Wicked Treasure (Treasure Chronicles Book 3) Page 2

  “No, not to eat.” Amethyst wrestled it away, as she did with almost everything she gave to their daughter.

  “Clark.” Georgette rested her hand on his shoulder. “Do you see this zoo?”

  Clark edged closer to her to see through a space in the people. A lion and a bear were tethered to women in white gowns by chains. The animals tipped their heads, but didn’t move otherwise.

  His hand dropped to the pistol strapped to his belt. If those animals pulled loose…

  “Clark, the zoo has clockwork animals.”

  “That’s nice.” He ducked his head to hide his frown. That shouldn’t upset Georgette.

  “Your father invented these creatures. The zoo was shut down after he died, and Garth inspected it a few years ago. It had been abandoned. Clark, this zoo belongs to Eric.”

  He shifted his stance. “Someone else might have copied his design. Did he have a patent on it?”

  “I don’t know, but Eric should see into this. The zoo is rightfully his.”

  One of the zookeepers in a white gown sashayed toward a young couple holding hands. “Would you like to pet the lion?” A southern accent tinged her voice. “I promise you he is friendly.” Her mannerisms seemed to jerk rather than flow, as if she too consisted of clockwork pieces.

  Amethyst parted the silk curtain to the fortuneteller’s tent, allowing jasmine incense to waft past her and Jolene. A man with copper curls poking out from a cap sat behind a table with a crystal ball on top of it.

  Black kohl ringed his eyes. “You’re Amethyst Treasure.”

  “And you’re the fortuneteller.” She’d ringed her eyes in the same way to accentuate her dark lip rouge and cheek powder. “How much for a reading?”

  He blinked. “Five coppers.”

  Amethyst sorted through her drawstring purse, keeping Jolene against her side with her other arm. “I did a reading once back in New Addison. It was jolly fun. They told me I would be wealthy when I grew up.” The laugh stilled in her throat and her cheeks flushed. He would never have much; fortunetellers she’d seen before usually lived in the city slums.

  She pressed the coins into his waiting hand and sat across from him. The crystal ball reflected her face, her yellow hair tucked beneath her hat. Feathers stuck up from the brim.

  He pocketed the coppers and leaned forward. “You see the dead, don’t you?”

  Amethyst bit her lower lip. “I, um, yes. I guess that was all over the news. I can’t really make myself do it, so I can’t call up anyone for you. I get asked that a lot.” She settled Jolene across her lap, and the baby grabbed a handful of her sleeveless silk dress. “So tell us about what happiness the future holds.”

  Perspiration dotted his freckled face. “Give me your hand.”

  “Um, don’t you just look into the crystal?”

  He shook his head, and the sleeve of his blue robe slipped down his shoulder. “Trust me. Let me see your hand. I’m not a hoax.”

  “I never said you were a hoax.”

  Jolene pulled harder on Amethyst’s dress.

  “For truth, I see glimpses of the future. If I tell you a real fortune, will you do something for me?”

  “I just paid you.” Fortunes weren’t real; they were meant for fun.

  He swore under his breath as he pulled out her coppers and slapped them onto the black tablecloth. “Call for Clara Larkin. Ask her about Samantha.”

  Clara Larkin. Samantha. Amethyst closed her eyes. “I’m sorry. Clara is dead? I really can’t get ghosts to come to me.”

  “Remember the names. Samantha’s like me, but she’s trapped.”

  Amethyst nodded, her lips parted. Of course Random Samantha would be trapped.

  “By the government,” he added.

  Why wouldn’t she be trapped by the government?

  He moved around the table, his robe parting to reveal denim slacks. The fortuneteller lifted her hand to peel off her white silk glove.

  He curled his fingers around hers and sucked in a breath. His body stiffened, his teeth bared in a snarl. “You wouldn’t let them keep you. They want to kill you and your family, Death Speaker.”

  eremiah stared at the white clouds drifting over the blue prairie sky, not a storm in sight. It made a rancher feel good, that kind of weather. The crops would grow and the cattle would graze. His gaze dropped to the mountains in the distance, then to the heather that rustled.

