“Emma, what’s the quickest way to the roof?” Clark would carry Samantha, so Amethyst would have to carry Samantha. “Oh, bloody gears.”
“The hallway.” The ghost swung her toy at her side.
How informative. Amethyst slid her arms beneath Samantha and stepped back, tugging her, groaning beneath the girl’s weight. She wasn’t the heaviest thing ever —without carrying Jolene, Amethyst might not have managed it —but Samantha had heft, despite the bony elbow that smacked into the side of Amethyst’s throat.
Samantha slipped and hit the floor, flopping like the fish Jeremiah had thrown at Amethyst that time he’d insisted they all go camping. Jolene had been the lucky one, left home with the nursemaid, while Amethyst baked in a cramped boat that smelled of seaweed.
“Come on.” Amethyst squatted to heave Samantha into her arms again. With Samantha hanging over her shoulder, it made the weight a slight bit more bearable. Amethyst tried to step forward, but she backpedaled into the wall, wincing at the sound of Samantha striking bricks. Amethyst headed forward faster, fighting one-handed with the door handle to emerge into the hallway. Each step staggered as Samantha shifted farther down Amethyst’s arm.
“Bloody gears.” Amethyst leaned sideways to offset the girl’s body. How could she sleep through all that? The drugs had to mess with her mind.
The ghost led her to the right, to another door. Blast it all. Amethyst dropped Samantha and propped her against the wall so she could get out her lock blaster.
“Let me save you.” Captain MacFarland walked toward Samantha with his hands outstretched.
“Get away from me.” Another rock appeared and she threw it, but again it sailed through him. Clark Treasure vanished into sparks. It reminded her of the fireworks she’d seen once when they strapped them into chairs in the yard.
“Don’t fight it, Samantha,” Captain MacFarland said.
“There on the stairs,” someone yelled.
“Bloody gears.” Amethyst grabbed the railing to keep from toppling.
“The door to the roof is at the top,” Emma called.
Amethyst heaved herself up another step. In the dim light, she could make out the shape of the door. The ghost should have led her there first, rather than shoving her down a heat pipe.
Captain MacFarland shimmered. Something cold, but soft, brushed against Samantha’s skin. When she looked down, an ivory dress with an empire waist had replaced her white asylum shift. Tiny flowers, embroidered in gold thread, adorned the neckline.
“Samantha…” A female voice she didn’t recognize whispered against her subconscious.
The captain exploded into fireworks and Samantha fell, shrieking into a hole of sparks that scalded her skin.
Amethyst cried out as she stumbled onto the roof. The flat area only encompassed the space of the Grisham foyer back in Hedlund. A steam air conditioner unit took up most of the space, with pipes leading into the roof. A maintenance area then, but still easier than what Amethyst had struggled through entering the asylum.
She dropped Samantha onto the air conditioner and leaned over, her throat thick with saliva, as her lungs fought for breath. Her arms had never ached so badly.
They would be coming. Voices and footsteps echoed up from the stairwell.
So close. Amethyst couldn’t give up. She pulled off her cloak and dropped it at her feet. The wind caught it, spinning it up and onto a wrought iron spire. She pulled on the straps and the wings shot out at her sides.
“Up there,” a man called from inside.
They would see an angel lifting Samantha to safety. Hopefully. With the wings open, Amethyst toppled sideways when she tried to grab Samantha around the waist. “Bloody gears and the steam be merciful!”
Samantha swatted at the sparks as she fell. The voice tickled her again. “Samantha…”
“Leave me alone.” She turned in midair to face the oncoming assault and the sparks burned her eyes until she screamed, and then they burned her throat, transforming into liquid fire that sizzled through her esophagus.
She hit the ground with a dull ache that spread through her body. Something cushioned her, as if trying to help her… or suffocate her. Samantha groaned as she lifted her head off something moist.
The pain of light made her wince and blink. Fire burned… atop a metal pole… in a glass case.
A young woman crouched in front of her dressed in black menswear.
