She heard rustling. Bedsprings creaking. Finally, “Okay, yeah, I dunno, Chandler. My mom might know. Why? What’s this got to do with any—?”
“I’m at my office. I’m trying to . . .” No. She didn’t have time to explain. “Never mind. I’ll call your mom. I know it’s late but—”
“It’s fine. Call her. I’ll throw on some clothes and meet you there. You shouldn’t be alone.”
Chandler hesitated as she hung up on Cru. She shook her thoughts clear and punched Lottie’s number. A few seconds later, another sleepy voice answered, but then Lottie was instantly aware once Chandler explained and inquired with her questions.
Lottie cleared her throat on the other end, obviously wracking her brain trying to recall all the subtle historical details she might know.
“There were a few offices in the depot the Ripleys used—circus management offices. I don’t know exactly who all worked there, though.”
Anxious excitement mounted within Chandler. She slumped onto her chair and bounced her knee up and down. “Someone important. Someone who may have met the circus at various points on its summer tour.”
The air was quiet for a few seconds, followed by Lottie’s hesitant voice. “Ripley?”
Chandler straightened.
“The owner, Richard Ripley,” Lottie suggested. “He would have worked out of those offices. He would have had the finances to meet up with his circus occasionally.”
Chandler had no care for the whys or even if he was a plausible suspect. She barreled forward with her line of reasoning. “Who is still alive who might be related to the Ripleys? Someone who didn’t like Linda Pike snooping around the depot, trying to clear her grandfather’s name? Someone who didn’t like that I found the Watchman’s hideaway and wants to shut down any further findings?”
Lottie clicked her tongue. “I’m thinking. No one in Linda Pike’s close circle of friends. I was one of them and—and, no, none of us. Sure, some of us had relations in the circus, but that’s not uncommon in Bluff River. But related directly to the Ripleys? I can’t think of anyone left here who is.”
“The Ripleys couldn’t have just disappeared into oblivion,” Chandler argued.
“Well, no, but they aren’t around Bluff River anymore. At least Richard Ripley’s line. His daughter died years ago, somewhere in North Carolina, I believe. All his descendants are down South now.”
Desperation flooded Chandler. “Think, Lottie, think.” Use your blasted insight if you have to! she wanted to yell.
“Oh!” Lottie’s voice rose over the phone. “No. No, never mind.” She dismissed just as fast whatever she’d been thinking.
“What?” Chandler insisted. “Anything, even something little, might help!”
Lottie’s breath shook on the other end. “I remember—well, the Ripleys did have extended family in Bluff River way back when. There was a niece who was quite vocal against the circus. In fact, she used to hobnob with my grandmother, who truly hated the circus for penning up its animals.”
Chandler tapped her fingers on the desk, waiting impatiently as Lottie started pulling the pieces together.
“My grandmother Farnsworth was a spitfire. She pulled Richard Ripley’s niece, Franny, into her cause to picket the circus. I remember her telling me about it. She said she knew stuff about the circus that would make folks’ heads spin. But for whatever reason—out of deference maybe, people she knew?—she didn’t say much about the matter. She was a friend of Patty Luchent, though. That’s how I know so much about Patty. Grandma Farnsworth was going to help Patty leave town, right before Patty died. She’d helped Patty a year prior with placing her daughter in a home, kept it rather secretive, and—”
“Patty Luchent had a baby?” Chandler interrupted.
“Yes. At least that’s what my grandmother said. No one ever knew for sure. If she was telling the truth—which she did like to exaggerate things—then Denny Pike’s mother was Patty Luchent’s daughter and the Watchman’s offspring. Still . . . that’s off the subject. Grandmother Farnsworth’s protégé was Franny Ripley. She was Ripley’s niece. Another little flutter bug of a gal for her day, I guess. I’m not sure what happened to her, but she settled in Bluff River until she died.”
“So, her offspring would be direct descendants of circus family?” Chandler concluded.
“Mm-hmm . . .” Lottie said, her voice growing quiet.
“Who’s her offspring?” Chandler pressed.
“Chandler, I’m sure—it can’t be—” Lottie argued weakly.