  Brass glass. He had to blame Amethyst for throwing his head out of gears. He never would have spent what had to be an entire minute considering the landscape.

  Jeremiah wiped his bandana across his forehead and adjusted his leather cowboy hat. Alyssa stood at the door to the cabin with Neil Stoddard and his wife, Opal. Both farmers had their arms folded, and Opal kept shaking her head.

  Jeremiah headed toward them with his hands in the pockets of his denim slacks. “We headed over soon as we got word. I’m afraid my father’s still out at the capital, but I’ll see what I can do.”

  Neil Stoddard scratched at his graying beard. “Like we were telling your wife, the sickness came on mighty quick.”

  Right, a discussion while he was lollygagging. Jeremiah ground his teeth. Sweet Alyssa had jumped into action as soon as they slid off their horses, and he had ogled the sky.

  “We was thinking snakebite,” Neil continued. “Opal looked him all over, but we couldn’t find no puncture wounds. Our youngest went for the doctor, and Doc Jansson says it looks to be poison.”

  Jeremiah frowned past the farmers into their cabin. Curtains had been drawn over the only two windows, but he could make out a body lying on a cot near the hearth; a young girl sat on a stool, bathing the patient’s face with a wet rag. “Doc say how long he thinks it’ll be before your son is up?”

  Opal made a sharp gasp. “Doc says we’re lucky he’s still alive!”

  Alyssa stroked the older woman’s arm. “It’ll be fine, Mrs. Stoddard. Your son will be running around again, you’ll see. Doctor Jansson knows what he’s about.”

  “Where’s Doc think the poison came from?” Jeremiah tried to keep his voice light, but a muscle twitched in his jaw. The Stoddards had rented land from Garth Treasure since they’d moved west about ten years before. Even though the Treasures didn’t need to, they looked after the tenants like extended family.

  “Could it be a berry or a plant?” Alyssa asked.

  Neil stepped sideways to peer at his son on the cot. “Doc says he ain’t never seen the likes of it in these parts. With berries, as you’re saying, Miss Alyssa, a feller gets the pukes and the runs, pardon my language. This poison seems to be eating my boy from the inside out.”

  Jeremiah had seen what a poisonous berry did, and he’d witnessed the effects of cow’s milk when they ate poisonous plants. “What do you mean by that?”

  Opal pressed a hand over her belly. “His organs are shutting down a bit. He’s coughing up blood. He’s even got blood tears.”

  Alyssa set her hands on her hips as she frowned at Jeremiah. Her single braid hung over her shoulder, and her cowboy hat dangled down her back. His heart made that angry thud whenever he worried about her.

  “Stay outside, darling.” He kissed her forehead quickly before stepping into the cabin.

  The stench of decay almost gagged him, and he slapped his bandana over his mouth to breathe through it. The teenage boy lay limp on the cot with dried blood splattered on the quilt. The little girl next to him looked up. Her calico dress made her a miniature version of her mother.

  “Your son eat anything bad?” Jeremiah asked.

  “Nothing the rest of us didn’t eat,” Neil said.

  “How old is he?” Alyssa called from the doorway.

  “He’s sixteen.” Opal made a clicking sound with her tongue. “He just came back from the east where he stayed with my parents for a time. They’re getting on in age, and he wanted to attend a college for farmers. He was going to come back and share the knowledge.”

  Jeremiah remembered his father
mentioning that. “He’s been gone a year?”

  “Thereabouts.” Opal touched her mouth. “I don’t want to see my baby like this. I want him whole and hale.”

  “Of course you do,” Alyssa murmured.

  “Could it have been something he got into back east?” Jeremiah fought back a shudder when a dollop of blood formed on the corner of the boy’s closed eyelids.

  “I don’t know. Maybe. My boy came back feeling fine, and by the next night he was like this. Doc says it had to be some poison he got. Who would do this to my son?”

  Jeremiah met the farmer’s gaze. “I don’t know. Could be just a villain who hates the world. You folks don’t have any enemies?” He left the statement up in the air, but Neil shook his head. “I’ll talk to my father. We can’t allow people to go around poisoning folk.”

  Neil clasped Jeremiah’s hand and kissed his knuckles. “Thank you, Jeremiah. You Treasures are a blessing to Hedlund.”

