Frail Blood (30 page)

He crept toward the back entry from which an open door swung
crookedly in the light breeze. Edging forward, he reached across his body to
twist the knob as he kept the pistol at the ready. The steady sureness of his
hand gripping the weapon pleased him, and he marveled how he could maintain
such calm control in the face of Emma's disappearance and possible death.

But he must. To panic was to seal her fate.

Unexpectedly, a large figure leapt from the doorway like a
bedlamite in a flurry of motion that nearly felled Malachi. He righted himself
and struck out with his firearm, cracking the side of it down on the back of
the person's skull and bringing his attacker down clumsily on the hard dirt.

In a moment he realized his attacker was a woman and knelt
to turn her face outward. Phoebe Machado! What the hell?

The woman lay blinking and stunned on the dirt, a trickle of
blood running from her temple. "You – you – " she muttered,
apparently unable to complete the thought.

He looked up just in time to see Stephen sprinting around
the other corner of the house, leveling his weapon toward the previously empty
tree line and bellowing like a wounded bull.

When Malachi swung his glance away from Emma's uncle, he
beheld the deadly sight of Joseph Machado, Sr., not ten yards to his left,
leveling a double-barreled, twelve-gage, double-aught shotgun directly at
Malachi 's head.

"Did you kill her?" Machado roared, advancing
maniacally, his wild gaze fixed on Malachi. "Is the gel dead?"

"Stop, Machado!" shouted Stephen from Malachi's
left. "Stop or you're a dead man!"

"Where's Emma?" Malachi demanded. "What have
you done with her, you fucking bastard?"

Machado turned as if in a trance, swinging his head and the
shotgun between Malachi and Stephen. "I've gotta have an heir!" he
howled at last, breaking his paralysis. "Phoebe's all that's left! She's
my only heir!"

At last he settled the twelve-gauge on Stephen just as the
older man fired a shot that hit Machado square in the chest. He toppled like a
felled tree, a thud that reverberated through the dusty distance to Malachi who
still crouched beside Phoebe.

"Where's Emma?" He slapped the woman's face none
too gently. "What have you and your father done with her?"

Phoebe fluttered her lashes in a series of spasms and seemed
about to lose consciousness, but Malachi shook her arm roughly. "No, you
don't. Where have you put Emma Knight?"

She moaned and closed her eyes, then whispered, "Don't
know. She got away from him."

"Did she leave the house?"

"Out the back way ... maybe the orchard?"

Malachi knew if Emma had gone that way Machado would've
caught her, but he didn't think Phoebe was lying. He abandoned her and ran past
the fallen body of her father. The man bled profusely, saturating the surrounding
dirt, but he could bleed to death for all Malachi cared.

Stephen hastened right behind him and picked up Machado's
dropped shotgun. Together they began to scour the grove, shouting Emma's name
at random intervals, wandering farther from the two prone bodies lying near the
ramshackle house.

Frantic with the need to find her – injured, hurt, or worse
dead – blood and dread pounded furiously through Malachi's veins. They found
nothing.

Not Emma. Not her body.

They made their way back to the house and stared at one
another, the same helpless expression on Stephen's face that Malachi imagined
was on his. He glanced down at Phoebe Machado, lying spent and injured, her
breathing still labored, her complexion a ghastly hue, but he couldn't expend
any compassion for the woman.

Her lips worked soundlessly as he knelt down to hear her
words. "Maybe ... check the root cellar."

Chapter 31

"Perdition catch my soul but I do love thee! and
when I love thee not, chaos is come again." –
Othello

Emma felt herself losing consciousness, a roaring tidal wave
that began far out in the ocean and finally battered through her with an
unstoppable force. The pain was too intense to bear and she wanted only to give
up and escape its relentless ravage. Her eyes fluttered in the pungent cellar
and she allowed herself to drift away.

A noise startled her out of her stupor – a thunderous bang
like the discharge of a powerful firearm. Had Machado killed the only remaining
member of his family? Emma had no doubt the man was mad and this insanity had
prompted him to murder nearly every member of his family.

