She leaned forward again and rubbed Bunny’s hair. She waited until the child lifted her head. “Remember, we’re just talking, right? I’m not accusing anyone of anything.” Bunny and Jamie both looked so damn young when they nodded that it almost took Emma’s breath away. “Is there anything in Penelope’s or Dennis’s histories that would make Ty jealous or upset? Any other secrets?”

  Bunny shrugged. The blanket slipped from her narrow shoulders, and Leo corrected it.

  “Penelope gave up a baby for adoption.” Jamie whispered the information. “There were rumors it was Reggie’s.”

  “Shut up.” Bunny sounded fierce. “Penelope wasn’t ready.”

  “She confided in you?” Emma asked Bunny, keeping her voice low and calm.

  Bunny nodded meekly but kept her lips pressed tight together, as if to stop any other secrets from slipping out.

  “How about Dennis?” Leo stared at Jamie with an intensity Emma could feel like white-hot waves.

  “I don’t know. Dennis was a drunk. He wasn’t related to Reggie or anyone I know. His family lives in Poughkeepsie. He hasn’t seen them for years.”

  The penny dropped for Emma. “He abandoned his family.” Her gut twisted. Ty fit. He had motives for everyone except Betty.

  Bunny’s big green eyes shone with new tears waiting to be shed, but she appeared about as stable as any eleven-year-old facing tragedy. More so, maybe.

  Staring into the girl’s eyes, Emma thought again about Ty’s motives. Betty was his sister’s mom, but she wasn’t married to or living with the girl’s biological father. The image of the Weaver family came to Emma, and she saw it marred with a lie that had, until now, been kept quiet and safe.

  Until Ty Belloise had discovered it.

  “Bunny, do you have any idea where Ty would go if he was upset?” Emma watched her, searching for some sign of another kept secret. Nothing but open concern showed in her tense frame.

  Leo gave another option. “Or where he might’ve gone if he didn’t want to be with the crowd in the tent? Did he have a place like you have here in Jamie’s trailer? Somewhere Ty would go if he wanted to be by himself?”

  The girl bit her lip. Her eyes sought out Jamie’s, but the teen seemed too shell-shocked to notice. She shifted in her seat and wrapped one little hand over Leo’s shoulder, pressing down in a way as to suggest she wanted to appear adult for this conversation.

  Emma would have laughed if the situation hadn’t been so heartbreaking.

  “Agent Leo, you have to promise you won’t hurt Ty.” She looked over and found Emma’s gaze, taking her other arm from around her knees to point at Emma. “You, too, Agent Emma.”

  Emma couldn’t make promises, but she offered what she could. “I promise we’ll do our best not to hurt Ty. We want to help him and make sure everyone at the circus stays safe from here on out.”

  The girl wilted.

  For a moment, Emma thought she’d press her for a more definite promise, but Bunny pulled her hand away from Leo’s shoulder and wrapped her arms around her raised knees once again. “Sometimes, me and Ty go to the costume trailer when there’s lots of people everywhere. It’s quiet there. Ty lets me put clown makeup on him there sometimes too. I can take you.”

  Across the table from her, Jamie jerked back in the bench seat and knocked his head into the wall with a hollow thud. His eyes were clenched shut, his fists tight in front of him and showing white knuckles.

  “Just try not to hurt him,” he whispered.

  33

  Calliope huddled in the corner of the costume trailer, cushioned by a pile of costumes that’d been set aside for mending or repurposing. Ty had led her to the nest and told her to relax while he took care of a few things for them, and she’d agreed.

  There was something oddly comforting about the darkened costume trailer. The sound of Ty rummaging around on the other side of the space let her know she wasn’t alone.

  How many times had she come into this very same storage trailer with Betty, examining old costumes and brainstorming new ones as they talked over makeup effects?

  I can’t believe she’s gone. Not Betty.

  She pulled a quiltlike cape from nearby and wrapped herself in it, hoping to combat the shivers shooting through her nerves. Goose bumps rose on her skin. From grief, from the cold, from anxiety…whatever the cause, she’d been unable to stop shuddering since leaving her own camper.

