“This can’t be real.” Tempest took two deep breaths to steady her nerves, then stepped closer with Nicodemus by her side. “Julian is messing with me. It’s got to be a dummy.”
“That’s no dummy,” Nicodemus whispered. “It’s a real body.”
A body. Of a man she knew. Who died in the twenty-first century by being run through with a sword? And where had the hilt of the sword gone? It was only the tip of a metal blade that showed. Had it broken off with the force of pinning him to the door?
As she looked away, something else on the door caught her eye. A piece of masking tape at eye level, holding a ripped scrap of paper. The rest of whatever had been there was missing.
Tempest’s hands shook as she called 9–1–1. Julian Rhodes had been a nasty man, but that didn’t mean she was happy about finding his dead body.
“What are you doing?” Nicodemus pulled her phone from her hands before she could complete the call.
“Calling the police.” Tempest glared at him and reached for the phone, which he kept out of reach. “At least I was until you took my phone.”
“We need to leave.”
“What are you talking about?” She gave a start at a sound in the distance. A car. Was the murderer fleeing?
“He’s dead, Tempest. There’s nothing you can do for him.”
“We can’t leave a crime scene.”
“We shouldn’t be here in the first place. Especially you. He’s suing you. Do you have any idea how this will look?” He handed the phone back to her.
The faint sound of a car wasn’t fading away. It was growing louder. Headlights flashed across the front of the theater, and a police car came to a stop a few yards away from them. A uniformed officer stepped out. Tempest relaxed at the sight of him. She knew the tall, gangly junior officer. She also remembered he hadn’t reacted well the first time he’d seen a dead body.
“Tempest Raj?”
“Officer Quinn.”
“We got a call about someone screaming.” Quinn’s Adam’s apple bobbed up and down prominently in the stark shadows of light and dark from the one lamp. “I’m glad it’s just you and a prop. Might be best for you to keep the loud parts of your rehearsal indoors at this time of night.” He gave her a nervous smile she didn’t return.
Officer Quinn couldn’t have been much older than Tempest. Definitely still in his twenties. She couldn’t blame him for not being world-weary and jaded yet.
“It’s real,” Tempest said, feeling like her voice was outside of herself. She had to hold it together. “I think. We just got here and found him like this. With that sword sticking out of his chest. I was starting to call 9–1–1 when you pulled up.”
The smile fell away. Officer Quinn’s gaze swept over the whole scene in a matter of seconds. He might have been new enough to hold false optimism, but he was competent. More than competent, she realized. In less than a minute, he’d checked the body for vitals, moved Tempest and Nicodemus away from the crime scene, instructed them not to move from where they stood next to his police car, and made an urgent call on his walkie-talkie.
“Backup will be here in a minute,” Quinn said, pointing his flashlight around the perimeter of the dark lot. A nocturnal animal fled as the beam of light hit the hillside trees beyond the lot. “What do I need to know right now?”
Tempest was grateful he hadn’t immediately ushered the two of them into handcuffs and the back seat of the patrol car. What did she know? Julian had been about to open the door of the theater when he’d disconnected their call, so he must have been killed soon after he hung up.
“The person who killed him is long gone,” she said. “Julian Rhodes called me a few minutes after midnight from right there, and it took me nearly ten minutes to drive here, so the person who killed him had plenty of time to flee.”
Quinn’s shoulders relaxed, then immediately tensed again. “Rhodes. Isn’t that the name of the man suing your dad? This isn’t an actor?” For the first time since he had arrived, his voice had an edge to it.
Here it was. Suspicion.
“You two didn’t touch anything, did you?”
“We did not,” Nicodemus answered.
“Your name?”
“Nicodemus. Just Nicodemus.” He handed the officer a business card with his contact information. She hoped it was the card where the ink would still be visible the next day.
“A relation of Ms. Raj?”
Tempest didn’t think Officer Quinn had met her Scottish grandmother during the previous investigation, but of course he knew about her familial connection to Scotland. Just like she knew of his reputation for having a poor choice in girlfriends, the last of whom had wrecked his new car. It was a small town. Plus, her grandfather was an unabashed busybody.
“An old friend of the family,” said Nicodemus. “I was with Tempest the entire time. I can vouch for her. Provide an alibi I believe is the correct term.”
“She doesn’t need—I meant to say, a team including a detective will be here shortly. Any second now.” Quinn shone his powerful flashlight toward the theater’s low, ornamental towers. “I know about this place. I used to come to shows here during high school. I was away in college when your mom disappeared here. By the time I came back a few years ago, it was shut down for good. But that led to other problems…” He continued to shine his flashlight around nervously. “Students would dare each other to break inside and leave a ghost light burning.” His Adam’s apple bounced up and down. “Do you know what that is?”
Tempest nodded. “The tradition of leaving a single light burning in a theater so its ghosts won’t be left all alone in the dark.”
She wasn’t surprised. She hadn’t heard about break-ins at the Whispering Creek Theater while it was abandoned, but it made sense. It was an old Gothic building on the outskirts of town that resembled a mini cathedral and had a macabre history of tragic deaths and disappearances. It was practically a flashing neon sign beckoning bored teenagers to take a look inside. At least the miniature towers were only as high as the attic of the Whispering House, and the ornamental windows weren’t big enough for a person to fit through, so it wasn’t like they could dare each other to do anything too dangerous.
Had Julian found some kids inside tonight? She could easily imagine them kicking his condescending face or defending themselves with pepper spray, but stabbing him with a sword?
Sirens screamed, and an ambulance came into view a moment later, pulling up beside them. Tempest and Officer Quinn didn’t have to do much to explain the situation, and two men hurried toward the body to confirm the victim was beyond saving.
Besides the sound of their shoes shuffling on the asphalt and the frogs in the nearby hidden creek, all was silent, which was how Tempest was able to hear what happened next.
She knew that sound. She’d created many illusions that relied on the same principle. The snap of a metal brace and the coil of a metal spring, previously under pressure, releasing.
“Get away from the door!” Tempest shouted as she ran forward.
But it was too late.
A blade sprang from within the wooden beams of the door.
“What the—” The larger of the two paramedics stumbled backward from Julian’s body as a sharp blade sliced into his shoulder.
That’s why they hadn’t seen the hilt of the sword that had killed Julian Rhodes. It hadn’t broken off. It was never there in the first place. The blade had sprung from the thick wooden door itself. And now there was a second one.
“A booby trap,” Tempest whispered. “A booby trap killed Julian Rhodes.”