Born of Treasure (Treasure Chronicles Book 2) (37 page)

Something shook Clark awake; he clamped his hands down on the offender and he shoved. Maybe he should have opted for the shed, but he’d taken the doctor up on his offer of a pallet in the kitchen. A female gasped; a single candle sent a yellow glow around her shape.

“Brenda?” Clark reached for the pistol he’d left on his belt. When he’d first started sleeping with it out in the desert, it had jammed into his side each time he’d moved, but he’d grown used to slumber in one position.

“I did it, sir. I snuck out. The lock on my door’s faulty and Father never fixed it. Did you know she’s here? My sister’s here.” Brenda’s eyes seemed to glow in the dark of the kitchen. “He’s got her locked in too and he told her the same thing, about behaving so nothing happens to me.” Her voice rose with each word and Clark cringed.

“Hush!” If she didn’t keep quiet—

The door to the kitchen smacked into the wall and Doctor Parker stormed inside, his robe flapping around his legs.

Brenda screamed and yanked at Clark’s hands as though to pull him up, but her father caught her around the waist and shoved her back against him, slapping a cloth over her mouth. She screamed against the rag, slashing at him with her fingernails and kicking with her bare heels.

The doctor muttered as he dragged her into the hallway, her shrieks growing quieter.

Clark gripped the pallet of old linens, his heart pounding. He’d seen something he shouldn’t have. Doctor Parker would have to explain it away and send Clark off before he witnessed more.

“You.” Brenda Parker appeared beside the stove with hollow, black eyes, and marks around her mouth and neck.

“You’re dead.” Clark stood, kicking off a blanket, before Doctor Parker could return.

She touched her lips. “Chloroform can do that, you know.” Brenda lowered her hand to her belly. “Go get my sister. My father’s crazy. Don’t let him hurt Maura, please.”

Clark’s muscles tightened; Doctor Parker knew what he was about. Brenda wouldn’t have been an accident. The doctor would return to deal with Clark.

“That’s how you found out about me. Ghosts told you.” She floated higher before sinking back to the kitchen floor. “Send Maura east. Our grandparents are there and Mother.”

How calm she acted for a ghost. Usually the newly dead screamed at him until they realized he worked better when he understood. “I’ll get Maura.” She’d been alive in front of him, but he hadn’t managed to save her. “You can be with your Mother now.”

Brenda recoiled. “Mother’s not dead. Father made her work as his assistant and she threatened to tell on him for what he did to his patients. He put her up in Wade Asylum and whisked the two of us out here.”

“Does your uncle over at the ranch know about all this?”

“They’re grave diggers together. My uncle used to send parts to my father when we lived in the east.”

Bile rose in Clark’s throat. Sure, that earned a few dollars and he’d seen people decimating graves for an eyeball or brain, but he had enough of the dead on a daily basis without dealing with them in the dirt at night.

The kitchen door swung again—that thing was going to tear off its hinges if the doctor wasn’t careful. Lionel Parker barreled through with his hands clenched into fists. “Get out. You’re not needed.” He fumbled in his jacket pocket, the item thrown on over a thin nightshirt, and threw coins at Clark’s feet.

Clark pulled the pistol from his holster and aimed it at Lionel’s chest. “You killed your daughter.”

The doctor swore as he patted his body, as if searching for a weapon. “I would never do that. Get out of here, you and your lies!”

Clark pulled the trigger and a hole blossomed with blood in the center of his chest. The doctor gulped as she stumbled backwards into the wall and slumped.

“You killed him,” Brenda said.

“Yup.” Maybe his ghost would appear for the other spirits to tear into him.

Clark glanced at the door leading to the backyard, but no shouts came from outside. Someone would find the doctor and Clark didn’t want to be arrested for murder, no matter how warranted. If the men in town liked the doctor to take care of their troubles, including upset wives, then they wouldn’t care about a deceased daughter.

Clark fastened his pistol into his holster. “We’ll free the Bromi so she can get a head start, and then we’ll nab your sister.”

“This one.” Brenda slapped her hand against the door, but it slid through and she grimaced. “Did you see my body down there on the parlor table? What do you suppose he wanted to do with me?”

Clark shrugged; his tongue seemed to have thickened past speech. He worked his picking kit into the lock and waited until it clicked to turn the knob.

“She should be in here,” Brenda said. “I called to her through the door and she answered. She was crying. That’s when I got you.”

That would also be when Lionel Parker overheard Brenda’s escape.

Clark stood, his gas lamp in hand, and entered the bedroom that reeked of mothballs. A little girl huddled on a cot similar to Brenda’s.

“That’s her!” Brenda soared over to the child, whose black hair hung loose.

“Maura?” Clark lifted the lamp higher so she could see him. “We need to leave, Maura.”

The little girl rubbed the back of her hand across her nose. “Where’s Brenda?”

“I’m right here, sweetie!”

Clark licked his dry lips. The child had lived through imprisonment; she couldn’t be reduced to lies. “Brenda’s gone. Your father got her.” If she were Mabel, he would have hugged her and she would have wept, made up some statements about feeling strong. Maura was a stranger, though.

She pressed a pillow against her face and her shoulders trembled.

“Brenda gave me directions to your grandparents in the east,” Clark said. “I’ll send you to them. They’ll take care of you.”

“Mama?” She lifted her face, tears on her cheeks.

“Right. She’ll be there too.”

“But not Brenda.”

“Not Brenda.” The poor chit had to be only seven or eight.

“I’ll be with her the whole way,” Brenda interjected.

“She’ll be with you in spirit.” Clark eased the pillow away from her. “Do you have anything to take with you?”

Maura shook her head, lips parted. Like Brenda, she wore a sack dress, minus the corset.

“We’ll find your father’s money,” Clark said. “Then we can get you a train ticket and something warm to wear. Some food. I’ll wire ahead if we can find the address for your grandparents.”

“I remember the address.” Brenda floated in front of him. “I want you to take some of the money by way of thanks.

It would be the first time a ghost paid him for help. Usually they screamed and vanished. Brass glass, maybe it would be the last time he had to help a ghost. Clark laughed. Nah, his curse wouldn’t let him go that easily.

I didn’t read fluently until fourth grade; before that, I preferred my made-up stories to those printed in books. Even now I love creating stories from my imagination. Family, friends, and teachers supported my literary endeavors, but it wasn’t until I joined the Utica Writers Club that I jumped into professional writing.

Other thanks must go to the Belcastro Agency and my Curiosity Quills editor, Jessa Russo. I’m thrilled you love Clark and Amethyst as much as I do.

Clark, Amethyst, and the others in the Treasure clan refused to let me go. TREASURE, DARKLY started to get a bit long, so I decided to break it into two books. The main thanks for this sequel is due to the Treasures, for without their adventures I wouldn’t have had such interesting fodder.