Frail Blood (28 page)

If she had harbored any doubt that her attacker meant her
harm, it quickly fled. They intended for Emma to meet the same fate as the
unfortunate woman in the trunk. But who was the dead woman?

Emma forced herself to examine the body. A woman, she knew
this already by the fullness of the chest, the soft layers of flesh beneath the
clothing. Her fingers spanned the length of the trunk. A fairly short woman,
doubled up to fit inside the trunk. But fleshly. She probed the woman's limbs
and noted the thickness of wrist and ankle. A large woman, then.

Mrs. Machado and Phoebe both were stout women.

Did one of them lie in this ignominious grave? But which
one? And why? And who would've done such a thing?

Emma believed Aaron's account, and according to him, Mrs.
Machado rejected the infant Joseph from the moment of his birth. Else, he'd
said, Aaron would've left the day the child was born. But he remained, making
sure Joseph was safe and cared for. By his estimate, Phoebe became the
surrogate mother.

Regardless of her slyness and morose behavior, it was clear to
Emma that Phoebe would not have harmed Joseph. The woman might be unpleasant,
but Emma did not doubt her devotion to her brother. Might Phoebe have learned
something new that made her a threat to the true killer of Joseph Machado?

Silence descended in the house above her like the quiet of a
long-abandoned tomb. The already damp basement room took on a bone-chilling
coldness that seeped deep into her muscles and numbed her hands and feet. She
rummaged in the smaller piece of luggage and pulled out bits of discarded
clothing, which she tore into strips and wound round her hands and feet.

There was nothing to do now but wait until Malachi rescued
her. She comforted herself with thoughts of him ranting about her foolishness
in venturing out on her own again, her carelessness in running directly into
the clutches of murderers.

But who were these murderers?

And what did they intend to do with her?

Chapter 29

"a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
signifying nothing" –
Macbeth

"We're missing something, Malachi."

Stephen walked with Malachi back to the front of the
property and now sat on the leather seats of the motorcar. The sun had set
thirty minutes ago, but neither the Mexican gardener nor the stable boy had
left. Both continued their slow, but steady labor. No one had returned to the
house, and it appeared as empty and desolate as when they'd arrived over an
hour ago.

"Do you speak Spanish?" Malachi answered in a
non
sequitur?

"What?"

"If you do, I'll talk to the boy. You can take the
gardener. I'm not averse to applying pressure to them." He glanced at the
driver's seat where Stephen appeared to contemplate the significance of his
words. "Well?" he prodded.

"I'm not a man much given to violence, but if it will
help find Emma ... "

Malachi shrugged, wishing there were another way, wondering
if he should ride back into town and talk to Nathan Butler before they did
anything foolish ... or illegal. "I have a feeling we don't have much time
to waste."

"Let's do it then." Stephen opened his door and
strode toward the back of the house.

Malachi moved more slowly and stood watching the boy
continue the same repetitive work he'd been doing for over an hour. Was he
waiting for something? Or someone? By the look of him he hardly had enough intelligence
to perform his menial tasks, yet alone perpetrate any kind of deception.

"When is your mistress due?"

"Uh." The boy scuffed his boots in the dirt and
squinted off into the horizon. "Umm, mebbe, soon?"

"When we asked you about Miss Phoebe earlier, you
pointed to the rear of the house."

"Uh, yeah." The boy gestured toward where Stephen
had disappeared.

"But Miss Phoebe isn't in the back," Malachi
persisted. "Do you know where she's gone?"

He could tell by the puzzled look on the boy's face that he'd
spoken too many words strung together too fast. He tried again. "Show me
where Miss Phoebe went."

The boy hung up his work implements on sturdy hooks in the
interior of the barn while Malachi followed him and gazed around. The stable
held only one horse. He could hear it softly whinnying in the stall at the far
end.

Meandering down the central aisle that divided the barn in
half, he glanced into each empty stall, six in all, three on each side. He
paused at the last one and gazed in at the horse tethered there.

The horse looked familiar and Malachi stood blinking a few
moments while his brain tried to recall where he'd seen it before. In town
perhaps, where Mr. Machado had ridden it for the duration of Alma's trial? Somehow
he didn't think so.

Suddenly the boy was beside him, reaching into the stall and
offering a carrot to the horse.

"What's your name?" Malachi asked him, realizing
he'd never bothered even to ask the boy.

"Jacob, sir." The boy grinned widely and continued
feeding the horse.

"Jacob, whose horse is this?"

"Uh, dunno. Pretty lady."

"A pretty lady rode the horse here?"

The boy nodded and beamed. "Pretty hair. Pretty."

"Was the lady Miss Emma Knight from the newspaper?"

