The Magic Carnival Box Set: Books 1-3

by Trudi Jaye

  “If there was a scratch, does that mean paint is missing?” Rilla tapped a finger on the table.

  Kara nodded. “I think so.”

  “My father’s car was a pretty distinctive color. A metallic midnight blue to match a color he liked in the Carousel.”

  “So?”

  “What if we looked at his list of suspects and tried to see if any of them have matching scratches on their vehicles, or maybe bits of paint still on them?”

  “Do you have his list of suspects?”

  Rilla nodded. She stood and went to her sock drawer, pulling out the notebook. She flicked open the pages and found the list. “Here it is. He started by listing everyone and shortened it as he managed to confirm the people who couldn’t have done certain things.”

  Kara scanned the list and then cleared her throat softly. “Rilla, remember when we discussed… that it was probably someone your father trusted? That you can’t leave anyone off the list?”

  Rilla nodded, sitting down again across from Kara.

  “Is there anyone he didn’t put on there?”

  Rilla peered down at the full list in her father’s slashing handwriting. There were thick, black strikes through most of the names, as if her father had taken satisfaction in being able to rule them out.

  Most of the Carnival was there, but as she went down the list, she realized there were some people missing. “He hasn’t got the Nine on here,” she said softly. “Viktor, Christoph, Alfie, and the others. They’re not on here. He assumed they were his trusted circle.”

  “I think we should add them to our list. Your father trusted them, and it got him killed.”

  Rilla took a calming sip of tea. They were talking about people who had raised her. “We’ll start checking their vehicles tomorrow,” she said, her voice cracking in the middle.

  “Rilla, I’m sorry. They’re like family, aren’t they?” Kara leaned over and placed a warm hand on Rilla’s arm.

  Rilla glanced up. “They are family. If you’re right and it really was one of them, it would hurt the entire Carnival, everyone in it.”

  “But someone is already hurting the Carnival. You have to find out who it is. Sticking your head in the sand and wishing it would go away isn’t going to work. I know all about that.”

  Rubbing a hand over her eyes, Rilla nodded. “You’re right. I know you’re right. But imagine if you found out Deputy Fordham had been part of your family’s death. That’s how it will feel.”

  “Better to feel the pain, no matter how sharp, than to go on living in the dark.” Kara’s voice was soft and clear, almost otherworldly. Rilla looked up sharply at her face. Kara appeared serene and calm, nothing out of the ordinary.

  Had she imagined the swish of cold air across her face? “I guess you’re right,” she said, watching Kara closely.

  Kara nodded, her eyes glazed over, and then she shook her head. “What next?” Her eyes were again normal.

  “Nothing for now. I have a performance to prepare for and you need to go home to rest, maybe take a hot bath to ease your muscles. Tomorrow, we start looking for my father’s murderer in the parking lot.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Rilla placed one shaking hand on the back of her father’s desk. It had been a terrible night. The crowds were thin, one of the elephants had taken fright at a camera flash, and they’d had to close a ride because of safety concerns.

  Despite this, or perhaps because of it, all she could think about was the solid clues she now had to follow in her father’s murder. Because of Kara, she could actually do something concrete. It made her feel breathless and shaky.

  A knock at the door sounded loud in the darkness.

  “Who is it?” asked Rilla, distracted by her thoughts.

  “Jack.”

  Rilla frowned. Why on Earth is he here? She opened the door, looking down at Jack as he stood leaning with one arm against her caravan. He looked rumpled and worn, his hair falling over his eyes. He’d obviously been helping pack up after the night’s shows.

  “May I come in?”

  She hesitated, her senses tipping into overdrive. He looked sexy and mysterious in the dark light. Her fingers tightened on the door. She had to remember he was her competition for Ringmaster.

  Then she shrugged. “Why not?”

  Holding the door open, she stepped back as he loomed up beside her. His presence in the caravan unnerved her, making her want to move to another corner of the room to get some breathing space, to find some air that didn’t carry his scent—citrus fresh and minty, with a hint of oil and grease from the Carnival rides.

