Wicked Treasure (Treasure Chronicles Book 3) Read online

  “See what I mean?” John chuckled.

  “You heard anything more than your speculations?” Clark eyed the room just to appear relaxed. “Not saying it isn’t a good plan. I’m surprised no one else thought of it.” He lifted the tankard. “To good minds, huh?”

  “Do you know Grisham or the Treasures?”

  Clark took a sip to hide his facial expression.

  “Who hasn’t heard of them before?” Clark shrugged. “Seen them around a time or two. You know how it goes.”

  John Horan pulled a pocket watch out from his pinstripe jacket and whistled at the time. “Look, I’ve got a place I need to be, but we’ll catch back up? Dinner? How long you staying in town?”

  As long as it took. “Probably headed back to Hedlund City tomorrow. Dinner sounds fine. We can talk investments.” It would give him time to search more around the circus grounds. A meal would be perfect for following up on questions.

  “I heard there is a clockwork lion here.” Amethyst smiled at the hairdresser’s reflection in the dressing room mirror.

  The woman nodded before sliding another hairpin into Amethyst’s tresses to make a tight curl close to her skull.

  “I haven’t gotten to see it yet. Do you know where it is?”

  The woman slid in another hairpin. Bloody gears, was she trained not to speak to the circus workers? Amethyst glanced at the other girls, her fellow dancers, all of them giggling over glasses of wine and whiskey.

  “We did smashing!” One of the younger girls—maybe fourteen in age—threw back her head as she downed her glass in a gulp. That had to burn, unless she was already used to alcohol.

  “So the clockwork lion.” Amethyst raised her voice. “Has anyone seen it here? I’ve heard it is the greatest attraction.”

  “Honey, the elephant is the best.” One of the dancers leaned over to squeeze Amethyst’s arm. “You can’t ride a lion.”

  “What about the horse? Did you see his privates?” The younger girl shoved her emptied glass at the worker fixing her hair.

  Enough of that. Amethyst grabbed her hairdresser’s hand and spun the chair around to face the woman. “Where is the clockwork lion?” The Treasure tone soaked her words.

  The woman gulped, stiffening. “They had in the back, miss, last I heard.”

  “Where is this back?”

  “Near the master’s quarters, out by the plains.”

  “Thank you.” Amethyst shoved the woman away as she stood. The new white lace dress clung to her hips and legs to make walking near impossible. Too bad she didn’t have one of her husband’s knives so she could make a sweet slit up the side.

  She’d done that once at a city party, when she was younger. Her great-uncle had purchased a pink dress for her, with all these silk flowers sewn to the bodice, and the skirt had been atrocious. At the party, she’d flirted her way into a jackknife and had climbed onto a table—that feat in itself a miracle in that skirt—and slashed it for her rapt audience. The photographs had made excellent additions to the papers come morning.

  “Miss, where are you going?” the hairdresser called. “I’m not done yet.” True, still half of Amethyst’s hair hung over the right side of her face.

  “Out,” she said as she pushed open the trailer’s door to the afternoon sunlight.

  “Amethyst is an embarrassment,” Jeremiah growled. “She used to do the most outrageous things just to get on the newspapers. People we know back in New Addison would send us copies. Father’s lawyer would send them and beg my parents to rein her in.”

  Alyssa bit into the ball of cotton candy she’d purchased—to fit in, she’d claimed. A clown summersaulted past them, but Alyssa kept watching him.

  “Father wouldn’t show Mother. He would throw them away, just like that.” Jeremiah snapped his fingers. “Sometimes Father wouldn’t even look. She was atrocious.”

  “Your sister cannot be tamed,” Alyssa said. To their side, the Ferris wheel creaked as if taunting Jeremiah with laughter.

  Alyssa sounded too much like Jeremiah’s father. Amethyst will grow out of it; this is just how Amethyst is.

  “My sister needs to learn that what she does shames the family name!”

  Alyssa grabbed Jeremiah’s arm. “Hush. Look at that.”

  He scowled, expecting to see his sister naked on a dais while men threw rose petals at her, but it was a man in a pinstriped suit walking with a man in brown traveling gear—goggles, trench coat, gloves—carrying a wicker baby basinet.