But again, Malachi had lost the boy with his eager questioning.
He tried again. "Where did pretty lady go?"

The boy pointed to the rear of the property again. "With
Miss Phoebe," he said simply.

"Where is Mrs. Machado?"

His pleasant demeanor changed immediately as he backed away
from Malachi, one tentative step at a time and shook his head furiously. "Dunno.
Dunno. Dunno."

Icy shards of dread hackled across Malachi's neck. He knew
only one thing for sure – Emma had been here and hadn't left. Otherwise she'd
have taken the horse tethered out of view in the Machado stable. Hidden where
no casual looker could see it.

"She was here several hours ago," Stephen shouted
as he rounded the corner of the house from the rear of the property. "The
gardener says she went into the house through the rear."

The stable boy thinks she accompanied Phoebe somewhere out
back," Malachi countered. "Do you think the gardener's lying?"

"No, more likely he saw Emma enter the house, but didn't
see her leave."

"Look at the horse," Malachi said, motioning
Stephen to the stable.

"That's Old Stripling!" the older man exclaimed.
"Emma's definitely been here."

"I'm going to search the house." Malachi had a
very bad feeling, and he wasn't going to delay for the niceties of a warrant or
the sheriff. "We don't have time to wait if Emma's in danger."

They went through the rear access into some kind of mud or
storage room cluttered with work boots, coats hung on pegs, and empty crates
stored in a corner. Stephen reached for a switch on the wall and the room
illuminated from a dangling bulb.

Through the mud room into the kitchen, a gigantic expanse of
gleaming pots dangled from the ceiling beams. An antiquated wood stove, similar
to the one Malachi owned, and an ice box abutted one another in the corner.

It took them nearly an hour to search the entire house,
including several rooms upstairs that had obviously remained empty for a number
of years. The entire interior of the house lay neglected and cluttered as if
the three occupants inhabited the structure like strangers with squatters'
rights.

The house was empty, and every room except three bedrooms
upstairs and the kitchen rang with the silence of disuse. Back downstairs in
the kitchen, Malachi examined the place where Frances Machado claimed to have
discovered her son's dead body. A dark stain still marked the linoleum floor.

"Nothing," Stephen said, entering from the sitting
room. "It's as if no one's been here in days."

"We're wasting our time," Malachi said, hoping his
actions hadn't put Emma in further jeopardy. "I should've contacted Sheriff
Butler a long time ago."

On the way out through the mud room where they'd entered, he
paused to glance around a last time. Surely this was the way Emma had entered
if, indeed, she'd come to the Machado house. He had no reason to doubt the
stable boy, who was too artless to prevaricate.

If she entered through this ingress, where did she go from
here? Surely some sign of her presence remained.

The mark was so minute that he'd have missed it if he hadn't
been so intent on finding a sign – any sign – of Emma having been here. The
flooring by the set of crates stacked to the right of the door showed a ruddy
drop of a dried substance. He knelt to test it and his fingers came away with
the coppery odor of what was surely blood.

"She's been here," he said with finality. "And
she's been hurt."

Stephen rummaged behind the coats and hats slung over
several sturdy pegs. From behind one heavy overcoat, he extracted an expensive
woman's handbag. He swung toward Malachi. "I gave Emma an exact replica of
this handbag for her twenty-first birthday."

"Christ Jesus." Malachi felt the bottom drop out
of his world.

#

They came for Emma with no warning.

She'd collapsed in the corner, thirsty, hungry, smelling the
sour odor of her own body. She must've fallen into a stupor, for all at once
glaring light flooded the room and shocked her awake. She felt naked and
vulnerable, blinking and confused as she hovered in the farthest reach from the
stairs.

"Grab her!" A shrill female voice screeched
through the thick air from behind the blinding light. "She's over there!"

A massive pair of hands reached for Emma but she struck out
blindly with her boot, aiming low as she'd done with her attacker in the alley
at the docks. Only this time, she was very much afraid Malachi wouldn't come to
rescue her.

"Bitch!" snarled a man's voice, deep and menacing.
From the undeterred rigor of the word, she realized she'd connected with his
thigh rather than higher where she'd aimed.

He landed a blow across her jaw with his fist, for a moment
she feared she'd lose consciousness, and that would be the end of it all. Pain
swirled behind her eyes in bright pinpoints of light and her jaw swelled
immediately. A trickle of blood ran into her mouth from a split lip.

Damn it! A surge of energy pushed into her legs and she
executed another blow, higher this time, and her aim proved true. The man
grunted, cursed vilely, and tumbled at her feet.

"Don't let her get away!" The female voice behind
the light rose to the keening howl of a banshee, panic heavy behind the
command.