“Samantha.” She reached out, then pulled back. “Can you stand? I need you to stand.”
“What? Why?” Dryness made her throat stiffen.
“I need you to walk with me to the hotel. We can’t stay here in the park. Right now you just look inebriated, but we can’t wait here until morning. The police will come looking for you.”
“Where am I?” Samantha tried to push herself up, but her limbs held the heavy drugged feeling she always had to fight off.
“You’re in the park. We’re only a few blocks from the hotel.”
“Why am I in a park?” The young woman didn’t look like a nurse —the outfit didn’t match with any asylum uniform —and she wasn’t trying to force any toxins into her.
“I have gloves on. Clara Larkin said not to touch you much with my bare skin.”
“Who?” Samantha hesitated before accepting the young woman’s arm. Her legs wobbled and Samantha fell into her.
She smelled sweet, not like disinfectant or medicine. The scent of outdoors, an odor the captain sometimes carried on his clothes, washed over Samantha and she inhaled.
“We have to get you as far from the asylum as we can. The hotel room should be safe. E can cut your hair—”
“What?” Samantha tried to pull away, but her leg muscles spasmed and she dropped to her knees. “What about the asylum?”
“You’re out. I got you out.” The young woman bent over with a smile. “I won’t let them put you back in.”
hat do you mean?” Captain MacFarland slammed his fist into the head doctor’s desk; the cup of wooden styluses rattled. “This is unheard of. Samantha cannot be gone.”
Samantha belonged to him —no, to the country, but she was his responsibility. He visited her. He brought her clothes.
He offered salvation from the asylum.
Was she dead? Did they not want to let on. “Where is she?”
The head doctor blanched, but kept still behind his desk. “We are doing our best to locate her, sir.”
“This is an enclosed facility. People do not disappear from mental asylums.” Not that he’d ever heard of. Those who were ill or unwanted were left there so they couldn’t mingle in society. Samantha was there to be sequestered and kept silent.
Did she lie ill somewhere?
“I receive a telegram that some girl is asking after her,” the captain growled, “and then she is gone. She isn’t magical, doctor. She can’t whisk herself away.” Samantha could tell the future, but her powers ended there.
“An angel…”
The captain shoved against the desk as he whirled to face one of the nurses. She wore her street attire —a purple dress with a lace collar —and had backed against the office’s only window; sunlight made the edges of her brown chignon turn gold.
“An angel,” he said.
The doctor muttered something beneath his breath.
“An angel, sir.” She licked her lips, arms tightening around a leather journal pressed against her bosom. “That’s what they’re saying. An angel in black came down from the sky to carry the patient off.”
“Balderdash!”
“Sir,” she whispered. “They saw it. The angel carried Samantha away from here. She’s found salvation.”
Salvation… his gaze lingered on a single rose stuck in a porcelain vase on the windowsill. Samantha did deserve salvation. No one should have to be kept imprisoned for a crime they had never committed, could never have fathomed without a scientist’s poison. He should have fought to take her away rather than leave an angel to do it.
An angel…
“The doors were broken down,” the doctor said. “The locks looked as if they had been blown away. The culprit carried Samantha to the roof.”
“And jumped?” Samantha couldn’t be dead.
“No, sir. We didn’t locate any bodies. The police will be notified, but we wanted to discuss it with you first. The government…” The doctor gulped, his Adam’s apple wobbling.
“An angel,” the nurse repeated.
The government wouldn’t want the crime known to the public, but they had to find Samantha. “I will notify my superior. Do nothing about this until I return.” Captain MacFarland stormed to the door to keep himself from ramming his fist into the man’s face. Samantha deserved—blast it all, he was just as guilty of her neglect as they were.
“Keep calm and smile,” Clark said, “but only a little. Look pleasant, that’s all.”
Jonathan huffed through his nose. “I have training to be undercover.”
