The Piggy Farmer (The Barrington Patch Book 3), Emmy Ellis [electric book reader txt] 📗

Cassie rushed on, reaching the bottom then going up the other side. Lou bustled in through the back of her pie and jam stall, handing over a jar of blackberry to a customer, the lid red-and-white checks. A weird, cracked icing figure with blonde hair was propped against one of the pies, in pink wellies and a tutu, Lou saying, “What a good little girl you are.”

How insane it was to notice that when panic ruled. Cassie moved along, darting around people waiting for the merry-go-round, the piped music she’d loved as a child grating on her nerves. The other stalls had nothing much going on, so she spun to survey the throng in the middle.

Nothing was happening.

Mystic’s full of bollocks.

A scream pierced the air above the conversations, then another, longer and shriller, and the Fayre-goers hushed, turning a one-eighty to see who’d cried out. Cassie did the same, and it didn’t take long to find where the commotion was. At the top of the horseshoe, in front of the hot dog van, people parted, stepping away from something or someone, a girl screaming again, holding her temples, a man wrapping an arm around her and leading her away. Cassie forged ahead, her heart beating so loud, adrenaline bringing on speed, and she stopped dead when she reached the space.

Blood coated a woman’s midriff, her hand clutched to it, red, so red, scarlet pouring so fast she must have been stabbed several times. ‘Once, twice, three times. And again. Again.’ Where had she been between Mystic saying the knife had already entered and now? Behind the hot dog van? In Clive’s tent? No, she wouldn’t have been in there, she had no little kids.

“Help me, Cass. Oh God, help me…” The woman stretched her other hand out, blood dripping from her mouth, her eyes rolling.

This couldn’t be happening. It couldn’t.

The crowd seemed to disappear, and all that was left was Cassie and the stabbed lady, all sounds fading apart from the victim’s stuttered breathing and Cassie’s shallow gasps, then:

“What the fuck?” A man.

“Oh shit, she’s been stabbed!” A teenager.

“Someone call an ambulance!”

“Already did.”

Then they faded, and the woman reached Cassie, grabbing at her coat collar, dropping to her knees. She stared up, straight into Cassie’s eyes, hers filling.

“Tell me who did this to you,” Cassie said.

“It’s too late,” the lady whispered, blood bubbling. “Too late.”

Cassie went down with her, pushing her onto her back then taking her jacket off, pressing it to the injury. “It’ll be okay, I promise it’ll be okay.”

“You can’t…fix…everything.”

“I’ve got to try.” Cassie let out a sob, not caring who saw her as weak. “I can’t let you die.”

“You’re going to…have to…let me…go.” She closed her eyes.

“No! Don’t you dare go to sleep.” Cassie pressed harder, helpless, unable to mend this terrible thing.

“Thanks…for the…perfume, duck. Best…present of…my life.”

Tears blinded Cassie, and she let them fall, knowing, in her heart of hearts, that no ambulance would save her new friend.

Doreen Prince was gone.

To be continued in The Barrington Patch 4

The Old Mystic