Page 20 of Tightrope

Broke, they had ridden the rails across the country to the West Coast where no one knew them. Throughout the journey Eugene had remembered the exhilaration that had come over him when he’d watched the flyer go down. If there had been no net, she would have died.

“She would have looked like a broken doll,” he’d said to Marcus.

Marcus had laughed. “Yeah. A broken doll.”

As the train racketed toward the West Coast they had begun to plan a new game, a way to get the thrills that were to be had watching flyers go down. They knew that they would have to be careful. Rumors and gossip traveled fast in the circus world. They had to make sure that they were never suspected of the disasters.

The new game had gone well for a while. Three flyers had fallen to their deaths and no one had ever suspected Eugene and Marcus.

Then came Abbotsville. Everything went wrong. It was Marcus who had died. The Flying Princess had lived.

Now that bitch was living in a town where Hollywood celebrities vacationed.

And here he was, stuck in Lodi.

Not for long.

Chapter 10

The muffled scream jolted Amalie out of the falling dream. Hazel’s shriek ended in an abrupt manner that was more terrifying than the fearful cry. There was a heavy thud overhead.

Amalie found herself out of bed and on her feet before she fully comprehended what had awakened her. Heart pounding, she reached into the bedside drawer and took out the pistol that she kept there.

She crossed the room on bare feet and stopped at the door. One hand on the knob, she paused to listen. The villa felt unnaturally silent, as if it was holding its breath.

A floorboard creaked overhead.

The nerve-icing sound sent another thrill of fear through her. She recognized that particular creak. The board that had groaned was just outside Hazel’s room.

A freezing fog of panic threatened to overwhelm her senses. She remembered her father’s words.

Fear gives you strength. You use that strength to fly.

She opened the door, trying not to make any noise, but she almoststopped breathing altogether when the old hinges squeaked. There was no way to know if the intruder on the floor above had heard the telltale sound.

She glided out into the hall. She no longer trained daily, so she was not as strong as she had been when she was performing, but she still possessed the sense of balance and the intuitive awareness of the space around her that had been her birthright as the offspring of a family of aerialists and high wire walkers. She had been trained to walk a tightrope stretched a few inches above the ground soon after she had learned to toddle. She had begun her career as a professional flyer when she was in her early teens. Tonight her bare feet made no sound on the carpet.

Earlier, on her way upstairs to bed, she had made certain that the wall sconce on each staircase landing was illuminated. It was a ritual that she went through faithfully every night, not just for the safety of the guests—with Pickwell dead, there were no guests in residence—but because six months earlier she had learned that monsters lurked in the darkness.

The light that marked the second-floor landing still glowed but the floor above was drenched in shadows. A whisper of night air wafted down, icing the back of her neck. Somewhere upstairs a door or a window was open.

She ascended slowly, gun in hand. She was careful to avoid the places on the treads she knew might creak or groan. The draft of cool night air got stronger as she went up the steps.

When she reached Hazel’s floor she stopped on the landing and listened.

Nothing.

She reached out and flipped the light switch. The sconce did not illuminate. Either the bulb had burned out or the intruder had unscrewed it.

“I have a gun,” she shouted.

The words echoed through the mansion.

The entrances to several guest rooms lined the corridor on both sides. There was enough moonlight at the far end of the hall to reveal that the French doors that opened onto a balcony stood ajar.

There was no way to know if the intruder was still in the house. It would be foolish to go from door to door in an effort to find out.

She was torn between the need to find Hazel and common sense, which urged her to run downstairs and call the police.

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