Back at Fiddler’s Folly, Tempest and Nicodemus made sure not to wake anyone as they walked from the driveway to the main house. Her dad and Nicodemus’s assistant were asleep in the house, her grandparents were in the tree house in-law unit farther up the hillside, and her lop-eared rabbit Abra, who was more than capable of making a racket with his large feet if disturbed, was in his hutch in the half-built tower with the words Secret Fort etched into the stone.
Fiddler’s Folly was far less grand than you’d expect from its regal-sounding name. This was no ancestral home, but a hodgepodge of whimsical rooms built by Secret Staircase Construction, the home renovation company founded by Tempest’s carpenter dad and stage magician mom. The idea was never to compete with larger companies but rather to fill a niche that appealed to both of them. Starting nearly three decades ago, Tempest’s parents, Darius and Emma, began experimenting on their own home, expanding the small, single-story bungalow on a steep hillside of Hidden Creek, California, into a maze of secret staircases and disguised rooms that weren’t what you’d guess from the outside. They gave their quirky home a name to match.
Darius got his general contractor’s license when he and his wife formed Secret Staircase Construction. He was never a good businessperson, as he prioritized people over profits. Ivy, Gideon, and Tempest were all part-time employees, and none of them had skills that were an exact fit for what would have made sense for a home renovation company. Ivy was a welder who was studying to become a librarian. Gideon was a stonemason who hoped to become a sculptor. There was also part-time employee Victor Castillo. Victor had worked as a structural engineer at a high-pressure job at an architectural firm. After reaching burnout, he retired early to focus on building his dream home, and worked only at the start of big Secret Staircase Construction jobs. The connecting thread was creativity, and all of them had learned more general skills. Nobody was above doing any job, however mundane, and everyone worked together to make each Secret Staircase Construction project unique for their clients. They were a hodgepodge of people who got along like family, so despite their patchwork skills, it worked.
Dawn would break shortly, but in the darkness, security lights had clicked on as soon as they drove through the front gate. Tempest thought it was overkill to install the lights, but her dad had insisted on them after everything that had happened.
Tempest unlocked the front door to the main house and promptly crashed into a rail-thin man with cavernous features. Not the type of person who was fun to run into while her heart was already racing from the night she’d had.
“What are you lot up to?” Brodie’s deep-set gray eyes bore into her. Nicodemus’s right-hand man was staying in the smaller of the two guest rooms in the main house. There was nothing odd about him being awake before dawn—he had jet lag like Nicodemus—but why was he on his way outside at this hour?
Impossibly tall and thin, Englishman Brodie Frost was the kind of tall that made a person stoop when they walked through a door, and so lean he resembled a stalk of wheat that might blow over in a gust of wind. His distinctive physical features inspired a director to cast him as Ichabod Crane in a theatrical production of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow many years ago, after which other “character actor” roles followed. That’s how he and Nicodemus first met, when Nicodemus still took the odd acting job to finance new illusions he was experimenting with but not yet using.
“Unexpected night,” Nicodemus answered. “Do you think it’s too late for a pint?”
“Just what kind of night did you two have?” Brodie scratched the stubble on his sunken cheek. His spiky hair, perfect for the roles he played on stage, stood on end.
“Let’s make coffee,” Tempest suggested. It would be bad coffee (she didn’t know how to make any other kind), but she desperately needed a cup. Or four.
“That’s where I’m off to,” Brodie said. “Sun’s nearly up. Your grandfather saw my light on from the tree house deck. Said he’d been up for hours and that he had both coffee and breakfast ready. I take it this has something to do with why Darius left during the night as well?”
“My dad’s not here?” She was so frazzled that she hadn’t even noticed her dad’s truck was gone. She’d planned on telling her dad and grandparents everything once she arrived home, but Rinehart must have called them. She both loved and hated having returned to a small town. “We’ll explain everything just as soon as we have coffee.”