“Good.” Clark straightened his tie as he approached the guard station at the asylum. Jonathan kept a step behind him. Clark had to give it to the man —he walked with a smooth gait that didn’t give anything away.
Clark slapped their fake calling cards onto the station. “Morning! Heh, I suppose I should say afternoon now.”
“You and your greetings.” Jonathan chuckled as if it were an inside joke. Bravo.
The guard glanced toward the asylum —men gathered in a group near the gate speaking in low tones—and coughed. “Sorry. No guests.”
“My good man—” Clark began.
“None.” The guard pulled down a cloth shade as if to seal them out, but it stopped halfway down the window.
Jonathan huffed through his nose again. “We are here to see our good sister, Samantha. It is unheard of for you to keep us out.”
Keeping his smile on, Clark turned away and caught Jonathan’s elbow, guiding him down the street. In a whisper, he said, “We need a new plan.”
“I figured that much.” Jonathan slid his arm free. “Tell me your idea.”
Brass glass. Clark had assumed the asylum let relatives in. Sure, people were locked up to hide them, but family was bound to have special privileges. He’d assumed the hardest part would be asserting their familial stance rather than just getting in.
“You there!” A man jogged toward them from the direction of the asylum. “Did you ask for Samantha?” He fumbled at his waist to pull out a pistol. “What do you know about her?”
methyst wrung the cloth over the porcelain basin, lavender-scented water splashing down, droplets bouncing onto the side table. Smells, they needed smells, good smells, sweet smells. She rolled the cloth and tipped Samantha’s face up so she could wipe the water over her skin. Pimples and scars dotted the paleness. Had the girl never seen light?
“I’ll get you sunscreen,” Amethyst murmured. “If you go outside like this, you’ll burn into a rose.”
Samantha blinked without emotion, as if everything she was had been dumped in the park where they’d landed.
“Lavender is soothing and this water will help wash all the bad away.” She needed something better than “bad.” It wasn’t just dirt, but the memories, the suffering. Samantha must have suffered.
Amethyst wet the cloth again and rubbed more firmly. Maybe she could take Samantha to a salon. They could give her a full massage, do her nails, trim her hair.
The risk of being caught…
Uncle Albert shimmered into the hotel room near the door. “Clark is coming.”
A sexual reply transformed into stone on Amethyst’s tongue. “Good.” She straightened and lowered the cloth to her side; drips splattered against the hardwood floor. “Uncle Albert, what… what do I do?” She swung her free hand toward the girl sitting on the bed.
Samantha wasn’t like Joelle. She might not speak and she might need guidance, but she had been abused. Amethyst couldn’t hide that with cheek rouge and lip paint.
The ghost’s expression softened. He’d stood at Amethyst’s side when classmates taunted her; he’d held her hand when she needed a shot from the doctor.
“Be her friend,” he whispered. “Let her know you will protect her.”
“I’ll protect you.” Amethyst rested her hand on Samantha’s head. The girl jerked, but she didn’t pull away.
“How do I believe you?” Samantha croaked.
“Because I took you out.” Amethyst smiled, even though her heart pounded so hard her sides ached.
Amethyst had filled the porcelain tub in the hallway’s single bathroom and she’d helped Samantha bathe —no one should have such sharp bones beneath thin skin. Despite the lack of dirt, her flesh still didn’t glow.
Amethyst wet the cloth again. Facial cleansing always calmed her, and the lines in Samantha’s forehead seemed to lessen with each rinse.
“Do you want your hair cut?” Amethyst asked. The wet strands dripped onto the towel they’d left on the bed. “I can braid it for you, but we could have it cut and styled. Bobs are the latest trend. I still get the fashion magazines. They send them to me in Hedlund, so they’re old, but…” Amethyst bit her lower lip. Samantha had been drugged in an asylum. She didn’t care about fashion or magazines.
The girl closed her eyes and sighed through her nose.
Amethyst dropped the rag into the basin. “I’ll do your makeup for you just so no one will recognize you, but it will be up to you how you want to look. You tell me how you want your hair.”
