Chandler digested that bit of information. The idea of him just outside her cottage all night was either disconcerting or comforting. She wasn’t sure which. She opened her mouth to speak, but Hank stopped her with a look.
“No, I didn’t call the cops. They ran off. They didn’t do anything. There wasn’t anything to call the cops for.”
Margie tsked and shook her head. “What is Bluff River coming to? I’ve never known this place to be anything but safe. Well, at least in the past twenty-or-so years. Why would anyone be snooping outside Peter’s bedroom?”
Chandler exchanged glances with the worried nanny. She shivered. Peter’s bedroom. She was thankful she hadn’t tried to acclimate him to his own room. And, proper or not, there was no way she was going to now.
“I’m still going to call the cops, because—” Chandler was interrupted by the sound of Peter bounding down the steps. He ran into the kitchen, and a big grin split his face.
“Hey! It’s you!”
Chandler knew Peter probably didn’t remember Hank’s name, even though they’d tossed a football back and forth.
“Yeah. It’s me.” Hank’s face transformed as he returned Peter’s smile. He lifted his mug. “Want some coffee, kid?”
Peter shot Chandler an exuberant look, then settled it on Hank. “Sure!”
“Wait a sec—” Chandler started, but Hank cut in before she could finish.
“It’s just coffee, Chandler, not a beer.”
“He’s my son.” Chandler felt every nerve bristle as Hank ignored her authority and poured Peter a cup of coffee. He even went so far as to open the freezer and pop some ice cubes out of the tray.
“Yeah, he’s your son.” Hank handed Peter the coffee. “But you drink coffee. Don’t be duplicitous.”
Margie’s eyes widened, and a humorous smile touched her mouth. She rolled her lips tight so as not to laugh and waggled her brows at Chandler.
Chandler frowned. “I’m not duplicitous.” She jumped from her chair and marched over to Hank, jerking his now-empty mug from his hand and slamming it on the counter.
Peter’s eyes widened, even as he gulped at the cool coffee as though she’d rip it from his hands any second like she did with Hank.
Call it anxiety from the thought of someone creeping around outside her house, or unsettled energy from yesterday’s tussle with Linda Pike’s skeleton, or maybe it was just outright fear. But, whatever the reason, Hank’s independent action of usurping her role as parent was the last straw to her staying calm.
Hank towered over her, his frame nearly twice her size. His eyes narrowed. “We need to talk.”
“I’ll say,” she hissed.
“Now,” Hank added.
“Absolutely!” Chandler made no bones about it.
Hank stalked over to the door, wrapped his hand around the knob, and yanked it open.
Chandler gave Margie and Peter a stern look, intending to tell them to stay behind, but Margie’s expression stopped her.
“Lovers’ spat?” Margie teased. She waggled her eyebrows. “I’d have a lovers’ spat with him, if I could.”
Exasperated, a growl ripped from Chandler’s throat as she started after Hank. She heard Margie behind her, “Do you need a refill on that coffee already, buddy?”
He leaned against his Harley—or maybe it was Denny’s, or maybe they both owned them. Like uncle, like nephew. His arms were folded across his chest, and Chandler could see the corded muscles in his forearms, the veins that traced a maze along his inner arm and wrist, and the beaded bracelet he wore.
She stepped closer to him, her feet bare on the leaf-covered grass. The dew cooled the bottoms of her toes and reminded her it was fall, no longer summer, and the frost on the tips of the grass told her how foolish her emotional response had been.
Chandler hauled in an audible breath meant to calm herself. Control herself. Hank wasn’t a threat—not really. He was just intimidating, presumptuous, and fell just short of understanding human boundaries. Like he’d never quite had any taught to him as a child.
She posed like a mirror image of him, only Chandler wrapped her arms around herself to ward off the morning chill.
“I suppose I should say thank you. If there was someone outside my house last night . . .”
Hank grunted. His green eyes glimmered and leveled on her. Truth be told, she’d rather have Hank outside standing guard all night than have to deal with an intruder. The very idea made her shiver.