  Jeremiah turned with a tight-lipped smile. The afternoon sun framed Alyssa, with her brown corduroy riding pants and her denim shirt. Nobody was going to spread poison around, not near his family and friends.

  The sky didn’t look so cheerful anymore.

  “Clark.” Amethyst twisted around on the sofa until she knelt, her arms outstretched. “Come on, Clark. Sit next to me.”

  It would be a normal evening followed by a normal night, and they would awaken to a normal morning. There would be no one coming after them with sabers or pistols. Danger existed in the past.

  Her hands trembled, so she curled her fingers to make fists and tucked them into her lap.

  Clark would question her if he knew she was upset. Amethyst threw back her head so she could laugh. Be the life of the party and no one cared how a person truly felt.

  He slid onto the sofa beside her and kissed her cheek. The scruff along his jaw sent a tingle across her skin, and a moan escaped.

  “Sweetheart, you have no idea how much I want you.” His lips touched her earlobe with each word, each breath, and she fought to keep from moaning louder. Clark rested his hand on her thigh, his heat seeping through the white linen of her nightgown. “Can you wait a little while until we’re alone? You know we have to entertain your mother.”

  Of course, her mother. Amethyst opened her eyes to glare across the parlor at Georgette, who read to Jolene from a child’s storybook. Georgette should just go home.

  “Mother, isn’t Jeremiah waiting for you back at the ranch?”

  Her mother glanced up. “Amethyst, you shouldn’t get undressed until you’re in your chamber. You have a guest.”

  She pulled the bow free of the lacing up the front of her nightgown. “Oops, I didn’t realize I needed to be dressed.”

  Clark caught her wrist. “Be nice.”

  How could he like her mother? Georgette was so bloody arrogant.

  He retied it for her as soon as her mother returned to the text. Then, he straightened the pink velvet robe so that it covered her breasts.

  “Be nice,” he repeated, and nipped her neck. “If you’re nice, I’ll give you an extra special surprise.”

  “Is it making my mother vanish?”

  “Amethyst,” Georgette said, “I don’t know why you dislike me visiting my granddaughter. You refuse to allow her to come to the ranch—”

  “I brought her there.”

  “Alone, Amethyst.” Georgette shook her head. “Once this little one retires, would you like to play a game, Clark? When I was growing up, we tended to play charades in the evenings.”

  Yes, charades. Amethyst didn’t need dire fortunes to ruin her day when her mother could do it so well.

  “That sounds fun,” Clark said to further smash in the salt.

  “Look, Mother. I’m wearing pearls. Do you remember how you said a woman always wears pearls to look like a lady?” Amethyst tapped the cameo hanging from a double strand of pearls.

  “Yes, Amethyst. I’m perfectly aware of your attire.”

  Jolene’s nurse knocked upon the parlor door, left half open. “Excuse me, Mr. Grisham. Mrs. Grisham. May I put Jolene to bed?”

  “Yes, thank you, Carly. I’ll go with you.” Amethyst dragged her fingernail over Clark’s pant leg and winked at him. “I think I’ll retire as well. I don’t foresee myself getting much sleep tonight.”

  The clockwork lion bolted over the wrought iron fence into the yard. Gears ground in its joints as it worked its way past the shrubbery toward the mansion. Its eyes focused on the windows, and the sight zoomed in to see better. The only room with a light showed a kitchen with a cook packing food into porcelain containers.

  The lion moved around the house, scanning the windows until the inner mechanisms rang with its find: a young girl set a baby into a crib.

  The clockwork animal leapt onto the side of the brick building, and leather grapples appeared on the soles of its feet to give it better purchase. With the gears still grinding, it darted up the house and shoved through the window. Glass caught in the faux mane and slid off the brass body.

  The young girl screamed.

  There could be no witnesses.

  She threw a lamp at the lion—the globe shattered against its face—and screamed again. The clockwork lion leapt at her front, razors appearing at its claws, and slashed her across the face and throat. The screaming ceased.

  The baby began to cry, but that couldn’t be helped. The lion pushed over the crib so that the tiny human would roll out.

