by Trudi Jaye
***
“You want to what?” Frankie’s eyes glowed in the computer light in his caravan.
Jack waved one hand toward the computer screen to Frankie’s right. “I want to get the Carnival online. Social media. Set up a webpage.”
“You want us to do social media?”
“Not us. You. The Carnival needs to be online.” Jack scrubbed one hand through his hair. He could see Frankie was pissed at him, and he knew exactly why.
Rilla.
He could still see the hurt in her eyes as she realized Jack and Viktor had talked and essentially worked out a deal behind her back.
“What makes you think I’m going to do anything for you?” Frankie’s voice was belligerent.
Jack didn’t blame him, but he still needed to convince Frankie to help. “It’s for the good of the Carnival. Even you want us to succeed.” At least, he hoped Frankie did. He couldn’t be entirely certain; Frankie was unpredictable.
Frankie took a swig of his coffee and wiped his mouth. “I said that if you did anything to Rilla, I wasn’t going to help you. Stealing her position as Ringmaster qualifies.”
Jack rested his elbows on his knees and leaned forward. “I didn’t do it to hurt Rilla. And neither did Viktor. I did it because I thought the Carnival needed it, and that has started to mean something to me. Viktor believes the same thing and so do the other members of the Nine, or they wouldn’t have voted for me.”
Frankie waved a hand dismissively. “They’re sheep. With Abacus gone, Viktor is leading them around on a leash.”
“I don’t intend to let Viktor lead me around,” said Jack carefully.
Frankie glanced at him, holding his gaze for a long moment. “I do believe you mean it.” He sighed. “I still won’t help you. I’d like to, but Rilla has a prior claim to my loyalty.”
“Oh, come on. She won’t stand in my way. She did the show last night, didn’t she?”
“You don’t know her very well if you think she would let something happen to the Carnival. Even as you steal her birthright out from under her.”
“Stop saying it like that.” Jack scowled at Frankie, his annoyance overriding his attempts to charm the younger man. “Things were spiraling out of control. I just wanted to help Rilla.” He shook his head. “She hasn’t even been allowed to grieve for her father, for crying out loud. She needs a break, to be able to take a breath. I’m helping her take a breath, that’s all.”
“She looked to be breathing all right to me.”
“I’m telling you now, she wasn’t.” He stared down Frankie until the younger man looked away. “Me taking over doesn’t mean she can’t take back the position at some point.”
Frankie leaned into his chair, looking at Jack with his eyes narrowed. “You seem to mean it.”
“Of course I mean it.” Exasperated, Jack waved a hand in the direction of the main tent. “The Carnival is nothing without Rilla. She’s the glue that holds it together, but no one around here seems to realize that. I’m just giving her the chance to grieve, pull herself together before she gets back into it.”
“She doesn’t see it like that.”
“No, she doesn’t.” Jack shook his head. “I have a bit of work to do there, to get her to trust me again. You can blame Viktor for that. But I promise you, Frankie, I did this for Rilla, not for myself.”
Frankie paused, considering Jack carefully. “I believe you.”
“I mean it, and I’m going to make it right,” Jack vowed. “But I need your help to get the Carnival running properly again.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Get us online. It needs to be amazing, loud, fun, and full of the life of the Carnival. I can help with some of it, I have a bit of experience with this kind of thing, but I have to learn my Ringmaster routine and keep an eye on my dad in the hospital, so I can’t do it all.”
Frankie nodded, turning his head toward the computer nearest him. “Yeah, all of that plus interactive somehow. We need to include people, maybe ask them the kinds of rides they want to see or the performances they would come to see when we hit their town. Vote for their favorite act.”
Jack nodded. “Exactly.”
A ping sounded on another of the computers and echoed around the small caravan. Frankie looked up and scooted over on his chair to check.
“Huh.” Frankie made the small sound absently, as if confused.
Jack raised his eyebrows questioningly.
“You remember that magician, Hugo Blue? The one I said I knew from the television?”
“Vaguely.”
“He was spotted around here… about the time Abacus was murdered.”
“Did he know Abacus?” Jack stared at Frankie’s screen over his shoulder trying to work out why it felt like this might be important.
Frankie shook his head. “Not that I know of. But he could have, I suppose.”
“Does the Carnival ever go to Vegas?” If he had known Abacus, maybe there was something in the sighting. He would love to be able to tell Rilla he’d found her father’s murderer.
“No. Not the right kind of market. We do smaller towns and cities.”
Jack sighed and shook his head. It didn’t make any sense. “Coincidences sometimes happen, I guess.”
Frankie shrugged. “The program picked it up; it could be important.”
Pushing himself to his feet, Jack nodded slowly. “Can we look into him a little more? Find out where he came from, that kind of thing?” It wouldn’t hurt to cover their bases. Frankie was right; it was better to make sure. “I have to go see Dad, but I’ll leave you in charge of it for now.”
Frankie nodded. “I’ll see what I can come up with.”
***
“You’re doing what?” Rilla stopped in the process of piling the fragrant rice into her bowl. She looked up at Frankie, who was standing beside her in the small line for a late dinner. The tent was mostly empty, the majority of people in bed after clearing up from the evening’s show.
