by Brat
CHAPTER 29
Because this year was chock full of history, overflow from the main tent had been housed in this smaller section. It was a tent from many years ago, striped in Attaway colors: crimson and cream. By the time the girls made their way inside, Fiske and Conrad had disappeared. A few visitors and a security guard milled about the perimeter, more interested in the proceedings outside than what adorned the tent’s walls. The girls fanned out, trying to find Fiske.
Oh, Rhyme thought to herself. This was the retrospective. The project she and Matilda had poured so much time into this summer. She drew closer to the walls, suddenly—and genuinely—interested.
This was the town she’d lived in since she was born. At each decade, the exhibit included a photo of the town square Rhyme knew so well. She saw roads change from dirt to cobbled to paved, the vehicles from wagons to streetcars to cars. And then she got to the exhibit on the rubber factory fire, which she remembered Matilda mentioning early in the summer, before they were friends. If they were friends, now. Matilda was right, it was a crazy story: two women had died in a terrible fire, and for ten years the wrong man was blamed. Matilda had set the section up so the two stories were side by side—the initial one, and then the truth, which came out ten years later at the first “Phoenix Fest,” which the town still celebrated. One of the girls, wearing orange cat-eye glasses and a hunter’s hat, looked a little like Rhyme.
“Psst,” Matilda called from across the room. Rhyme and Meg followed her gaze to the back of the tent, where Fiske was curling his bony finger, motioning for them to follow him outside.
The striped tent abutted the end of the fairgrounds, where a dense forest rose above the faraway din of the crowd. Between the tent and the trees was a narrow lip of tall grass. There, the girls found Fiske, leaning against a tree with a malicious look on his face. He wore a sharkskin suit, a black turtleneck, and bulky sneakers. This time his hair wasn’t pulled back. Electrical wires ran around the tent, and Fiske yanked one out—cutting the audio on the speaker above. Sitting beside the speaker was someone who appeared to be Conrad, though his face was obscured by an Attaway Armadillo mask. When his uncle peeled it off, the girls saw that Conrad was blindfolded, and his mouth taped shut.
“Ladies,” hissed Fiske, menacing in the moonlight. “It’s such a pleasure to see you all again.” A creepy smile spread across his face. Rhyme’s butterflies turned to nausea at the sight of his teeth. Meg didn’t respond. Her eyes were locked on Conrad. His hair was rumpled and clothing wrinkled, and now they saw his leg was tied to one of the tent’s iron stakes.
Rhyme had the envelope in her shaking hand. Her eyes kept darting between Fiske and the twins, terrified that at any second he’d take them both away again. She grabbed Meg’s hand, instinctively. To her surprise, Meg squeezed back.
“No need for this to take up any more of my time,” said Fiske, still smiling. “I’ll just take that….”
He reached for the certificate, but Rhyme pulled back.
“Hey!” she said, addressing him directly for the first time. “Untie Conrad first.” Rhyme’s voice sounded bold and confident, belying how terrified she really was.
“That’s rich.” Fiske snorted. “I don’t think so. You seem to be forgetting who holds all the cards here.” Fiske pulled back his jacket to reveal a knife tucked into a holster on his hip. Matilda gasped. Rhyme took a step backwards when she saw the knife, but Meg stepped toward him, pulling Rhyme closer to Fiske and Conrad.
“No more stalling!” Fiske snarled. He was growing impatient. “First things first. Come say hi to your uncle, Meg.” When she didn’t comply, he pulled back his jacket again, showing the knife. She relented.
“What are you going to do to me?” said Meg.
“I hate to keep twins apart,” Fiske said, as he sat Meg down beside her brother. “This will only take a second,” he hissed, as he took another piece of rope from the ground and tied Meg’s hands together and to another stake in the ground. “That should keep you out of my way.”
“You next,” he said to Matilda, who recoiled with fear. “I wasn’t expecting another twerp, but we can’t have you causing any trouble.” Fiske was still holding his jacket open, and so Matilda sat down beside the twins, and watched helplessly as Fiske tied her hands as well. Now it was just Rhyme. Fiske eyed her. “Hand it over. Now.”
“Nuhhhhh,” Conrad tried protesting from beneath the tape.
