Deadly Magic (27 page)

“
Did you ask why he had trouble remembering Kyle?”

“
Felix said that he thought I was asking about someone else. He heard me. He just didn’t recognize the name. So, what do you think?”

“
I don’t think Kyle Drake is his real name.”

“
Well, I don’t know about that. To tell you the truth. Ol’ Felix sounded a bit crazy.”

♣ ♦ ♥ ♠

Grace rubbed her eyes. She was getting tired of staring at the computer screen. For the last couple of hours she had stayed locked in her office, scouring the internet. She had tried every search string she could think of. Had been on every website devoted to Ilya Dragovich—even the ones that just mentioned him in passing—had looked at every image that purported to contain him or his family and come up with nothing. She found over a hundred pictures of Ilya, a few of Juliet, a few more of Belle, but absolutely none of the youngest Dragovich. There were some mentions of him, but nothing of any importance. Only that he was the son of Ilya Dragovich, the magician. Nothing else. She found a few others hits on a few European websites, but none of it was in English. She backed out of them, since they didn’t include photos anyway, which is what she was really after.

After fruitlessly searching for an
hour, she changed her search to Kyle Drake. Nothing. Not a mention. Not one. Not even a social profile.

She lean
ed back in her chair and stretched her hands above her head. That alone wasn’t that suspicious. She preferred to live off the grid as much as possible herself. No one needed to know what she was doing every hour of the day.

She groan
ed, remembering Straker’s latest order. She quickly typed up an email message. “I know nothing more than I did an hour ago,” and hit send. It wasn’t exactly the truth. She had her suspicions, but she wasn’t just ready to share them with Straker just yet.

After all, she could be wrong. She could be very wrong about Kyle.

She typed another email message and hit send.

♣ ♦ ♥ ♠

“I’ll have the ravioli.” Grace handed the menu back to the waitress. “Thank you.”

“
Pretty exciting day, wasn’t it?” Ethan grinned at her.

Grace nodd
ed. “Very.”

“
I couldn’t believe it when Ray told me who he represented this morning and what was happening. I wanted to call you right then and give you the good news, but I couldn’t until Ray had met with your boss.”

“
How did Preston Straker die . . . or can you not say?”

He wav
ed a hand. “No. That’s a matter of public record now. Cancer.”

Grace breath
ed a sigh of relief. “So, he wasn’t murdered.”

Ethan
laughed. “Listen to you. I think you need to take a vacation and relax. Not every death is the result of a murder.”

“
The ones I’ve known about in the last month and a half have been,” she said. She jumped at the feel of her phone vibrating in her pocket. Reluctantly, she pulled it out. No name. She lifted the phone to her ear. Silence. Her anonymous caller had found her new cell phone number. She closed her eyes tiredly. She was getting tired of this game.

Her feelings must have registered on her face.
“Who is it?” Ethan asked harshly.

“
Just my secret admirer.”

Ethan
grabbed the phone out of her hand. “Listen to me, psycho, if I find out—” He handed the phone back to her. A muscle in his jaw, jumped. “He hung up.”

She shook her head.
“Was your detective able to find the information I asked for?”

“
Grace . . .” He took a deep breath. “Grace, I think you should go home.”

She pick
ed up her iced tea and took a drink, before nervously setting it down on the table. “It’s the middle of the day.”

“
No. I mean back to Colorado.” He laid his hand on her arm, his eyes pleading with her. “It’s too dangerous for you here. I’m worried about you.”

“
As soon as we figure who is behind all of this, then I’ll be safe.”

He shook his head.
“I don’t want you to leave, but I don’t want you to get hurt. I can continue to investigate. I’ll keep you informed every step of the way.”

“
I’m not leaving.” Grace looked over his shoulder. “When we're done, let’s go back to my office and go over the information you’ve compiled.” She waved at the black cloud that just walked through the door.

“
What’s Michael doing here?”

