08 The Magician's Secret (8 page)

“
LOOK AT WHAT I FOUND!
” George was standing in the security room doorway, gripping a small box.

“The gems?” I asked, expelling a sigh of relief that she was okay.

George snorted. “Better.”

“Better than the gems?” Bess said, squinting at her cousin. “What could be better?”

“Videotape!” George cheered.

“Right,” Bess said. “I think you
are
sleep deprived.”

“No, no,” George said. “I mean, yes, I am sleep
deprived, but this is our most important clue yet.”

I was listening.

“Nancy, there are some gaping holes in my theory here, but try this,” George started. “What if . . .” Her eyes lit up in the darkened room. “What if, after Smallwood left the shop, there was someone else already there? Maybe someone who knew Smallwood, like a partner, or maybe someone else. At this point it doesn't matter.”

She shook her head as if to clear it. “Let's just say, once the shop was officially closed, if a person broke into the security room, they'd have had access to the entire system. The security tapes could have been tampered with, and whoever stole the jewels could have simply played footage from any other night.” She held up the tape box. “The tapes would have shown that all was quiet even though the thief was inside. Then there is just the matter of disabling the alarm and opening the gem case.”

“Sounds possible,” I said. “I like that idea better than to think the gems magically disappeared.”

“Me too,” George said adamantly. “There's always an explanation for everything.” She handed me the tape. “The police missed this one. There's a backup unit for the security equipment in a cabinet. That machine had been tampered with; it was set to play, not record.”

Candy let us use the machine, and we quickly discovered that George was right. The tape showed looped footage of a quiet night. She'd found our most important clue so far. Someone had been in the security room when Candy left for her date.

“I'm not sure how they got in,” George was saying as we walked from the room. “I mean, this door was locked, the front door was locked, the back—”

“Ewww!” Bess hopped from foot to foot, making gagging sounds. “I stepped in gum! Gross.”

“Gum?” Candy asked. “There's no food allowed in this shop. That's why I go to the coffee shop at ten, noon, and three for all my scheduled breaks. No food. No drinks. And certainly no gum.” She handed Bess a tissue. “Someone will be fired!”

“It's a huge wad!” Bess said, peeling it off her shoe. “Blech.”

“It's not just gum.” George took the tissue and peered inside. “I mean, it is, but I think it's also part of the crime.” She paused, staring at the gum. “Maybe the thief planted it here on purpose. Though I don't think this gum was used in the heist. I checked the doors and there was no sign of anything gummy in the locks.”

Candy looked crushed. “After all these years, someone slipped by me.” She put her hands on her hips. “I'll call the police. They should check the locks again and reinterview my employees.”

“This is a highly professional job,” I told her. “The gum, the videotape, the gems—your employees probably aren't suspects.”

As we left, Candy was on the phone arranging for a new security company to come install an upgraded system.

“Good sleuthing!” I congratulated my friends. “We are definitely getting somewhere!”

“Right,” Bess said with a sigh. “All we have left to
do is to figure out is who did it, why, and where they put the jewels.”

“No problem,” I said with a laugh. “I'm hoping we'll find out more at our next stop.”

It was a little after ten p.m. when I pulled into the Riverview parking lot. At night the place looked even more shabby and run-down than it had in the daylight. I hoped the twins were awake. We needed to talk to them.

“You'd think if the girls stole the gems they'd have at least kept some of the money for a hotel upgrade,” Bess said, wrinkling her nose.

“I don't think the gems have been sold yet,” George said. “Whoever took them needs to get far away from here first.”

“But even if the twins
do
have the gems, they might be stuck in this motel anyway. Hugo told me that these performances are expensive to run.” I held the door for my friends. “I guess that's why the staff stays at the cheap places while the magician goes to stay at the fancy resort.”

“Even if he was escaping from a crazy stalker-fan, the twins might resent their dad for leaving them here,” George said. “I know I would.”

“If they
are
angry, no one's said anything.” I recalled all the conversations I'd had with Ayela and Ariana. They'd never even let on that Lonestar was their dad—certainly not that he'd moved on to better digs and stuck them with Hugo.

The hotel lobby was quiet. The only sign of life was a desk clerk at the counter. The young woman looked bored, like she wished she was anywhere else. Her long brown hair hung over one charcoaled eye.

When we approached the desk, she looked up and pinned that one eye on me. “Can I help you?”

Bess moved in and flashed a smile. “We're looking for Drake Lonestar's two assistants. Could you tell us what room they're in?”

The woman picked up a pen and twirled it. “I'm not supposed to give out information on our guests.”

It might have been the first time in Bess's life that her oozing charm didn't work.

George gave her a small, sympathetic smile.

Undeterred, Bess tried again. “But we know Ayela and Ariana. We were supposed to meet them”—she stopped to check her watch—“
twenty
minutes ago.” Bess threw George a dirty look over her shoulder, as if it was George's fault we had only arrived now.

“Please,” Bess said in the sweetest voice I'd ever heard.

“Oh, um . . .” The clerk paused and twirled her pen some more. “Whatever.” She scribbled the number on a slip of paper. “Go ahead. Let them fire me. I hate this job.”

