Born of Treasure (Treasure Chronicles Book 2) (25 page)

“She wants you to know she’s fine. I also checked on Garth and his family. They’re imprisoned, but in the nicer wing. They each have their own cell. Jeremiah is at the ranch with Alyssa.”

“She drank it just so I would know she was fine.”

Too bad the dark hid his father’s expression. “She wants to know what she should do next.”

Clark clenched his teeth. “Have her stay put. Captain Greenwood will let me out soon. I’ll figure out a way to fix all this. I can bargain with things. Tell her to do whatever Senator Horan wants.”

What a dumb comment. Amethyst didn’t do what people wanted.

“I love you, son,” Eric said, “but you didn’t listen. I know you do what you have to and it isn’t my place to tell you otherwise. Your wife listens, though. We’ll fix all this.”

“No.
Father
.” His cry echoed off the closet walls, but the ghost didn’t answer.

“I need to sleep.” Amethyst stomped her foot. “I’m not joining him for an evening smoke.”

“That’s for gentlemen,” Cheryl said. “Senator Horan would like you to join him in the parlor.”

“For billiards.”

Cheryl sighed. “No, ma’am. That’s for gentlemen, too. He would like to sit and talk. He’s ordered hot chocolate.”

Amethyst rolled her eyes. “Hot chocolate will make me forget I’m a prisoner. Tell his imperial majesty that I’m exhausted and will retire at once. Thank him, also, for the clothes. Really, it’s the least he can do if he’s going to keep me trapped here.” She held out her hand. “Key.”

“Key?”

Amethyst groaned. “To lock my door tonight. That should be allowed. Either let me lock it or lock me in. I don’t want commoners barging inside while I’m sleeping.”

Cheryl glanced down the hallway. “I’ll ask Senator Horan and return.”

Amethyst slammed the door and turned to grin at Eric. Cheryl had delivered boxes of clothes, so Amethyst lifted the lids and sorted through the colored tissue paper. A tweed coat—as if she would need that in the desert—and a nightgown in one box; in the other, she found a new outfit.

She stuffed two of the three new petticoats and the nightgown under the blankets on the bed. “I used to do this back home so Uncle Albert would think I was sleeping.”

As she changed into her garments, a knock came to the door. She opened it only enough to look out, so the intruder wouldn’t see the bed, but could know she was preparing for sleep. “Yes?”

Cheryl lowered her gaze. “I’ve been told to lock you in and not let you out until noon tomorrow, unless you’d like to join him in the parlor.”

“I’d rather starve until noon.” She slammed the door again and held her breath, listening for the key in the lock. If he were spiteful, he’d leave her to fume or rot, rather than checking anytime soon.

Amethyst left her discarded clothes in a pile by the door, so if anyone opened it they would see them and the open box, and assume she wore the nightgown in the bed. She fluffed some of the nightgown’s lace onto the pillow.

To hide her appearance, she scooped ashes from the fireplace to smear in her hair. Amethyst Treasure had bright yellow hair. This girl wouldn’t.

She changed into the new ensemble and headed toward the open window. “I absolutely hate going barefoot.”

“Wear the coat. It gets cold out there at night,” Eric said.

She shook the heavy garment. “Cold enough for this thing?”

“Trust me.”

She was stuck doing that anyway. Amethyst tucked her arms into the sleeves and swung one leg through the window, then the other, and dropped onto the porch roof as lightly as she could. The tiles bit into her bare feet and she bit back a curse.

“Everyone is in the back of the house.” Eric floated beside her. “The right has the drainpipe you can use.”

If her friends in the city saw her crawling across a roof, they would faint. Amethyst dropped over the edge of the porch and used the pillow to slide down to the railing. Her heels smacked and she lost her balance, pin wheeling her arms and chomping on her tongue to keep from cursing. The ground smacked her back and she grunted. No wonder Eric wanted her to wear the coat. She was so klutzy, she needed it to cushion her falls.

“The gate will be locked until Captain Greenwood leaves. You’ll need to use the army vehicle.”

“Fine.” Amethyst hunched close to the ground as she darted across the yard to the stables. According to Eric, the driver ate in the kitchen while Captain Greenwood finished his meal discussion with the senator. Amethyst had eaten alone in the bedroom.

The full moon illuminated the sparse grass. Lights flickered in the town beyond the fence and a few people walked, but no one looked toward the senator’s mansion. Amethyst eased the stable door open—Eric promised no one was inside—and found the captain’s steam buggy by the army symbol painted on the side of the door.

She opened the trunk of the buggy and grinned. “Empty. This won’t be that uncomfortable then.” She had to jump and brace herself to scramble inside, thwacking her knee against the edge. The box smelled of leather and oil. Scowling, Amethyst pulled the lid shut.

To keep her mind off her racing heartbeat, she whispered the streets of her favorite stores in New Addison City. She recited the fifth when Eric hissed, “They’re coming.”

She bit her knuckles to keep silent. Once they reached the captain’s location—Eric had told her he was staying at the inn—she would have to wiggle a way out.

The stable doors opened. Muffled voices drifted through the wooden trunk before the engine revved and the buggy jerked backward. Something metal ground outside—the gate opening. The steambuggy slid along the street at an even pace.

Until it jolted over a bump and her body slammed into the back of the trunk.

“Stupid cat,” a man shouted.

“Hang on,” another male said. “Something’s in the trunk. I told you to empty it.”

Amethyst curled into a ball and bit her knuckles harder.
Please don’t look.

Silence. The steambuggy stilled. They were going to check the trunk. They would find her, with her new clothes and filthy hair. Some of the soot might have worked its way across her face.