“
Oh, I’m sorry, Ethan. I’ve been so preoccupied, I forgot to tell you, I invited him to lunch with us.”

Michael walk
ed up to the table and sat down in the booth next to Grace.

“
You want something to eat?” Ethan asked politely.

Michael shook his head.
“No, like I told Grace, I can’t really stay long.” He turned towards Grace. “Why did you want to meet me?”

“
I just wanted to ask you a few questions.”

He look
ed up at her through his long black bangs. Smiling shyly, he took a bread stick out of the basket on the table. Snapping it in half, he dipped one end in the olive oil next to the basket. “Sure. You can ask me anything. I’m an open book.”

“
How long have you known Belle?”

“
A long time.” He shrugged. “Since we were kids.”

“
How did you meet?”

“
At a magician’s conference. In Paris.”

“
Have you always wanted to be a magician?”

He smil
ed. “Since I was little. I love it. I’ve wanted nothing else.”

“
How did you meet Lily?”

“
Same place. I had seen Dragovich and his show a dozen times growing up. It’s all I talked about as a kid. My dad hated it, but mom would always find a way to take us every year to one of his shows.”

“She took you all the way to E
urope for a magic convention?” Ethan asked.

“
We were living in Sweden at the time. My dad was a scientist. He worked for the UN. We lived all over. Anyway, I met Lily when I was thirteen. She was great. She talked to me for a long time. Gave me a lot of encouragement. Besides my mom, she was the first person to pay any attention to me. And after she . . . left, Lily became like another mother to me.” His smile faded. “My dad got really angry.”

Grace glanced down at his hands, which were now gripping the edge of the table.
“Did you meet Belle that night?”

Lost in thought
, Michael stared at the table. He shook his head. “No . . . it was the next year. Why are you asking me all of these questions about Belle?”

“
We’re just trying to figure out who pushed her down the stairs the other day.”

“
Good.” He lifted one hand and picked out another breadstick. Snapping it in half, he said, “I want to know who tried to kill her, too.” He looked up at Grace, as his eyes began to water. “It wasn’t me. I love Belle. I would never hurt her. I heard a scream from downstairs, so I ran up the stairwell. She was just lying there . . . I thought she was dead.”

“
I know. You kept saying that,” Grace said.

“I . . . don’t handle death well or blood for that matter,” he said sheepishly.

Ethan threw Grace a disbelieving look. “Why did Dragovich try to kill you at the hospital?” Ethan asked.

Michael
shrugged. “Since I was the first one to find Belle, I think he just assumed that I was the one who attacked her.” He looked down at his black clothes. “I know how I look. I know what people think, but to be perfectly honest, I don’t really like this look.” He pointed to his clothing. “This isn’t me. It’s all for show. I’ve built a certain reputation, based around this look and I can’t seem to break free from it. The tattoos aren’t even real. No one, but Belle knows that. No one understands. I would never hurt Belle.” He shook his head. “When I saw her lying there, I just lost it. I couldn’t think. I just knew that she was dead.” He sighed.

“What about Lily?” Ethan asked.

“I didn’t kill Lily, either. Lily was helping me.”

“
How?”

He smil
ed. “She hated Harcourt. She wanted me to take over. I could have done it, too. Harcourt’s rarely around. He’s too busy showing off at the local bars for the ladies. I’ve been running the Magic Shoppe for the last year, with very little input from him, but that wasn’t the only reason.” He glanced at Grace. “She was helping me with Belle.”

“
What was she doing?” Grace asked.

“
She was trying to convince her to give me a chance. Belle doesn’t think of me romantically. I’m just her friend. Her weird friend, who her father absolutely hates. Lily said she would talk to Belle and her father about me. She thought that we would be good together. I don’t think she got the chance.”

Ethan
leaned forward. “It must make you angry to see Belle with Straker. I’d be pretty angry if the girl I loved hooked up with my friend’s husband only a month after she died.”