Then she heard the muffled sound of multiple voices. Male
voices, she believed.

Someone was coming to rescue her!
Please God, let it be
Malachi.

Stumbling to her feet, she wended a tenuous path to the
cellar hatch, but she spent all her energy on climbing the stairs. When she
pushed upward, her strength was so compromised she could not raise the wooden
door. She pushed harder to no avail.

What if they left without her?

Panicked, she began a feeble pounding on the hard wood, the
sides of her palms incurring the pricks of splinters that dug deep. She
screamed, but the sound came out rusty and thin like an unused water pump. Her
puny efforts demoralized her and she sank to the top step, feeling the sweat
and tears dampen her cheeks.

Moments later the cellar hatch lifted of its own accord and
a scraggly stream of light provided slight illumination to Emma's cell.

"Emma, my God, Emma!"

Malachi reached for her, his arms strong and hard as they
lifted her out and wrapped her in tight bands of comfort. He spoke lightly, but
she heard the tremor in his voice.

"You silly girl, what trouble have you gotten yourself
into now?"

Emma groaned with the pressure of his hands on her, but his
scolding had never sounded so sweet. And then the familiar voice of her uncle
joined Malachi's and she broke down weeping and laughing at the same time.

What a fine display of feminine fortitude for such a
liberated woman.

#

Sheriff Nathan Butler looked uncomfortable in the delicate
wing chair where Emma had ushered him in her front parlor. His size flooded
over the delicate angles of wood and the light green damask fabric. He'd
removed his hat and now turned it round and round in his big hands.

"What news, then, Nathan?" Malachi asked, sitting
close to Emma on the wide sofa, his arm draped protectively round her shoulders.
He had no intention of allowing her to get more than a few feet away from him.

The steady gaze of the sheriff's gray eyes showed no emotion.
"Mr. Machado died before we could get him to Doc Winston's clinic."

"And Phoebe?"

"She's recovered and resting at her home. Under guard,
of course, until Charlie Fulton sorts this all out."

A smile hovered around Malachi's lips as he noted his friend's
disrespectful use of Fulton's name. "What about Alma?"

"Released for the moment." The sheriff stopped
fiddling with his hat and laid it on the table beside his chair. "She's
gone back to Sacramento to stay with her mother."

Malachi and Emma exchanged a look. He knew Emma would worry
what became of Alma Bentley now that she'd been exonerated of first-degree
murder. She still faced assault charges for shooting Joseph Machado.

"Phoebe claims her father told her he saw her mother
shoot Joseph," Nate said. "After Alma fled, dropping the Deringer,
Frances allegedly picked up the weapon and fired the fatal shot into Joseph's
chest."

"But you can't believe that!" Emma exclaimed. "Mr.
Machado killed his son when he discovered that he had not fathered Joseph."

Nate shook his head. "Probably, but we can't prove any
of that now, not with both of them dead."

"Who killed Aaron?" Emma asked.

Nate shrugged. "It'd be easy to blame it on Mr.
Machado, but a good case could be made against Phoebe."

"But she could not have made the trip down to
Bakersfield and back so quickly," Emma argued.

"That's something a jury must decide," Nate
answered. "It may be hard to prove anyone of them committed the murder. Sheriff
Kern will have to investigate that part of the crime."

"It's sad," Emma said, settling against Malachi's
chest. "Phoebe really cared for Joseph. She was the only one in that
family who stayed with him and cared for him all those years."

"Well, it's over now for the most part," Nate
said, rising from his chair. "I don't know what will happen to Phoebe. Fulton
will likely try to regain some face by making a big deal out of her part in the
deaths of all those people. Her being the only one left alive."

"Sounds like she might need a good lawyer,"
Malachi said.

"Exactly what I was thinking."

Nathan Butler's eyes held a speculative twinkle as he left
them alone in Emma's parlor.

#

"You are quite the bravest woman I've ever known."
Malachi touched her gently, mindful of her scrapes and bruises. Her ribs were
bound and often he saw her wince when she made a sudden movement.

