Shortly before the sun rose the next morning, Tempest and her dad climbed the hill behind their house to watch the sunrise.
They walked out the back gate of the house, along the overgrown path that wasn’t a proper trail, and toward the wishing well, with the crest of the hill in sight through the trees. At this time of day, it was silent enough that you could hear the soft lapping of the hidden creek that gave Tempest’s hometown its name.
This had become a new tradition, the two of them climbing the hill at sunrise whenever they knew there were things unsaid between them. They’d both woken up early and exchanged a look of understanding in the kitchen. Time for a sunrise walk. It was another thing that made Tempest both love and hate having moved home.
The earth beneath her feet was damp with morning dew, and they walked in silence, as twigs crunched underfoot on the unpaved section of the hillside. In the crisp morning air, Tempest was bundled in her white peacoat and red beanie, which Ivy’s sister Dahlia had knitted for her, but Darius wore a black T-shirt and nothing on his shaved head. He wasn’t naturally bald like his father-in-law but had enjoyed the look and feel of a smooth head for as long as Tempest could remember. It suited him.
Pausing at the wishing well, Tempest closed her eyes and felt the cool, moss-covered stones under her palms. Before meeting Gideon, she never gave the texture of stone a second thought. Now, she thought of varieties of stone having their own unique personalities, and as a living thing shaped by both nature and human hands. When she opened her eyes, her dad was smiling at her.
“Here.” He handed her a shiny penny.
“Thanks, Papa.” She made a silent wish as she tossed a penny into the well. She wished for the piece of the puzzle that would connect the murders at the theater. Her mom vanishing on stage more than five years ago, and Julian being stabbed via a booby trap at the door. There was a connection, she was sure. She just couldn’t see it yet.
Darius tossed in a penny of his own, and they continued on their way. She breathed in the fresh air and stood with her hands on her hips, feeling the warm energy of the sun. Looking behind her, the water of the San Francisco Bay was gray with fog, but facing the eastern sunrise high atop the Hidden Creek hillside, Tempest knew she would get through this. But only with her family and friends at her side.
“Caffeine?” Darius handed her a thermos of coffee from the full-size backpack that looked like a kindergartener’s accessory on his back.
“Always.”
Darius removed a plaid blanket from his backpack and spread it over the dew-covered bench at the crest of the hill. A Ferguson tartan from Grannie Mor. Tempest doubted she knew Darius was using it as a picnic blanket. Still, she accepted a seat.
“Thanks for that extra work you and Ivy did at the Whispering House, painting late into the night while your old papa was asleep. Now we’ll be able to wrap up the Lenore Woods project and get everything cleared out and cleaned within the week.”
Tempest shrugged off the compliment. “We would’ve just been up watching an old movie anyway. You think the city will give her the historical home designation even with our puzzle room imaginings in the attic?”
“We were true to everything in the historical records about Chester Hill’s vision. The way the wood panels form a puzzle is all you, but that guy was a trip. The Gothic cathedral façade and pivoting Shadow Stage in his theater? And the way he built a whispering hallway into the house he had built to be his home in his old age? When he wrote about a puzzle for the attic, reached by a secret passageway, I have no doubt it either once existed and was torn down by more ‘proper’ occupants or that he died before he could see his vision through.” Darius paused long enough to take a long drink of coffee as he looked out at the sunrise. “You ready to tell me what you and Ivy are up to?”
“It’s not just me and Ivy,” she admitted. “Sanjay and Gideon are helping.”
“You roped the guys into being part of your mystery-solving gang?” He shifted his attention to Tempest and flexed his biceps. Not that he’d ever use his strength to harm the guys, but it was a reflexive instinct when it came to his baby girl. “I thought it was only you and Ivy that liked those old novels where amateurs solve crimes. What can you all do to find Paloma Rhodes that the police aren’t doing?” He paused and squinted at her. “Ah. I see. You don’t think she’s guilty.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“Your poker face is useless with me.”
