to tell the president.” Clark glanced at Jas. “It isn’t well known yet.”

  “Of course we won’t tell.” The queen fanned herself with one hand. “How dreadful. Does that happen often in the west?”

  “Sometimes if a man is angry, he’ll poison another man’s well,” Clark said. “I don’t know how you’d poison a river. It keeps flowing.”

  That wouldn’t just kill people. Animals and vegetation would drop over, too.

  Jeremiah clenched his hand into a fist. “It must be the river that separates the east and west. One of our farmers came back from the east and was sick. That had to be it.”

  “Jere, we should go home.” Alyssa touched his arm. “Your mother’s on the ranch, but if this is escalating, you need to help her keep everything calm.”

  “We need you here,” Zachariah cut in.

  Jeremiah did make solid backup, but Clark couldn’t keep him from the ranch. They didn’t even know if the kidnapper would crawl out.

  “Go,” Clark said. “We can handle this.”

  he knocks came fast before the bedroom knob rattled. Amethyst froze, her hands lifted to her throat to fasten a gold locket. Jolene giggled from the bed where she rolled, her hands clasped around her bare toes.

  Amethyst met Clark’s gaze from across the room. He drew one pistol, silent, and cocked it.

  She slid in front of Jolene and held out her skirt to hide the baby, the necklace dangling from her fingers.

  Clark threw the bolt and yanked the door open, his weapon at the ready.

  Jasper swaggered inside, a cigar on his lips. “Morning.” He removed the smoke and chuckled, as if obscured words made for a pleasant greeting.

  Clark kept his pistol cocked, although he lowered it to his side. Amethyst’s skin crept over with ice.

  “Morning,” Clark drawled. “What a nice place you’ve got. So peaceful.”

  “Want to stay here forever?” Jasper winked at Amethyst. “I should apologize for hopping in here like that, but hey, I was hoping to catch a sight of some pretty skin.”

  Amethyst flashed her teeth at him, hoping it didn’t look like a growl. “Do you have a pool? I do adore swimming. You’ll see plenty of skin then. Why, as soon as I had a pool put in at our home in Hedlund City, Clark and I took a dive in the dark… naked. Wasn’t it fun, my love?” She dropped her voice to a purr.

  Jasper leaned against the wall and stuck one foot against the chintz paper; dirt flaked off. Clark moved only one shoulder, but she had a feeling he glowered at the subtle mess.

  “What are the plans for today?” she asked.

  “The opera, perhaps. Great opera house an hour from here.” Jasper shrugged. “I actually wanted to talk to you both.” He glanced into the hallway before pushing the door shut. The click sounded too loud despite the whirl of the ceiling fan. “That name kept bothering me. Clara Larkin. I knew it sounded familiar. I’ve been going through my old diaries.”

  “Did you find something?” Amethyst stepped toward him, but paused when Clark slid beneath them.

  His chuckle faded. “She was one of the president’s personal nurses. My father had me keep track of everyone we encountered after the revolution. Her husband was a private physician, but he died early. I have it down as drowning in an ice skating accident.”

  “It might not be the same Clara Larkin,” Clark said.

  The fortuneteller hadn’t mentioned the president or personal physicians. “What happened to her after her husband died?”

  “I had a page about when her husband died. The president insisted on a funeral and I went. Not sure if my mother and father went, too —it would have been before he passed on. I wrote about how Clara Larkin’s stepfather and brother were doctors. Her brother worked at an orphanage and her stepfather used experimental drugs to see if he could find a way to tell the future.”

  Garth held his hands behind his back; it kept him from fidgeting. Beyond the window, polished to a shine, he watched a little girl in the garden.

  The windows back home, back in Hedlund, never had that kind of sheen. Too much wind, too much dust. Garth blew through his nose to suppress a sigh. He’d always hated the east. Out west, a man had the wide-open plains and the endless sky. The only company he needed involved his gun and his horse.

  Behind him, the president poured another glass of whiskey for Eric.

  “Does it feel weird,” the president asked, “being back to life? It must be hard knowing so many of your friends have grown old and died, while you’re still… how old are you?”

  Eric laughed, the sound a bit forced. “That depends on if I should keep counting those years I was dead.”

  Garth tipped his head to watch the girl move down the cobbled garden path. A straw hat hung down her back by a wide black silk ribbon. Short brown hair drifted around her face as she bent over the flowers. She had to be around ten, but he’d never been an expert at guessing ages.

  He’d missed Amethyst at ten. Had it been wrong to allow her a life in New Addison City? Georgette had always pushed him to insist she live on the ranch, but Amethyst hadn’t wanted Hedlund. Garth knew what it felt like to hate your home. He’d never wanted to put Amethyst through that, so he’d allowed her the freedom to choose.