  Would the Feds tear her home apart, searching for something to label her a murderer? They’d speak to everyone and discover her relationship with Reggie. Would that be enough to arrest her? Had Reggie done these horrible things? And would Ty still want to be with her, knowing her secret, if Reggie was, in fact, their killer?

  Shaking off the questions, Calliope tried to peer toward the other side of the trailer. What was keeping Ty? The racks of costumes and discarded boxes of props prevented her from seeing anything other than his shadow. All the electrical lanterns hung on the other end of the trailer, making his shadow stretch and bend unnaturally.

  “What are you doing, babe? I need you. Let’s just get some sleep, okay?”

  Part of her wanted to add that the situation would look better in the morning, but she didn’t believe that. Not anymore. How was it possible to be optimistic when someone as sweet as Betty had been killed? Who would’ve thought to kill her?

  Ty’s voice interrupted her cycling thoughts, but it was muffled by the piles of material. He didn’t sound like himself. “Come here.”

  She blinked. He sounded so serious…so not like Ty, who’d been so comforting on the walk over.

  Climbing to her feet, Calliope wrapped the thick fabric of the cape tighter around her body. She moved around the racks, sliding silently past the trailer’s main door as she did.

  A piece of fabric hung across the door—to keep light from leaking out and alerting the agents to their presence, Ty had told her. She was careful not to move the material.

  The door’s window remained carefully covered over.

  Ty stood with his back to her, lit by the electric lanterns in the cluttered space.

  That was when Calliope came to a sudden stop.

  Against the back wall of the trailer, he’d set up the giant wheel they used for their act. In what seemed like a distant past, they would set the wheel, lit by fairy lights, in the center of the big ruby tent. Calliope would’ve been in a skimpy, glamorous costume, a target for Ty’s knives. The audience would shriek and ooh and aah.

  Seemed like a world away now.

  Without its lights flashing, the throwing wheel appeared sad and dated. Painted like a blue-and-white bull’s-eye, the set piece normally made her smile.

  Not today. The wheel was utterly out of place among the colorful costumes racked in the surrounding space. Yet…it looked dangerous, lit by the dim lanterns Ty had strung up.

  “Ty…what’s that doing here? It’s supposed to be in storage right now.”

  Turning around, Ty smiled. But the way his lips pulled back over his teeth, his expression amounted more to a threatening sneer.

  “Ty?”

  “Get over here. Against the wheel.”

  His voice was dark, like nothing she’d heard from him before, but she walked forward before she thought to stop.

  Their act—and her safety—depended on her following his every command without question or delay. They’d perfected their trust and responses to each other over the years. She obeyed him naturally, without thinking.

  Until she made it to within a foot of him and saw his knives were laid out on a stand beside him. The metal gleamed wickedly in the lantern light.

  She gulped, the cape falling from her numb hands as she searched for words.

  “Against the wheel, Calliope. Now.”

  Trying to understand, she stumbled on the dropped fabric and fell to the ground. Her hip hit the floor, sending little shocks of pain down her leg.

  Ty had to be joking—he had to be—but as he loomed over her, the rage in his eyes made her cry out loud.

  “Ty…babe, what are you doing?”

  She pulled herself to her knees, holding her hands out between them.

  This wasn’t her Ty. This wasn’t right.

  He stepped closer, gesturing with a throwing knife already in his hand. “Against the wheel.”

  Ty’s words were a threat, dark and dangerous.

  Her heart pounded hard, and she realized she didn’t even feel cold anymore. Just scared.

  She rose and stepped back to keep space between them.

  The move sent her closer to the bull’s-eye.

  “Babe, I don’t want to practice right now. There’s too much going on.”

  “This isn’t practice.” Ty lifted his hand and flourished the knife. He danced the blade along his arm, performing for her as he would have in the ring, but without any expression on his face. “You get against the wheel, Calliope, just like you do for the shows, or I’ll gut you where you stand.”