Michael nodd
ed his head before suddenly looking up. “Hey, wait . . . it’s not like that. I’m not angry. I’m just disappointed.” He pushed back his bangs. “Look, I’ve got to go.”

Grace grabb
ed his arms. “Wait. Do you know Aleksis Dragovich?”

“
Yeah,” he said hesitantly.

“
Have you seen him lately?”

He shrugg
ed. “Maybe.”

“
At the office?”

“
Look,” he said, sliding out of the booth, “Harcourt is going to be furious if I don’t get back to work. I’m sorry, Grace, I’ve got to go.”

CHA
PTER TWENTY-FOUR

Ethan
spread out
the files on the conference room table. “It wasn’t easy, but I did a little digging and came up with a small biography on all of our suspects. I have to admit this was kind of fun.”

Grace sat down in her usual spot.
“Let’s start with Straker.”

Ethan
shook his head. “I don’t know why you’re interested in him. Out of all of them, I think he is one of our least likely suspects.”

Grace shrugg
ed. “Everything seems to revolve around him.”

“
Okay.” Ethan took out a legal pad and flipped through it. Clearing his voice, he read from the page, “Franklin Straker was born in 1961 to Arthur and Adele Straker. Arthur and Adele were a part of the jet set back then. Very wealthy. They had two sons. Preston and then a few years later Franklin. Arthur ran a rather successful Ad agency and intended to leave the company to both his sons, but father and son had a falling out when Franklin married a burlesque dancer named Louisa Scarlatti. They eloped at eighteen years of age.”

Ethan
handed, Grace, Franklin Straker’s file. “Franklin’s father hit the roof. He disinherited him then and there. He left the entire Straker fortune, of which there was a considerable bit, to the older boy, Preston. When Louisa Straker was born a year later, it seemed that Arthur started to have a change of heart. According to some witnesses, he talked about changing his will and leaving half of the fortune to Franklin again. Unfortunately, the day before the will was to be changed he suffered a major heart attack and died. Franklin went to his brother for his half of the inheritance and Preston said tough.”

“
Well, that explains why we had never heard of Preston Straker.” Valerie picked up the folder Grace had laid on the table.

Ethan
nodded his head. “They despised each other.”

“
The Straker Toy Company has been in existence since 1910,” Valerie pointed out. “If Arthur died before changing his will, how did Franklin get control of the company?”

“
Because Arthur didn’t own the Straker Toy Company. His older brother Harold owned the company. Arthur had sold his interest in the company to his brother after their parents died long ago. Harold hated the way Arthur and Preston had treated Franklin and since he didn’t have a wife or children he left the toy company to his nephew when he died in the mid-80s.”

“
And Franklin then proceeded to run it into the ground,” Valerie said.

“
Well, to be honest it hasn’t done well since the 1950s. Some years were better than others,” Ethan said.

“
What else did you find out?” Grace asked.

“
After Arthur and Adele died. Franklin came to work for his uncle Harold in the toy company, eventually succeeding him. Ten years later, his wife Louisa died of cancer. Six months later, Franklin married Hannah Adams, his secretary. According to the rumor mill it was not a happy marriage.”

“
Isn’t she the one Louisa said she hated?” Grace asked.

Ethan
nodded. “I’m not surprised. The first thing Hannah did was ship Louisa to a boarding school in Europe. Up until then, the kid had everything. She was able to do as she pleased. Then Hannah stepped in and started issuing orders and the first one was that Louisa had to go. So off she went.”

“
How long did their marriage last?” Grace asked.

“
Less than five years. Turns out Hannah had a peanut allergy. One Christmas she ate something that contained peanuts and died. Franklin sued the bakery. He eventually won a judgment against them, which came in just in time. The Straker Toy Company was about to go under. The sudden influx of cash saved it for another decade.”

“
Who was next?” Valerie asked.

“
Courtney,” Ethan and Grace said in unison.

“
Courtney Harris,” Ethan continued his narration. “Louisa’s roommate in college. She brought Courtney home to meet her daddy one day and romance blossomed. Franklin and Courtney lasted just under two years.”