The trunk opened and a man held a gas lamp overhead. “Captain, there’s a chit back here.”

“Please let me go with you,” she whimpered. “I promise I don’t take up no room.”

Another man joined the first. “What are you doing in my buggy? Who are you?”

“Mary Worthington.” Her friend from the city. “You’re in the army, right? I saw the insignia. I want to go there.”

“You want to go to the army?” Captain Greenwood sneered. “You’re a girl. Get out of the trunk.”

The driver set his lamp down to pull her free. She went limp to make it more difficult, and collapsed on the dirt once he set her down.

“I don’t wanna join the army,” she wailed. “I wanna see my beau. Mikey.” Mary’s little brother. “He promised to marry me and he done run off to join the army. He promised me we’d be together. He
promised
.”

“Get up, girl.” The captain kicked her thigh without looking at her face. “If he left you, he don’t want you. Git back home.”

She rolled to her knees and sniffled as if about to cry. “But I gotta reach my Mikey.”

“Git.” Scowling, Captain Greenwood slammed the lid on his trunk and stormed back into his steambuggy. The driver glanced back at her, his face in shadow, before jogging to get back inside.

“Mikey,” Amethyst wailed as they drove away. That should cover her acting.

“You need to get into the desert. You’ll need to walk. It will be a few miles to the next town. You can rent a horse then,” Eric said.

“A couple miles.” She wiped her mouth on the back of her sleeve. Her legs already ached. “I don’t have any money for a horse.”

“I can teach you how to get some or you can walk to find Clark’s… friends.”

“Friends.” The word, when drawn out like that in speech, sounded less than positive. Amethyst folded her arms to make herself smaller as she headed toward the desert in the direction Eric pointed.

Amethyst folded her arms tighter as she entered the town. Dust clung to her body in what had to be layers of grime. Layers. She’d rarely felt so dirty before. Clark must’ve wiped that insecurity away. People glanced her way and whispered. Of course they would. Clark had told her how strangers in small towns caused big stirs. It wasn’t like in New Addison City where a girl didn’t expect to see anyone she knew.

Shimmering bodies hunched along the weathered buildings. They stared at her with blackened eyes, mouths agape.

“Why are so many people dead here?” she whispered.

“They’re dead everywhere,” Eric said. “Now you’ll see them.”

“Everywhere? All the time?” Shivers crawled over her skin. She’d wanted to see him, not every ghost that still wandered the planet. A child ran up to her and held out his hand; a dead child, with the same empty face. Amethyst stumbled backward and the child followed, holding out his palm.

“Food,” moaned the little being. “I’m so hungry, miss.”

“You can’t help them,” Eric said. “He starved a long time ago.”

How could people starve when, in the city, cooks tossed out heaps of rotten goods that hadn’t been cooked?

“What do I do here now?” Amethyst pressed against the wall of a bank. A man passed her, a live one, and spit tobacco juice at her feet. He leered at her with his blackened teeth, most of them missing. Her stomach clenched. How had Clark’s mother managed to be a Tarnished Silver?

A mechanical horse trotted by, steam pumping from the gears along his joints, and the townsfolk turned their attention to that marvel, rather than on her.

“Mr. Grisham, what do I do now?” Other than appear to be talking to herself.

“You’re going to steal.”

“I’ve never done that before.”

He laughed, a harsh sound, otherworldly. How easily she forgot he was dead like the others. “I know you’ve stolen from stores to impress your friends.”

She winced. “I didn’t enjoy it. I only did it once.” Or twice. She’d hated it, the quick hand movements that transferred a silk scarf into her purse.

“You won’t be picking pockets. You’ll be swiping a horse.”

Amethyst gulped. She’d barely managed to make it out of the department store with a tiny neckerchief. “I can’t hide a horse under my skirts!”

“Follow me.” Eric floated down the street.

Amethyst ducked her head as she followed. Clark had been forced to endure a life like that one, faced with stealing or death. He’d sworn he hated the man he’d become, and Amethyst had wound his hair around her finger. Strong, sexually appealing, talented… how could that combination turn him sour? Her lips puckered. He must’ve thought her an imbecile for not understanding.

Eric stopped beside a one-story house with a hole in the roof and pansies dying by the front door. “The woman who lives here is blind.”

“How horrible!” In the city, the blind stayed indoors. They weren’t able to function in society. What could a blind woman do out west without servants or dedicated homes to care for her?

“She has a horse in the shed out back. You’ll have to swipe it.”

“I can’t steal from a blind woman,” Amethyst hissed. Her father had treasured Eric as a friend. What a wretched man.

“You’ll have to if you want to help your family.”

“Her roof has a hole. She must be penniless.”

“Her son works at the bank. They haven’t had a chance to fix the hole yet. She’s a kind woman. Once things have sorted, you can send her the funds to replace the horse.”

Amethyst licked her dry lips, tasting dust that crunched between her teeth. “I can leave her a note to contact my uncle. He would send her the money. He can send enough to fix the hole, too.”

“People in the west often don’t have a lot of money.”

She almost rolled her eyes at that statement. It made her feel like just as wretched a person, but a blind woman wouldn’t know someone had taken off with her horse until it was too late. “I’ll need paper and a pencil. I doubt they have that.”

“There should be something that’ll work in the shed.”

Amethyst pictured herself scrambling onto the back of a horse. “This animal better be small. I’m not the best rider.” Since no one looked their way, she strolled around the house with her chin lifted. Clark had taught her that confidence didn’t raise suspicion as easily as hesitancy.