Shadow in Serenity Read Free Page A

pretty. Then the wells played out, the factories closed, the hardest hit lost their farms — and everybody who still has money is waiting for a hero to show them how to grow it.”
    “Is that why
you
came here, Carny?”
    She didn’t ask how he knew her name. “It’s none of your business why I came.”
    “Maybe it is,” he said. “Maybe you’re feeling threatened. Maybe you’re the one with the scam, and you’re afraid I’ll horn in on it. You know what they say. You can’t con a con.”
    “They’re right, whoever they are,” she said, standing and starting toward the barbershop door. Just before she went in, she looked over her shoulder and added, “And you can’t con the
daughter
of a con, either. You’ve got your work cut out for you here, Brisco.”
    Logan didn’t know whether that was meant as a threat or a challenge, but something about it delighted him more than anything had in years.
    Grinning, he picked up his fliers and started up the street. He wasn’t just going to get rich in Serenity. He was also going to have the time of his life, with this little fireball who called herself Carny.

two
    T hat night, Jason slipped out the truck’s door and rushed away before Carny had even had time to pull into a parking space. Sighing, she watched him catch up to his friends entering the bingo hall like herded cattle. This Logan fellow was good, she admitted, cutting off her truck engine. She had to give him that. He had the town in a fever, and he could probably sell them Romania tonight if he tried. The fact that it wasn’t for sale wouldn’t even cross their minds.
    That’s why she had come.
    She slid out of the pickup.
    “Hey, Carny,” Paul Dillard called across the parking lot.
    She waved and waited for the man who’d had his eye on her since Abe died. “Not you too, Paul. You’re not buying what this guy’s selling, are you?”
    “I don’t
know
what he’s selling,” he said. “Never hurts to listen.”
    “Yeah, well, just don’t give him any money tonight, okay? No matter what he says,
don’t
give him any money.”
    “If you’re so doggone sure he’s up to no good, why are you here?”
    “Somebody sane has to be here. I think I’m the only one in town who’s thinking straight about this guy.”
    “You’re not giving us much credit,” Paul said, openingthe door for her as they reached the aluminum building. “We’re not stupid. But it doesn’t hurt to listen. Lighten up — you’re too suspicious.”
    “There’s a difference between suspicious and savvy,” she said. “I’ve been around, Paul. I know when things aren’t right.”
    “Well, maybe tonight he’ll prove to you he’s on the up-and-up.”
    Carny caught Logan’s eye as she and Paul entered the packed room, and when he flashed her that devil-may-care smile, she shook her head. “I don’t think he can, Paul.”
    She left Paul and wove through the towns people she had come to know well over the past nine years. She couldn’t believe how many of them had turned out for this. This definitely wasn’t the usual Saturday-night bingo crowd; they didn’t get this big a crowd at church on Sunday mornings, or at the Fourth of July picnic, or at the Christmas pageant. And the nervous, excited hum over the room was something she hadn’t experienced since she’d settled here.
    But she had experienced it before.
    It was the same anticipation that the marks had at the carnival. The same fervor that her father and mother inspired when they were setting up their own little scams. Carny had even been a part of those scams, years ago. Following her parents’ orders, she’d picked her share of pockets, created her share of diversions, acted in her share of schemes. And the more excited the marks became at whatever the grift happened to be, the more her parents believed they deserved what they were getting.
    But the people of Serenity didn’t deserve anything of the kind.
    A few of the men offered her their seats,