“Lottie told me about your relation to the Watchman—Denny’s relation. I had no idea he was Denny’s grandfather.” Chandler swallowed her nervousness as she called him out. She deserved honesty from Hank. Now more than ever. But there was that niggling in the back of her mind that poked at her to remember she needed to be sensitive too. This was a family with a sordid past, a traumatic disappearance, and now, more than likely, the confirmation of a violent murder.
Hank eyed her. His upper lip twitched.
Chandler shifted her feet. Why was she the one trying to eat humble pie? Sure, in a way, his family was the victim here, but he was a boorish—who said boorish anymore? Well, he was. A boorish oaf.
“You should have just told me. Told me you wanted to finish what Linda had started. That you wanted to find the truth once and for all as to whether their grandfather was actually the Watchman. It must be awful to be considered related to a serial killer.”
“I’m not related,” Hank grumbled out.
“But—Lottie said—”
“I was a foster kid.”
Hank’s admission stilled Chandler. And now she felt like even more of a heel. She stepped off the grass onto the sidewalk, hoping it was warmer on her feet.
“Uncle Denny isn’t my uncle—not really. He took me in when I was sixteen.”
Chandler waited, feeling her face soften.
Hank cleared his throat and looked down the street before half sitting on the Harley and crossing his feet at the ankles. He looked so casual, so undisturbed, but there was a storm brewing in his eyes. A hurricane of buried feelings.
“My mom was an addict. My dad wasn’t in the picture. I went into foster care when I was eleven, and”—Hank’s chuckle sounded cynical as it rumbled in his chest—“I wasn’t the model foster kid.”
Chandler met his smile hesitantly.
“Anyway, Denny took me in after I landed in juvie for a few months.”
“Juvenile detention? What for?” Chandler asked, then bit her tongue.
Hank didn’t seem to mind. A glimmer of humor twinkled in his eye, as if he enjoyed toying with her a bit and shocking her with his story. “Petty theft, vandalism, and I had marijuana on me.”
“Small stuff.” Chandler joked in order to cope with and to comprehend a life so different from her own. She could recall going to youth group on Wednesday nights at church, hanging out at the mall with her mom and friends on the weekends, her worst trouble breaking up with her boyfriend as a junior in high school and thinking the world had ended. Well, her worst trouble before college and Peter.
A thin smile stretched Hank’s face and creased his cheeks. “It was my first jump into crime.”
Chandler nodded, listening.
Hank shrugged. “I was never a good kid, Chandler. Denny tried to reform me, but it took him years. Took me a few years too. Behind bars. A preacher and an inmate Bible study got me on the straight and narrow, I guess.”
Great. She had a Christian felon on her front lawn. What did that mean? Could he even vote now? Was he on some sort of blacklist with the authorities?
Chandler coughed to cover her frayed emotions. “So, why are you here now?”
Skip ahead—she didn’t need the details. She didn’t want the details. She just wanted him away from her house. She couldn’t trust him. Didn’t trust herself as she stood before him. Chandler had no intention of being like one of those airheaded women on that cable show where they all fell in love with men in prison and then were stunned when their lives
unraveled after the men got out.
“I know what it’s like to have people draw conclusions about you.” His eyes deepened with knowing as he read Chandler’s face. “I know what it’s like when their conclusions are wrong.”
There was a long, expectant pause.
A maple leaf detached from the tree limb above them and began its gentle descent to its wintery grave on the yard.
“Denny’s grandfather didn’t kill all those women. The Pikes don’t deserve to have the reputation of a killer connected with their family. Linda felt that. Denny has tried to ignore it. I won’t let them live with it—or die with it—hanging over their heads anymore.”
“But who really cares?” Chandler argued weakly. “It was a century ago.”
“You really want to stand there and tell me people forget the wrongs done them even after the calendar changes?”
No. She didn’t.
