Wicked Treasure (Treasure Chronicles Book 3) Page 19

  But he’d had to. It had been die in the forest or crawl to a new life.

  “Honey, don’t cry,” Captain MacFarland whispered. “What were you doing? Were you getting dressed? We’ll find you something to wear. What did you have for her to wear?”

  Amethyst licked her lower lip. “Nothing that would fit her.”

  “So we get her something to wear and we leave the city.” Jonathan stepped forward with a nod to Clark. “They’ll be looking for Samantha, so we need to get out of here.”

  “Has it shown up in the papers yet?” Amethyst set the pistol back on the table and folded her arms. Clark rubbed his hands over them for warmth and kissed her forehead.

  “Not yet, but it will. We’ll take Samantha to Hedlund.” The ranch, the Treasures, Eric, the gangs… “We have the best backup there. The president will never get Samantha back.”

  “When we are done with him” —Amethyst grinned —“he won’t even get his country back.”

  That was why he loved her. She took everything to the extreme… and then she won.

  resident Wilcox jerked open the grate on the stove and threw the newspaper inside. The flames leapt off the coals onto the thin paper; it wilted and browned, the black ink vibrant before it flashed to ash. The president slammed the grate shut and turned to open-mouthed waitresses and the cook, his wooden spook still held in his hand. A glob of batter dripped onto his black shoe.

  “Well?” the president growled. “Don’t stand there like bumpkins, you fools, get to it. This is the kitchen. Cook something in it!”

  The waitresses bowed their heads and mumbled, but the cook kept staring. Did they believe the wretchedness in the papers? How many people thought Wilcox guilty of those crimes?

  They weren’t crimes. Enhancing the human body was a gift to a science. No one would have doubted it if it weren’t for that Grisham boy spreading lies about how much he hated his gift.

  They were all gifts. The sooner the people saw it that way, the better for the country. Idiots and their freewill.

  “I’m not guilty of anything,” he ground out from behind clenched teeth. The waitresses mumbled some more, and Wilcox would have liked to slap the cook for that blank stare.

  “Did you do it?”

  He turned at the soft voice. A scullery maid stood at the backdoor, the screen propped open to let a breeze into the warm kitchen. A bucket rested beside her feet and a rag dripped from her hand, reminding Wilcox of the cook’s dirty spoon.

  “Did you do it?” she repeated.

  Stupid wretch. Did she think he would answer her when he’d refused every newspaper in the country?

  He stormed past her and banged the kitchen door against the wall. The country would get over it. “A scandal,” one paper had called it. He could give them a scandal if they wanted one. He could have an affair. He could claim every well-known actress as his mistresses.

  His boot heels smacked the scuffed floor, the sound echoing off the walls like drumbeats. His heart picked up speed. They’d drummed for the late king when Wilcox had ordered his execution.

  It had been necessary. The country needed democracy, not a tyrant. Wilcox had given them that and security to boot. Couldn’t the people see that having fortunetellers at their summons was essential to preserving the peace? He foresaw every little rebellion; he could prepare for every natural disaster. They should thank him for encouraging people to evacuate the southeast during the hurricane that leveled all houses. Did the people really think the weather forecasters had done that?

  He jogged up the steps, his heart thumping harder, and his saliva seemed to froth along his teeth.

  His vice president stood at the top with a clipboard in hand and rolled newspapers jutting from his coat pockets. So, the fool had finally given up on enjoying his yacht.

  “My men have already sent out alerts to the papers.” Wilcox pushed past the white-haired man. “Retractions will be done first thing in the morning.”

  Vice President Cowell grabbed Wilcox by the arm. “Everything should have been destroyed.”

  Wilcox pushed him back so hard the older gentleman stumbled into the wall. A gilded mirror toppled off its hook and smashed on the hardwood like silver raindrops.

  “Wilcox,” Cowell said, “this is not something you can’t ignore. How were these facts known? Everyone involved in the initial switch was put to death. Where were these tidbits unearthed?” Cowell shook the notebook at him. “There are sources! A well-known doctor—”

  “Who is also now dead.”

