Dark Carousel (Dark #30)(27)

Charlotte shook her head. “Ricard was very modest, but he was the best in the world. If you wanted your carousel restored right, to the absolute glory it once had, you asked for him.”
“Which is exactly why I did. His reputation was impeccable.”
Charlotte stepped down into the sunken room. The basement extended throughout the length of the house. Although it was one large room, there were several half walls that made the space appear to be a giant maze. Carousel horses of every era dominated the room, but the half walls separated them by age. There was a work space with all kinds of tools and paints. Carving tools. Old paints made from leaves and flowers. Everything anyone loving carousels could possibly want or use.
Charlotte looked over her shoulder at Tariq. “You carve.”
He shrugged. “I find it satisfies something in me I can’t define. There’s a kind of peace in carving. The wood shavings curling, the block of wood taking shape, the detail. I feel as though I can take an inanimate piece of wood and bring it to life. I like it.” He sent her a self-deprecating grin. “I can’t say I’m all that good at it, so don’t examine mine too closely. But I like carving.”
Charlotte loved the expression on his face. He was so handsome with his long, thick, very dark hair and his gemlike blue eyes. Gorgeous. All man. Sophisticated. Yet he would sit down in his basement, using his hands to create something beautiful. He really loved the carousels just as she did; she could hear it in his voice. She liked being able to breathe life back into them, and clearly he liked creating the life in them.
“I name them,” he blurted out, admitting something he clearly thought was crazy. “The older ones. I like to name them.”
“Because they seem real,” she murmured. “That’s beautiful.”
“It’s insane. I don’t let the children down here,” he said, suddenly all business.
She was fairly certain he was embarrassed by his admission, but it endeared him to her even more.
“There are too many ways they could hurt themselves. My tools, the horses themselves. The oldest are still wrapped.” He indicated the section closest to his workstation. “I bought those from a collector’s estate recently. They’re the ones I wrote to Ricard about. The collector, Paul Emery, had pictures of them, and some of the wood has deteriorated as well as the original paint. Paul bought the horses and chariots for his daughter. He apparently hung the four horses up on his porch for her and her friends to use. His wife died in a car accident right after his little girl was born, and he claimed he spoiled his daughter as much as possible.”
Charlotte could see the four bundles wrapped carefully in Bubble Wrap. Just behind them were four larger ones she was certain were the chariots. She couldn’t wait to open the Bubble Wrap to see them. The pictures indicated they were some of the oldest carousel horses in existence.
“His little girl became ill shortly after he bought the horses for her and eventually she died. The doctors couldn’t figure out what was wrong. Emery was dying when I spoke to him about the horses. He had insisted any potential buyer speak to him before the transaction was complete. He believed there was some kind of curse on the horses. He explained that over the last few centuries, anyone owning the horses and using them eventually succumbed to some unknown disease. He wanted to make me aware of the curse before I purchased them. He had been given the warning and it went unheeded as, apparently, it had for all the collectors before him.”She turned and faced him, fascinated. “He died?”
“Yes, of the same illness as his daughter. As had the collectors before him and their families. Apparently anyone who has owned those horses died of an unknown withering disease, or . . .” He paused, watching her face. “Or the owner was murdered in the same manner as your brother and Ricard Beaudet.”
She felt the color drain from her face. “Tariq. Is that the truth?” A chill went down her spine and goose bumps rose on her arms. She could see by his expression that he was dead serious. “Tariq.” She whispered his name. “That’s horrible. How many collectors or owners over the years have been murdered? You can discount an illness, because everyone gets exposed to germs, but murdered with throats torn out and drained of blood? Does it make you afraid to own the horses?”
“Does it make you afraid to work on them?” he countered.
She inhaled deeply, drawing the masculine scent of him into her lungs. He smelled of forest and spice. A heady combination, but there was a single ingredient that smelled like danger. No matter how sophisticated and suave Tariq appeared, he could suddenly look very predatory. When that particular look crept into his vivid blue eyes, it made her all too aware she was alone with him and she didn’t really know him very well.