“
Louisa helped that one go away,” Grace said. “She apparently let her father know Courtney was fooling around with her fitness instructor.”

Ethan
picked up another file. He took out a copy of a newspaper article. “The old boy didn’t marry for a few years after that. His next wife was Ashley Powers in 2003. The marriage didn’t last long. Just a year. After the divorce she ended up marrying a preacher and moving to Maine.”

“
Louisa said she liked her.” Grace picked up their engagement announcement. “I don’t remember her at all.”

“
Well, you were just an intern,” Valerie said, taking the article from her. “I barely remember her myself. I was working as Daniel’s secretary at the time. She only worked here for a few months before she and Straker married. After that I barely saw her.”

“
Is that when you moved up as Straker’s secretary?” Ethan asked.

Valerie nodd
ed.

“
Then we have Lily, whom he married two years ago.” Ethan picked up a folder marked, Lily Davenport Straker, and handed it to Grace.

“
Yeah they met at the Dragon’s Lair on his forty-eighth birthday,” Valerie said. “They married just a month later. What were you able to find out about Lily?”

Ethan
picked up a legal pad and began reading. “Lily Davenport. Born in Charleston, South Carolina. Father a lawyer. Mother a society maven. Left South Carolina to tour with Ilya Dragovich at eighteen years of age. Stayed with him on and off for over fifteen years. Been married five times. First to her childhood sweetheart Max Giles. Divorced three years later. Accusations of infidelity. Then married a writer, who she divorced five years later. She then married an actor, ten years her junior. They stayed married the longest. Seven years. Then a college student. That lasted only two years. Her husbands tend to be younger artist types. She eventually broke type and married Straker.”

“
What about Ilya?” Grace picked up a file with the magician’s name scrawled across the top. She leafed through the pictures and copies of newspaper articles.

“
Let’s see,” Ethan flipped through his legal pad. “Ilya Stefan Dragovich is the youngest son of Colonel Viktor Dragovich and Katja Antonova. He is the youngest of ten children. Except for his father and siblings, the Dragovich family has always been involved with magic in one form or another for centuries. Ilya took after his grandfather and began performing at a very young age.”

“
How did he meet Juliet?” Grace asked.

“
I’m getting there. I’m getting there. Be patient,” he said with a smile. Clearing his voice dramatically, he restarted his narration. “At eighteen, he defected to the west. He first settled in South Carolina where he met Juliet Isabel Love. The middle child of Andrew and Lucille Love. The Loves are an old and well-known family from the south. They objected to her falling in love with a ‘commie’, but despite her family's objections, they married and had two children. First born was Anya Isabel Dragovich and then three years later came Aleksis Mikhail Dragovich. They both take after their mother in looks and temperament. Both blond and blue-eyed. Apparently, the family lived happily until Juliet’s death twelve years ago. That’s when everything fell apart.”

Grace hand
ed the file to Valerie. “South Carolina? Isn’t that where Lily was from?”

“
Lily was Juliet’s best friend growing up. Juliet met Ilya and ran off with him one night. Then a year later, Lily followed them to Europe and joined their magic tour. The rest is history as they say.”

“
Did you find out if Ilya and Lily were having an affair?” Grace reached across the table, her fingers just grazing one manila folder before Ethan picked them up and set them on the other side of the table.

“
Patience,” he said smiling. “My source says not during the marriage. In fact, there were no rumors of infidelity. Not even a hint. The Loves weren’t too happy when Juliet eloped with Ilya, but they all agreed that he absolutely adored his wife. He was pretty devastated by her death. I couldn’t find anyone who believed that Ilya and Lily were having an affair, at least not while Juliet was alive. Nevertheless, I did discover that there was a rumor that Lily was in love with Ilya and that was the reason she followed them to Europe and joined their show. The Love family did not like Lily. They believe that Lily took advantage of Juliet’s death. According to Juliet’s sister, Lily moved in on Ilya rather quickly after Juliet’s accident. She tried to claim that it was just so she could help Ilya take care of the children, but Juliet’s family didn’t buy it.”