  “Jolene?” Alyssa whispered.

  Jeremiah folded his hand over his pistol and shoved through the crowd toward where they headed to the back of the circus.

  She was Amethyst Treasure. She had perfected the haughty smile, the toss of her head, the pursed lips. She could make a man buy her a drink with just a flutter of her painted lashes.

  Amethyst kept one hand on her hips as she strode toward the clockwork lion slumped near another wooden trailer. At least, she hoped it was a clockwork one and not a real lion. She almost laughed at herself—gears showed amongst the joints. Real lions didn’t quite look like that.

  If she had used the beast to steal a baby, she probably would have kept it out of the way, too. Someone might have seen the lion and traced it back to the circus.

  Amethyst glanced around the trailers, with their bright red paint and yellow suns. A woman in a striped leotard carried a basket of peanuts, but she didn’t glance Amethyst’s way.

  Amethyst crouched to peer under the trailer, but only saw weeds. She checked for passersby again before nudging the lion with the toe of her glittered slipper. The gears inside creaked, but the mechanical animal didn’t move. She pushed at its back, but the lion didn’t move. Muscles strained against her shoulders and back.

  “Bloody gears.” She couldn’t move it over. Jolene probably wasn’t still inside—the baby could have fit, judging by the round belly, but she wouldn’t be silent. Jolene was observing or vocal, and sometimes she was vocal about observing. Amethyst bit her lower lip. She would find her daughter.

  Amethyst crept up the steps to the trailer to peer through the window. A woman had her back to the door as she bent over something. Amethyst held her breath as she reached down to try the brass knob; it turned beneath her grip. She pushed it open enough to stick her head and shoulders inside the trailer.

  Jasmine incense fragranced the air, but the distinct smell of a soiled diaper soaked through. The woman bent over a wooden crib; she held a rag doll and shook it to make the bells sewn to its cloth limbs jingle.

  “Jolene,” Amethyst burst out.

  The woman gasped, spinning around. The rag doll smacked the floor near her ankle boots. A babyish gurgle emerged from the crib. Amethyst shoved a table aside, knocking off a silver candlestick, to cross the room. Tears burned her eyes and throat as she dropped to her knees.

  “Jolene!” Amethyst reached past the quilt for her daughter. Jolene still had the same bright blue eyes, the ruddy cheeks, and the fluff of yellow hair. Jolene was whole, safe, in her arms…

  Something metallic clicked beside Amethyst’s ear.

  Amethyst shifted her gaze before moving her head. The woman pointed a derringer at her, her hand trembling.

  “Put the baby down,” she stammered, “or I swear on the steam I’ll put this here bullet between your eyes.”

  o, people did not point weapons at Amethyst. Her nostrils flared as she breathed through her nose to stay focused, a trick Clark had taught her. No one, not this bitch of a woman, would take Jolene away again.

  Amethyst kissed her daughter’s forehead, her gaze on the gun, and lowered the baby into the crib. Jolene would not be a casualty, no matter that Amethyst could bring her back. Amethyst gripped her skirt as she rose; the tight material didn’t want to shift over her skin.

  “Put the gun down.” Argh, that sounded like something her parents would say. Put the gun down and everything will be fine. Then the Bad Guy did it, everyone was jolly happy, and life continued.
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  Amethyst didn’t want this bitch to live. She needed some kind of a weapon to jam down that tanned throat. “This is my daughter. Do you know that?” Amethyst adopted the Treasure Purr as she scanned the trailer for something to use as a pummeling weapon.

  “Get gone,” she spat.

  “Why would you want to keep a mother from her baby?” Amethyst could always use the chair at the table, probably not the table, or her heels. Two paintings hung on the wall, one of an unknown man and the other of Senator Horan. She almost gagged. How she’d like to put a bullet through that smirk. Even in oil paints he appeared cocky.

  “For the country.” He finger twitched on the trigger. “All hail our goodly country.”

  Enough of that. Amethyst bent her knee to lift her foot and slid off the glittered slipper. “You know what I love more than country? Family.” In particular Jolene and Clark.

