As early morning sunlight hit the asphalt parking lot of the Hidden Creek main square the next morning, Tempest stepped onto the platform for the press conference she’d called.
Several dozen people had crowded into the space, with more filing in. It didn’t approach the size of the huge crowds Tempest used to command, but hey, she’d called it a “press conference,” put the word out less than twelve hours ago, and said the time would be posted at dawn.
Most of the people in attendance were only curious members of the public, not reporters, but that would serve her purpose just fine. Many of them held their cell phones high, recording her. Which was exactly what she wanted. There would be no way to silence the message she revealed. She may have exaggerated just a little bit to get them here. But not much.
“You may have heard a story about a woman who suffered a grave injury falling down a flight of stairs,” Tempest began, “and her husband who was murdered shortly after she woke up. It’s true that Julian Rhodes was murdered at the Whispering Creek Theater. But he wasn’t murdered by his wife. And he wasn’t murdered by my mother, Emma Raj, either, by a booby trap she set before she died or by her ghost. What you read is only a tiny snippet of the truth. Today, I’m going to tell you the rest.
“Julian Rhodes tried to kill his wife, Paloma, and he tried to blame it on Secret Staircase Construction. Even though he tried to cover it up with nondisclosure agreements, I’ve discovered he had a pattern of suing people and bullying them into paying a settlement that included not only money, but also their silence.
“After Julian tried to kill his wife and blame it on my father’s company, Paloma lay in a coma from the injuries she sustained by the hand of her abusive husband. You don’t have to take my word for it. This isn’t my story. This is Paloma’s. I found a way to reach out to her. She’s still frightened. But thanks to the strength in numbers, she’s willing to talk to you. And she’s here to tell you her story.” Tempest turned to the side of the stage. “Paloma, would you join me on stage?”
Paloma stepped onto the stage. Her stance conveyed confidence, but up close, Tempest could see the dark circles under her eyes and the quiver in her hands.
“Thank you all for coming,” said Paloma. “I didn’t kill my husband. I wasn’t hiding because I’ve done anything wrong. I was in hiding because I was afraid. Afraid of being blamed for a murder I didn’t commit. And afraid of Julian’s older brother.”
“She’s bound by legalities to stop there,” said Tempest. “But I’m not. What I’m telling you now isn’t anything I learned from Paloma. It’s information I learned because of what Julian tried to do to my dad: extortion. But we didn’t accept his terms. We didn’t bend to pressure to make his nuisance lawsuit go away. So we didn’t sign a nondisclosure agreement. I can tell you that the way Julian Rhodes won lawsuits wasn’t by being in the right. Nor was it by telling the truth. It was through intimidation. He threatened to destroy Secret Staircase Construction by tying us up in legal battles until we were broke. Even though we knew we were in the right, it would have been the smart thing to pay him off. Especially after he threatened to make up lies. But still, we didn’t pay. I expect that a lot of other people—maybe even people who are watching the videos that members of this audience are livestreaming now—were also defrauded.”
“Before we leave you,” said Paloma, “I’d like to prove that my fall wasn’t due to shoddy work. I know it’s my word against my husband’s that he pushed me down the stairs. So there will always be some people who won’t believe me without proof. But before my fall, I took a video of all of the wonderful work Secret Staircase Construction did. I wanted to remember it. Julian didn’t know I’d made the video. I haven’t shared it with anyone. Until now.”
Tempest pushed a button and the screen on the back of the stage was filled with a video showing the staircase, including the fateful second step. It was fully welded into place, unlike the so-called evidence Julian had created after the fact to claim that it had been done improperly. Tempest stopped the video.
“I’m sorry, that’s all I can say,” Paloma concluded.
“But that’s enough,” Tempest picked up. “Far more than enough to prove what really happened with her attempted murder. Her husband was not a good man. I’m sorry to have misled you today. I don’t have the identity of a killer—only an attempted killer. Julian Rhodes tried to kill his wife, but someone else killed both Julian and another man, Brodie Frost, at the Whispering Creek Theater. This is the first step toward getting justice.”
Tempest couldn’t resist ending with a theatrical flourish. She launched into her signature twirl, and the music of a fiddle filled the air. She spun and spun like a tornado until she finished in both a cloud of quickly improvised smoke and a black cloak.
When the police lifted the cloak twenty seconds later, Tempest was already winding her way through the crowd. It was Flo they found underneath the cloak.
“Not again,” Tempest heard Rinehart groan as she slipped away.
She was well on her way to solving the greatest mystery of her life.