08 The Magician's Secret (5 page)

“
HEY, GEORGE,” I HISSED. “YOU
awake?”

It was late at night, and I was standing outside my friend's bedroom window after having given up on sleep. All the excitement of the day had made my head feel full, and I figured that if George could clear up a couple of important things, maybe I'd be able to rest.

“George!” I banged my knuckles on the glass pane.

“Go away, Nancy!”

That wasn't George. It was Bess. I'd forgotten she was sleeping at her cousin's house.

I could see Bess roll over and put her pillow over her head.

“Go back to sleep, Bess.” George sat up. “I'll take care of the intruder.” She opened the window. “Come on in,” she said, moving aside and giving me space to crawl through the frame.

“Thanks,” I said.

“I wasn't sleeping anyway,” George admitted. She tipped her head toward her bed, and I could see a faint blue glow under the covers.

“Late night Internet research?” I asked with a grin.

“You know it.” She glanced at Bess. “Had to be quiet, though . . . don't want to disturb the
princess
.”

“I heard that,” Bess grunted from the bed next to George's. “The princess needs her beauty sleep. Now
shhhhh
.” She turned her back to us.

I whispered to George, “This case is making me crazy. I don't see a connection between Smallwood and Lonestar.” I sat on the edge of George's bed. “I mean, we could guess that Lonestar hired Smallwood to steal the gems for Hugo to give to the nieces to give
to Gritty Grand, but that seems like a long and winding chain of relationships. There's no evidence to prove any of that.”

“I hear you,” George agreed. “We need some hard facts.” She turned her computer screen to face me.

“Ack, the light!” Bess whimpered from the other bed. “It's coming into my head through the back of my skull.”

“Oh, good grief,” George moaned. She packed up the computer and led me into the bathroom. She sat on the closed toilet lid. I shut the door so we wouldn't bug Bess anymore and sat on the edge of the bathtub.

“I wasn't searching for connections between the suspects,” George told me, typing on her laptop. “I was thinking more about the trick.” She showed me a site and scrolled down the page. “I was right about the helicopters. They are an old military model that's been retired. Anyone can hire them for air shows . . . or magic shows.”

“Do you think the helicopters have a connection to the missing box?” I asked.

“No,” George admitted. “But I am obsessed with figuring out how the trick worked. Right now I have two theories: One is that the audience was hypnotized, and the other is that somehow we were still watching a video even after Lonestar dropped the hoop. So we weren't seeing the actual building, but a screen with doctored images of the empty space. The helicopters were there to throw us off.”

“I guess both are possible.” A big part of me wanted to have George figure it out, but Lonestar's voice in my head told me to let it be. As much as I wanted to ask more about her theories, especially the mass hypnosis, I let it drop.

Instead I asked George, “Do you have any idea how the locker was opened in the courthouse? Or when? We need to know if Lonestar had enough time during the trick to get into the evidence locker and take that box.”

“I've been thinking about that, too,” she told me. “There are many different kinds of magic, but most magicians specialize in one or two and hone their craft.
From everything I've read about Lonestar, he's what one would call an illusionist. That means he does big, showy tricks that seem impossible, like cutting people in half, levitating, and making things disappear.”

George had done her homework. She went on, “Illusions take a lot of planning. Not that this is set in stone, but if an illusionist was the one to open the lock, he'd probably have manipulated it earlier—like sawed off part of the barrel or wedged something inside to prevent it from really closing all the way.” She bit a fingernail thoughtfully.

“And?” I prodded.

“When I looked at the lock, nothing seemed altered. I looked for markings, like scratches from picking tools; I searched the floor for rubber bands or cork or gum that might have held the locking mechanism open. Nothing.”

“So what's your verdict?” I asked.

George leaned back on the toilet tank and closed her eyes. “Officer Fernandez told me that the police have two theories. Either someone had keys to the evidence
locker and stole that box or an accomplice let the thief into the locker while the show was going on. I think there is another possibility. . . .”

“Magic?” I asked.

“Yes. But not Lonestar's kind of magic. He's a showy guy with big costumes and setups. I just don't see this as his kind of trick.” She went on. “This is essentially an escape. Someone opened the lock and then escaped from the sealed evidence room with the box. When I think about it like that, it fits in with the kind of magic that's about picking locks and getting out of tight spaces, which is called escapism. Harry Houdini was the most famous escape artist. He once did a trick where he was locked in a jail cell and managed to get out in less than twenty minutes.”

“That's amazing!” I was going to have to look up that one later. I asked George, “So, from everything you know about magic, it sounds like you think Drake Lonestar isn't our number one suspect.”

“I've searched the Internet to see if he's ever done any escapes from boxes or secure rooms, but
can't find anything. He might know how to do some of those tricks, but from everything I can see, he doesn't. He's all illusion all the time.” George shook her head. “From a magic point of view, he simply doesn't make sense.”

I slipped down into the empty bathtub and put my head against the cool tile wall. It seemed like we'd hit a dead end. Usually I had a list of suspects and clues. But this case was filled with suspects without clues and clues without suspects.

