The night was cool but not cold. Matthias had decided to leave the top down on the Packard. The powerful convertible took the twists and turns of Cliff Road with the deceptive ease and precision of a big cat. Fog was coalescing out over the ocean but for now the moon was a silver disc in the night sky. And Amalie was in the seat beside him.
Too bad about the destination, he thought. Unfortunately they were not heading out for a night of cocktails, good food, dancing, and passion. That would have been Plan A. Instead they were going with Plan B—a visit to a sleazy nightclub during which they would attempt to interview a man who might have information that would lead to a cold-blooded killer.
He needed to rethink his priorities, Matthias decided.
“We’re probably wasting our time tonight, aren’t we?” Amalie said.
The question jolted him back to reality.
“We’ll know soon enough,” he said. “Pickwell was barely conscious when they loaded him into the ambulance. If he said anything at all, it was most likely incoherent. But I need to make sure I’m not overlooking any lead.”
“Because you don’t have anything else to go on?”
“Because of that, yes.”
Everything about the woman sitting beside him was mysterious, sultry, and just a little dangerous. Allowing her to accompany him tonight had probably not been the best idea he’d ever had but damn if it didn’t feel good to have her here with him.
Excitement and anticipation were heating his blood. It took him a while to comprehend exactly what he was feeling, because he had not experienced such sensations in a very long time. He finally realized that he was thrilled.
He had been half-aroused ever since he had watched Amalie float down the inn stairs to meet him a short time ago. She was dressed in a sleek little cocktail number in a deep shade of blue. The short cap sleeves framed the nice curves of her upper arms. The dress fit her snugly to the waist, emphasizing her slender figure and delicate breasts. The skirt flared out gently just below the knees, calling attention to her slim ankles with every step.
He had caught a whisper of her scent when he helped her adjust the wrap around her shoulders. For a few seconds he had been dazzled. It was as if he had downed a full glass of some very potent drink, except that his senses were not at all dulled. They were fully, exultantly alive.
He really did wish that they were on their way to anywhere but the Carousel.
He accelerated smoothly out of a curve, enjoying the purr of the finely tuned engine.
“Even if we don’t get anything from Seymour Webster,” he said, “talking to him could be useful in other ways.”
Amalie turned her head to look at him. “How is that?”
“It’s called stirring the pot,” he said. “Someone saw something. Someone knows something. Seymour Webster might not have anything useful for me, but talking to him at a place like the Carousel will get the word out that I’m willing to pay for information.”
“I guess that makes sense. Bit risky, though, isn’t it?”
“Which is why I tried to talk you out of coming with me.”
“I know. But I can’t just freeze on the platform and wait for someone to shove me over the edge.”
She hadn’t employed some random image, he thought. This was personal.
“Are you talking about Abbotsville?” he asked quietly.
“You know about that? Of course you do. You’re an investigator.”
“I know what was in the papers. I don’t know your version of events.”
She was quiet for so long he wasn’t sure she was going to respond. She did not owe him any answers, he thought. She had a right to her secrets. He was keeping a few of his own—the kind that sent most people, especially potential lovers, running for the exits.
“The police concluded that it was an accident,” she said finally. “A roustabout and a flyer got drunk and decided to play games on the trapeze. Harding used to be a catcher, you see.”
“The trapeze artist who catches the flyers?”
“Right. But I think something happened to him along the way. Maybe he lost his nerve or maybe he made flyers nervous. All I know is that he ended up out west working as a rigger, not a catcher. The Ramsey show hired him about a month before he tried to murder me. His work was good, so good that if he had succeeded in murdering me, everyone would have said my death was an accident or maybe suicide.”
“Suicide?”
“Flying can be . . . intoxicating,” Amalie said. “Exhilarating. There is nothing quite like it. You feel so free when you are up there, sailing through midair like a bird. They say that the sensation drives some artists to wonder what would happen if they just . . . let go.”
“What about the net?”
“A lot of artists refuse to use a net during a performance. The audience wants to be thrilled. The acts that sell tickets are those that don’t use a net.”
He tightened his grip on the steering wheel. “Did you ever fly without a net?”
She smiled as if she found the question naïve. “All the time. I was the star attraction of the Ramsey Circus, the last of the Fabulous Flying Vaughns.”
He told himself this was not the right moment for a stern lecture but it was hard to resist the impulse. He longed to pull over to the side of the road and shake her. What the hell do you think you were doing working without a net?
Take it easy, Jones. She doesn’t fly anymore. She’s an innkeeper now.
“You can get killed just as easily by going down in the net, you know,” she said as if she had read his mind. “Land wrong and you’ll break your neck as surely as you will if you hit the floor.”
“You’re scaring the daylights out of me, Amalie. Let’s get back to what happened in Abbotsville.”
“There really isn’t much more to tell. I’m pretty sure Harding drugged me that night at dinner. I woke up to find the point of a knife at my throat. He put a wire necklace strung with glass beads around my throat and forced me to climb the ladder to the platform. He ordered me to grab the bar and fly. I knew he meant for me to die. I goaded him until he lost his temper and stepped out onto the platform. The moment he did that he was in my world. I was in control. I used the trapeze bar as a weapon. He went down. I didn’t.”
There was a sudden silence from the passenger seat.
She was telling the truth, Matthias thought, or, at least, the truth as she remembered it. He downshifted for an upcoming curve and tried to read the scene she had verbally painted.
“There must have been a lot of evidence,” he said. “The knife. The necklace.”