“I’m helping him set up a website for the Carnival. And social media.”
Rilla blinked. A website. She’d been meaning to put the Carnival online. It had just never occurred to her to get Frankie to do it. She blinked again. Of course Frankie should do it. He was the perfect person.
She heaped vegetables on her rice and wandered over to the nearest table. Jack was doing more for the Carnival in his first day than she had in years. Bile rose up her throat and suddenly she wasn’t hungry any more.
Frankie joined her, rice and a chicken curry filling his plate. “You’re not angry with me, are you? He’s only trying to help the Carnival. I wouldn’t have done it if I didn’t think he was trying to get us out of this mess we’re in.”
Rilla sighed and shook her head. “No, I’m not angry. Jack betrayed my trust, and I’m not happy about that. But of course we should be online. That’s a really good idea.”
“That’s what I thought. Funny we never thought of it before now.”
“Too caught up in everyday life?”
“Hmmm.” Frankie took a huge mouthful of rice. He gazed around as he chewed, nodding and waving as a couple more people came into the food tent.
Rilla watched him closely. His eyes sparkled, his skin seemed healthy, and he was shoveling food in his mouth like there was a time limit on mealtime. She’d always thought of him as being reclusive and shy. She’d often visited him in his caravan in the last couple of years, never thinking of him in the outside world or even that he might want to emerge.
But he was fine out here. Chatting and socializing with everyone and not displaying any of the intense agoraphobia he had been since he came back. It was both amazing and terrifying at the same time.
“How do you feel, Frankie?”
He glanced at her and rolled his eyes when he saw her serious expression. “I’m fine. I feel good. I’m out of that damned caravan, aren’t I?”
“But if Jack fixes things, if he starts the healing proces
s for the Carnival, you’ll end up back in there.”
Frankie fixed her with a serious stare. “Someone said he was a blocker.”
Taking a breath, Rilla nodded. “He could be. He didn’t feel the wave when Kara was accepted onto the dragon.”
Frankie nodded. “That could just be because his bond to the Carnival hadn’t formed.”
Rilla took a small mouthful of her food, not saying anything. It was possible. They would just have to wait and see.
“What happens if he is a blocker?” There was both fear and anticipation in Frankie’s eyes, and he leaned toward her.
Rilla had to look away. “I don’t know,” she said. “I’ll have to get someone to check our records at the Compound.”
“If he blocks my talent, I’m happy. Can’t say the same about the rest of you.”
Rilla stared at him. “Do you know anything about blockers?” She could only recall the basics from her father’s stories.
“I know what it means. I won’t be stuck in that caravan anymore, but we’ll lose our one advantage over the rest of the world.” Frankie’s face was serious. “If he emerges as a blocker, I don’t see how he’d be able to stay on at the Carnival.”
“It might not be like that.” Rilla clutched her spoon tightly. She might be angry with him, but she wouldn’t want Jack to be in that position.
“You know, he’s only doing this to help you,” said Frankie casually, using his spoon to cram his mouth full of curry.
Rilla’s breath hitched. “He has a funny way of showing it.”
“Because it seemed like he did it behind your back?”
“Of course because of that. Instead of talking to me, he plots with Viktor to steal it from me. How can I ever trust him?”
“Why does trusting him matter so much to you?”
Rilla blushed and spooned more vegetables into her mouth.
“Don’t worry. I’d have to be stupid not to see that you two have something going on.” Frankie smirked at Rilla.
Rilla scowled down at her meal, trying not to show Frankie how much that upset her. “Not anymore.”
Frankie watched Rilla. “He’s not the bad guy here, Rilla. You need to give him a second chance.”
She looked up sharply. “You have to be kidding. No way. I already gave him a second chance and he blew it. He might have won the role of Ringmaster, but he lost me in the process.” She angrily shoved away her half-eaten plate of food.
“He said he only did it because Abba’s death was affecting you more than any of us realize and you need a break. Is he right?”
Rilla snapped up her head. Her breath caught in her throat. “He said that?”
Frankie nodded. “He’s concerned about you, Rilla. I wouldn’t have helped him with the online stuff if he hadn’t convinced me he was sincere.”
“Thanks, Frankie. I can always count on you.” Rilla paused. “You know, I hope Jack is a blocker. I like having you here.”
“I like being here,” admitted Frankie. “But I don’t like the idea of everyone else’s talent being blocked. We’d never survive.”
Rilla shrugged. “The Carnival is usually about opening things up, rather than closing them down. A talent like blocking wouldn’t exist without a reason.”
“You sound like Abba when you say things like that.”
She made a face, but her heart swelled at the thought. “Like father, like daughter.”
“He did talk sometimes about talents that I’d never heard of. He’d come to my caravan late at night, after the show, and talk to me about his dreams for the Carnival.”
Rilla’s heart skipped a beat. There was so much her father had done that she literally had no idea about. “Did he say anything about blockers? If Jack really is one, then we need to know as much as we can.”
Frankie shook his head. “But Abba had records about that kind of stuff. Have you checked in his things?”
