Frail Blood (29 page)

Aaron had told Emma that he confessed everything to Joseph,
every detail about his life at the hands of a sickly twisted mother, including
the birth of Joseph, and Aaron's abandonment of him. Had he also told his
father? Had Joseph, Sr., been the person to take advantage of the discarded
weapon the night Alma Bentley shot Joe?

And what role did Phoebe play in this appalling scenario?
Had she killed her mother? Or was the father also to blame for that obscenity?

"This one's caused me a lot of trouble," Machado
grunted, planting another swift kick to her side.

Emma bit her lip so hard she tasted blood, but kept her eyes
closed and prayed he'd leave her alone for the moment.

Thankfully he left her there and returned to the crude eating
area which held a battered table and two benches on either side. This must have
been the farm workers' housing, although it looked deserted now.

She heard their voices rising louder from the other room as
she raised her head to look around, searching for a weapon of some kind,
anything that would enable her escape.

Escape!
She bit back an hysterical sob. Every muscle
in her body ached with the battering it'd taken, her jaw felt unhinged, likely
broken, and her nails, palms, and knees were torn and bloody. Even if she
managed to escape this room, she wouldn't be able to outrun her crazed guards
in her condition.

Emma had no doubt that both father and daughter hovered at
the brink of madness and she'd be their next victim.

Chapter 30

"And thus I clothe my naked villainy with odd old
ends stol'n out of holy writ, and seem a saint, when most I play the devil "
–
King Richard III

The boy Jacob continued to insist that Emma and Miss Phoebe
had gone there – he pointed in the general direction of the orchard in back of
the rose garden. Finally, Malachi dragged him by the arm, and he and Stephen
walked the boy through the garden and into the orchard.

"Where?" Malachi held back the scream that
threatened to leap from his throat like a rabid dog attacking an innocent.

"T – th – there," the boy stuttered.

"Show us," Stephen commanded.

Malachi shoved the boy from behind and he took off running
as fast as he could, zigzagging through the neat rows of peach trees, now stark
and bare during the winter season. Malachi sprinted after him, easily gaining
until they burst through the grove some half mile farther. Stephen panted some
hundreds of yards behind him.

In the distance Malachi saw it – a broken-down, untended
shack, probably housing for the migrant workers that came up from Mexico during
the harvest to pick the apricots and peaches. An air of desertion and
desolation lay around the building. Likely it hadn't been used in years.

He turned the boy around and pushed him back to the safety
of the trees. "Run!" he whispered. "Go back to the Machado
mansion and ride a horse into town. Get Sheriff Butler."

The boy's eyes turned wide as saucers and he froze, his face
pale, his bottom lip quivering.

Malachi repeated his instructions."Go! Now!" he
urged.

The boy took off into the trees just as Stephen huffed up,
pistol in his hand. "Are you armed, Stephen?"

"Goddamn right I am." Emma's uncle waved a weapon
in his hand, glowering like Roosevelt charging up San Juan.

"Good." Malachi set his lips in a hard, determined
line. "Let's go then."

And pray God they weren't too late.

#

Hard as Emma looked, she found no piece of broken furniture
or object from which she might fashion a weapon. The voices in the other room
faded to low murmurs even as she strained to hear what they planned to do with
her now.

Suddenly silence descended. Father and daughter had ceased
their conspiring, their voices no longer wafted from the other room like angry
wasps, and the house took on the settled air of inaction. Had they left her
here alone? Why would they prolong her death and risk being found out?

Death, she had no doubt, was what they intended for her even
though she wasn't sure why they'd attacked her without provocation. Aaron
Machado must have alerted them to her visit and what he'd confessed. They must
see her as another chance that their sordid family history would come to light.

She lay silently, thinking of her options, trying to ignore
the pain that surged through her side – likely a broken rib – and ease the
bruised muscles where Machado had dumped her on the floor. In her condition
there was no way she could outrun or overpower the two of them, but she
could
rely on her wits.

She would not succumb to the designs of these filthy beasts.
Struggling into a sitting position, she gasped as a sharp pain jolted through
her side – definitely a broken rib.

Without warning Phoebe Machado appeared in the doorway, a
ghostly specter with her black hair straggling wildly from its neat bun, her
eyes glittering with manic emotion. Her pale features were carved in stone and
her voice implacable when she spoke.

"You were foolish to visit Aaron, Emma. And even more
foolish to come to our house. Why couldn't you leave well enough alone?"

Emma ignored the question and breathed shallowly to ease the
pain in her side. "Where has your father gone?"