“Oh, did my dear nephew have something to say?” With a single pull, Fiske ripped the tape from Conrad’s face, leaving a fresh red mark around his lips. “Go on then,” said Fiske.
“Don’t give it to him, Rhyme!” Conrad said, wincing from the pain. “It’s our money, Meg! It’s Betty’s money! She wouldn’t want a penny going to this monster.”
“If I give you the certificate, will you leave and let them go?” Rhyme asked.
“You have my word,” said Fiske.
Rhyme held out the envelope, and Fiske snatched it from her grasp. He held it up to the spotlight, turned it over several times and inspected each corner and read the copy. When he started sniffing it, Rhyme interjected.
“It’s real, you creep! Get out of here, and let the kids go!”
Fiske looked at Rhyme and chuckled. He pointed one of his long fingers at her, shaking it as he laughed.
“More than meets the eye when it comes to little Miss Rhyme …”
“Just take the money and go,” Conrad practically spat at Fiske.
“You think I want to spend another second in this backwater town?” Fiske laughed, a throaty, sinister cackle. “Now that I’ve got the money, you kids should enjoy your silly fair.”
“What money?” Matilda piped up. “We looked all over the Internet for this H. U. Y. company, and it doesn’t exist. How are ten measly shares going to get you anywhere?”
Fiske glowered at her. “Maybe you should play closer attention.” He winked at Meg, sending a chill down all of their spines. Then, he plugged the loose speaker wire back into the jack and yanked down one of the tent’s flaps, so they could see the podium from a distance. “Pay attention, girls,” he said. “A bit of family history before we part ways for good.”
After a bit of static, the speaker came to life. “Before concluding my remarks, I wanted to add one more thing. It’s on a personal note.” The old man was still on stage, accepting his award. “I’m getting old, if you haven’t noticed,” Manderley said, eliciting an appreciative chuckle from the crowd. “And when you’re my age you start to look back at your life, wonder what you’ve done, all you’ve accomplished, but more so who you have loved …”
As they all listened to the speaker, Rhyme edged closer to where Conrad was bound to the stake. “ … This year I lost someone quite important to me,” Manderley went on, “though I hadn’t seen her in over forty years.”
Now, Rhyme was only vaguely hearing the words, her hot pink shoe drawing ever closer to Conrad. “ … She moved away from Attaway many years ago, but Betty Cassidy was one of the finest women this town ever produced. She was the love of my life.”
“What?” said Meg.
Fiske turned toward the crowd, which had fallen silent. “Just pay attention, missy.” With a rictus grin stuck on his face, he turned back toward the crowd. “You’ll see.”
“To make a long story short,” Manderley said, “I was a black boy in Attaway, in love with a white girl. That made her parents none too pleased. And after a few years of heartache and disappointment, I shipped off to Vietnam, 143rd Division. My best friend was a feller by the name of Silas Manderley. We were going to make it through ’Nam and start a business together back home. A few weeks before our tour ended, the Easter attack started. Three days of heavy artillery. I took a bullet in the leg. But poor Silas wasn’t so lucky. He was hit by a bomb. When I made it a home six months later, I started that company, and named it in Silas’s honor. And after a little while, that black boy from Millwood—his name, sorry my name, was Vincent Patterson
—was reborn as Silas Manderley.”
Even from this far away, Rhyme could hear the crowd’s gasps. Attaway was a sleepy place, and this was juicy stuff. Her foot, meanwhile, had almost worked the rope tying Conrad’s hands over the spike in the ground. Just one more kick….
Manderley, when he started speaking again, sounded choked up. “I never got to see Betty again, but we exchanged some letters over the years. One of the things I learned was that we had a child together. A baby girl. Sadly, I never got to meet her, either. But I’m hoping to meet her children. Twins, I’m told. If you’re out there—and you want to meet—I hope you’ll come find me tonight. I’ll be waiting by the Ferris wheel.”
And with that, Silas Manderley left the stage. The audience didn’t know what to do. Neither did Meg, who seemed stunned. Fiske turned to the three girls, grinning wildly. “You know how much a share of Manderley’s company is worth today?” He held up the certificate, showing one hundred shares. “Ten thousand dollars apiece. I’m a millionaire!”
