Frail Blood (26 page)

"Goddamn it all," he said to no one in particular.

Chapter 27

"By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked
this way comes" –
Macbeth

When Emma came to her senses, her head pounded like a
percussion instrument at her temples. Her scraped palms and knees stung from
their bloody abrasions. She felt the cold hard surface beneath her as she lay
sprawled on what was clearly a cement floor, damp and musty smelling. When she
sat up, the thrumming of drums in her head increased.

But most of all, her parched and aching throat reminded her
that someone had placed leonine paws around her neck and attempted to choke her
to death. She had absolutely no doubt of
that
fact. Any attempt at calm
fled as she relived the moments before she'd crashed to the floor after
snooping in the back room of the Machado mansion.

Someone had tried to kill her!

She fought back a sob as she touched her fingertips to her
throat with the ginger tentativeness of someone afraid of pulling away with
blood on her hands. Nothing moist, but she knew great, ugly rings of purple and
blue would be visible within the hour.

If she were alive to see them.

If she could escape her dark prison.

A heavy weight settled on her chest, sucking the air out of
her lungs. Breathe, she told herself. Whatever else happened, she must not lose
consciousness again. She must not succumb to the cloying fear of fainting. She
did not know how she knew, but she understood full well that her single
advantage lay in remaining awake – and calm.

She drew in air through her nostrils and expelled the ragged
breaths through her pursed lips as Sarah had taught her to calm herself once
long ago. In, out, in, out, until the sedating effect of her deep breathing
performed its work.

She tugged the hem of her skirt up her legs and probed the
great, gaping holes at the knees of her stockings. Her fingers came away moist.
She ran her hands down her legs and then along her arms and around her ribs. Although
they were tender, nothing appeared to be broken.

After some little time, her eyes gradually became accustomed
to the dark and she searched the enclosed and lightless room – a basement or
storage facility, she believed. Several large shapes hunkered in what appeared
to be corners of the spacious room. Stored furniture she guessed by the bulk
and size of them. The room held a rank mustiness that spoke of old items stored
for years without airing.

She rose unsteadily in the dark and groped her way forward,
shuffling carefully along lest she trip over some dangerous garden tool or
farming implement. At length she stumbled on what was clearly a wooden step and
she groped upwards, feeling the incline that indicated a staircase.

Yes, definitely a basement. One without windows.

The short journey to the stairs exhausted her and she sank
onto the bottom step, her skirts billowing out around her. Her throat throbbed.
Her eyes stung with grittiness. The scraps and scratches on her legs chafed
against the texture of her underskirts.

Nonetheless, she forced herself to climb the stairs,
maintaining her balance precariously as there were no rails on either side of
the unstable wooden steps. As she suspected, the stairs ended in a solid wooden
door at the top. She located and rattled the knob.

Locked!

She sank to the step, lowered her head into her damaged
palms, and resisted the urge to weep.

#

The passage of time was like a slow death. Cold, cramped,
battered and sore, Emma clung to the single thought that Malachi and Stephen
would rescue her. They would, she knew, as soon as they returned from down
south, as soon as they learned of her absence.

She clamped down on her lip to keep from laughing
hysterically and hearing the maniacal sound reverberate in the dank cellar. Malachi
would be furious at having to save her once again. He'd tease and berate her,
but then he'd take her in his arms, kiss her gently, and ...

She thrust aside those dangerous hopes for they weakened her.
She couldn't depend on Malachi and Stephen to rescue her. She had insisted on
being an independent woman. Well, then, she'd simply have to engineer her own
escape.

But in God's name, how?

A sudden pang of hunger knotted her belly. The least her
attacker could have provided her was a bit of nourishment. And a privy, she
thought, as a persistent tug at her bladder reminded her of how long she'd been
in captivity. Four, five hours? Had she really allowed her fear to paralyze her
all this time?