The images of her parents’ disappointment etched in every nuance of their bodies flashed before Chandler’s eyes. The resignation in Uncle Neal’s voice as he reluctantly agreed to give her the legal leave of absence for maternity purposes, even if she was only an intern at the time. But worst of all, her own disappointment. In herself.
“So you’re here to set things right?” Chandler asked.
Hank nodded. “Or at least find the truth. If we don’t like the truth, then—that’s life. But at least we’ll know for certain. It won’t be the result of a prejudiced witch hunt.”
“And Linda?” Chandler ventured.
Hank’s expression remained the same. “I owe it to Denny to find out what happened to her. He saved me. It’s the least I can do to return the favor.”
“But you can’t save Linda or make right any injustice done to Denny’s grandfather, not if he wasn’t really the circus killer.”
“Prob’ly not.” Hank pushed off his Harley and straddled it, firing up the engine. The bike roared to life. “But the effort goes a long way.” He speared her with a green-eyed stare. “Maybe I can even save you while I’m at it.”
“I don’t need saving.” She didn’t. She didn’t even know why Hank would say something like that.
But for a moment, the biker’s expression softened and everything about his countenance oozed understanding. Empathy.
Chandler shifted on her toes, less because of the cold ground and more because he made her nervous.
“We all need saving.” He smiled just a bit. Just enough to make the creases at his eyes deepen. “It’s the idea that we don’t that makes us fools.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
PIPPA
Candlelight flickered and cast broad-fingered shadows on the wall of the library. Dark wood molding framed the walls, and all of them housed floor-to-ceiling bookshelves laden with volumes rarely read. Three wing-back chairs covered in ruby velvet made a welcoming circle around a table inlaid with various shades of wood patterned with intricate precision. The artistry was lost to Pippa as she rested a rounded keepsake box on the table. She moved the candle closer and wished she had the courage to just snap on the electric lights. But if her father saw them glowing down the hallway, he would investigate, and she really didn’t want to answer any questions tonight.
A week. A whole week of afternoon visits to the circus. Soothing Lily, watching Ernie put salve on her cuts, and trying to breathe whenever Jake neared her. There was something about the sideways glances he gave her and their short conversations as she stroked the four-foot-tall baby. She was becoming familiar with him. His occasional mentions of his sister reinforced that Bridgette was never far from her brother’s memory. It was as endearing as it was worrisome. If Bridgette was close to mind, then so was her killer. Jake had no intention of forgetting his sole purpose for being a part of the circus. To find him—the man with the hood—who had taken Bridgette’s life. A few times, Pippa had caught Jake with the unfolded and worn drawing, staring deep into the Watchman’s coal-sketched hollow eyes. Just this afternoon, she had rounded the corner and bumped into his arm, catching a glimpse herself of the hooded face she’d ached to see beneath.
Jake had jerked away from her, surprised by her presence. Then he had methodically folded the drawing to place it back in his pocket.
“If you find him,” Pippa ventured, “what will you do?” She was afraid of the outcome. While part of her longed to guard the Watchman in the way she felt he had guarded her, a large part of her wrestled with fear that Jake’s sister’s sketch truly did condemn the very person Pippa had communed with via messages for so long. That tentative bond between them was threatened with severing if Jake Chapman was able to enact his vengeance for his sister. And then, if Bridgette’s story was true, how was the Watchman even safe to be near? Which meant Pippa’s quest to find the zebra toy and continue this game of chasing after him to uncover his identity and his relation to her was foolishness. Dangerous. Naïve.
Jake hadn’t answered her. Not verbally. He’d just looked at her, his face overwhelmed by an expression she couldn’t place. A hardness that warred with pain, fighting a weariness she saw etched in the corners of his eyes. Jake was tired. The quest for justice brought with it the draining force of anger. Of violation.
And yet, here she was. Tonight. Shoving back Jake and Bridgette’s story and trying to believe they were not connected to her own. That the Watchman was truly her guardian, and that if she could only find the truth of her birth, the identities of her father and mother, and the roots of her place in the circus, that all would fall to rights. All would be well. Somehow. In some vague, inexplicable way.