Phoebe glanced over her shoulder. "To dig a grave."

Her toneless and casual words about the inevitability of
Emma's death forged an icy stream of panic down Emma's spine. She must keep the
woman talking, buy time, and try to reach the humanity that might still exist
inside her deteriorating mind. The kindness that prompted her to care for and
love her brother.

"Why is your father planning to kill me?" Emma
braced her back against the wall, each breath like a vise ripping through her
battered side.

Phoebe's dead voice rivaled her dead eyes. "Because you
know about Joseph."

"Joseph is dead, Phoebe. What can any of that matter
now?"

The woman's face twisted into an ugly caricature of her
father's florid features. "His reputation must be protected!"

Emma softened her voice as if speaking to a skittish mare. "But
what of you, Phoebe? What of your reputation if you are caught – as you surely
must be – for this heinous act?"

Phoebe's bottom lip trembled like a chastened child. "Papa
said ... "

Emma reached a hand behind her, almost gasping aloud at the
agonizing twist to her torso as she attempted to gain a finger hold on the
window sill behind her. "What of Aaron? I'm not the only one who could
make public your family secret."

"Oh, no, Papa took care of that. He went to Bakersfield
and ... Aaron won't be causing any more trouble." She frowned from some
deranged part of her brain. "Don't you think Aaron's caused enough
trouble?"

My God, what had Mr. Machado done to Aaron? "What of
your mother culpability? Surely, she's to blame as much as Aaron."

"Oh, yes! Dear mama," she spat out the words. "Well,
she's paid too." The woman giggled like a child and clapped her hand over
her mouth. She lowered her voice and whispered, "Mama's downstairs, you
know."

Even though Emma had suspected as much, the thought of Mrs.
Machado's death at the hands of her own family chilled her to the marrow. "What
your mother did was shameful, Phoebe, but you are to be commended for taking
care of your baby brother."

"Yes, but Joseph's dead now too." Her face took on
a hard, mean cast, the pupils dilated, brows knitted to black slashes of anger.
"The
bitch
killed him."

Emma's fingers reached the ledge of the window. She tried to
lever herself up. "It's true that Alma shot Joseph, Phoebe, but that was
not the shot that killed him."

"I know that, goose." Phoebe's face darkened with
contempt. "Mama killed him."

What?
Phoebe seemed convinced that her mother had
fired the fatal shot. "Did you see your mama shoot Joseph?"

Phoebe reached into the kitchen area, pulled a chair into
the room, and sat down heavily. For a moment Emma thought she wouldn't answer
as she appeared to ponder the question as if reaching an important decision.

"No, I was at Group," Phoebe said slowly.

"Who told you then?"

"Papa. He came home early from his poker game and found
Mama standing over Joseph's body." She pulled a strand of hair from her
shoulder and examined it with interest. "He said she finally snapped and
killed the hideous abnormality. That's what
she
called Joseph –
a
hideous abnormality."

Emma had no doubt that Mr. Machado had woven a complicated
lie for his daughter. But she was certain if Mrs. Machado had wanted Joseph
dead, she would've killed him years ago. "I find it hard to believe your
mother waited so many years to do Joseph harm."

Uncertainty flitted across Phoebe's features, but then she
merely shrugged and stared at Emma with a blank look. Emma had finally managed
to pull herself nearly upright and propped herself against the window sash, but
Phoebe hardly appeared to notice.

Emma tried another tactic, keeping her voice low and
confidential. "Is your father violent?"

She knew by the rapid blinking of Phoebe's eyes and the
twist of her mouth that the truth lay there – in Mr. Machado's propensity for
violence. "Does he hurt you, Phoebe?"

No answer.

"What happened when your father discovered who Joseph's
father really is?"

Dead quiet in the nearly-empty room.

"Did he confront your mother? Threaten Aaron?"

Phoebe opened her mouth to speak when without warning the
malevolent form of Mr. Machado appeared behind her in the doorway. She jumped
and shrank back against the door jamb, knocking the chair over, while Machado
glared at Emma.

"What the fuck are you doing?" As the question
seemed to be addressed to both women, Emma remained silent.

"Papa, I – "

"Jesus Christ, girl, are you a blithering idiot?" Machado
shoved at his daughter and advanced toward Emma.

Now she could see that he held a heavy shovel in one hand
and a small pistol in the other. "Ask him Phoebe," Emma cried around
Machado's bulk. "Ask your father what really happened the night Joseph
died."

"What the – ?" Machado's face turned the livid
purple of an overripe eggplant.

"Papa, what's she talking about?" Phoebe asked.