With renewed determination she rose and fumbled her way down
the stairs and around the perimeter of the cellar, shuddering with each slimy
contact of her palms with the wall. She scrubbed her hands over her dress and
moved on, inch by inch.

Finally she reached what she judged to be the farthest
corner of the room from the stairs. She paused and lowered herself against the
wall, then lifted her skirts and performed the necessary task, tearing off a
piece of her underskirt to blot away the dampness.

She was not above such primitiveness, she assured herself. Those
suffragettes in Washington had endured far greater indignities.

Armed with a little courage and an empty bladder, she
fumbled her way around the rest of the room in the opposite direction. Here she
encountered several large barrels and probed around their circumference until
she felt a nozzle of some sort. A wine casket?

Further inspection yielded up a small canning jar which she
ascertained from the smell and feel was dusty. She ripped another piece of her
underskirt and wiped out the interior, rather proud of her makeshift drinking
mug.

After sipping the rather good wine, she felt better. The
sugar would stave off her hunger pangs and the liquid was restorative. She
continued her inspection of her prison, around the remainder of the third wall
and back to the presumed rectangle of the basement.

Underneath the stair's alcove, she came upon what felt like
several large trunks, their rusty hinges speaking of years of abandonment. She
tried to no avail to pry open the first one, then lugged it a few inches from
the back so she could reach the second one.

Lighter than its companion, the trunk was easier to pull
closer to the bottom step. That done, she sank down there while she caught her
breath. Perhaps this lighter one would also be easier to open.

After several ripped nails and a good deal of scraping and
grunting, she managed to loosen the top and swung it open, allowing the lid to
clatter to the concrete floor away from her. The noise rang harshly in the
silent confines of the room and Emma jumped at the unexpected jar, her heart
pattering wildly.

In the wake of the resounding clash, another sound
penetrated Emma's consciousness. From behind her she heard the careful, but
distinct jingle of a set of keys knocking against a brass key hole.

#

It took several hours for Sheriff Kern and his deputies to
handle the body and inspect the Machado house. Malachi felt like an unnecessary
appendage, standing idly by while more competent men took charge. Stephen had
ridden back to town, presumably to wire Thomas Gant about a change of news to
the upcoming edition.

Inactivity did not sit well on Malachi. He'd taken several
rounds around the Machado property, inspecting the meager outbuildings and the
arid land. Lucky Aaron had his railroad position because he wasn't much of a
farmer from the looks of it. But Mrs. Henderson, the midwife, had intimated
that Aaron ran off because of a conflict with his father over running the fruit
orchards.

Malachi mulled the disparate pieces of information as a
nagging disturbance jiggled at the back of his brain. What if Emma were
absolutely correct? What if the mess that was the Machado family was none of
Aaron's making? What if, as she'd surmised all along, he was the victim in this
vulgar charade?

His devil's advocate of a mind played the other side for a
brief moment. On the other hand, what if Aaron was the perpetrator of this
unnatural perfidy? What if he seduced the women of the house – his mother, his
sister – what did it matter? A child was born, the spawn of an incestuous
relationship.

Would Joseph, Sr., have known or even cared that the child
wasn't his? Surely the women would've kept this black secret from the sometimes
violent head of their family.

Now he feared they'd never know if Aaron were villain or
victim. But he was murdered and that fact sat uneasy on Malachi's mind. Why?
Who? Was it connected to the circumstances of Joseph's murder or was it
entirely unrelated?

"Seems like too much of a coincidence," Nathan
said as he leaned against the dusty fence beside Malachi.

"Exactly what I was thinking," Malachi answered. "And
if I remember correctly, my friend, you have a particular abhorrence for
coincidental events."

Nathan laughed and clamped his large hand on his friend's
shoulder. "Hell, Malachi, I just don't fuckin' believe in them at all. Let's
head on outta here,
amigo.
Kern will pass on anything important."

#

Damn little bitch! Meddling, interfering, bringing
everything to an impasse, just like that whore Alma did with Joseph. God, how
to get out of this impossible mess?