Penn padded across the floor, her toenails clicking on the polished wood until she met with the massive Oriental carpet that muffled her steps. She nosed Pippa’s hand, and Pippa acknowledged her before returning her attention to the keepsake box. She ran her fingers across the satin roses, sewn and embroidered, then nestled onto the lid and attached with a few well-placed French knots. Though the lid’s golden edging with its scrollwork hinted at riches inside, Pippa knew the truth. There were no riches in the box. Only memories from a day no one ever spoke about.
She opened the box that held the items left with her on the day she was, as a baby, abandoned on the doorstep of Ripley Manor. A familiar musty smell from lack of use met Pippa’s nose. She wished the objects inside could speak. Then she wouldn’t need the Watchman with his manipulative ways of enticing her with his secrets. But, while Richard and Victoria Ripley never hid her origins from her, they also never expounded on them.
She fingered the edge of a cotton ivory blanket, yellowed from nineteen years of age. Yet its tatted edges remained brilliant with lacy red loops and swirls.
“You were wrapped in that.”
The blanket slipped from Pippa’s hand back into the box. Her father stood in the doorway and turned the knob to switch on the electric lights. The light bounced off the glossy burnished wood of the library shelves and made the red tatting reflect like royalty.
Pippa reached for the blanket again. She couldn’t look Richard Ripley in the eye. If she did, she would see the sternness on his handsome face, the firm set to his jaw, and the thick mass of peppered black hair that, even ruffled from sleep, made him imposing. She should never have been his daughter. She knew that. He did too.
Pippa shifted her position on the floor, very aware of her crippled leg as she drew it under her nightdress. Footsteps sounded across the wood floor, then silenced as her father’s feet landed on the Asian rug, and finally the puff as his body settled on the ruby cushion of the nearby chair.
“Why did you take me in?” It was a question she’d wanted to ask many times before.
“Your mother.” It was his only explanation, spoken without emotion. A simple explanation. Victoria Ripley had wanted a child. Pippa had been left for her.
She knew if she inquired further, Richard Ripley would withdraw from her. He had never shown much empathy or concern for her. His purpose was always Bonaventure Circus. The summers when he was so con
sumed by the circus’s successful performances, Pippa hadn’t even missed him. In fact, she had been relieved. A time of respite. Part of her even believed her mother felt the same way.
Pippa reached for a piece of paper, a note card, and lifted it from the box. She ran a finger across the words carved with a script that was a stark contrast to the paper’s feminine attributes. While the ink had faded, it was still heavy enough to show a hand that had pressed harder than necessary. The loop in the R ran wide, the rest of the letters wavy, as if the writer’s hand shook when penning them.
Remember us.
The writing looked masculine.
The words made her ache inside. Remember them. She was a part of them.
“Your defiance of late shows ungratefulness.”
Her father’s condemnatory statement hurt. More than she cared to admit. Pippa twisted her position and met her father’s frank gaze. “Have you been honest with me? Do you really know who my parents were?”
Ripley remained expressionless. “You question my honesty.” It was another statement, and it was spoken with censure.
Pippa braced herself.
“You have much to be grateful for.” He leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees, his gaze pinning her to the chair in which she sat. “There is no reason for you to be so discontent. Don’t think I’m oblivious to your motives for being with that elephant. Your mother may be superstitious and believe you to be disturbed, but I know. I know you seek more than you should.” He buried his dark look into her soul. “You play with fire, daughter. If you trusted me, I could spare you that. Forrest could spare you that.”
“If I trusted you?” She pushed the idea back on her father. He had mapped out her entire life, and when questioned as to the truth, he’d chosen to hide it instead. Of course she didn’t trust him, and she was helpless to do anything about it. He cared for her out of obligation, out of acquiescence to his wife, and out of need to uphold good community standing.
The Haunting at Bonaventure Circus Page 23