  The girl shifted toward a patch of yellow pansies, the flowers garish against her gold-colored jumper. A woman exited a small stone cottage on the president’s premises to carry a bucket of rich, dark soil to the child.

  “Garth?”

  He turned to face Eric. “Yes? I apologize, I was watching the garden.”

  “Flowers don’t do too much.” The president laughed as he lounged against his desk, Eric seated across from him. “Let’s get down to business, Garth.”

  At last. Garth nodded. “As I wrote to you—”

  The president held up his hand. “Yes, yes, I read all of that. You noticed the water is toxic.”

  “More than toxic—”

  “I understand,” the president interrupted. “I’ve had my spies looking into this problem long before you brou
ght it to my attention.”

  Eric narrowed his eyes. “You knew about this?”

  Garth forced his face to remain calm.

  “Why yes, of course. Not much happens in my country without my knowledge. We’ve been looking into this for some time and we have a strong feeling of who is behind this.”

  “Can it be stopped?” Garth asked. Who did it was important, yes, but the problem needed to be extinguished before it could escalate… or just plain continue.

  “We are already looking into that.” The president finished his tumbler of whiskey and slapped it onto his desk beside a pile of papers.

  “So who is responsible?” Eric asked.

  The president smiled beneath his oiled black moustache. “Prince Dexter.”

  “I don’t like this,” Clark said.

  Jas rode in the open steam buggy beside him, the wheels crunching across the dirt path. “It could be a different Clara Larkin.”

  “It sounds to me like these people are responsible for the fortuneteller having his powers.” Unwanted powers, just like Clark’s predicament. “I think the president was involved.” The government toying with people, again like what happened to Clark. He scowled out at the passing field where Bromi slaves picked cherries from the trees.

  “I wouldn’t know about that. Might be a different Clara Larkin.” Jas turned the steam buggy to follow the curve in the road. From the car attached to the back of theirs, Jolene giggled, followed by Amethyst’s laugh.

  “This is so jolting,” she called. “I love it!”

  “I want to go to this orphanage,” Clark said. “I need to find out more about this.”

  “For your daughter?” Jas hooked one leg up near the steering wheel.

  For Jolene, yes, but it was more for him, and if there was any way to help someone hurt like he was. “The government can’t keep experimenting on people.”

  They’d gotten backlash for his potion. He’d bring the fortuneteller’s plight to light, if he could.

  A Bromi girl in a blue-striped dress stepped out from the cherry orchard, a basket in her hand, and looked down fast when they passed, her brown curls falling over her face. Brown, bleached from the sun.

  “You still have slaves,” Clark said.

  Jas shrugged. “Sure, why not? They’re less than us, Clark. They’re not as smart. A life here is far better than what they would have way out there.”

  Clark pressed his lips together. That would be his next campaign —freeing the Bromi. He’d dappled in it, but he hadn’t pushed it full on.

  The government needed to make his experiments and its slavery illegal.

  “I don’t believe it,” Garth said. “Prince Dexter would gain nothing from such an act.”

  The president signed what had to be the fifth arrest warrant and extended it to the soldier facing him. “Believe it, Garth. We should have sentenced the prince for treason a long time ago.”

  Eric flinched and Garth almost did, before squeezing his hands behind his back again. The prince had been innocent. Bloody gears, so had his father.

  “The royal family is only guilty of heritage,” Eric cut into the conversation. “The king never did anything wrong.”

  “Besides taxes and unfair laws. The people need to govern themselves.” The president smirked. “You’ve seen how much this country has flourished under a presidency.”

  “So why would Prince Dexter try to poison the water supply?” Garth demanded.

  “He isn’t trying to. He’s succeeding at it. He’s angry that he isn’t able to rule.”

  The situation plucked at Garth’s skin. “But he’s never even joined the senate—”

  “Why would he need to when he can rule?” The president lifted the last arrest warrant to the lamplight as if studying the writing, although the wording matched the other forms.

  “How does this help him rule?”

  The president blinked as though disgusted, his nostrils flared. “How else but to show that we are incapable of protecting our own? The water supply was always safe beneath his father’s regime.”

  It still seemed too farfetched, but Garth pursed his lips.

  “What was your proof again?” Eric asked.

  Now the president sighed. “Confidential. Still.”

  Eric shrugged at Garth, as if apologizing for not making the president slip-up.

  “What I need from you two” —the president signed the warrant with a black flourish —“is to let the people of Hedlund know the matter will be taken care of promptly and the culprit apprehended. After we have the prince in custody, of course.”

  Garth shifted his stance. “Would you rather this stayed hushed?”

  “It is bound to leak out, and the people have a right to know they will be safe.”