What I did have was a previously convicted thief who denied he stole anything, missing gems, the cast of a magic show, a locked door, and a mysterious box that had disappeared—all pieces of a puzzle that didn't fit together.

“What do we do next?” George asked me.

“I don't—,” I started.

“You two are so loud!” Bess stomped into the bathroom. “I'll tell you what we do next. John Smallwood was staying at a hotel for the week, right? The Drake Lonestar magic show team has been here a week too.
They're also at a hotel. That might be a place to start searching for connections.”

George's face lit up. “You're right! There aren't that many hotels in town. It's possible they're staying in the same place.”

So we weren't going to figure out how Drake Lonestar made the courthouse disappear, and we weren't going to figure out how the box vanished from the evidence locker, but we were back on track with my initial burning question: Was Smallwood in any way connected to Lonestar?

IT WAS STILL DARK, BUT
the sun was slowly rising when Bess, George, and I piled into my car.

“I want the last doughnut,” Bess complained from the backseat.

“No way,” George countered. “You already had two.”

It had been my idea to quickly stop for coffee and doughnuts at the all-night diner. Thing was, I only wanted one glazed, and the employee insisted that a half dozen was cheaper. I shouldn't have given in to the pressure. Or else, I should have just eaten the last one and prevented this whole heated discussion.

“Going to check hotel registers was my idea,” Bess said. “That should be enough for extra chocolate cream privileges.”

“I was up all night learning about magicians,” George said. “That should be my ticket to the treat.”

“I was up too,” Bess argued. “Because you're so noisy!”

They kept at it until we reached the nicest hotel in town, the Towering Heights Resort. I'd texted Ned to find out where Smallwood had been staying. This was it. I pulled into a parking spot.

Now, to see who else might have stayed there.

It only took a minute to find out that the magician and his crew weren't registered.

“Rats,” I muttered as we drove to the second-nicest hotel in town. Then the third. And fourth.

The sun was high in the sky when we reached the last option on our list: a low-budget hotel on the outskirts of town. It was called the Riverview, though it was so far from the river there was no way the name was true. The Highway Traffic View Hotel just didn't sound as nice, I supposed.

It was my turn to run in and ask the front desk about our missing magician.

“Nancy? What are you doing here?”

I whirled around to find Hugo sitting at a small table in the lobby, reading the newspaper and drinking a cup of coffee from the local River Run Coffee Shop.

“I—” I wasn't sure what to tell Hugo. After all, he worked for Lonestar. What would he do to protect his boss from going to jail?

“We're supposed to start tearing down the set today, but the police still can't find Drake,” Hugo told me.

“I assumed he'd be here at the hotel with you,” I said, watching as Hugo swirled the coffee in his cup.

“He was. But now he's not,” Hugo said. “Celebrity admirers can get really aggressive when they want to meet their idol,” he explained. “The first night we were here, a man climbed in through Drake's hotel window. I had to chase the guy down the street. Drake always registers at hotels under phony names to avoid fans, but this one was more persistent than most and followed us back after rehearsal.”

Hmm . . . So he might have been staying under a different name at one of the hotels we'd already visited.

“So where is Drake now?” I asked.

“I don't know,” Hugo said, staring past my left shoulder.

I turned and saw Ayela and Ariana entering the lobby. As they got in line for the vending machine, they waved at Hugo, who grinned back.

He turned back to me. “Drake moved after that first night. He changed hotels, picked a fake name to register under, and got himself to rehearsals.”

“But you're his bodyguard! You let him do that without protection?” I asked.

“The truly devoted fans know me by now; a lot of them follow me if they think I'm with him, so we often separate. He goes off the grid. No e-mail. No cell phones. It's not a big deal. Drake knows to meet me at the train station on Tuesday.”

“That's when you're leaving?” I asked. “Two days from now?”

“Magic is really draining, so Drake likes a few days
of rest before traveling to the next show,” Hugo said. “But like I told Officer Fernandez, I fully expect that he'll be at the train station Tuesday.”

“Hugo!” Ariana and Ayela ran toward us.

“Nancy!” Bess and George called my name as they entered the hotel.

“The radio!” they cried at the same time as Ariana and Ayela yelled, “The radio!” Apparently the four of them had been listening to the same station.

Hugo and I rushed to the closest TV set, in the hotel bar. A handcuffed Drake Lonestar was on the screen, flanked by Officer Fernandez on his left and Officer Collins on his right.

Beyond them were screaming fans, desperate to get a glimpse of the magician. There were countless women carrying signs that said
I LOVE YOU
and
MARRY ME!
A guy was standing on the courthouse steps selling Drake Lonestar T-shirts. The crowd was chanting his name.

Even with all the chaos surrounding him, we clearly could hear Drake shout, “I'd rather spend a lifetime in prison than reveal how my magic is done!”

I'D NEVER DRIVEN SO FAST
in my life.

When Bess, George, and I arrived at the courthouse, Drake Lonestar was already inside—getting booked, I presumed, but I hadn't a clue under what charge.