Blackburn waited silently for Tempest to respond to his news that police records of the cold cases of Emma and Elspeth Raj were missing from both Hidden Creek and Edinburgh.
“Are you okay, Tempest?”
“I am,” she said. “It’s weird. It’s like I’ve been holding my breath, but I always knew that was the answer. I’m glad that I finally know.” Uncertainty had brought with it a weight that made everything worse. A weight that had now shifted. Vague discomfort transformed into frightening freedom.
“I told you earlier today I wasn’t worried. That was when just one item was misplaced.” Blackburn spoke softly now. “But now I’m worried. More worried than I think I’ve ever been.”
“You know what I am?” Tempest asked. “I’m angry. Someone is deliberately erasing all the facts gathered about those crimes.”
Someone wanted to cover up what happened to Elspeth and Emma Raj. Tempest ran her fingers across her silver charm bracelet as everything sank in. Julian Rhodes’s murder was connected to the Raj family curse.
An owl hooted, causing Blackburn to move protectively in front of Tempest.
“I don’t like it here,” he said.
“You’re the one who suggested meeting here.” She shivered as she looked at the police tape crisscrossing the front of the theater.
“I wanted to come by here tonight to make sure nothing odd was going on, so I thought I’d kill two birds with one stone.”
“You couldn’t do that first?”
“I needed to get you out of the house.”
She gaped at him.
“I drove to your house,” he continued. “When the only light I saw came from the guest wing, I drove past and pulled over at the side of the road before calling you.”
“If I hadn’t been with Nicodemus, you would have asked me to simply open the front gate to meet you?”
He nodded.
“The missing files,” she said. “That’s why you didn’t like that I was with Nicodemus.”
“Only Nicodemus? You weren’t with his assistant as well?”
“No,” Tempest said slowly. “Brodie hasn’t come back for the night yet.”
“Do you know where he is?”
“You suspect him too?”
“Too?” Blackburn snapped. “Do you know something? You should have told me—”
“I don’t really know anything. Only that Brodie was thinking about selling props to get money, now that their tour is canceled. But I don’t think he went through with it. So yes, I know how weak that sounds. He’s probably drowning his sorrows from his lost job, or maybe something related to the nightmare of canceling their tour.”
“Aren’t there people who deal with that stuff?”
Tempest raised an eyebrow at him. “Yes. He’s that person.” But as she said it, she didn’t really know if it was true. He was handling a lot of logistics, but would he be dealing with a canceled tour at midnight? It was more likely he was in a bar drinking his troubles away. “But how would Brodie have stolen secure files in two countries?”
“I didn’t say they were stolen.”
“Then what do you think happened to them?”
“I wish I knew. Mistakes happen. Old files are lost. But everything related to the cases of your aunt and mom in two different cities across the world from each other? It’s too much of a coincidence.”
“Aren’t you supposed to end a speech like that by telling me to stay out of it?”
“It’s far too late to ask you to do that.” He ran a hand through his prematurely white hair, perhaps remembering the case that had been partly responsible. “Both because I know you won’t listen to me—and because I think you need a miracle.”
“You’re not doing a very good job of being reassuring.”
“I’m not here to be reassuring. I care about you and your family. Even that weirdo mentor of yours.”
“I’m surprised you only suspect Brodie, not Nicodemus.”
“If Nicodemus had been in the country when your mom vanished, I’d be a hell of a lot more suspicious of him. But I checked. He wasn’t.”
She stared at him in the dim light of the parking lot. “We need to find Brodie.”
“I thought you said you didn’t know where he was.”
She held up her phone. “I know it’s not much bigger than a pack of cards, but I bet this little computer can tell me.” She tapped Brodie’s number and waited for it to ring.
She heard it begin to ring on her phone, but with an odd echo.
“What the…” Blackburn began.
Tempest muted her phone. The soft ringing continued. Brodie’s phone was ringing from inside the theater.
Tempest’s heart sped up. “He’s inside the theater,” she whispered.
“I need to call this in.”
“You’re not a cop.”
“I’m a concerned citizen. Tempest! Hey, where are you going?”
“Where do you think?”
Ivy would have said she was Too Stupid to Live, but she had Blackburn. So it was only slightly foolhardy.
Since the lighting had been fixed, there was plenty of light. She pulled back the tarp that had been reinstated and examined the replacement door. It wasn’t a perfect fit, which made sense, since the original door had been custom built. Two hefty padlocks held the ill-fitting door shut.
