“Yeah, someone mentioned that this morning when I was hired,” Marco said quietly. “Not that you’d prevented their hiring someone on a wanted list, but that you normally help with hires,” he explained, and then added, “But you weren’t there.”
It was a question whether he couched it as one or not. As they reached the motorcycle Divine merely said, “I had personal business to attend to and didn’t get back to the carnival until just before opening.”
Marco wasn’t rude enough to ask outright what that business was and remained silent as Divine unlocked the helmets and handed him one. She donned the other, then tucked her skirt up, mounted the motorcycle, and started it. This time she didn’t have to tell him to get on. She’d barely got the engine started before Marco was sliding onto the seat behind her, his hands slipping around her waist.
“I could learn to like this,” he said by her ear, speaking loudly to be heard over the engine.
Divine didn’t comment, but simply revved the engine and headed for the carnival grounds. This trip had been a complete and utter bust. Not only had she not escaped his presence, but she didn’t know much more about him than she had before. In fact, he’d learned more about her than the other way around. Not that he’d learned much either. At least she hoped he hadn’t, and wondered if Marco could read her.
Divine definitely hoped he could not read her, and she was pretty sure he couldn’t. Surely if he’d read who she was, he’d have said or done something by now? She fretted over that for the rest of the ride. By the time they reached the carnival grounds, she was eager to get away from the man and get a chance to think. Divine found it hard to concentrate with his hands on her and his body pressing up against hers. She supposed she just wasn’t used to a lot of physical contact. It was distracting.
Divine steered the motorcycle up the empty midway, but didn’t head for her RV, instead, turning off the midway between the Ferris wheel and one of the game stalls so that she could ride around to the opposite end of the back lot from her RV. It was where the bunkhouses were and where she presumed Marco was staying if he didn’t have someplace in town.
She brought the motorcycle to a halt by the first of the bunkhouses and braced her feet on the ground on either side of the motorcycle to keep it upright, but left the motor running as she waited for Marco to get off. After a slight hesitation, he did, and relief immediately rushed through her. When he then moved up beside her and said something she couldn’t hear, Divine decided it was probably thanks for the ride, or at least she wanted it to be. Eager to be off, she simply nodded and then sent the motorcycle shooting forward, driving along the outside of the back lot to reach her RV. Once there she dropped the kickstand and removed her helmet as she got off the motorcycle.
She was about to press the button to open the side panel to put the bike away when she heard a dull thud. It sounded like it came from inside her RV. Pausing, Divine listened briefly and heard a clinking sound. She set her helmet on the seat of her motorcycle and moved around to the door. She mounted the two steps, and slipped inside on silent feet.
There was no one in the curtained-off area where she saw clients. Divine eased across the floor, reached for the curtain, and tugged it to the side enough to peer through, but there was no one in the lounge and kitchenette area either. She wasn’t terribly surprised. The panel where she kept her motorcycle was off the bedroom. Letting her breath out slowly, she moved through the lounge, reached for the accordion door to the bedroom, but paused as a rustle sounded behind her. Before she could turn, pain exploded inside her head and then the lights went out.
Four
Marcus shifted sideways to avoid a group of the younger carnies on their way to the bunkhouses. They’d obviously been celebrating the end of the first day in a new town. Every last one seemed to be three sheets to the wind. It hadn’t been that long since closing, though, so they must have been hammering the drinks back. But then, it wasn’t like they had hours to relax. It had been midnight when they closed, and morning came early.
With that last thought in mind, Marcus picked up speed as he headed for Divine’s RV. Not only had the woman not answered him when he’d got off the motorcycle and asked if she was going back to Madge’s, but she’d been in such a rush to get away from him, she’d left without taking back her helmet. Which was rather depressing when he thought of it, because while she appeared eager to escape his company, his feelings were the exact opposite. Marcus had enjoyed their outing to the restaurant, short as it had been. He’d enjoyed verbally sparring with her, but even more, he’d enjoyed the ride to the restaurant and back, having his hands on her, his chest pressing against her back. It had been an invigorating experience.
“Hey, Marco!”
Turning his head, he peered silently at the man approaching. As tall as he, and nearly as wide, Chapman was the owner of the Tilt-A-Whirl Marcus had helped set up on being hired that day, as well as the corn dog stand he’d then run for the rest of the day with Kevin. Technically, Chapman was his boss, although Bob Hoskins, the carnival owner, had actually done the hiring. Marcus had thought it a little strange that Hoskins would insist on doing the hiring for everyone, even the independent ride owners. At least he had until he’d read the man’s mind. It seemed a local they’d hired to work the carnival in one of the towns some three years back had turned out to like children a little too much. He’d lured a little girl away from the midway while her mother was distracted and had led her to the bunks on the back lot. It was usually abandoned during the day. Fortunately, that day a full-time carnie had slid back to his own bunk on his break to grab something and had spotted the man ushering the little girl into one of the bunks. He’d intervened.
Unfortunately, he hadn’t got her back to the midway before the mother had noticed the girl missing and raised a fuss. The police had been called, and while it was a carnie who rescued the little girl and beat up the local temp in the process, the carnival had taken the heat. It made the headlines as “Carnival Worker Kidnaps Local Child” not “Local Hired as a Temp by the Carnival Kidnaps Local Child.”
Apparently, attendance had dropped right off after that, and Bob Hoskins and his wife, Madge, had nearly gone broke before the business had slowly bounced back. It was then that Bob Hoskins had insisted that from now on he would take over all hiring. It was also shortly after that that Madame Divine had joined their troop and offered her help in vetting the people applying. She had apparently weeded out some bad full-time carnies on joining the show, warning Bob and Madge that this one was up to no good, or that one was stealing from then. But she’d also begun sitting in on all the interviews and Bob Hoskins made his decisions based on her opinion.
At least she’d done so until that morning. According to Bob’s thoughts, personal business had taken her away shortly after their arriving at the carnival grounds at 4 A.M. She’d said she expected to be back by the time Bob started interviewing, but she wasn’t. Bob had reluctantly started interviewing, thinking he’d weed out the worst and most obvious “don’t hires,” and ask the others to come back for a second interview when Divine did return.
At least that had been his intention. However, Marcus hadn’t wanted the woman he suspected was Basha Argeneau reading his thoughts and knowing he was there to find out if she was the wanted rogue. So he’d slipped into the man’s mind, put the rebellious thought that he didn’t need her help, he’d worked in the business for years, he knew good people from bad. After all, he hadn’t hired the man who had kidnapped that girl, he could make up his own mind . . . at least in Marcus’s case.