“The crime involved circus people and the circus was due to leave town the following day,” Amalie said. “The cops just wanted us gone. The press turned the whole thing into a lovers’ triangle story. Marcus Harding had been spending a lot of time with Willa Platt, the equestrienne in the show. There was speculation that I was jealous and that I had somehow persuaded Harding to climb the ladder so that I could murder him.”
“You said the platform was your world. But I’ve seen trapeze platforms. They are very narrow. It’s a miracle that Harding didn’t take you down with him.”
“I was good,” Amalie said. “One of the best.”
“Did you ever get a chance to fly again?”
“No. The circus was barely hanging on as it was. The Abbotsville incident was the end. But even if the show had survived, it’s unlikely that anyone would have wanted to fly with me after that. There would have been too many questions about what really happened up there on the platform. The rumors would have destroyed my career.”
“How did you end up with the cash to buy the inn?”
“My mother had a head for business. Before she died she was the one who kept the books for the Ramsey Circus. At some point she bought a few shares of stock in a couple of speculative oil companies and gave them to me. She told me they were my inheritance. After the show folded I dug out the shares. I was amazed when it turned out that they were worth a few thousand dollars. I spent it all on the Hidden Beach Inn.”
“What happened to your parents?”
“They died in an accident a few years ago.”
“A trapeze accident?”
“No. A train crash. I survived because I was in a different car. They never had a chance.”
“I’m sorry.”
Amalie did not speak.
“Any other family?” he asked.
“Just my aunt Hazel.”
“What about your mother’s people?”
“My grandparents disowned my mother when she ran off with my father. When the Ramsey show closed for good, Hazel convinced me to contact my relatives on Mom’s side of the family. I got hold of my grandfather on the telephone. They were not interested in meeting me. I think they blamed me for my mother’s death.”
“How did they come to that conclusion?”
“My mother was pregnant with me when she ran off with my father. As far as they are concerned, if it hadn’t been for me—”
Amalie made a small gesture with her hand, leaving the conclusion unsaid.
Matthias exhaled with control and gripped the gearshift so tightly it was a wonder it didn’t fracture. Every family was different, he reminded himself as he accelerated out of the curve. Feuds, quarrels, bitterness, and resentment could pass down through the generations, just like the color of one’s eyes. Nevertheless, he had a hard time dealing with the concept of a disowned daughter and an unacknowledged granddaughter. In the Jones family, you were always family, no matter what happened.
“So these days, it’s just you and your aunt?” he asked.
“And Willa. She showed up on my doorstep this morning. She had nowhere else to go.”
Matthias thought about the petite, vivacious blonde he had seen at the inn that afternoon.
“Is that the woman Marcus Harding was seeing shortly before he tried to murder you?”
“Yes. Willa Platt.”
Matthias frowned. “She just showed up out of the blue? Now?”
“She reads the papers like everybody else.”
“And she tracked you down.”
“She needed a job and a place to stay.”
“Was she in love with Harding?”
“She was in love with the future that he promised her.”
“Did she blame you for his death?”
Amalie hesitated. “At the time. But you have to understand—she was devastated by what happened in Abbotsville. She had believed that Harding adored her and that they were going to be married and move to the Ringling show.”
“What makes you think,” Marcus asked evenly, “that Willa Platt doesn’t still blame you for Harding’s death?”
Amalie tensed. “I think she knows the truth now.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Willa and I grew up together. Our friendship runs deep. She was devastated by what happened in Abbotsville but she said herself she’s had six months to think about it. She knows now that I’m telling the truth.”
“Uh-huh.”
“You don’t believe me?”
“I believe that you want to believe that she’s telling you the truth.”
Amalie flashed him a steely smile. “Are you always this suspicious?”
“Always.”
“It must be a hard way to go through life.”
“You have no idea,” he admitted.
“Is that why you aren’t married? Has your obsession with finding a road map to the truth made it impossible for you to trust anyone, especially a lover?”
He felt as if she had just kicked him in the gut.
“I probably had that coming,” he said.
“Tell me,” Amalie said, “have you ever been wrong in your suspicions?”
“Sometimes.”
“Only sometimes?”
“Emotions complicate things,” he admitted. “Strong emotion is like a fog across the highway. I have to slow down and go through it very carefully in order to find the road on the other side.”
“Let me take a wild guess here. I’ll bet that while you’re taking your own sweet time picking a path through the fog, the woman you’re dating gives up on you and looks for someone else.”
The sign he had been watching for came up in the headlights. He slowed the speedster and turned onto the road that would take them to the Carousel.
“Let’s change the subject,” he said.
She smiled. “Sure. What do you want to talk about?”
“Are we finished with Abbotsville?” he asked.
She glanced at him. “Why?”
“Because I have a feeling there is something you’re not telling me.”
“I’m impressed. You’re right. There is one more thing I can tell you about Abbotsville, but you probably won’t believe me. To be honest, I’m not sure I trust my own memories of that night.”
“Try me.”
“I was literally shivering with fear that night and I still had some of the drug in my system. I have absolutely no facts to back up my theory, and the police didn’t find any evidence, either.”
The icy waves of truth oscillated powerfully through the fog of strong emotion. Whatever she was about to tell him, there was no doubt but that she believed it.
He braked very gently for a stop sign at a deserted intersection.
“Evidence of what, Amalie?” he asked.
“I think someone else was there that night,” she said. “I heard him laugh from time to time, a kind of excited giggle. Whoever it was watched it all from the shadows. It was as if he was just another paying customer who had bought a ticket to my performance. He couldn’t wait to see me fly to my death.”