"I was frightened silly." She looked at him from
where she sat in her parlor. "I prayed that you'd come rescue me again."

"Even though you knew I'd poke fun at you?"

She smiled. "Yes."

"Ah, Emma, I thought he'd killed you and hidden your
body somewhere. I thought – "

"Shhh, don't dwell on such things."

"I didn't want to lose your ... investigative
services," he quipped to ease the moment.

"Even though I'm a spoiled, rich girl who has no idea
of what indignities women in the world of poverty experience?" she teased.

"In spite of that." He laughed. "And in spite
of your propensity for trouble. And your obstinacy."

"Hush. Why not dwell on my assets?"

"And your fine mind," he continued, unchecked. "And
your ready wit. Ouch!"

"Serves you right for mocking me."

"Jesus Christ, I'd never seriously mock you. You've a
lethal punch." He rubbed his shoulder where her pretend blow had landed.

Her laughter was the high, clear sound of a coloratura
singer and he was grateful she'd regained her voice. He sobered for a moment
and traced a finger down the yellow-purplish bruises on her neck.

"Don't think about it," she said.

He clenched his jaw and felt the familiar anger surge up
inside him. "I'm glad he's dead."

"It's over now."

He pushed aside thoughts of mayhem and murder, the foul
deeds and cover-ups of the Machado family.

Emma grinned playfully. "We make quite a good team, I
think."

"That we do," he responded. "That we do."

###

The Next Historical
Romantic Thriller by Jo Robertson

Weak Flesh

Tuscarora City,
North Carolina, November 20, 1901

Nell Carver was a naughty girl.

If her pompous father had any idea his nineteen year old
daughter had crept out of the house this late, he'd be livid. And if he'd known
she went to meet a man, he'd thrash her within an inch of her life.

Behind the poplars and cypress trees that lined the edge of
the river, this particular man lurked and spied on Nell for the next several
minutes. Although he had no intention of joining her tonight, he enjoyed
manipulating her.

And, really, Nell made it so easy.

Dusk gave way to nightfall on the banks of the slow-moving
Pasquotank River. The shadows and the Spanish moss hanging from the trees hid
the man well. He pulled his Homburg lower on his forehead, tugged the velvet
collar of his Chesterfield coat around his neck, and continued to watch.

Now and again he smiled faintly. As he well knew, a wild
kind of fire ran through young Nell's blood. She was as feral and rare as the
Red Fox along the Carolina coast. Her recklessness fascinated and repelled him
at the same time, her white-skinned, fair-haired beauty so at odds with her
extravagant disregard for propriety.

Naughty Nellie.

He chuckled and fingered his beard. How long would she wait?
He leaned against a tree, studying her as she pouted, then worried, and finally
paced. She tugged her long brown cloak close to her round body. Even from this
distance he saw her shiver, a small, delicate movement of her shoulders that
set her breasts jiggling beneath the coat.

Naughty Nellie.

He glanced toward the Carver house across the field and set
back from the road less than two hundred yards to his left. He could barely
make out its dark outline against the pines, but he knew the house at Pine
Grove well.

It squatted like a fat white hen on the roost of its rich
green lawn, an elegant old house, but the dingy clapboard and dark shutters
sadly needed painting. Turrets and dormer windows angled from the front and a
porch wrapped around the ground level. A side door provided another entry off
to the right.

The parlor windows faced the rising sun, and in the early
spring the porch was cool for sitting. In the summer's heat the kitchen
outbuilding round back, separate from the main house, grew muggy and heavy with
humidity. The man knew for certain the thrill of the back room's sticky
dankness.

The perfect trysting place.

Tonight winter had set in around the banks of the Pasquotank
chilled the air with the November mist. Recent northeasterly winds and rains
had flooded the area, and the man's shoes sank into the brackish marsh.

He lit a cigar. Its glow shone eerily through the thick
night, while he waited and stared at the shadowy form of Nell Carver.

