Page 43 of Carnival’s Playground

"And the high-wire anchors in the main tent?" I press, looking up into his calm, steady gray eyes.

"Checked and double-checked," he reassures me, his large hand coming up to rest warm and heavy against the small of my back. "Marcy ran her pre-show line tests an hour ago. Tension is dead-on eighty foot-pounds, and the safety catches are locked down tight."

Deputy Renn walks past the maze entrance with two armed, uniformed county deputies trailing two paces behind her. Her tactical radio crackles with low, continuous chatter from the road units patrolling the county highway. "Any word from the raid on the quarry, Deputy?" I probe, stepping out from beneath the canvas flap.

Renn pauses, shaking her head with a grim scowl. "The quarry trailer was abandoned when our units breached the door. The coffee pot was cold, but we found fresh tire tracks matching the pickup from the surveillance video. He cleared out his gear sometime last night."

"Which means the son of a bitch is already on the move," Carnival analyzes, his posture shifting into that lethal, predatory alertness that makes my pulse jump.

"He's somewhere nearby," Renn confirms. "Sheriff Caffey has four marked cruisers circling the five-mile perimeter grid, and I've got deputies posted at every public entrance, the backstage loading dock, and the rear generator pens. If Grady Fenn steps one foot onto this sawdust tonight, we'll have him in iron before he can blink."

"Let's hope so," I murmur, watching Renn march toward the main ticket booths. My throat's tight, and I have to swallow twice before I can breathe right. Carnival and I move through the narrow backstage corridor behind the big top, our boots kicking up fresh sawdust. The air back here is warm, smelling of stage makeup, velvet curtains, damp wool, and the faint metallic tang of the lighting grids. Performers are warming up in the shadows, jugglers tossing glowing clubs, acrobats stretching their hamstrings, their faces tight and pale with the knowledge that a saboteur is hunting the lot. Marcy stands near the wardrobe rack, adjusting the glittering sequins along the sleeve of her crimson aerial costume. Her hands shake slightly as she works the fabric. "How are you feeling, Marcy?" I ask, stepping up to the rack.

"Slightly terrified, mostly furious," Marcy confesses, offering a tight, defiant smile as she pulls her athletic wrist tape tight. "If that bastard Grady thinks he's going to scare me off my own trapeze, he's got another thing coming. The show must go on, right?"

"Damn right it does," Carnival agrees, nodding with deep respect. "And Avery and I will be standing right by the main winch controls the entire time you're in the air. Nobody touches your lines tonight."

"Thanks, Wyatt," Marcy says, her shoulders visibly dropping half an inch as she heads toward the green room.

We move from the backstage corridor out into the cavernous expanse of the main performance arena. The massive red-and-white canvas canopy stretches eighty feet above our heads, the empty wooden bleachers rising into the dim shadows. We systematically inspect the center ring, the pneumatic trapdoor mechanisms, the secondary curtain pulleys, and the overhead sound arrays. Everything tests green. "This is the part of the night that makes me want to scream," I confess, running my gloved hand over the smooth plywood rim of the center ring.

"Which part?" Carnival asks, leaning against the ring master's podium.

"The quiet before the rush," I explain, looking around the empty arena. My chest feels tight, like I can't quite get enough air. "When every single bolt is tight, every wire is hot, and you're just standing in the dark waiting for the trap to spring."

"Waiting is always the hardest part of a fight," he agrees, stepping up behind me until his chest presses gently against my back, his warmth shielding me from the draft. "Once the chaos starts, your training takes over. You just react."

"Let's hope our reactions are fast enough tonight," I whisper.

"They will be," he promises, his lips grazing the sensitive skin below my ear, sending a delicious shiver straight down my spine.

We move to the outer perimeter of the big top tent to conduct the final check on the emergency egress lighting. A row of red, low-voltage exit signs is mounted every thirty feet along the lower canvas rim, each illuminated panel reading exit in soft crimson lettering to guide the audience in the event of a sudden power failure. We walk the line, checking the battery backups and conduit connections. "Hold up, Wyatt," I command, stopping dead near the far northwest corner of the tent.

"What do you have?" he asks, stepping up beside me.

"Look at that corner fixture," I point out, shining my flashlight beam up at the canvas support beam. The illuminated red box above the secondary emergency flap is completely dark. Carnival reaches up, flipping the manual test switch on the side of the steel junction housing. Nothing happens. No light, no hum, no current.

"Bulb is pristine," Carnival mutters, pulling his multi-tool from his leather belt and unscrewing the faceplate with swift, practiced turns. He pulls the wiring harness out into the beam of his light.

My stomach drops straight through the floor boards. The primary twelve-volt copper lead hasn't frayed. It hasn't popped loose from a terminal screw. The heavy blue wire has been sliced clean through at a sharp forty-five-degree angle with a pair of hardened steel wire cutters. The severed ends have been tucked neatly back inside the rubber grommet to make the unit look fully operational from the arena floor. "Deliberate cut," I whisper, the cold fury rising up my throat like bile. My hands are shaking so bad I have to grip the flashlight with both palms to keep the beam steady. "Fresh cut, too. The copper is completely bright."

"Grady was in this tent while we were running the generator diagnostics this afternoon," Carnival savagely states, his knuckles turning white around his tool. "He bypassed the perimeter guards and got right inside the arena."

"Why this exact light, Wyatt?" I ask, scanning the dim rafters above us. My voice cracks, and I hate how scared I sound. "If he wanted to cause a mass panic, why not kill the entire emergency loop?"

He slowly tilts his head back, his gray eyes tracking the path from the darkened exit flap straight up to the high steel platform forty feet above our heads. "Because this exit flap sits directly underneath the emergency descent line for the aerial trapeze," he concludes, his voice dropping into a deadly whisper. "If he cuts the main power grid during Marcy's routine, the arena goes pitch black. The crowd panics toward the lit exits on the south side, while this entire corner stays dark, cutting off Marcy's escape route and blinding the winch operators."

"He's planning to hit the show tonight," I breathe out, the terrifying reality slamming into me like a brick wall. "During the live performance."

"Petey! Dutch!" Carnival roars through his radio, keying the channel with a vicious click. "All units to the big top northwest sector immediately! We've got a confirmed breach!"

Within sixty seconds, Dutch charges through the canvas flaps with Deputy Renn right on his heels, their faces dark with fury as Carnival holds up the cleanly sliced wire. "Sonofabitch," Dutch violently curses, slamming his fist against the wooden support post. His face is gray, exhausted, and I realize he looks older than I've ever seen him.

"He's inside the wire," I state, locking eyes with Carnival as the first warning bell of the opening gates begins to chime across the midway. "And the show is about to start."

"Clean cut," she confirms, studying the wire closely. "Same tool as the fence probably. Whoever did this knew exactly which light to hit."

"Which means he's still watching," I state.