Rilla chewed on a piece of broccoli, thinking of the lists of possible killers in his notebook. “Nothing like that as far as I can see.”
Frankie cleared his throat. “You know about his secret stash, right?”
Rilla frowned. “His what?”
“He had a secret hiding place where he put the really valuable records, the stuff he didn’t want others to find. I caught him at it once, when I was a kid, and he swore me to secrecy.”
A sharp pain hit Rilla somewhere near her heart. Yet another secret her father hadn’t trusted her with. She shifted in her seat. “Where is it?” she said, more sharply than she’d intended.
Frankie frowned, then sighed. “Under your caravan.”
Right there and she’d never even realized. Rilla took one more mouthful of rice and stood. “I’m going to have a look, right now.”
She sighed as Frankie looked unhappily between her and his half-eaten meal. “Stay here and finish your meal.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Rilla lay on her bed and opened the diary she’d found in the small, secured metal box under the caravan, just where Frankie said it would be. She’d had to search around in the dark with her flashlight, swearing at her father when she bumped her head and scraped a finger, but she’d found what she was after. Another bundle of notes and letters was sitting on her bedside table, waiting to be opened.
The diary was old, older than anything else she had seen in her father’s possessions. The writing inside was fine and delicate, with a smattering of crossed-out words and blots of ink littering the yellowed pages. It was similar enough to the black diary she’d found in her father’s desk to be sure he’d been inspired by this diary to start his own.
She smoothed her hand over the rough paper, wondering at the treasure she had in her hands. “Who do you belong to?”
There was a small sticky tab attached near the middle and she flicked to the page, curious about what her father had marked.
It was a long day today. We discovered another new strain of talent among our little troop. Little Betty turned sixteen and it just came out, no warning at all. We must find a way to combat the effects of her talent, or we will be lost.
Frowning, Rilla smoothed her finger over the words. A new talent?
They had always thought of their connection to the Carnival and the talent it provided as an extension of a natural ability, and the wide variety of natural ability meant it was almost impossible to predict what might happen at the crucial age. Her own talents had taken a while to emerge and her ability to manipulate them even longer. Long sight, persuasion skills, and the ability to understand connections and puzzles—it was an unusual mix, one that was unique to her.
But according to this, that wasn’t always how they’d thought of it.
I fear for our safety. We have relied on our talents so long that it comes as a shock to have them suddenly vanish. But more than I fear for our safety, I fear for Betty. I have seen the way some of the others look at her. Their anger and blame are there in their eyes for all to see, and there seems only one logical conclusion—unless I can bring us all together again. Without my talent, it might be impossible. But I must try.
Letting out a breath, Rilla put the small diary to one side. It must have been the first instance of blocking. Strange that her father was researching it when no one they knew had the skill. She thought of Jack. At least no one had it yet.
If Jack was a blocker, it could be devastating for both Jack and everyone in the Carnival. They didn’t know enough about what it meant and they were already in a fragile position; it was the last thing they needed. It was the one factor they’d all forgotten when they pushed Jack into the acting Ringmaster role.
Rilla trailed her fingers over the paper. As much as she hated to admit it, Jack was doing well as Ringmaster. Despite the fact that he couldn’t actually do the show from the center ring, there was a rising feeling of optimism around the Carnival. She could feel it, as well as the slight increase in her abilities; things were clearer, more organized in her head. Still not great, but
better. Everyone would be feeling the changes, and it seemed to sanction Jack’s new position.
The website was a good idea, and he even understood how to manage the accounts. He’d come by to ask for them earlier that day, and she’d reluctantly handed them over. He’d smiled and promised to bring them back.
She’d scowled at the time, but somewhere inside, she’d been impressed. No one else had ever tried to help with the accounts. They’d always just let her take care of the details.
A heavy knock rattled the blinds. She looked up and saw a familiar shape at the door.
Jack.
Despite everything, her heart gave a little excited thump.
Frowning, she checked her watch. It was late; the rest of the Carnival was shut up tight. She closed the diary, placing it carefully in her bedside drawer, and stood. Opening the door, she glared down into Jack’s darkened face.
She raised her eyebrows at him but remained silent, trying to figure out the expression on his face.
He cleared his throat. “I watched you in the ring tonight. And I’ve been talking to people.” He glanced to one side, then back. “They all say the same thing. If I want to properly learn how to be Ringmaster, I have to get you to teach me.” Heat flared in his eyes, and suddenly all Rilla could think about was Jack kissing her hungrily.
She cleared her throat and stepped back into her caravan. “It’s late. We can talk about it in the morning.” She tried to close the door.
Jack put his hand in the way, keeping it open. “Rilla, just hear me out, will you? I need you to be okay with me. It won’t work otherwise.” His voice was soft, pleading. There were black marks under his eyes, and for the first time, Rilla realized how tired he looked.
She scowled. One finger tapped softly against the door handle, and she watched him for a moment, trying to understand how she felt about what he was asking. Part of her wanted to tell him to go to Hell. And another part wanted to invite him in, just to feel the heat of his skin on her body.
She shook her head, trying to clear out the sensual images that were haunting her.