“Lottie.” Chandler heard the sharp command in her voice.
Lottie must have too. She sighed over the phone and finally muttered, “Margie. Margie is Franny Ripley’s descendant.”
The phone slipped from Chandler’s hand and collided with the floor of the costume house.
PIPPA
From the darkness and through the fog of pain, Pippa woke. She was no longer in the costume house. No longer on the floor beneath Patty’s lifeless body that dangled from the rafters. Damp grass lay beneath her. She’d been pulled from the house. Or carried maybe? Dragged. At least that was how her body felt. Pippa moaned, trying to clear her mind as she lifted herself from the ground.
“Clive!” Her scream brought clarity rushing back in. He lay a few feet from her, his body bruised, but it was evident he had tried to get her from the house to help of some sort. If he had bested the Watchman, he was nowhere to be seen. Clive was unresponsive.
Pippa scrambled on all fours to his side.
“Clive!” She shook his shoulder. There was a small moan to indicate life, but other than that, he remained silent. She hooked her arms beneath Clive’s shoulders and dragged him. The man was short, stocky, and his head lolled to the side as if he were dead.
Pippa laid him down and turned. She looked up as lantern lights hanging from the side of a motorcar lit the street. Scurrying to her feet, ignoring the pain in her battered body, she stumbled toward the road, waving her arms.
She didn’t expect to see—and for the moment, didn’t care—Forrest and Jake both alighting from the car. Their suit coats were gone, their shirts torn and bloodied from their scrape. Forrest was sporting a swollen lip and a massive black eye. Jake appeared ruffled, with a split on his cheekbone and dried blood on his cheek.
“It’s Clive!” Pippa wasted no time. “You’ve got to help him! He’s been hurt!”
Forrest lurched past her, and Jake followed but stopped at Pippa.
He gripped her arms, bending to search her face and body for injuries. “Are you all right?”
She nodded, and a sob caught in her throat. “The Watchman—tried to kill me, Jake. And Patty—”
“What about Patty?” Jake’s face had gone pale in the moonlight.
“She’s dead. She’s in the costume house.” Pippa felt like she might vomit.
“Jake!” Forrest’s commanding voice eliminated the opportunity to grieve further. Jake pushed past Pippa and raced toward Forrest and Clive. He dropped to his knees and felt for the dwarf’s pulse.
“It’s erratic, but he’s alive.”
“He looks bad. Get him to my car,” Forrest directed Jake, who nodded.
“Pippa . . .” he began.
But she couldn’t look at him. She was frozen. Staring through the darkness toward a suspicious form in the shadows. “It’s him,” she whispered, and tremors started in her body. A violent shaking, fear and the knowledge that yards away stood the man she’d once believed held the hope for her future. It was the Watchman. His body half hidden by the edge of the costume house, but the outline of his masked face was visible in the moonlight. He was watching. Watching his handiwork.
Jake sprang from the ground beside Clive and sprinted for the corner of the building. The Watchman saw Jake running toward him, and he spun, racing toward the river and the train yard beyond it. There was intent in Jake’s movements.
“Jake!” Pippa screamed. Not to stop him, but for no other reason than utter
gut-wrenching fear that he would kill the Watchman. Kill him as Patty had predicted and have blood stain his hands that he could never wash off.
“Pippa!” Forrest’s voice followed her as she chased after Jake as much as her bad leg allowed her.
Jake sprang forward, his arms encircling the Watchman and tackling him to the ground. They collapsed and rolled on the grass. Jake grunted as he flipped the Watchman onto his back and pressed his forearm against the man’s neck.
“You son of a—” Jake’s words were muffled as he brought his fist into the Watchman’s face.
The Watchman clawed at Jake’s arm with his good hand.
“What did you do?” Jake shouted in his hooded face.
Another strike, this time accompanied by Jake’s knee in the Watchman’s gut.
He was going to pummel the man to death.
“Jake!” Pippa shouted and flung herself forward. Forrest caught her arm, but she ripped from his grasp.
“Pippa, leave him!” Forrest commanded.
