The Ladies of the Secret Circus by Constance Sayers (the little red hen ebook TXT) 📕

“It isn’t my place to tell him, but you should,” said Lara.

“I think both Jason and I had tried to move on in our own ways. I believe he knows on some level, but he loved Peter, too. One look at you and I can’t imagine that he doesn’t know the truth,” said Audrey. “It was as though neither of us could continue without him, so you filled the void.”

“Until I couldn’t.”

Audrey turned. “Until it was unfair to ask you to do so. The reality is that Peter would have been a terrible father. I never would have stopped him from going to Los Angeles—it was his dream, but it was never really Jason’s dream. When I told him I was pregnant, he just seemed to find purpose around you. Had Peter lived, things would have turned out much different. I loved Peter, but in the end, you got the better father.”

“But you settled. You said so yourself.”

Audrey was silent, unmoving. “The absence of Peter nearly toppled me. I did the best that I could.”

Lara looked down at her bucket. It was full. She walked over next to her mother, this mysterious creature who had always seemed so much larger than life, so put together, and began to help her mother carry buckets toward the tractor. She would drive back to the house and help her mother cook jam today. She’d pour it into little Mason jars, seal them tightly, then label and date them. Lara climbed into the driver’s seat of the tractor. Everyone had their secrets and reasons for keeping them.

Forgive her, Lara. The secret inside of her was right.

When they got back to the house, Lara checked her email. There was one from Edward Binghampton Barrow with the subject line: URGENT! Third painting found!

Gaston et Lara:

The painting Sylvie on the Steed was featured in Le Figaro this weekend along with an article on Émile Giroux and the three paintings. We have found the third painting—the one of Esmé! With all the publicity around the paintings, we received a call from the woman at Giroux’s old apartment building. She claimed to have a painting in her attic that matches the description of the missing third painting of Esmé the Lion Tamer. Micheau and I immediately went to see it today. I’m so excited to tell you that it is authentic. I’ve attached a photo!

Lara clicked on the attachment and felt her blood drain.

When he got back to the office, Ben found he’d missed three calls from Doyle, but there were no written messages. He hated when Doyle did that. He also had two emails from Kim Landau. He hovered over them but couldn’t bring himself to open them.

There was a stack of mail that he started to work his way through, mostly junk mail; police stations got a ton of flyers. As he was tossing sale flyers into the garbage, he stared up at the board. He’d asked Doyle to take it back down to the basement, but his deputy never followed an order. Lara had said that Todd, Peter, and Dez were all dead and there was no point in looking for them anymore. He went to pull out the thumbtacks that held all the notes and photos, but he found he couldn’t dismantle the board yet.

Then something caught his eye. It was the photo of Peter Beaumont that had hung up on the board for nearly a year, but today he noticed something about it. He’d been so busy thinking about the subject of the photo that he’d never thought about the photo itself. Pulling it free from its pin, he turned it over, running his finger on the edge.

He dialed Doyle’s cell phone.

“Hey, boss.” Ben could hear the sounds of a video game in the background. Doyle must have been home.

“What is so urgent? You called me three times. You could have just written something down.”

“I thought this was something I should tell you in person.”

“Then why aren’t you here? In person?” Ben hated this tone in his voice, but Doyle drove him nuts.

“I’ve got a cold today. Anyway, you asked me to check on Desmond Bennett.” A whistling noise plus Doyle’s cursing indicated that he’d probably lost another troll in his video game.

“And?” Ben arranged things on his desk. Doyle must have been sitting here because everything was out of place. He imagined that Doyle tried out his chair to see how it felt every time Ben left the station.

“You’ll never believe who Desmond Bennett was engaged to.”

Ben waited for the answer, but he heard a crackle on the line followed by the sound of Doyle’s thumb on the space bar, thumping loudly.

“So before Margot Cabot married Simon Webster, she ran off with Desmond Bennett, but she was only seventeen and Cecile wouldn’t sign the parental permission form for them to marry. In fact, it was through Desmond Bennett’s disappearance that Margot met Simon. He covered the story for the newspaper.”

“Interesting. Anything else?”

“We had a murder while you were gone.”

“What? Who?”

“I’m kidding, boss. But I had to get a bat out of someone’s apartment on Jefferson Street. Hope I don’t have a case of rabies,” said Doyle, laughing. “I should be better tomorrow.” He added, “Oh, and in fucking crazy details, this may be nothing, but Desmond Bennett was famous in his day so there was a lot of coverage on him; I left the newspaper clipping about his death on my desk.”

Ben walked over and picked up the article. Desmond Bennett was as handsome as Esther Hurston had described him. He put the photo of Peter Beaumont down next to Desmond Bennett, looking for likenesses. Turning over the photo of Peter Beaumont, he flicked the paper. And he realized the answer had been right in front of him all along.

Checking his watch, he knew what he had to do. With his hands in