“Gone,” Samantha said. “Shave it off. I’m sick of it.”
“Perfect. We’ll get you a wig.”
“No wig. No hair.” Samantha blinked.
“Fine. I’ll get a razor and we will shave it all off.”
Someone knocked on the door. Bloody gears. Amethyst pulled a crocheted blanket off the room’s rocking chair and threw it at Samantha.
“Tie this over your head. Don’t look up. Pretend you have a cold. Influenza. Pneumonia.” The girl wore Amethyst’s silk robe —too large for her small frame. That state of undress would help with the sickness idea.
Amethyst straightened her dress as she opened the door a crack. “Yes?”
Clark pushed the door open enough to pull her against him, his mouth slanting over hers. His tongue pushed between her lips and the scent of him, man and leather, surrounded her more than the lavender water. She dug her fingers into the collar of his suit jacket and angled her hips into his.
He had been that close? Bloody gears, that didn’t matter. He was there with her, and they would protect Samantha together.
Someone pushed them deeper into the room from the hallway and the door shut. She tipped her head away from her husband enough to see a man hulk inside, his shoulders slumped forward and nostrils flared. Another man, smaller in stature, leaned against the doorknob.
Samantha shrieked.
Clark had pictured Samantha as a gang girl. She would have their tough attitude; she would rather fight than purr, but she’d screw her way out of a jam if she had to. Those girls spit as far as any man.
This girl looked as if she too could spit, but she would bite her tongue first to add blood to it. Cheekbones stuck out from her face like razors. Her lips thinned until the color almost matched the pallor of her skin.
Samantha shrieked louder, scrambling away from them toward the wall. She bumped into the rocking chair and it toppled. Black hair matted around her face as though a bird had tried to nest in it.
“Come off that!” Captain MacFarland lunged across the room to grab her around the waist and slapped his hand over her mouth. She kicked at him, and Clark caught the sound of teeth closing over air.
“Who is that?” Amethyst pushed away from Clark and reached for her pistol on the bedside table.
Clark closed his hand over hers. “Stop it. Everyone. Samantha, stop.”
The captain had agreed to let Clark in first. So much for that plan.
“The hotel staff will come soon,” Jonathan said from again
st the door.
Captain MacFarland turned Samantha around to press her face into his chest, muffling her screams. “Hush. No one will hurt you. You’re safe.”
“So who are these people?” Amethyst jerked her hand away from him, but she didn’t reach for the weapon again.
Clark hooked his finger over his shoulder. “Jonathan wants to arrest me, and Captain MacFarland is the government’s contact to Samantha.”
“What?” Amethyst snatched the pistol and aimed it at the man’s head. “Get away from her!”
“Wait,” Uncle Albert said.
Clark jumped; he hadn’t noticed the ghost by the mirror.
“He’s not on the government’s side.” Clark gripped her shoulder and kissed her cheek. Her muscles didn’t calm like usual.
“Samantha, hush. Please.” Captain MacFarland stroked her head and rocked her. She kept wiggling, but she ceased her kicking.
Clark turned Amethyst to face him and cupped her cheeks. “The government hired him to be their contact to Samantha. He’s the one who has had to wrest the visions from her.”
His wife narrowed her eyes. “You must be joshing. We have to protect Samantha. This man—”
“I don’t want that life for her,” the captain growled. “I’m helping you, blast it all. I don’t want the government to have her any more than you all do.”
When he had confronted Clark outside the asylum, it had been with desperation and fear, not for returning Samantha, but for keeping her safe. Not even a con-artist card shark would fake that kind of raw emotion.
“You believe him?” Amethyst aimed the pistol at the floor, her finger still on the trigger.
“Yes,” Clark said.
Samantha’s shrieks shifted into sobs. He’d wept like that, once his mother had died and he’d been turned loose on the world. It had all crashed around him and left him with an emptiness he couldn’t face.
Wicked Treasure (Treasure Chronicles Book 3) Page 18