  “How’s Blago?”

  “He’s definitely better. Starting to harass the nurses. He insists he’ll be able to leave the hospital any day now.” His eyes were dark in the faded light, studying every move she made. It was like being a mouse followed by a large, tawny-brown hawk.

  “Good to hear.”

  “Do you have any coffee?” he asked. His face was shadowed, a couple days’ growth on his jaws. She had the urge to reach out and run her hand over the coarse surface of his cheek.

  Not trusting her voice, Rilla nodded, then turned and put her small coffee pot on brew. She was jittery, her heart beating erratically. She pulled out two matching mugs and tipped a spoonful of coffee in one and dropped a tea bag in the other. She cleared her throat. “Sugar?”

  He shook his head. “No, thanks.” Sitting down at her small table, he looked around the caravan, taking in the different wall decorations. He nodded toward a picture of Rilla and her father when she was about ten. “Do you have any more photos of you from when you were young?”

  “Some. Dad wasn’t big on looking back. Too painful, I guess.”

  “Was it really so painful, living in the Carnival?”

  “No, not really. But when my mother and brother left, it was difficult. I think he always thought he’d find a way to get them to come back.” Rilla placed his mug of coffee on the table between them and sat down with her hands around her tea.

  “But they didn’t?” Jack’s eyes flickered from brown to gold in the glow of the small table lamp.

  “No.” Rilla glanced away. He seemed to see everything: her old, brittle pain from when she was a child and her new, red-raw pain from her father’s death.

  “Where are they now?”

  “Mom’s where she’s been for years, up the coast of California. A small town by the sea, just north of San Francisco.”

  “And your brother?”

  The old pain wormed its way into her chest. “I’m not sure. He went traveling, and I lost track of him.”

  “Did they come to the funeral?”

  Rilla shook her head. “No. Mom said it was too far. I don’t know if she even told Zeph.” She hadn’t seen her brother since they’d left. She’d visited her mother once or twice, but her brother had always been away, doing something else. She never knew if it was on purpose.

  “Why did you stay with your father?”

  His words cut right through her memories like a sharp blade. She shook her head to clear it. “The Carnival… called to me. I felt the connection from a young age, and my father knew moving me away from it would be harmful. So, he made a deal with my mother.”

  “A deal?” Jack’s voice was soft.

  “Mom could run away, go wherever she wanted, and not be forced into joint custody for Zeph. He would support them both as long as she let me stay with him.”

  “He didn’t tell you this as a child, did he?”

  “No, not until later. We still pay some money to Mom. Although, not so much at the moment.” Actually, they were paying her mother nothing at the moment. They barely had enough money to buy food for themselves and the punters.

  “How old were you when they left?”

  Rilla took a sip of her tea, grateful for the warmth and distraction. He was far too perceptive, asking the questions perfectly designed to cut into her inner thoughts. “I was about seven or eight. I really don’t remember
. Zeph was about five.”

  “And you truly have no contact?”

  “None at all. Mom was pretty adamant about keeping Zeph away from the Carnival. I guess I was part of that.”

  “She wasn’t from the Carnival?”

  “She was from a circus family, but not this one. A distant cousin of Tami’s. Came to stay with them one summer and caught Abba’s eye. Or so the story goes.”

  “Do you have those photos?” Jack leaned forward, his eyes bright with interest.

  Hesitating, Rilla tried to decide if it would be too personal to let him see her photos. “Do you really want to see them?”

  “Sure. Do you have any of my father?”

  Rilla nodded, relieved. He wanted to understand more about his father, not her. “Probably. I don’t go through them that often these days, not the older ones.”

  “Then, yes, I’d definitely like to see your father and mine when they were young and in the Carnival.” Jack gave her a lopsided grin, and Rilla felt her heart jump. She frowned and stood up.

  He was the competition. She didn’t want to think about him like that.