  She sought to find any joke in Ty’s words, but he only stood there glaring at her. She’d never been afraid of Ty’s knives before now.

  Never once had his aim gone astray. She’d never been nicked, let alone truly hurt.

  But now? Now she could so easily imagine one of those knives lodging deep into her breast, her stomach, her leg, her arm…her heart and every other organ.

  A sudden image of the very knife he held lodging itself in her eye caught her breath in her lungs. Calliope whimpered.

  I sound more like a cat than myself. I’m so afraid.

  And he’s going to kill me anyway, no matter how pitiful I sound.

  He’s really going to kill me.

  Ty gestured again with the knife, and she saw the threat.

  Turning slowly, she walked up to what the circus advertised as the Wheel of Death. Or, for variety, the Bull’s-Eye of Blood or the Circle of Screams.

  Sometimes, she dressed like an audience member and came from the crowd. They’d play down the fright of the act until she was actually attached to the thing. Other times, she came out in glamour and glitz as Ty’s assistant, and they upped the fear as high as they could.

  She didn’t need any of Reggie’s theatrics to make her feel like a shaking target today.

  Maybe if I play along, he’ll come back to himself. Maybe this is all a trick, a sick test, and if I just play along, we’ll both laugh about this stupid prank and go to sleep.

  If I just play along.

  Turning her back to the wheel, Calliope forced herself to breathe deeply and spread her arms and legs, just as she would have for a show. She willed every positive emotion she’d ever felt for Ty to glow from her face and hide her fear.

  “Babe…Ty…you wouldn’t really hurt me? You love me, right? I know you do?” She hated the questions.

  Ty stepped up to her. Calliope didn’t flinch. His free hand petted her hair. “I do love you. I just want to practice.”

  He tucked the knife between his teeth. She knew from experience he had mad skills with the knife, so there was no point in trying to run. He began to attach her to the wheel.

  He caught each of her wrists in the upper leather cuffs. She’d always thought of the restraints as a way to increase the terror for the crowd. Tonight, she thought of them as imprisonment. When he bent to attach her ankles to the lower cuffs, she tugged on her wrists.

  The leather was pulled and latched tighter than ever. There was no give at all, and by the time Ty had backed away from her to examine his handiwork, her fingertips were numb.

  She forced a gentle smile to her lips. “Just practice, then, babe? That’s all? You know I love you?”

  The laugh, his response, made her start trying to wrestle free from the cuffs. Then, he answered her in the mocking voice he used when talking about dumb marks at the game booths.

  “Calliope. Lovely, sweet, naive, sexy Calliope. I do love you.” He stood inches from her and ran the knife blade against the V-neck of her sweater, making her shiver. “But so does Reggie, and that man needs to suffer.” Her breath hitched in her throat. “I saw you, you know. I heard you and him together. I do love you, Calliope, but you’re a disgusting slut. Giving yourself to that old man? How could you?”

  Calliope’s breath came faster, feeling like thin threads in her throat. They should’ve been more careful, but she always found herself caught up in the moments. In Reggie. Who didn’t? “Ty, babe—”

  “Shut up.”

  He walked backward, his gaze on her until his back touched the other wall of the trailer. Standing near the little table of knives, he straightened into his throwing stance.

  “I’m taking everything away from that son of a bitch. His circus. His performers. His sweet little family. I’m going to take it all from him piece by piece. By your own choosing, you are a very valuable piece.”

  Calliope pulled at the cuffs holding her wrists, unable to look at Ty anymore. He’d lost his mind. The darkness in his face, the rage in his glowing green eyes…she’d never seen anything like it.

  Think!

  She met his gaze again. “I love you, Ty.” She knew he wouldn’t believe her. Her hands were tingling from loss of blood flow. She sounded as terrified and weak as she felt.

  “You love me, and you betrayed me for that old, sick asshole?”

  Tears blurred Calliope’s vision, coming so fast she couldn’t focus on the man who thought he was her boyfriend. “It’s not what you think, Ty. It’s not, I promise.”