  The baby chose the perfect moment to make a cry, as if missing her mother. The girl in the calico dress glanced down, and Amethyst lunged for her, ramming the stiletto heel into her skull. The girl made a gulped cry and twisted around. The derringer went off and the bullet struck something beyond Amethyst’s shoulder that shattered. The window in the door perhaps.

  Amethyst grunted as she pounded her shoe into the wretch’s head. Blood splashed over the silver fabric, and trickles of it ran into her carrot-colored hair. With a cry, she dropped the gun and Amethyst rolled to grab it. The seam up her skirt tore, freeing her left leg.

  She cracked open the barrel—good, it was a two shot derringer. Panting, Amethyst fired the shot into the woman’s head. She gasped, stiffened, and collapsed, her eyes wide.

  Jolene’s sobs brought Amethyst back. She tossed the derringer onto the table—it hit the wood and rolled, spinning—so she could lift the baby back into her arms.

  “Hush, sweetie, its fine. Mummy’s here. I’m taking you home now, precious. Mummy and Daddy will protect you.”

  “If you are her mother, then you must be Amethyst Treasure.”

  Jeremiah darted around one of the trailers to see the two men enter one with a sunrise painted on the side. A baby’s wails permeated from inside.

  “Jolene,” Alyssa gasped as she jogged to catch up to him, her bonnet hanging by the ribbons around her neck. She’d dropped her cotton candy in order to hold up her skirts.

  “I suppose I should say Amethyst Grisham.” The man in the pinstripe suit spread his hands in the doorway, his body still visible to Jeremiah. “I hadn’t thought you’d come looking here.”

  “I’m going to kill you,” came Amethyst’s reply from inside. Of course his sister would come up with something ludicrous like that. He doubted she had a weapon hidden someone in that skimpy outfit he’d last seen her in.

  “Go find Clark and Zachariah,” Jeremiah barked to Alyssa. Clark would be best; Jeremiah couldn’t see Zachariah doing much.

  His wife nodded before holding her skirts higher and taking off back the way they’d come, back to the gaudy excitement.

  Jeremiah pulled the pistol free from his holster and started toward the trailer.

  “I wanted to kill you,” the pinstriped man said. “They told me no, but I knew you’d make trouble. I never thought you’d come here, though. Now, I suggest you put the baby down.”

  “No!”

  The man’s partner set the basinet near his feet and loosed a handgun, keeping it behind his back. Perspiration froze across Jeremiah.

  No, he wouldn’t think the worst. Amethyst would be all right. She goaded people on with that obnoxious attitude of hers. If she acted nicer, bad situations wouldn’t fall down on her.

  She couldn’t die, so he didn’t need to worry, anyway.

  A growl crawled up his throat. Bloody gears, she was his sister.

  “I’m afraid I can’t allow this to continue.” The pinstriped man lifted his hand toward his buddy, and the partner stepped into the trailer.

  “Hey!” Jeremiah’s shout made both men start and turn. Jeremiah paused his stride long enough to release two bullets into their chests before he jogged up the trailer steps. The two men fell limp, the partner slumped against the pinstriped villain.

  Clark had to be rubbing off on Jeremiah. His mind told him it was bad to shoot like that, but he couldn’t stop thinking about Amethyst and Jolene.

  She stood beside a crib, clutching the baby to her chest, rocking slightly. As he reached for her, he realized it wasn’t fear that made her wobbly. Somehow, her shoe had left her foot and lay beside a female corpse, the footwear drenched in blood. Yup, Amethyst definitely goaded.

  “Are you hurt?” He attempted to lift Jolene from her arms, but Amethyst twisted aside, teetering on her uneven legs.

  “No one touches her.” Amethyst squeezed her eyes shut and exhaled. “That bitch on the floor said Jolene was kidnapped for the country. Do you think it was the army?” Her eyelids lifted. “Why am I asking you? Where’s Clark?”

  Right, Jeremiah saved her life and she kicked him aside. At least she didn’t try to jab a heel into him. Jeremiah scowled. “Alyssa’s getting him.” He jammed his pistol into its holster.