  Rilla went to the wardrobe at the end of the long room. She climbed on her bed and reached into the storage bin at the top, pulling out a small, battered suitcase.

  “They’re not in an album,” she said as she hefted the grey-patterned suitcase down. “We used to pull them out sometimes, find our favorites, and tell stories about what was happening in the picture. Dad was better at the stories than me, although I guess, looking back, he was probably just telling me versions of what really happened.”

  She swiped at the dust, trying to tidy up her memories. Placing it on the table, she flicked open the small metal latches. Tears welled as she looked down at the photo on top of the pile. It was one of her father, standing with his hands on his hips, looking up at the Jolly Carnival sign. She picked it up carefully.

  “You know, if you become Ringmaster, we have to change the name,” she said, rubbing her thumb along the edge of the photo, not taking her eyes from her father’s face.

  Jack leaned back. “What about the loyal fans in every town that Viktor keeps telling me about?”

  “It’s the same Carnival. Just under a different name.”

  “How many times has it been switched, then… over the years?” asked Jack, taking a cautious sip of his coffee.

  Rilla’s heart skipped a beat. He always asked the right questions. “Never. Not since the shipwreck.” She glanced up at his face, saw his surprise.

  He blew out a long breath. “This has never happened before?”

  “No. There’ve been fights for it, real nasty ones. But it’s always been between Jolly family members.”

  “Why didn’t anyone tell me?” Jack frowned as he picked a photo out of the pile, a black-and-white image showing a young Abacus standing next to a gorgeous teenaged Barbarina.

  “It doesn’t matter if it’s never happened before. It can happen. You’re allowed to challenge me. That’s all that matters.”

  “Why? How come some stranger can come in and challenge someone who’s lived here all her life?” Jack’s eyes flicked from the photo to Rilla’s face.

  “The Carnival has certain rules and we don’t fight them. One of those rules is that any Carnival member can make a claim to be Ringmaster after the death of the last one, as long as they do it before the end of the funeral. It’s just that no one other than a Jolly has felt the need to do it before.” She glanced at Jack to see if he understood the weight of tradition attached to being Ringmaster. There was a reason no one other than a Jolly tended to claim the title.

  “And because you’ve got these arbitrary rules, that’s the way it’s got to be?”

  “They’re not arbitrary. Every rule has been proven; it’s there for a reason. It might sound fatalistic, but it’s not. It’s how it works.” Rilla shrugged, trying to maintain a casual front. But her hand shook as it held the photo. She dropped it back into the pile.

  “Except for my father?”

  “I guess.” Rilla smoothed a folded corner on another photo, this one of a group of eight young people, bright and shiny, in front of a large caravan. She turned it over to see the back.

  “It says ‘The Gang’ on the back here.” Flipping it back over, she paused to identify the smiling faces. “I see Dad. And there’s your father.” She pointed to a young, slim Blago standing next to Abba. He had his arm casually over the shoulders of an elegant young woman in a shiny leotard. “Who’s that woman next to him?”

  “Not sure.” Jack leaned over to look more closely at the image, his hair falling over his eyes. He flicked it back absently as he mulled over the faces in the picture. “There’s Christoph, holding hands with another woman I don’t know. Not Barbarina, anyway.”

  “It’s strange. I don’t recognize them all.” Rilla couldn’t remember the photo at all. It wasn’t one she’d used for storytelling with her father.

  “What about Viktor? Is he there?”

  Rilla focused on the faces in the photo, scrunching up her face in concentration. “That could be him there.” She pointed to another smiling face. “That boy next to him looks just like Frankie. It must be his father, Drake.” She smiled up at Jack, pleased to have identified another face.

  “Well, if we’re going that route, this woman here looks a little like Garth. Could it be his mother?”

  Rilla narrowed her eyes at the photo, trying to see past the blurry edges of the faces. “It could be, I guess. She died a long time ago, and I don’t really remember her.”

  “Could this be his dad standing next to her?”

