“What shall we paint on your face, Ronan?” Sam asked.
“How about a dic-” Jude began before Cope slapped a hand over his husband’s mouth. Jude pulled his husband’s hand away. “Excuse me, I was going to saydictionary. Or has that word been outlawed by the swear jar police?”
The nearby clowns laughed along with Jude.
Cope fisted his hands on his hips. “If you were going saydictionary, then I’m the Queen of England.”
“Your Majesty!” Pinkie executed a perfect curtsey.
Even Ronan laughed at the clown’s performance.
“Why are you ascared of clowns?” Pinkie asked. She ushered him into the nearest chair and started painting a butterfly on Ronan’s cheek.
“Don’t tell me it’s because you read that Stephen King book.” Sam rolled his eyes. “I swear, that book did for clowns whatJawsdid for sharks.”
“No, it wasn’t the book. I had a bad experience with a clown threatening me when I was a kid and I’ve been afraid ever since.” Ronan wrapped his arms around himself.
“What kind of a clown?” Pinkie asked.
“He was bald and dressed all in black and white.” Ronan shivered as he spoke.
“We’re you getting jiggy with his woman?” Sad Sam asked.
Ronan snorted. “Hardly, I was twelve.”
“It’s never too young to-” Sam stopped in his tracks.
“To what, Sad Sam?” Everly asked innocently.
“To make new friends, kid.” Sam’s sad face perked up into a smile, which made him look slightly terrifying.
Ten was starting to understand where Ronan’s fear had come from, when a clown he hadn’t seen before approached him.
“I need your help,” the man said. He was dressed in a white satin outfit with splotches of red on it. He looked like someone threw a can of paint at him.
“Help with what?” Ten asked.
“I need you to find my killer,” the clown said.
“Your killer?” Ten realized at once that the red on the clown’s outfit wasn’t red paint. It was blood. “Who are you?”
“I’m Jumping Jack. You have to help me before it’s too late.” With those words, Jack vanished.
Ten looked around the room. No one else seemed to have noticed the ghost clown. Not even Everly, who was watching Pinkie apply a spider to Wolf’s cheek.
“Who’s Jumping Jack?” Ten asked.
The room went silent. Each of the clowns shot each other dark looks. One shook his head, as if to caution against saying anything.
“I’m a psychic medium,” Ten said. “A clown wearing a white outfit covered in blood just appeared to me and asked me to find his killer.” He looked around the room. None of the clowns were looking at Ten, but he could feel their unease without using his gift.
“He was one of us. The best clown I ever knew,” a clown with an overexaggerated bright blue mouth said. “He was my mentor. I was the one who found him inside the tiger cage. Jack was covered in blood, but we all knew Sheba wouldn’t have done anything like that.”
“Sheba? The white tiger?” Ronan asked.
The blue-faced clown nodded. “When the police got here, they wanted to kill Sheba for hurting Jack, but Celestina and Nava were able to move the cat into a different pen so the police could do their work.”
“The Boston Police were assholes,” another clown with green stars painted around his eyes chimed in. “It turned out Jack had been shot. Sheba was one hell of a show tiger and they wanted to kill her for nothing. Fuckers. Then, they tried to blame me, since Jack and I were, uh...”