She met the whites of his eyes with her own fearful glance. Forrest shook his head, his hair askew. The moonlight made his eyes look deep-set and frantic.
“We need to take care of Clive.”
Jake was shouting in conjunction with more assaults on the Watchman.
Pippa waved at Forrest. “Go. Take Clive to the hospital.” She ran from him, her feet pounding across the yard, her ankle twisting as her bad leg refused to cooperate. She sprawled on the earth only to have Forrest haul her back up. Tearing herself from his grip, she screamed at Jake.
Jake was inches from the Watchman’s covered face. His eyes were wild as his hands wrapped around the neck of the one who had murdered Bridgette. Taken his sister and ruined the last year of Jake’s life as he sought to find this man. To bring him to justice—while not lawful—one that would end in termination.
“Tell me who you are!” Pippa cried, dropping to her knees beside them as Jake pushed the man against the ground.
The man flung his head back and forth.
“Tell her!” Jake resumed the pressure, and the man coughed through his mask.
A half sob, half laugh pushed through the hood. “I didn’t mean to hurt anyone. Not like him. I’m not him! I just—needed Pippa!”
Pippa’s fingers tangled with the knot in the bandanna around the Watchman’s neck. She could tell he was crying beneath his covering. Fight drained from the Watchman, but not from Jake.
Finally, Pippa slipped the knot loose. She yanked off the bandanna, and the hood released. Now was the time. The time she would see the man who had terrorized Jake’s sister. Who had murdered Patty and seriously injured Clive. Who had planted in Pippa false dreams that had faded into oblivion.
She reached out and tore the hood from the man’s face.
CHANDLER
Chandler snatched her keys from the desk with such force, they went flying out of her hand and skidded across the floor. She dived after and grabbed them, charging from the costume house, the screen door slamming behind her. As she sprinted for her car, another pulled up against the curb.
Cru.
He rolled down the window. “Where’re you going?”
“Home!” she yelled and yanked open his passenger door without asking. Chandler was shaking. She’d be lucky not to pass out. “I need to call the police. It’s Margie.”
“Margie!” Cru drew back, staring at Chandler incredulously.
“Go, go, go!” Chandler pounded on the dashboard.
Cru shifted into drive and hit the gas, the tires squealing as he pulled away from the curb.
Taking out her phone, Chandler punched in 911. “Detective Pagiano was working the case,” she explained. “I think it’s my nanny. My nanny took my son!”
Cru kept ping-ponging glances between Chandler and the road.
She ended the call. “They’re dispatching units.”
Cru shook his head. “Why does Margie have anything to do with Peter?”
“Because she was home alone with him and had the opportunity to make it look like however she wanted it to. She’s a Ripley by bloodline. We did the same thing Linda Pike did and stumbled into the entire sordid history of the Ripley family. Hank was right. It wasn’t—it couldn’t have been—the Watchman who killed all those women. Maybe he murdered Patty, maybe because she’d had his kid and given it away, but not the others. That was all Ripley. It had to be Ripley!”
“You know you’re not making any sense and sound completely irrational, don’t you?” Cru offered her an apologetic wince, then turned the corner toward the rental cottage.
“Since when is crime rational?” Chandler retorted.
The car screeched to a stop in front of the house, and Chandler bolted from it, Cru yelling after her from the driver’s side. She bounded up the stairs and burst into the house.
“Chandler!” Her mom, Sherry, clutched at her throat as Chandler barged into the kitchen.
“Where is she?”
“Who?” Sherry swallowed, catching her breath from her fright, her plaid pajamas dark against her pale expression.
“Margie! Where is Margie? Did she go home?” Chandler demanded, marching past her mother into the living room.
Tom, her dad, hurried down the stairs, his hair tousled as though he’d been trying to sleep but couldn’t. “What’s going on?”
Sirens in the distance alerted him.
“Did they find Peter?” Tom demanded, following Chandler from the living room into the small bathroom just off the hall.
Chandler whipped back the shower curtain as if Margie would, for some reason, be hiding there.
“Where is Margie?” she insisted again.
Tom gripped her by the shoulders, but Chandler shook him off. “Leave me alone, Dad. I need to find Margie. I need to find my son.”