  “They have his medical journals. Handwriting specialists have proven that the notebooks were his. Think about this, Wilcox! The editors went to a lot of trouble to shed light on your wrongdoings.”

  “Nothing about it is wrong.” Wilcox rubbed his hand over his face. Why couldn’t anyone see that?

  “Then why did you hide it?” Cowell slapped his notebook against the wall. “Why did you order everyone involved to be put to death? Only you, me, and Captain MacFarland know about the girl. To everyone else she’s just a mental patient. If it is no secret, then why hide her away?”

  “You see how people react! The country doesn’t know what’s good for it. They wouldn’t understand if we had her right here sprouting off her words of wisdom.”

  “We will do a press conference to set things straight.”

  “No,” Wilcox roared. “You think that would help? What do we say? They have proof. We can deny all we want, but they’ll keep that proof. The retractions will run and this will die down in time. They’ll all forget.”

  “And what will the retractions say?”

  “The papers erred in not getting word from the presidential office.”

  Cowell shook his head. “That won’t satisfy anyone.”

  They couldn’t do a press conference. It would be a massacre. The journalists wouldn’t allow them to get a word in their defense. That would only heat the citizens up more.

  “Johan!” His wife’s call sounded louder than the shattering mirror had. She ran toward him on her little brocade heels, her gray silk dress billowing around her like wings. She could have been a bird about to peck out his eyes.

  A groan burned his throat.

  “What is this?” She pummeled her fists against his chest and clawed at his lapels. “Johan, what is all this? I went to the salon and everyone is asking me about my fortunetelling children. I told them I have two daughters and a son, and not a one can tell their own mathematics homework from spelling assignments. I went home and looked, and our papers are all gone, and none of the servants are allowed to speak to me.” Tears dragged crimson paths through her cheek rouge. “Is it true, Johan? You drugged me so you could inject a potion into my womb?”

  He winced before catching her tiny hands; her rings stabbed his palms. “Be quiet, woman. I’m busy. Go home—”

  “You replaced my children! You told me one of my children died in childbirth, that I only had a daughter left. Who is she? Is she ours?”

  Wilcox narrowed his eyes. “Didn’t read that paper then? I bought her from the unmarried mothers ward in New Addison City.”

  “What?” His wife stumbled backward, her body trembling. “You told me she was ours. She looks like us…”

  “I had a pick.” He glared at Cowell, who chuckled. The vice president had been just as involved. It could have been his children, if he’d ever taken a woman to wife.

  “Where are my babies? Where are my real babies, Johan?”

  “Not now.” The papers had claimed the boy was in hiding —Wilcox could have sworn he was dead. That stupid maid had taken off with him. She was supposed to have been hunted down. Both of them were supposed to be dead.

  Wilcox stormed past her toward the stairs to his office, Cowell a step behind. His wife shrieked as she crumpled to her knees, dragging her fingernails down the wall. As he reached the bottom step, Cowell said, “The girl is gone.”

  “What?” Wilcox whirled on him. It couldn’t get worse.

&
nbsp; “She vanished from the asylum.”

  Bloody gears. “Find her! That is a secure institute. People don’t vanish. Have Captain MacFarland—”

  “He is also gone. He reported to the asylum, and no one has seen him since he left there. He hasn’t reported to me in days.”

  President Wilcox rubbed the corners of his forehead. Captain MacFarland could be trusted. He had to be out searching for Samantha. “I have the queen and prince in prison, so we needn’t worry about them.”

  “One of my spies believes they saw Clark and Amethyst Grisham board a train in New Addison City.”

  Clark Grisham had vanished with Jonathan Montgomery. The Grishams couldn’t be trusted; neither could the Treasures. They might be behind it all. Powerful families kept rising toward power. Decades ago, they would have strived to become king. Maybe they still did. Clark and the prince… Clark might be trying to put the prince on the throne.

  “Kill them.” Wilcox took the stairs two at a time and waited at the top for the huffing vice president to catch him.

  “What?” The man had paled to match his hair.