“Then you better hand it over now,” said Conrad, his fists untied, circling like a boxer.
CHAPTER 30
The next few moments were a blur of blows and insults. Conrad got the first punch in, but Fiske retaliated violently, throwing his nephew against the tent. Back and forth, they traded nasty shoves, until they were grappling in the grass. “Ow!” Rhyme heard Fiske scream, as Meg used her free foot to stamp on his hand. But the pain only seemed to embolden him, and he shouldered Conrad to the side, where Meg and Matilda were still held captive.
That’s when Rhyme saw it: the certificate, lying a few feet away on the ground. Without a second’s thought, she bolted toward the paper, grabbed it, and flew into the tent. It was deserted now, everyone having abandoned the exhibits for the fairgrounds. Behind her, Rhyme heard loud crashes and thumps—no doubt, her summer’s hard work being thrown to the wayside. Chancing a look over her shoulder, Rhyme saw that Fiske wasn’t far behind her, with Conrad at his heels. With a whoosh, she escaped the tent and was out in the open.
All around her, the county fair was coming back to life. During the presentation, all of the rides had been switched off, the food vendors closed. Now, however, the whole operation was heaving back to life, like a giant monster rousing after a long night’s sleep. Up ahead, the Ferris wheel groaned, its cars gently swaying as the attraction came back to life. There, she thought. Fast on her feet, Rhyme bolted ahead.
“Stop that girl!” she heard Fiske yelling behind her. It was getting harder and harder to keep pace, with more of the fairgoers spreading out over the grounds, eager to be entertained after Silas Manderley’s long speech. She’d never run so fast in her life. Billy and Holly stood in her path, and she leaped between them like a gazelle. Fiske must not have been so graceful; from behind her, Rhyme heard Billy scream, “Ow! Watch it, buddy! That’s my toe!”
She was at the Ferris wheel now. A small line formed along the railing. Mostly kids and parents, but there was Junior from the coffee shop. “Get off me!” she heard, and turned to see that Conrad had caught up to Fiske, the two of them tussling by the railing. “Now, now, everyone will get a turn,” Junior was admonishing them. Not knowing what else to do, Rhyme hopped the fence and jumped onto the platform, where an elderly operator was collecting tickets. Just then, one of the red cars swung to a stop. “You’re caught now!” Fiske was screaming at her back. There was nowhere to go … but up. As the car lurched to a start, Rhyme took a seat. And then it was up, up and away….
Lurching skyward, Rhyme felt dizzy. She put her head in her hands, trying to catch her breath. After a few seconds, she looked up and out at the county fair. Across the grassy field was a constellation of lights, a throng of people growing more miniature by the second. The main tent looked no bigger than Reggie’s mattress. Directly below—though she hated to look down—Rhyme saw Matilda and Meg crowding around the operator, gesticulating wildly. But where was Fiske? And where was Conrad? And that’s when she saw them, one car down, staring directly up at her. They were sitting together on the bench like old friends, Fiske looking maniacal, and Conrad uncomfortable. It was then she saw a glint of light, and realized that Fiske was holding his knife right up against his nephew. “You just wait right there, little lady,” he called out—loud enough for Rhyme to hear, but not for the people on the ground. “I’m going to get you.”
The wheel kept on turning, and Rhyme was lifted higher and higher. Too scared to look down, and too dizzy to look up, she stared straight ahead—out over the trees and into the night sky. A few low, gauzy clouds sat on the horizon, and behind them three bright white stars made up a perfect triangle. The car continued lurching upward, and Rhyme felt completely helpless, marooned all alone. And it was then that her phone rang. Who else?
Incoming call from …
“T. K.?” She tried sounding nonchalant, like she wasn’t fifty feet in the air, with a greedy madman not far behind her, and her phone about to die. “It’s not really a good time right now. I’m sorry that I missed your call earlier. Everything all right?”
“Sup, Rhyme?” Somehow, T. K. sounded different, older maybe. “Just was hanging out with Flash and a few friends, and was thinking of you. I’m coming home in a few days. I guess we haven’t talked much. I’ve had some family stuff going on. Maybe Birdie told you about it.”