“Is it? What am I thinking right now?”
“That your papa knows how to make a damn good cup of coffee.” He grinned.
She stuck out her tongue at him. “You get up this early every day of the year, so you better have learned how to make a good cup of coffee in your fifty years on the planet.”
“That’s as far as my mind-reading skills go, so you’ve gotta help me out.” He was smiling, but there were visible dark circles under his eyes.
“You don’t need to worry. We’re only armchair detectives.”
“Since when?”
“They’re a good influence on me. I promise. We’re not up to anything dangerous.”
Tempest’s phone buzzed in her coat pocket. “It’s Sanjay,” she told her dad. “I’d better take it. He’s never up this early. Something is wrong.”
“Are you seeing this?” Sanjay asked, when Tempest picked up.
“Seeing what?”
“At the theater. The ghost was spotted at the theater during the night by one of those ghost hunters. He broke inside and is trapped inside by the ghost.”
Wind rustled the trees that loomed in the hills above the Gothic Whispering Creek Theater. The pointed spires looked menacing in the hillside shadows as Tempest pulled into the parking lot.
Sanjay was on his way from San Francisco so he wasn’t there yet, but her dad was. He’d gone on ahead in his truck while she grabbed something from home. Tempest spotted him speaking to a uniformed officer who was guarding the perimeter that had been set up a distance from the theater. The new barricade was necessary because, despite the early hour, a crowd was forming. It was nothing like it had been the day before, but it would be soon.
“What’s going on?” she asked her dad as she reached his side.
Darius walked them away from the scowling officer as muffled shouts came from inside the theater. He ran a hand across his face and shook his head. “It’s worse than Sanjay told you.”
“Worse than someone being trapped inside?”
“It’s two of them.” He swallowed hard. “And they’re just kids.”
“That’s not the full story,” an eavesdropper cut in with a smirk.
If the last couple of days had taught Tempest anything, it was not to stereotype. It wasn’t all Goth ghost hunters and macabre magic show devotees who were curious. This guy was her dad’s age and dressed in tan slacks and a white dress shirt. His cross-body bag looked like it cost far more than a functional bag should have.
“You know the full story?” Darius loomed over the man. Tempest knew him well enough to know he didn’t mean to look threatening. It was the stress of having been told it was kids inside.
“Well, um,” the man stammered, his smug expression gone.
“Whatever you can tell us,” Tempest added, “would be helpful.”
He smiled weakly. “It’s not little kids. It’s a couple of teenagers. One of them is being held captive by what they think is the ghost of the woman who disappeared here five years ago, and his friend won’t leave him alone. That’s why the officers inside haven’t been able to get them out.”
“The ghost of Emma Raj?” Tempest whispered.
“Yeah, you’ve heard of her?”
“How do you know this?” Darius asked the man, his rage barely under control.
Tempest knew her dad would keep it together, or at least not physically harm the poor man who’d interrupted the wrong conversation, so her attention was already back on the theater. What was going on here? The sun was barely up, and the stone theater nestled at the base of the hillside was still covered in shadow. Dozens of people were gathered around the perimeter barricade that circled the theater. There was no longer a tarp covering the façade, since the original booby-trapped vaulted door had been replaced by a new, utilitarian one with multiple locks. The door was locked and shut, and nobody was stationed outside it. The kids hadn’t gotten into the theater through the main door.
“I was driving to work just now,” the man was saying, “listening to the radio … It was a caller to the radio show. She saw a social media post with a video of the ghost.”
Tempest’s attention snapped back to the eavesdropper. This was bad. “How long ago?”
“Four, maybe five minutes? I just got here. I—”
“Papa.” Tempest grabbed her dad’s arm. “This isn’t what it appears to be.”
“Obviously.” Darius tensed his jaw, and the man slunk away from him. “This isn’t the ghost of—”
“I know,” said Tempest. “This is a trap.”