“Chandler!”
Her father’s voice was sharp. It pierced her growing panic and sent a wave of shock through her. Eyes wide, she stared at him.
“Listen to me!” Tom was stern but loving, his expression gentle around the eyes. “Stop for a second. Pull yourself together. Panicking isn’t going to help anything, and you need to think straight.”
Chandler didn’t respond. She couldn’t. He might be right. She hated to admit it, but he might be right.
Tom continued, “Let us help you. Yes, we were disappointed with the choices you made back then, but that’s all in the past now. I don’t care anymore and neither does your mom. Together, we have Peter. Please, Chandler, let us in! Let us share with you. Stop hiding from us.”
Stop hiding . . .
The words shattered Chandler. Had she projected her own feelings about herself onto them? Had she pushed them away? In her desperation to prove herself, had she truly gone into hiding?
It didn’t matter now. Peter did. And only Peter.
“Honey.” It was Mom. She wrapped her arms around Chandler from behind. “Baby, the police just got here. They found Margie. They said other cops arrested Margie across town at her apartment. She’s swearing she had nothing to do with it, but they found evidence that Peter was in her house.”
Chandler broke free of her parents and ran to the living room. Cru was standing, bewildered, in the center of the room.
“Ma’am.” A policewoman stepped in front of Chandler. “Ma’am, I need you to stop.” She held her palms out toward Chandler, who skidded to a halt.
“Chandler!” Mom cried from behind her.
Chandler skimmed the officer’s face. The eyes that squinted as if afraid to look directly at Chandler. Worry and restless angst carved into every curve of the policewoman’s face. Numbness filled Chandler, rushing through her like a wave of cold reality. Along with it came the memory of Linda Pike’s body. Her dead bones hidden for years. She thought of Margie, working in her home. Caring for her, caring for Peter, all the while those same hands had hidden a dead woman in the train depot. That same mind that had baked them cookies had also boarded up Linda Pike’s corpse, h
oping it would never be found.
Chandler’s eyes locked with the officer’s.
If Margie had killed once . . .
“No.” Chandler shook her head back and forth. “No, no, no . . .”
Chapter thirty-nine
PIPPA
Pippa was unprepared for the face below her. Unprepared to see his mottled skin, his haunted eyes, and the familiarity of his expression. Jake’s knees dug into the man’s side, his forearm pressing into his chest. His breaths were labored.
“Why?” The question tore from his throat. The pain of his friend’s betrayal knifed across Jake’s face.
Benard twisted his deformed face away from them. Tears stained his cheeks and glistened in the moonlight.
Jake rammed his hands against Benard’s chest and he sat back, still straddling the man. His own knuckles were bloody from pummeling Benard, but now his vengeance was stilled for a moment. Stilled by the shock that it was his friend beneath him.
“Why, Benard?” Jake choked out. He shook his head in stunned disbelief. “I’ve—helped you. You and Patty both. Why?” Jake’s face was inches from Benard’s. “You took everything from my sister.”
“Your sister?” Benard shook his head. “I don’t know who you’re talking about, Jake.” His eyes lifted to Pippa. “It’s you. It’s only been you.”
Jake’s lip curled, and he shoved his thumb and fingers beneath Benard’s chin. He would make the man face him. Make him answer for his deeds. “What about Patty?”
Benard blinked. A jealous glint sparked in his weeping eyes. “Patty—I tried. I thought maybe if I couldn’t have Pippa, I’d be happy with Patty. But . . . Jake, she got rid of our kid! You know she did! Just like he got rid of Pippa, and I had no choice with either of them. Pippa or my newborn girl. Why would Patty do that? Give her away? And—Pippa—” He looked back at her, and she was torn between utter repulsion and hatred. “You’ve always been mine.”
“Pippa’s, not yours!” Jake kneed him.
Benard grunted and gave a half laugh. “I’ve watched Pippa grow up. I held her as a baby when I was thirteen. I saw her leg. I saw him leave her on the Ripleys’ doorstep, and I vowed—I vowed I would never leave her.”
The Haunting at Bonaventure Circus Page 33