Emma froze for the moment, trying to put a face to the voice
in the blackness. Then she rose and edged to her right. The light swung crazily
like a drunken porter's lamp, back and forth from the man who now crouched on
all fours and Emma who ducked below the line of light.

"Papa! Where is she?"

Phoebe, then.
But the knowledge only raised more
questions in Emma's mind. Phoebe and her father? None of it made sense.

In the second of inaction she took to contemplate the
significance of daughter and father kidnapping her, Machado recovered enough to
grab her ankle. She tripped and fell, landing on her palms and badly battered
knees. She kicked out again, but missed, and felt his powerful hand crawl up
her leg to gain greater purchase.

God, he was so strong!

"Phoebe," he yelled, "stop her!"

"With what?"

"Anything, you stupid cow! Hit her with the lantern!"

"But – the oil –

"Damn the oil! I'm injured. I can't hold her much
longer."

A moment later the lantern crashed down on Emma's head and
the acrid odor of petroleum-based kerosene filled her nostrils, nearly taking
her breath away. The glass lamp shattered and the liquid ran down the side of
her head and her cheeks as she staggered to disengage her leg from Machado's
massive grip.

Too late! In a moment he was upon her, as she blinked to
keep the kerosene from damaging her left eye, and pinned her to the cement
floor.

"You fucking bitch," he growled. "You'll pay
for that!"

With a single blow, he cuffed her head and she felt herself
slip away, his massive weight pinning her face down, the pungent smell of the
spilt kerosene taking her last breath. She felt herself being hauled to her
feet, blood dripping from her head to mingle with the odor of the oil, and
swung over broad, beefy shoulders, her heft easy for her captor in spite of her
height.

As she bounced over his shoulder, she drifted in and out of
consciousness. Up the stairs he carried her until he reached the top step where
he threw her onto the cold linoleum floor. She couldn't hold back a groan as
her bruised muscles connected with the floor.

Lighter steps followed as Emma tried to lift her battered
head to see Phoebe Machado come in view. She lumbered up the stairs, the broken
kerosene lamp still gripped in one hand.

Why Phoebe? Emma was certain the woman did not murder her
brother. From what Aaron had told her, the sister loved Joe as if he were her
own child. Why then should Phoebe wish to do violence against Emma? She hadn't
trusted the woman from the beginning, but she hadn't believed her capable of
such violence.

"I told you not to bring them here," Phoebe said.

Them.
So the body in the trunk must belong to Mrs.
Machado. But why? Why would either of them wish Frances Machado harm?

"Don't be daft, gel. We couldn't take care of them at
the big house." Mr. Machado's ugly, florid face blocked Emma's view as he
bent to peer into her face. "There's only enough room for Frances in the
trunk."

"I don't like this Papa," Phoebe complained. "Someone
will find out about Joseph ... and Aaron."

"We took care of him, remember?" Machado placated
his daughter while a sliver of impatience wormed into his voice.

What did he mean? Had they harmed Aaron in some way?

"I hope he didn't suffer, Papa." Phoebe's voice
quavered. "None of this was Aaron's fault, any more than it was Joseph's."

"Shut up, Phoebe," Machado snarled. "We have
to decide how to get rid of this one before someone comes looking for her."

"What about Mama? How shall we explain her
disappearance?"

"The bitch got what she deserved."

Emma tilted her head to view the woman who'd put the shards
of the lamp aside and was attempting to wipe her hands on her skirt. "I
know Mama didn't love Joseph," she puzzled, "but I don't understand
why she would kill him."

She sank onto the floor as if the memory over Joseph's death
overcame her all at once. "Why did she wait all these years if she hated
him so much? She could've done it so much easier when he was a baby."

"Judas Priest, Phoebe, you sound pathetic." Machado
lifted Emma by the heels and dragged her into a nearby room, empty except for a
filthy tick mattress by a window. He hauled her onto it as she fought the urge
to sneeze.

"Who knows the evil workings of a decadent mind like
your mother's. For God's sake, she seduced her own son! She was capable of
anything."

Emma groaned as her head connected with the wall when
Machado nudged her with his foot like a sack of potatoes. She lay quietly,
biting her lip to keep from crying out and drawing attention to herself. Trying
to work out the puzzle in her mind.

Phoebe was correct. Frances wouldn't have killed Joseph now
– after all these years. Emma had seen the woman in court. She'd been broken,
as if life had battered her down to a shadow of what she once was. She couldn't
have summoned the energy to kill a fly, let alone her son, no matter how
abhorrent his existence was to her. No matter what an awful reminder his face
brought to her.

If she'd intended to kill her son, she would've done so long
ago, smothered him as a baby. Or caused a fall as a toddler.