  “We can’t have anyone else meddling. We need to clear our plates and start fresh. I’ll send the assassins after them. The Treasures won’t be reigning for much longer.”

  Clark ran the pad of his thumb over Amethyst’s knuckles. She rested her head against his shoulder, her breath emerging in sleepy murmurs. Across from them in the steamcoach, Jonathan red a dime novel and Captain MacFarland had his arm around Samantha. She picked at her face, welts appearing over her skin.

  “Sarah, Megan, Katie…” Samantha hadn’t ceased her name repetition since they’d started the ride.

  “It’s all right,” the captain kept saying.

  He thought they were nurses, but Clark’s skin crawled. They were probably patients who had perished. Many gang members talked about those who had gone on, using them as mantras to stay strong.

  “You’re safe,” the captain whispered into Samantha’s shorn hair. The dark locks curled around her earlobes.

  Clark parted the curtain on the steamcoach’s window to study the passing prairie. The driver had turned up the path that led to his parents’ ranch. It would be quieter there for Samantha and the captain. Eric and Judith would look after them while Clark and Amethyst garnered reinforcements.

  “Jonathan,” Clark said. “Will you stay here with Samantha?”

  The Rider glanced up from his novel. “Yes, in case anyone comes after her.”

  “We should be safe.” Clark dropped the curtain as the ranch house came into view. He kissed Amethyst’s forehead and blew against her curls. “Wake up, sweetheart. We’re here.”

  She stretched and yawned. “Is everyone still here?”

  “Your uncle left a few miles back.”

  The breaks on the hired coach squealed as the vehicle slowed. The contraption jerked at the final stop and the automatic door opened. Jonathan Montgomery slid the novel he’d purchased at the last station stop into his inner jacket pocket and hopped out first. Amethyst gathered her skirt to follow him. Clark glanced back at Captain MacFarland, who nodded that he would take care of helping Samantha. Clark nodded back and stepped out.

  The spirit of a man in a cowboy hat stood along the wooden fence that lined the road. “You!” He pointed toward the roof of the stables. “They want to get you.”

  et down!” Clark lunged at Amethyst, catching her around the waist, and twisted in midair so they could fall on their sides rather than crushing her down. Air whooshed from her lungs in a yelp.

  Jonathan yanked his pistol free from his holster. “What’s happening?”

  The atmosphere stilled for Clark. The sun kept shining from the cloudless sky, the light so bright the sky itself seemed more white than blue, and the surroundings sharpened. Wind blew across the ground, stirring the bushes that lined the walkway from stable to ranch house, the weeds that grew along the fence posts, and the roses his mother had planted at the front steps. Horses whinnied from the fields beyond; Eric had only purchased horses and chickens. The birds were probably off somewhere again to scare his mother into thinking they’d left for good when she went to feed them supper.

  “Up there!” The spirit continued to point at the stable roof as he floated toward Clark.

  Clark rolled away from Amethyst as he snatched his pistol and turned it in that direction. His wife would be sheltered by the steamcoach, but they had to get to shelter. Who would be up there?

  Jonathan followed Clark’s lead and lifted his weapon; a shot ran out, the sound echoing over the yard, and chickens squawked from behind the house. Jonathan hissed, bucking forward, his pistol’s barrel turning toward the dirt underfoot. He grabbed his shoulder.

  Shot. Blood blossomed around Jonathan’s hand.

  Clark squinted against the sunlight and caught a dark shape atop the shingles. Brass glass, he needed his sun shades. Clark fired and the bullet ricocheted off the shingles. He fired again as another shot sounded from up there. Jonathan yelped; from the corner of Clark’s eyes, the man bucked and fell backward into the dirt.

  “Jonathan…” Amethyst’s cry faded into the retort of Clark’s weapon. If the Rider had died, she would revive him.

  Clark darted behind the steamcoach to unhook the steam pistol from beneath his arm. Bigger, more unwieldy, with the extra coiling around the cock. Inside the vehicle, Samantha screamed and the captain’s hushing came out jumbled. They could use the help, but he couldn’t blame MacFarland for wanting to comfort her.