As we walked away, Bess grinned at George and said, “The Marvin charm hasn't failed me yet.”

George rolled her eyes.

After a quick elevator ride, we were standing in front of room 406. The TV was on inside. I knocked on the hotel room door.

Ayela opened it. “Hey!” She was super cheery as she let us inside. “Welcome!”

The room was tiny. Two beds and a roll-away sleeper were stuffed wall to wall. In fact, so much furniture had been crammed into the small space that there was nowhere to stand. I peeked into the tiny bathroom; the fact that an architect had managed to fit a shower, toilet, and sink in there might have been the most impressive magic trick of the past week.

Deep-red wallpaper, stained with age and peeling from decay, made the room so dark I had to squint to see Ariana sitting on the bed, next to her dad.

Drake Lonestar.

“I was wondering when you'd show up,” he said.

I didn't mean to be rude by not replying, but my tongue was tied. Above Drake's head, above where the roll-away sleeper was squashed up against the wall, there were holes. Lots and lots of little holes.

“Darts!” I practically shouted the word, scanning the floor. “Aha!” I found one halfway behind the nightstand. I grabbed it and held it up like a trophy. This was a big clue.

George pointed at Lonestar. “So you were already
in River Heights when you decided to come to River Heights!”

“George, are you saying that the video of Lonestar throwing darts at a map is fake?” Bess asked.

“The video was planned and carefully edited,” George said, not moving her eyes from Lonestar's face. “I should have realized! From what I've read, videos are often used in illusion magic because they are so easy to manipulate. That means that if they're done right, they seem live. Drake knew he was coming to River Heights.”

“Don't look at me with those disappointed eyes. Your courthouse was perfect for what I wanted to do,” Lonestar told George.

“But it was a bold lie,” George accused. “You made a video about how you ‘chose' River Heights with a single dart throw.” She glanced at the pockmarked wall. “Apparently, it took more than one toss.”

Lonestar laughed. “Hugo is a terrific filmmaker. The darts took a lot of practice for me, but the video was done in a single recording.”

He asked me to grab a deck of cards from the nightstand. “Once I could pin the map, I moved on to other tricks. Check this one out.” He took the cards, shuffled them, and fanned them in front of me. “Pick a card. Don't show me which one.” Drake rose from the bed and handed me a pen. “Write your name on it.”

I took the ace of spades and wrote
NANCY
in bold letters across the top.

He opened the deck to a random spot. “Put in the card.” I did, and he shuffled the deck. Then he told me to shuffle. I ran the cards through my fingers several times and handed the deck back to him.

“I'm going to throw a dart at the wall three times,” Drake told me, taking the dart I'd picked up off the floor. “Two for practice, and on the third, I'll toss up the deck.” The first shot landed in the wall, knocking down bits of dry plaster as it stuck. He took back the dart and did the same thing.

With the third throw, Drake Lonestar tossed up the deck of cards. They fluttered through the air as the dart soared from his fingertips to the wall.

“Take a look,” he told me.

The dart was stuck in the wall. There was a single playing card pinned there, speared through the point. I peeled it off the wall. “It's mine,” I said, showing Bess and George the ace of spades with my name written on it.

“Nicely done,” George told Drake.

He said, “We wanted to come to River Heights, but we had to make it look coincidental. Besides”—he removed the dart and put away the cards—“magic is always a kind of lying. Like those flowers I made appear out of thin air; you know they didn't just come from nothing. I say the courthouse ‘disappeared,' but you know it really didn't.” He paused and turned to face me. “Have you figured out how I did that one yet, Nancy?”

“No.” I shook my head. “I've been trying to take your advice and not overthink the magic.”

“Perfect!” He sat down and leaned back against a pillow. “That means you accepted the lie.”

“I suppose I did.” I glanced at Bess and George. “On some level, we all did.”

“Good,” Lonestar said. “If people didn't completely suspend their logical reasoning, I wouldn't have a job.”

I nodded. He was right. I supposed it didn't make a difference how he'd decided to come to our town, except for one thing: Everyone already knew that Drake Lonestar was around the night the gems were stolen from the jewelry shop, but now it wasn't a coincidence that he'd been in River Heights. He had actually
planned
to be here. That made it even more suspicious. He'd had plenty of time to plan a show as well as a heist.

As hard as I was trying to put other suspects on my list, Drake kept making it impossible. Every clue kept coming back to him. Even Hugo couldn't protect Drake from the evidence mounting against him.

“Where's Hugo?” I asked Lonestar. My dad said that Lonestar had been released into Hugo's custody. Shouldn't the bodyguard have been around?

“He went to the resort,” Drake said. “I left all my gear in my room, but I can't go back, not even to help him. The press is camped out there.”

I nodded. Smallwood was at my house for the same reason.

He waved his hand at the roll-away and groaned. “I'm bunking with the girls until this legal mess is resolved.”

“Why didn't the media follow you here?” I asked him.

Lonestar grinned. “Hugo spread a rumor that I was planning to go to the resort later tonight.”

“Another lie?” I couldn't help myself; it just burst out.