“No,” she whispered, even more horrified at herself than she was at the disclosure. “It makes me want to work on them more than ever.” She needed to touch them. To feel the wood under her palm. Under the pads of her fingers. She would know everything, see everything. She would know why people became ill. Understand why some people were murdered and how. Then she would know why Fridrick had chosen to kill her brother and Genevieve’s grandmother in a like manner.
Tariq stepped from the main entrance toward the back section to the four large objects covered with Bubble Wrap. “These are the four horses used, and the bundles behind them are the four chariots. On this particular carousel a horse goes between each chariot. The carousel has a center pole with arms radiating from it to hold the chains that hung the horses and chariots. Of course there is no platform. That wasn’t done until much later.”
“Wait.” She caught his arm, excitement moving through her. “Do you have all the pieces for this carousel? Every single one of them?” It couldn’t be true.
“I haven’t tried assembling it. It arrived a few weeks ago, shipped in separate pieces. I did inventory on everything that came in and checked all the parts off. I didn’t want to make any mistakes with the thing. The pictures I sent to Ricard were the ones taken by Paul Emery and sent out to all private collectors. I wanted to purchase it and wanted to know if there was a chance he would come to do the restoration.” 
“He wanted to,” Charlotte conceded. “Why didn’t Paul Emery come out and admit he had such a rare thing? Why wouldn’t he disclose that information to the world? The carousel, depending on its condition, could be worth a fortune. More specifically, it definitely belongs in a museum on display for everyone to see. It’s that important of a piece. This could be the find of the century.”
Tariq shook his head. “It is part of the agreement that every owner has made with the one purchasing the carousel. The new owner must swear they will not allow it on display to the public until the curse has been broken. I intend to figure out what is going wrong, if it truly is, and do something about it, but I need help. I thought Ricard would be the one to do that, but now it falls to you. I hope you meant it when you said you’d stay.”
“They believe in the curse so much that they don’t want to take chances with the public,” she mused. “It’s an inanimate object. It can’t be responsible for illness or murder.”
“Unless it harbors some pathogen on the surface of it.”
The tip of her tongue moistened her lips as she thought about that. “I suppose it could happen, but unlikely, right? Do you believe in this curse? Really believe in it?”
“Something has gone wrong for certain. Every single owner has had family members die, and most succumbed to the curse. I did my research before the purchase and everything Emery told me was true. Every owner and his family has met with a strange, unknown illness or murder. I wanted the chance to solve the puzzle.”
She noticed he was noncommittal as to whether he believed in a curse, but that didn’t matter to her. She had to touch those wooden carvings. She would know the history of them, see into the lives of those who had ridden on them, who had played on them. More, she would know intimately the men who carved them, their hopes and dreams, even, if she was lucky, get a glimpse into their lives during the period of time they worked on the chariots and horses.
She was desperate for the carousel to be authentic—one of the first ones ever made. Horses or men turned the carousel while the young nobles practiced thrusting their spears through the rings in preparation for tournaments. Then masters of sword and spear taught young men to battle using the carousel for similar practices. Later, it was rumored, the wives and children found fun on the carousel and that was how it slowly evolved into the modern-day carousel. She might even find out if that was the truth, just by touching the carvings.
Charlotte could barely contain her excitement. The “curse” of an illness sounded so like that surrounding the Egyptian pyramids that she was filled with curiosity and knew she could probably get answers about what illnesses the previous owners actually died of. Which would only add to the mystique of this ancient carousel.
“I don’t want you to touch anything until I’ve had a chance to do it myself,” Tariq decreed in a voice that said he meant business.
She frowned and rubbed at her temple, where an ache had begun that fast. “Did you just try to use a compulsion on me?” She couldn’t keep the note of accusation out of her voice as she pushed down hard on the throbbing pulse point.