  “Can I see that?” Amethyst adjusted Jolene onto one shoulder so she could hold out her hand. “There’s a painting I’m dying to shoot.”

  The lock on John Horan’s top desk drawer clicked, and Clark slipped his lock picking set back into his jacket pocket. “There we go.” He glanced at the closed trailer door before sliding open the drawer. Good old John had kept the good old papers exactly where Clark had hoped—the desk’s only locked location. How predictable. Perfect. When men dealt in the darkness, they needed to think differently. Poor John would need to learn that lesson.

  Clark slid into the desk seat and reclined, hoping he looked nonchalant, and plucked out the first stack of papers. Ledgers on horse races. He placed the paper facedown. Next, a listing of circus supplies that came in via airship from overseas. Clark flipped through the following pages, past lists of employees and how much John needed to pay them, until his fingers stilled on a handwritten letter addressed to John Horan. Clark pulled it out from the pack and read the signature.

  Prince Dexter.

  “Brass glass.” He read the letter, his veins seeming to grow colder. The letter made no mention of Jolene, but it contained the familiar words of an old acquaintance.

  I hope you come good on that favor.

  Clark crinkled the paper as he curled his hand into a fist. That favor. The kidnapping of his daughter.

  methyst shoved the inn door open, the shade thumping against the glass, and ran past the clerk at the front desk to reach the stairs. The clerk looked up, fumbling with his corncob pipe.

  “I… I see you’ve got a baby with you now.” His words followed Amethyst’s heels as she took the steps two at a time. Clark could answer any questions. He could make up answers for all she cared. They’d fought over who could hold Jolene on the way back from the circus, so Amethyst had sat on his lap and they’d both cradled their baby.

  “Fortuneteller!” Amethyst pushed past a man to reach the room they’d rented for the fortuneteller. Cigar smoke hung thick in the air, as though it sought to create a barrier between her and him.

  She turned the doorknob to see if he’d locked it, as Clark had instructed, but it turned and she pushed open the door. He must have foreseen their success, knew they were returning.

  “Fortuneteller!” She stumbled into the room and grabbed the dresser to keep from falling. Her chest pushed against her bodice with each deep breath. The cigar smoke coated her throat.

  The shade had been rolled up at the single window, the calico curtains drawn open. Someone had spread the faded quilt across the cot. No candle stubs decorated the bedside table.

  No. He’d left. “You have to be here!” She crossed the room to peer on to the other side of the bed, but he didn’t lay upon the braided rug. How could he have gone? The mission wasn’t over. They needed to question him more about the kidnappers. Clark claimed t
he prince had ordered it.

  “Bullshit,” Jeremiah had growled, because he could never talk like a civilized man. “It was John Horan and just John Horan. Those bastards hate us.”

  Amethyst liked Clark’s point—they were clearly passing Jolene on to someone else.

  She stomped back across the room to slam the door, give her muscles and nerves something to do. Tears burned her eyes and she rubbed them on the heel of her hand. Idiot. The fortuneteller was supposed to stay. She hadn’t even found whoever it was he wanted her to communicate with.

  She reached for the knob so she could rant to Clark, and a paper tacked to the back of the door stilled her hand. Scrawled pencil lines formed a note. She ripped it off the tack and dropped onto the bed, the ropes supporting the mattress moaning.

  Amethyst, I must go now. The government will find me. They can’t know I told you so ask Clara Larkin.

  The government. What did the bloody government care? They had wanted Clark Treasure; they didn’t care about a silly fortuneteller. The man spouted off Jeremiah’s bullshit. She crumpled the letter, but then unfolded it. Some of the markings had smeared into the new crevices.

  Clara Larkin.

  Clark pulled the hood of his gray-green coat forward to shadow his face in the stretching dusk. People parted for him along the wooden sidewalk, as if sensing his agitation. He kept his face stoic, but they had to see the two pistols hanging at his waist.

  The man leaning against the pole at the train station had to be Amethyst’s fortuneteller. Brass disks and gears hung off his red coat in an ugly pattern, but it served its job. It drew attention and created an aura of mysticism. His wide-brimmed, black hat gave him a darkness, as though he could pull the shadows around him. Clark almost laughed; that was his trick.