“She just said your parents were fighting,” Rhyme said. “Is there anything I can do?”
“Nah,” said T. K. “Hey, where are you anyway? Sounds pretty windy for Attaway.”
“Oh, it’s just the air conditioner,” Rhyme said, as her car swung in the wind.
“Anyways, nothing important. Just wanted to make sure you were having a good summer.”
Below, Rhyme heard a clang, and when she peered down, she saw Fiske was now standing up in his car, brandishing the knife in Conrad’s direction. “Summer? It’s, uh—It’s been uneventful,” she said into the phone.
“You sound kinda distracted,” T. K. said. “Should I try you later?”
Rhyme’s phone gave off a last gurgle, her battery at one percent. “I want to tell you something, T. K.,” she said, holding her phone close to her face. “No matter what happens, I’m really glad you were my first kiss.”
Before he could respond, she hung up. A few seconds later, her phone went black. Now she was truly by herself. Little by little, the car drew closer to the top, nothing separating her from the inky sky. Don’t look down … don’t look down … don’t look down … She looked down. It was like being on an airplane, when the people melt away, and all you can see are parking lots, baseball diamonds, and tiny square plots of land. “Don’t do it, Rhyme!” Conrad yelled up from down below. When she looked down, she saw that Fiske had him up against the car’s edge, his arms in a vise-like grip.
“Please! You don’t need to hurt him!” Rhyme screamed.
Fiske was no more than ten feet below. “Here’s how this is going to work,” he yelled up. “Your friend Conrad here is going to climb out of the car, and you’re going to give him the certificate. Then, when we get to the bottom, you’re both going to make like everything’s fine. The three of us will walk to my car and then scram. Capisce?”
“What if he falls?” Rhyme called down.
“Then I’ll come get it myself,” Fiske growled.
And with that, Fiske pushed Conrad to the edge of the car. Holding the long, blue spoke, Conrad stood up on the edge of the car, steadying himself as the Ferris wheel kept turning, their cars continuing their ascent. Rhyme took the certificate and leaned down over the side of her car, digging her foot into the space beneath the bench. Blood rushed to her head. Down below was a sea of lights. Conrad stretched his hand out, his fingers a foot below Rhyme’s car. If she could just stretch a little farther … The fair seemed so far away now. A little more … Conrad was on his tippy-toes now, bracing himself against the wheel. They were so high up now, nearly at the pinnacle. Just a little more …
Looking dow
n, Rhyme and Conrad were nearly face-to-face, his arm held out to her. “Just drop the certificate,” he said. “I’ll catch it. I promise.” Rhyme closed her eyes and let the envelope fall from her hand. When she opened her eyes, Conrad was holding the blue piece of paper. A second later, he was back in the car, giving the certificate over to Fiske. Rhyme pulled herself back up into her car, and when she got her bearings, looked down again.
That was when the Ferris wheel lurched to a stop, and Rhyme was suspended like a Christmas ornament at the highest point in Attaway.
CHAPTER 31
From far below, a familiar voice came over the loudspeaker.
“This is Matilda Higgins speaking,” said the announcement, blaring across every corner of the grounds. “We are down here with the authorities—er, a security guard named Marvin—and will only turn this wheel back on if Fiske Quentin promises to turn himself in and release his nephew. Mr. Quentin, if you can agree to those terms, please call Meg’s cell phone and let us know.”
Rhyme peered over the edge to see Fiske pulling his phone from his pocket. The wind had picked up, and her car was rocking from left to right like a pendulum. She had never been particularly scared of heights, but that was quickly changing. Over the loudspeaker, Rhyme heard Fiske’s terrible voice—carried, she supposed, through Matilda’s phone. “I’ll do no such thing,” Fiske said. “This is a private matter. Family business. Start the ride back up, and we can all find an agreeable solution on the ground.” Another gust of wind blew in, almost knocking Fiske off his feet.
Then, another voice came on over the speakers. “Sir, this is Silas Manderley. I understand you have a certificate for a hefty sum of money. If you agree to come down now, and leave the children unharmed, I’ll happily let you keep that certificate.” Manderley’s voice was soothing, authoritative, and—Rhyme hoped—convincing. “Do we have a deal?”