  Ty laughed at her. He raised his arms to each side of himself in a Y and mimicked her. “It’s not what you think, Ty.” He dropped his arms. “It’s exactly what I think, Calliope. And you’re a bad fucking liar. Now, you do exactly what I tell you. Be a good girl and hold very still.”

  Ty raised his first knife, aimed at the wheel—at her—and she screamed as he hurled the blade.

  34

  Calliope was nearly hyperventilating, but I couldn’t quite find it in myself to care.

  Against the blue-and-white bull’s-eye, every bit of this evil woman shivered like a baby chick trying to break out of a cement egg.

  There was no going anywhere for her.

  My second knife impaled less than an inch from her left ear. The blade cut through her loose blond hair. I’d been throwing knives for a long time.

  “All you’re doing is hurting yourself.” I twirled my third knife, wondering if she was even listening. Spots of blood speckled the paint around her wrists from the bindings. My first throw had just nicked her shoulder, but in all her struggling against the leather, she was doing the most damage to herself. At least, for now.

  Hope she doesn’t wriggle around too much more.

  She might accidentally place herself in the way of a knife.

  “You made your bed quite a few times with Reggie, seems to me. I’m just helping you lie in it, babe.”

  Another little shriek tore its way out of her throat, but she was breathing too hard to give a good yell.

  Had she been breathing this hard with Reggie?

  She hadn’t gotten this worked up when I first told her I loved her…I knew that.

  “You make noise like that again, sweetheart, and this next knife is going straight into your throat. Try to get ahold of yourself, all right?”

  A high-pitched whimper answered me. Bitch sounded more like a dog in heat than the girl I’d been messing around with all these months.

  I let another knife fly. It thunked right between her legs. Right close to what I figured was Reggie’s favorite part of her.

  Somehow, though, I hadn’t been able to make myself kill her yet. Taunting her was just so much more satisfying than I thought it would be.

  “Just let me go, Ty, please.” As if the words had stripped her of all her strength, Calliope hung limp against the board.

  I almost wanted her to start fighting again. Pulling at those cuffs like she gave a shit that her life was ending.

  Our lives, for that matter.

  Perhaps that was the real reason I was taking my time. Once Calliope was dead, I’d be caught, and the grand finale would be over. I wanted the sensation to linger a little longer.

  I wondered if I’d admire her more if she kept fighting.

  She appeared pitiful the way she was now, but still…

  “I do love you, Calliope.”

  Hope bloomed in her eyes. “I won’t tell anyone, Ty. Just let me go.”

  Seriously?

  I rolled my eyes like my little sister would have. Bunny didn’t buy into ridiculousness either. Very practical, that kid.

  A fourth knife swirled through the air, snagging a thread on Calliope’s sweater, sinking in just a handful of inches left of her traitorous heart. She probably felt the wind on that one.

  Turning away, I selected my next knife.

  The only sound she made was a heavy exhale.

  I tried to focus on myself and forget her for a moment. This shouldn’t have been so hard. I knew what I had to do. I turned back, nodding at her, and the girl’s blue eyes nearly popped out of her head. Holding back a laugh, I grinned as I twirled my knife in one hand.

  “Reggie O’Rourke is my father.”

  Calliope’s mouth dropped. She looked like a fish mounted to a wall.

  I stepped closer, making a show of dancing the knife along my bicep. “And the reason you didn’t know that is because dear ole Daddy never laid claim to me, even though I grew up in his damn circus like an orphan. Little Orphan Andy, that’s me. Reggie drove my mother away, then ignored me like I wasn’t the innocent in all of it.”

  I stepped closer and played my blade through Calliope’s curls. Even matted down from sweat and tears, they were kind of pretty. Not as pretty as Mom’s were, though.

  “You should’ve seen my mom. She was beautiful. Even prettier than you, and you are so pretty. I’ve never lied about that.” I cut off a few more curls and, leaning in to smell her perfume, caught a trace of the orange blossom she favored. “Mom was Reggie’s assistant. Until the asshole knocked her up and told her she wasn’t pretty enough for the job anymore.”