  Clark swung back out with both of his pistols drawn and shot at the roof. More bullets pinged the dirt near him.

  “What’s going on?” A farmhand in a black vest and suede pants jogged toward the yard from the horse field.

  Clark kept shooting. Who would have sent them?

  The government. Clark could have shot himself for that mental question. How they’d tracked them could be anyone’s guess, but it had to be the government behind the attack.

  “Jonathan, wake up, you’re fine now,” came Amethyst’s voice.

  Someone shot through a window in the stable, glass shattering, and a laser sliced through Clark’s hand. He hissed, clenching his teeth, and kept firing. As long as his muscles held out, he couldn’t give in.

  A shout sounded and Captain MacFarland charged past him with two pistols out. The driver had retrieved his precaution rifle from beneath the seat and aimed it at the stable window.

  “Hey!” A door banged from the house. Eric… who wouldn’t be any good in a gunfight. Brass glass, his father had to get inside to safety.

  “Just give it a second, Jonathan,” Amethyst said. “You’re healing.”

  A man slid off the roof and struck the dirt, but more shots reigned down and Clark kept firing. Holler to the steam, he’d almost missed that kind of action. Almost. Dang it, his lips did smile.

  Amethyst crawled to her knees to grip the edge of the steamcoach door. Samantha huddled on the bench, her fists in her hair, her eyes wide. Her mouth still hung open, but the shriek had shriveled.

  “It’s all right.” Amethyst reached for her. “Clark will take care of this. You’ll be fine.”

  Where was her pistol? She had the derringer in her garter, but that wouldn’t have enough range. Shots deafened her ears. Maybe Samantha did still scream and Amethyst couldn’t hear it.

  “Samantha, it will be fine!”

  The explosions dulled too fast. The emptiness in the air seemed to suck the life from her. Amethyst’s heartbeat sounded too loud; her hands shook too much. Voices pummeled over her.

  “I’ll check the stable,” Clark said.

  “I’ll go with you,” Jonathan offered. He would have almost fully recovered. She would have to tell him he was one of the few who came back eagerly. He hadn’t been confused when she’d offered him a second chance at life.

  “Is there a ladder for us to reach the roof?” asked Captain MacFarland.

  An unfamiliar male voice said, “T
here’s a lookout up top and a ladder to it inside.” She glanced over her shoulder at a man in a cowboy hat who jumped the fence to jog toward her husband.

  She turned back to Samantha. The girl had shut her mouth, but instead of ripping out her hair, she gnawed on her knuckles.

  “Welcome to life outside the asylum.” Amethyst smiled as she climbed into the coach to hug her.

  Clark braced himself on the shingles to keep from sliding off. His father’s land stretched around the stable. Behind the fence, the horses had fled to a far hill, and Clark spotted some of the chickens racing in circles around a tree that had been split in half by past lightning.

  Captain MacFarland held the trapdoor open. Sunlight glinted off the brass buttons on his jacket cuff. “What do you make of this?”

  Clark scowled at the blood that dripped down the shingles. One body lay sprawled across the roof’s peak; the other four had fallen off. “They waited for us. They knew we would come here and they found a way up.”

  “How did they get past your father’s men?”

  Clark leaned one knee against the roof to turn over the victim. A plain brown coat and slacks, plain gray boots coated with dust. “My father only has a few farmhands and one maid for in the house. His employees are all at the factory.” He squinted into the sunlight. “Eric isn’t a farmer. He’s an inventor. I think he only has this place for my mother.” A place that had become sullied with blood. He murmured a prayer as he pushed the body so the man would fall off to the ground.

  Amethyst tucked Samantha against her chest as she would if she held Jolene and stroked her hair. “All will be well. Do you want me to sing to you? Clark’s mother taught me a few lullabies. She used to sing them to Clark.”

  “No.” Samantha twisted around and gripped Amethyst’s face between her bare hands. Her gnawing must have pulled off her gloves, and with her skin naked, a warmth bit at Amethyst from the contact. Samantha’s eyes rolled back in her head and she groaned, trembling.