She suspected that they were more for show than anything else, to deter paranormal investigators and other curious people. It wouldn’t keep out anyone serious about getting inside. It hadn’t even kept those teenagers from finding another way in, although they had had help.
Anyone who knew how to pick a lock could have opened them within minutes. Blackburn must have known how to do so, but he was pulling out his phone, not looking at the locks. Tempest knelt at the door. That’s when she saw it. The door itself was solid, but the steel hasps and staple locks were affixed with simple screws.
“Don’t call whoever you’re calling,” she said. “Give me your Swiss Army knife.”
“What makes you think I have a Swiss Army knife?” He pocketed his phone.
“Don’t you know that all magicians read minds?” She didn’t look up at him as he grumbled and placed it in her hand, but she decided to come clean. “I’ve seen you use it at least three times in the five-plus years I’ve known you.”
“You’ve been holding back on me. You told me it wasn’t true that all magicians knew how to pick locks.”
“I don’t. I’m doing something far easier.” She stood up and held up the hasps and staples—with the locked padlocks intact. “You have more pockets than me. Hold onto these, along with the screws.”
He grunted, but obliged. Tempest swung open the door, which slid silently on its new hinges. The lobby lights weren’t on, but lights mounted in sconces on the wall along the hallway-to-nowhere cast a dim light into the lobby.
The red velvet sash that normally blocked off the hallway was no longer pulled across the opening. That was probably from when they’d searched the theater for the teenagers. Still, Tempest had a strong sensation that something was different from when she’d last been inside.
“There.” Blackburn spoke in a barely audible whisper as he pointed at the shadow of a figure creeping down the hallway-to-nowhere.
“Brodie,” Tempest whispered. His recognizable spiky hair—as if he’d just rolled out of bed—stood on end in the shadow. “He must’ve gotten in through one of the other doors.”
“Stay here.” Blackburn spoke so softly she could barely hear him. “I’ll follow him.”
“Wait,” she whispered back, scanning the area. She felt certain this wasn’t as simple as Brodie having a clandestine meeting in the theater at midnight. Something was wrong with the way Brodie was walking. As if he’d been injured.
Before she could call out to him, another thought struck her: Maybe he was walking oddly because he was carrying something heavy. Something he didn’t want them to see.
It wasn’t only his gait but the direction he was walking. The hallway-to-nowhere was given that name because it was exactly that. There was no destination at the end. Or at least, there shouldn’t have been. The only thing at the end of that hallway was a spot that had been sealed shut years ago: the entrance to the Shadow Stage.
Blackburn didn’t wait. He took two steps—before Tempest tackled him. They crashed to the ground, her elbow burning from skidding across the threadbare red carpet.
But they’d gone an inch too far. Just an inch, but an inch that meant everything. An inch that meant they’d touched the object Tempest had spotted just a moment too late.
“Get back.” Tempest rolled Blackburn away from the taut thread that would have been invisible if Tempest hadn’t been looking for it. Thread that shouldn’t have been there—inches off the ground, waiting to be triggered.
“Another booby trap!” she yelled, giving up the pretense of quiet.
Blackburn didn’t need another nudge. They both scrambled backward as a loud, crackling sound began.
Tempest braced herself for a dagger flying out from some unknown location, but instead, what hit her didn’t land on her skin. She breathed in the scent of smoke. The theater was burning.
The smoke in the hallway-to-nowhere, where Brodie had gone, grew thicker. Tempest paused several steps from the exit, wondering why she didn’t see Brodie running back their way. Perhaps he really was injured.
Blackburn pulled Tempest toward the door with one arm while calling 9–1–1 with the other. He let go of her in the doorway as the operator answered. She was so focused on looking behind her that she barely heard what he said. Where was Brodie?
“Tempest.” Blackburn glared at her as she lingered in the doorway. “Get out of here.”
“Brodie is still inside.” She stepped from the theater’s lobby to the paved stones outside.
“With a fire. Tempest, please. They’ll be here in a couple of minutes.”
“You want his death on your conscience?”
“I’m going back inside. You’re not.”
Tempest opened her mouth, but closed it before speaking. Time was of the essence. She gave a nod as Blackburn stepped back into the burning building.
Since she hadn’t spoken, she hadn’t actually agreed to stay behind. She waited three seconds before following Blackburn into the depths of the burning theater.