  Tipping her head to one side, Rilla considered the face and then shook her head. “Garth’s father looks different from when he was younger, because of the Alzheimer’s, but not that different. I only just visited him six months back.” She saw the quizzical expression on Jack’s face. “He lives in a nursing home near the Compound.”

  “The Compound?” Jack frowned.

  She looked up swiftly. She hadn’t meant to mention it. Wasn’t really supposed to, not until they were properly confirmed as part of the Carnival. “It’s… um… it’s…” She sighed. What the hell? “It’s our winter retreat. Where we go when the punters just aren’t going to come to an outside Carnival.”

  “Yet another secret I’m not supposed to know about?” asked Jack with an edge to his voice.

  Rilla put her hand over his, leaning forward. “We have to protect ourselves. There have to be some things that only insiders know about.”

  “And I’m still an outsider?” Jack looked down at Rilla’s hand covering his. Before she knew what was happening, he turned his over so they were holding hands.

  A blast of heat ran up Rilla’s arm into her body. The air in the caravan seemed too dense, Jack’s eyes able to see too much.

  “I told you about it, didn’t I?” she said, trying to snatch away her hand. He held on, placing his other hand over hers, moving his thumb so it stroked the sensitive skin of her inside wrist. Rilla quivered in anticipation.

  “Not soon enough,” he said softly. “Not nearly soon enough.” He continued to brush his thumb over her skin, and Rilla couldn’t seem to move her eyes away from their clasped hands. A tremor shook her body, her whole skin somehow extra sensitized. “When will you see me as someone you can talk to?” he whispered.

  Rilla shook her head, trying to clear it of the sensation sweeping through her veins. She felt warm all over. “You’re running against me for Ringmaster. You’re my opposition,” she said desperately.

  He lifted her hand to his mouth and kissed her palm. “Not for long. And that doesn’t mean you can’t trust me.”

  “Why do I have to trust you?” Rilla whispered, watching as his head bowed over her hand, his lips making slow progress up her wrist. She swallowed heavily, trying not to imagine those lips on other parts of her body.

  “You just do,” he said, his voice low and fierce. He looked up at her, and the
fire in his eyes made Rilla stop breathing.

  He leaned over the table, his hand grasping her neck, and pulled her toward him. His lips closed around hers and she moaned. The feeling was so much more than she’d expected. He started soft and slow, his lips skimming hers, testing and teasing, until she leaned in closer, demanding more.

  He pulled back, and she protested. But he was just standing up and immediately pulled her against him, until he had her in his arms, his body hard against hers. She lifted her arms and wrapped them around his neck, her hands fisting his hair.

  His lips came back down on hers, harder this time, more urgent. His hands traced over her body, pulling her closer. Rilla cupped her hands around his neck and then against his cheeks. His stubble was rough against her palms. He broke their kiss, lowering his head until she could feel the heat of his breath against the sensitive skin of her neck, the softness of his lips pressing to her pulse.

  She moaned again.

  Lowering her fingers to his shirt, she started undoing the buttons. Her shaking hands made no progress, and she growled low in her throat. “Take it off,” she said when he lifted his head to look at her with laughing eyes.

  “You’re sure?” he said, taking her face between his large hands.

  “Just do it,” she said.

  He smiled a slow, sexy grin that had her melting all over again. He lifted his shirt over his head to reveal his large, tanned chest. A smattering of hairs hugged his body, a narrow line disappearing beneath the waistband of his jeans. She put her palms carefully against his chest. His warmth seeped into her straightaway, and her body flushed with matching heat.

  She leaned forward and placed a kiss in the middle, running her hands across his skin. He groaned and pulled her back up to his lips in a scorching kiss that had heat pooling in her belly.

  She pulled him backward, toward her bed, never breaking contact until she stood with her calves against the edge of the bed.

  “Your turn,” he said against her lips.

  Lowering her hands to her own top, she broke contact just enough to pull it over her head, throwing it on the floor. The feel of skin on skin sent shudders down her body. She ran her hands up his arms, halting on the hard, contoured muscles of his shoulders.