Fumbling with the keys, hands shaking just the tiniest bit. Pausing,
thinking about how to handle this latest stumbling block. No, not now. Later.

How long before she'd be missed, Miss High and Mighty
with her breeding, her privilege of birth along with the money and reputation?
The headache loomed just enough to spasm the eyes and burn the temples. Damn!

Two obstacles removed already. And now this third one
stashed away in the basement.

What to do about her body?

And all would be lost if
she
balked against the plan
now.

Dangerous to do anything so close to the family home. But
what else could be done? The family was still the victim, best to keep the
focus on that – Joseph's death, Alma's violence. Aaron's suicide so far away,
surely no connection would be made between that act and what happened so long
ago.

Surely not.

#

"Where the hell is she, Franklin?" Stephen's face
was a purple mottle of anger and concern and Malachi feared the man would
succumb to a stroke right there in the pristine sitting room of his elder
brother.

Mrs. Knight stood like a stentorian by the sofa where her
husband sat, military stiff-backed, while Stephen ranted over her husband. Her
expression was like marble, finely worked and as smooth as glass, a cold, hard
façade that was, nonetheless, as beautiful as an indifferent goddess.

"Don't use your vulgar language in my house,"
Franklin Knight snarled in low tones. He leapt to his feet, his chin mere inches
from Stephen's forehead. "We have no idea where Emma has scouted off to. She
never apprises us of her actions."

Defeat deflated Stephen's bluster and he sank into the wing
chair by the window, cradling his head in his hands.

Malachi decided, for the moment, that Franklin Knight's cold
indifference served better than Stephen's outburst. "When was the last
time you spoke with Emma?"

Mary and Franklin Knight exchanged a glance that likely
meant nothing, but Malachi noted the undercurrent of tension between the two. He
tightened his jaw and scowled at them. "Whatever your family's ridiculous
sense of propriety, Emma may be in danger. If you know where she's gone, you
must tell us."

He leaned his body forward, fists clenched in a threat, and
by God, he'd thrash the daylights out of Knight if he refused to help them. But
the man held out his hands in placation.

"Stephen gets so worked up over nothing," Franklin
murmured, glancing over at his brother with a look of disdain. "Emma
stopped by several hours ago – "

"Without advance notice," interrupted his wife.

She ignored the quelling look her husband gave her – at the
interruption of the family patriarch, Malachi thought wryly, wondering again
how Emma had survived with these two creatures as parents.

"Emma asked some prying questions about the Machado
family, as if
we
would know anything about them," Franklin said. "They
may be wealthy, but they do not move in our social circles."

Malachi knew the Machados were considered vulgar –
self-made, new money – having neither the family lineage nor elegant background
of the old-moneyed families like the Knights.

"What questions?" Malachi gritted out, wanting
nothing so much as to strangle the both of them.

Mrs. Franklin waved her hand as if brushing off the hovering
of an annoying fly. "Long-ago happenings. Gossip, if you must know. Disgusting
and mean rumors surrounding the eldest Machado boy running off and abandoning
the family business."

"Emma ought to know we don't pry into other people's
private lives. It's beneath our dignity," Franklin added.

"What did you tell Emma?" Stephen asked, half
rising from his chair.

"Nothing," Mrs. Knight insisted, but under Malachi's
stern gaze, she added, "Hardly anything."

Stephen sank back into the chair, loathing in his eyes. "And
what would that
hardly
anything be, Mary?"

Franklin answered for his wife. "If you must know, Emma
wanted to know what the rumors were at the time of Joseph's birth, the younger
Joseph. Apparently she got it in her head that Mrs. Machado was not the boy's
mother."

"Uncomfortable as the sight was, I saw Frances Machado
quite frequently about town during her confinement and most definitely she was
with child." Mrs. Knight made a little moue that could've been
indisposition or aversion. "There's no question that she is Joseph's
mother. And really, what a provocative and disgusting issue to bring up anyway."