#

The heavy trees and brush that pushed up to the water's edge
stood like centurions guarding the dark mystery of the river as Nell had crept
from the house after supper. While everyone else in the Carver household
prepared for the night, she'd wandered along the bank, knowing full well she
shouldn't be here so late with the night coming on and the Pasquotank looking
so dangerous.

But the note had goaded her not to be late
this time
and had piqued her curiosity. She snorted delicately. Keeping her beaus waiting
was a clever woman's most important trick and Nell didn't like the tables
turned this way. Still, she'd never kept
him
waiting. She glanced around
and resumed her pacing, catching her bottom lip with her small teeth.

She'd felt daring and adventurous sneaking out the back door
to race across the field down to the thick foliage near the river. But now the
safety of home seemed a thousand miles away. She turned her face toward the
house and shivered again, but not from the cold this time.

The crush of footsteps drew her attention back to the thick
copse of trees to her right. She opened her mouth to speak, but thought better
of it and waited until her suitor drew closer.

Moments later she distinguished his outline from among the
other shadows. He tossed something into the sodden leaves at his foot and
ground downward with the heel of his boot.

"Oh my God, you!" she exclaimed. "I thought ...
" Her voice trailed off in confusion, but she recovered quickly. "It's
not nice to keep a lady waiting," she pouted.

She didn't want him to find the puckishness in her voice
amusing so she smiled in an attempt to cover her mistake. "Well, I forgive
you, at any rate," she said lightly, tapping her gloved finger against his
chest. 

He reached for her, pulling her roughly to him, the smell of
tobacco strong on his clothes and breath. "What'd I do? What do you
forgive me for?" He laughed and wrapped his sinewy arms around her waist.

"Ow," she cried, pretending to slap at his hands.

He smirked confidently. "You know you like it,
Nellie-girl. You've always liked what I've got for you."

Then he tightened his grip on her and pushed his hands
beneath her coat and skirt's hem, upward over the silk stockings and under her
drawers to clutch the bare flesh of her thighs, cold against his hot hands.

God help her, she did like it. He wasn't as refined as her
other beaus, but the things he did with his hands and mouth drove her crazy.
She heard her own soft groan and gave herself over to the moment's heated
passion.

After a while she shoved playfully at him and stepped back. "Wait."
She let her skirt and coat fall back in place.

"Why did you put a note in the hiding place? We agreed
not to use it anymore." She caught her breath and pushed a loose curl from
her forehead. "It's not safe. If my little sister hadn't gotten it first,
my father would've found it."

He laughed and drew her to him again, nuzzling her neck. "Silly
goose." He captured her mouth in his and thrust his hot tongue deep inside
while she forgot how she hated him calling her by those ridiculous pet names.

After another breathless moment, she pushed ineffectually at
him again and pulled her lips away from all that sweet warmth. "Be
serious! You could've gotten me in a real fix. Either Mama or Papa could've
read it."

He laughed again. "If you want a note, sweet
Nellie-girl, I'll write a thousand of 'em for you." He tugged at her hand,
too aroused to pay attention to her complaints.

"For God's sake," she moaned, half mad with desire
she couldn't think straight.

"You set me on fire, darlin'." He trailed his
tongue down her neck and over the top of her blouse which he'd managed to
unbutton down to her chemise without her even realizing what he'd done.

Suddenly in the distance the house porch light came on, the
front door opened, and she saw the outline of her mother's figure against the
light from the parlor.

Damn
! "I have to go," she whispered.

He groaned and released her. "You're always doing that
to me darlin', getting me hot and ready for you and then leavin' me. It ain't
right."

He pressed her hand against his groin where the bulge pulsed
wildly beneath her palm. God, but it made her want to stay. With effort she
forced down her desire, knowing the surest way to keep a fellow interested in
her was saying no.

Nell jerked away and took a step toward the road. "Don't
leave anymore notes," she warned, sounding more miffed than she really
was. She walked backwards toward the road, teasing him with her eyes as she
slowly buttoned her blouse back up.

He stared after her, his eyes narrowed with lust. Just as
she turned away she saw a look of mingled desire and confusion pass over his
handsome features.

Good, she liked to keep her beaus guessing.