  Baby had to be taken.

  The lion unhinged its mouth and scooped the female into it, where she would roll into the safety compartment in the lion’s belly, and it jumped back to the window to return to its master.

  lark’s breath turned ragged as it rasped through his mouth and nose, burning along his lungs. Blackness bit at his eyesight, narrowing his gaze on to one point: Amethyst. She bit the fingernails of her right hand while she pulled at her unbound curls with the left. Tears already streaked her cheeks, her eyes bloodshot, and the pupils huge.

  “Jolene, Jolene, Jolene.” She rocked on her bare heels.

  Clark could have ripped out the culprit’s throat just for putting his wife through the torment. The fact it was his daughter missing made the rage a thousand fold worse.

  Muscles strained across his back and shoulders, down his arms to his clenched fists. Anger bit away at the terror. He couldn’t give in to emotion. Emotion made a man blind. He had to think hard, to be certain, actions needed to be calculated. More than his own survival hung from the executioner’s noose. If he didn’t play his cards correctly, his daughter would hang.

  You can bring her back, whispered that evil part of his mind. No, he couldn’t risk that. Not only would it be her death, she could be tortured.

  “Clark, where is she?” Amethyst sank to the floor. The maid’s blood soaked into her white slip. Carly. He’d hired her from one of the gangs; an orphan who’d just gotten kicked out of the orphanage for being too old.

  Amethyst had wanted to give him a show. As soon as they’d reached their bedroom, she’d gotten her dressing maid to help her into the sheer silk with a new corset overtop, the bodice curved to accentuate her breasts. They rode high, like two powdered doves, the nipples rosy through the fabric. He’d touched his lips to them when the crash came.

  Clark shouldn’t have believed life would be good. Life hated him.

  “Well’ find out if anyone saw what happened,” Clark said. “That will give us a clue.”

  “A ransom note might arrive.” Georgette clutched the doorknob to the nursery.

  “Bloody gears, the nurse is dead! Who else do you think could have seen something?” Amethyst slapped her hands onto the hardwood floor, blood splashing over her fingers.

  “Someone in the street.” He fought to keep his tone steady. They had no clues in the room apart from the shredded nurse and shattered windows. Whoever had done it had come through that way, so they had tools to climb the exterior wall, and they had enough manpower to brea
k through glass and wood.

  And this powerful villain had his one-year-old daughter. Perspiration coated Clark’s body, even though he’d stripped down to his black slacks.

  “Someone in the street might have seen something,” he repeated.

  “Get back to your rooms,” Georgette said.

  What? Right, the three live-in servants would have come to investigate the commotion the way they had. A few of his old gang friends had stayed over after passing through; they would come to see, too.

  Amethyst continued to rock and gnaw on her hand.

  “The Horans,” he thought aloud. “Who else do we have as enemies? Someone would have wanted to hurt us this way.”

  “The Horans are struggling now,” Georgette said. “I can’t see them doing this. We struck down their leaders.”

  The rancher and the senator, but someone else, too?

  “Someone who doesn’t like my father being senator now?” Amethyst covered her face with her bloodied hands.

  “It would be hard to track down all of those people,” Georgette said.

  Clark stepped around his wife, blood sucking at his bare feet, to peer into the yard. Somehow, the intruder had gotten past his father’s security system, where animals and humans were monitored by a heat-seeking system. The system beeped if anyone attempted to scale the wall.

  “No one is going to try to climb over,” Amethyst had complained. “I’m sick of it going off over stray cats. Can’t we disable it?”

  “It offers us security,” he’d argued. With the system in place, he felt relaxed at night. He didn’t need to keep on his guard.

  Then this happened.

  It couldn’t have been an animal, or the beeps in their bedroom, the kitchen, and office would have alerted him. It had to have been something robotic or a person dropping from the sky. Despite the dark, someone would have seen an airship.

  “Brass glass.” He stopped grinding his teeth when his jaw hurt.

  “We’ll get the police,” Amethyst said. “Go get them, Clark. Hurry!”

  “I already sent the butler,” Georgette interrupted. “You need to stop this behavior, Amethyst. It is unseemly and will accomplish nothing.”