  They would also know the prince was responsible. Garth met Eric’s hooded gaze. Something else went on with the situation… something dark.

  Someone knocked on the door and the president called, “Enter.”

  A young man around Jeremiah’s age stepped inside and bowed. “President Wilson, I am at your service. Jonathan Montgomery reporting.”

  “Excellent. You’re just the man I requested for the arrest. Garth, Eric.” President Wilson slid his grin toward them. “This is Jonathan Montgomery. About a year ago he stopped a vicious crime lord in New Addison City. The illegal ring spread across most of the country.”

  Garth almost remembered hearing about that. “Congratulations, Mr. Montgomery.”

  The young man bowed again. “Thank you, sir.”

  “Jonathan Montgomery, I have the arrest warrants distributed to the appropriate sheriff departments and you will get a list of those. Feel free to call for any backup as needed. I need you to arrest Prince Dexter for eighteen known counts of murder and for conspiracy against the wellbeing of the country. You’ll find him at his plantation.”

  lara Larkin,” Amethyst called into the stillness of the plantation garden. A heated wind blew across the bushes and trees, plucking petals off the flowers.

  Where Hedlund owned browns and grays, the south vibrated with color. Color and bugs. Mosquitos buzzed around her head as if trying to fall into unison. She slapped at one on her face before glaring across the stone benches. The ghost didn’t appear.

  The pebbles underfoot shifted as Clark moved his stance from behind her.

  “Clara Larkin, come out,” Amethyst yelled. “We need to talk to you!”

  The ghost could not flit in one day and refuse the next. The fortuneteller and his secrets… ugh. Amethyst kept flicking her fan as she wandered down the path, around a rose bush. In the darkness, the pink blossoms seemed to glow. Maybe she would take one inside for Jolene and Zachariah once Clara showed up.

  Something dark stuck out from beneath a lilac bush. She crouched to lift a jacket, red in the dim light coming from the mansion’s windows. Had someone indulged in a tryst? Perhaps the day had been too hot and the garment had blown. She shook it out, noting the white buttons shaped like stars, and the high blue velvet collar.

  The edge of a photograph poked out from the breast pocket. She picked it with her fingertips. The sepia image of a girl with a calico dress and black ringlets.

  “How sad that we can leave our image on paper, but never stay forever,” Clara said from the right.

  Amethyst whirled toward her, dropping the jacket and photograph. “It’s about time you showed up! I’ve been calling you. Don’t you care about what happens to the fortuneteller?”

  Clara flickered before her body brightened. “I can do nothing for you.”

  “Wait, Miss Larkin.” Clark jogged toward them. “Is it true your family was involved with the government to make people foresee the future?”

  Clara Larkin’s face remained unreadable. Amethyst reached for Clark’s hand and squeezed his fingers. They could go to the orphanage without Clara’s help and they could find… something.

  “We want to prove what happened,” Amethyst said.

  “Help
us prove it,” Clark added. “What can you tell us? We’ll go to the orphanage where your family worked. We’ll do anything we can to prove what happened. The fortuneteller won’t have to run all the time. He’ll be protected.”

  Clara Larkin lifted one hand to her mouth.

  “We’ll find the other baby,” Amethyst offered.

  “The government cannot be stopped.”

  “Yes it can,” Clark said. “I was an experiment. I got away from that life of always running. Your… kids… can’t suffer because of the government.”

  Clara Larkin flickered, and Amethyst reached for her before the ghost solidified once more.

  “You’ll go to the orphanage?” The ghost floated higher than the fountain behind her.

  “Yes.” Amethyst kept her hand lifted, hoping it looked friendly and helpful.

  “We’ll do anything,” Clark repeated. Amethyst shivered, although the wind had stilled. He would, too… and she would follow him.

  “Go to the orphanage,” Clara Larkin said. “I’ll tell you what you need to prove what happened.”

  Garth shook hands with the president, but a smile wouldn’t come to him. The president kept grinning as if he’d come upon his favorite food.

  “Thank you for listening.” Garth wondered if that sounded sarcastic.

  “Sure, anytime.” The president slid his gloved hand free. The door to his mansion dwelled open behind him, as if the president wanted to get back inside so fast he couldn’t take the time to shut and reopen it. No sounds came from inside, the hallway cold and white.

  Garth stepped back to allow Eric his turn for a handshake before they got into the steamcoach that would return them to the train station.

  “I’ll gladly lend my support in finding a cure,” Eric said as they shook.

  “Cure?”

  Eric blinked. “For the poisoned water. If the poison is invented, then we can invent the cure. I’d love to join the team—”

  “That won’t be necessary. I’m having my top scientists solve the situation.”

  Why would he not want the loan of Eric’s knowledge? Garth schooled himself not to frown.