"Shut your yap, girl," Machado growled, advancing
toward Emma with murderous intent.

Emma scuttled sideways and spoke rapidly. "Your mother
took a sleeping potion the night Joseph died, Phoebe. That's why she didn't
attend Group with you. Laudanum. The doctor has a record of the purchase."

She spoke rapidly, afraid that Machado would permanently
silence her at any moment. "She couldn't have shot Joseph. She was drugged
too heavily."

"Laudanum?" Phoebe repeated the single word as if
her muddled mind couldn't grasp the word's meaning.

"Be quiet, Phoebe. This bitch is trying to save
herself, that's all," the father snarled.

"Ask him, Phoebe," Emma ordered. "When your
mother discovered Joseph's body that night, she could barely stand. She was so
addled that she sat there all night with his body, not moving, doing nothing."

"Papa?" Phoebe asked, her voice a pitiful whine.

Emma lunged away from the window and circled round Phoebe as
fast as her injuries would allow.

"Goddamn you," shouted Machado, grabbing for Emma's
wrist as she passed by. But the woman's bulk blocked Machado's reach.

"Step aside, Phoebe. We have to take care of this
business right away," her father cajoled. "The authorities will come
soon. We can talk about Joseph later."

Emma felt the rigidity of Phoebe's back and shoulders, the
spread of her feet, planted like twin oak trees to confront her father. She'd
likely never gone contrary to his wishes in her life.

"Tell me
now,
Papa."

As she advanced several steps toward Machado, Phoebe
appeared deadly calm, like the eye of a hurricane, but Emma knew at any moment
the whole situation could whirl them away into the eyewall's violent edges. For
an interminable length of time, the three of them froze in a grotesque tableau
of hatred, fear, and passion.

Then Emma shoved with all her might at Phoebe's broad back. The
woman tumbled into her father and both of them crashed to the floor in a
torrent of fumbling and curses, their limbs tangling into a Gordian knot.

Emma limped from the room as fast as her wounds would allow.
She tripped on the torn linoleum, leapt to her feet, and felt a wave of nausea
pass over her. Biting back a groan as the pain pummeled her side, she hobbled
through the open door into a wide expanse of trees and brush a hundred yards
ahead of her.

Tears streamed down her face. Even uninjured, she'd never
outrun him, but handicapped as she was, she'd need to hide. Machado would guess
she'd head for the protection of the trees, so instead she turned left and
crouched low as she made her way around the ramshackle hut.

After a moment she heard the thundering footsteps of Machado
clambering down the several wooden steps from the house. Silence for a moment. Where
would he go?

Perspiration soaked the bodice of her dress, grime smeared
her hands and knees, and her hair hung in lank untidiness in her eyes and down
her sticky neck. When she heard him move away from her toward the tree line,
she edged around the building, careful not to dislodge any stones.

At the front corner of the building, she noticed a root
cellar. Did she dare hide there and risk hemming herself in with no way out? Would
he think to search it when he couldn't find her in the orchard?

She eased the cellar door up carefully. Leaves and broken
branches cluttered the top and dirt around it. Dangling with spider webs, the
opening appeared unused for some time.

Emma looked frantically around her. How to throw Machado off
her trail? The wind had heightened in the last few minutes, and dust eddies and
leaves whirled around her. She dragged the branches closer and obscured her
footprints as best she could, leaving the areas disturbed as little as possible.

Laying them aside, she hiked up her skirts and stepped into
the cellar's dungeon-like maw. She eased the door down over her head, holding a
single branch in her right hand. As she descended the wooden steps, she scraped
it one step at a time across the prints her boots made in the dirt.

At the bottom, she searched the dirt-floored cellar for a
weapon of some kind. There were glass mason jars stacked directly to the right
and several were empty. She found a sturdy wooden beam and liked the heft of it
in her hand.

Armed with her two weapons she moved to the farthest corner
of the cellar. There she huddled amid the musty smell of potatoes and turnips,
waiting for Malachi to rescue her.

Or for Machado to find her and kill her.

#

"You take the right side of the house and I'll go left,"
Malachi instructed. "Be careful." He placed a reassuring hand on
Stephen's shoulder, as much to comfort himself as the older man. "Machado's
a desperate man."

Stephen nodded one final time as he disappeared to the left,
and then Malachi continued around to the rear of the dwelling. He paused and listened
intently. Nothing. Calm resolve settled over him as he thrust images of Emma at
the hands of a mad killer from his mind. He couldn't afford to let his terror
for her safety jeopardize his judgment.