“
Help with the children?” Grace scoffed. “I don’t buy it either. Belle’s twenty-seven. Wouldn’t they have been teenagers by then?”

“Belle was in her late teens when Juliet died. Her brother was about fifteen. After the death, the family—including Lily—relocated to their home in Charleston. Ilya apparently locked himself up after Juliet’s death. He wouldn’t talk to anyone. He didn’t come out of it until his son started acting up and getting into trouble. Aleksis did not take his mother’s death well. He was even sent to a mental institution for a small period of time. There’s a rumor that Ilya blamed Lily for it and that’s why they had a falling out.”

“
That’s interesting.” Discreetly reading off his legal pad Grace asked, “What happened?”

Smiling,
Ethan lifted the pad up and held it to his chest. “I don’t know. Those records were sealed. After Aleksis’ stay was completed, Lily moved out the very next week.”

Eyeing the stack of folders just within reach, Grace ask
ed, “What about Belle?”

“
She apparently handled it better than her younger brother. I actually didn’t find out much. She was a rather unremarkable student. Just average. When not performing on the stage next to her father, she was enrolled in the University of South Carolina. She graduated with a 3.2 and a BA in child psychology and education. After graduation, she joined Ilya’s show full time. She's becoming a rather well respected magician in her own right. She’s had a few serious boyfriends. Usually older. Of course not as old as Straker. Nothing that shocking actually.”

“
And Aleksis?”

“
Aleksis is another story. After his stay in the state loony bin . . .”

Grace made a face.

“He followed his father and sister on the magic tour express. By all accounts, he’s something of a prodigy. A very gifted student. He’s fluent in six languages: English, Russian, Korean, French, German, and Spanish. At first it appeared he was going to follow in his father’s footsteps, but it didn’t happen.”

Valerie dropp
ed Ilya Dragovich’s file on top of the others. “He’s not a magician?”

“
The kid apparently didn’t have any talent for it. Which is surprising considering how smart he is. He spent some time at Harvard, but didn’t graduate. Not due to grades. They said his grades were stellar despite spending very little time in class. During his junior year he made the vice dean of academic affairs’ car disappear.”

“
Let me guess,” Grace said, “he didn’t make it reappear.”

Ethan shook his head. “No. It reappeared. Just not in the same form as when it disappeared. Anyways, Ilya went ballistic. He refused to let Aleksis perform with him and ordered him to find another type of career.”

“
That seems rather harsh for one prank.”

“
Yeah,” Valerie said. “Most fathers want their sons to follow in their footsteps.”

“
That’s the sad thing. I don’t think it was a prank. I think he was legitimately trying, but it wasn’t just that.”

Impatient
, Grace leaned across the table, grabbed several folders out of the pile on the table, and began leafing through them. “Any pictures of Aleksis?”

“
Hang on. I’m getting to that.” Ethan grabbed the folders and set them back down on the table. Exasperated, he shuffled his papers around, purposely drawing out the silence. Once he felt that enough time had passed, he started back up. “Apparently, there was an incident. A couple of them actually. Once when he was fifteen, Aleksis almost killed Belle while conducting some sort of magic trick.”

“
How?”

Ethan
shrugged. “I have no idea. The information I have is rather spotty. Belle almost lost her head.”

Valerie gasp
ed. “The scar on her neck.”

“
No wonder Ilya doesn’t want him performing.”

Ethan
picked up another folder and thumbed through it. “There was also an incident in Spain. The boy ran away and tried to perform his own death defying escape trick.” Ethan handed them a picture of a tank and what appeared a young man floating inside. “His father found out and arrived just in time to break open the container and perform mouth to mouth respiration.” Grace peered closer at the image. Unfortunately, the boy’s features were obscured.