Brodie gave a single nod, ducked his head to pass through the front door, and glided onto the path leading up the hillside to the tree house. He didn’t make a sound, even on the uneven flagstone that always crunched when it tilted underfoot. If it hadn’t been for the murder, Tempest would have known it was simply that Brodie had worked in the theater for so long that his footfalls were graceful and silent. But right then, Tempest was not amused. She could have sworn he was floating like a ghost. Brodie gave them a backward glance before continuing up the hillside.
“I can’t believe that horrible man is dead.” Grandpa Ash set a hearty platter of food on the tree house deck’s dining table.
“And killed by a booby trap.” Tempest shifted to move into a narrow ray of early morning sunshine on the deck.
“The authorities got inside the back door quickly to search for their invisible killer,” Nicodemus added. “But they didn’t find anyone.”
Tempest had never seen Nicodemus looking so wretched. He avoided looking at the breakfast spread of food Tempest’s grandfather had cooked for them to restore their energy after their harrowing night. She wondered if it was the first time Nicodemus had seen a dead body. He’d built his act on a Halloween-style fantasy of a conjuror who could control the dead, but it was a PG-rated type of horror.
The dawn sunlight filtered through the hillside trees, shining more brightly on the pastries on the outdoor dining table nestled next to an oak tree. Ash must’ve been up most of the night baking after he heard what had happened. There were blackberry scones, fluffy rice idli, and chocolate-filled empanadas—a mix of all the cultural traditions of the inhabitants of the house. The bounty made Tempest smile—until the light hitting the metallic platter made her tense. It reminded her of the blade she’d seen at the theater shortly after midnight.
“Eat,” said Ash. Tempest’s grandfather would never let anyone go hungry. Ashok Raj had been born in South India eighty years ago into a culture that took communal food very seriously. He adjusted the fedora resting on his bald head as he frowned at the people sitting at his dining table but not eating.
“Well, if none of you lot are digging in.” Brodie shrugged and helped himself to a plate with a sampling of everything, temporarily averting the possibility of Grandpa Ash’s head exploding at the sight of untouched food.
“Where did my dad take off to?” Tempest had expected him to be there waiting to hear how she was, like her grandparents were.
“He woke up the lawyer in the Julian Rhodes civil case,” Morag said.
Tempest glanced toward the rising sun. “It’s barely six o’clock in the morning.”
“When has that ever stopped your headstrong father?” Morag smiled through her rose-tinted lips. No matter the time of day or the circumstance, Tempest’s Scottish grandmother looked as glamorous as if she’d stepped off a movie set from the golden age of Hollywood filmmaking. “Even in death, Julian Rhodes could be our downfall.”
Ash clicked his tongue. “Don’t say that. Darius is simply being cautious. Preparing for whatever might come next.” He fiddled with the brim of his fedora. It was stiffer than the rest of his hats. It must have been a new one. Tempest wasn’t sure which was larger, Morag’s collection of scarves or Ash’s collection of hats.
“What could possibly come next?” she asked.
The downstairs door squeaked open and footsteps sounded on the stairs leading up to the kitchen. Tempest knew those footsteps well. A moment later, her dad was on the deck.
Darius Mendez was a man with presence. Tempest had gotten her height and propensity for muscles from him, and she used to think she’d gotten her stage presence from her mom, but now she wasn’t so sure. While her papa’s size turned heads, it was his calm, baritone voice and the gentle way he carried himself, even with arms like tree trunks, that kept their attention. People from eighteen to eighty looked dreamily at him on a regular basis, but he’d never shown any interest in another woman since his wife vanished.
Darius ran a calloused hand across his face. His gaze fell to Tempest. “How concerned do I need to be about this note they have?”
“You didn’t go see the lawyer like you said you were going to?” Morag added. “You’ve been investigating?”
Darius tensed his jaw and answered his parents-in-law. “I did wake the lawyer. Then I went to see Detective Rinehart. Tempest, you should have called Vanessa when he told you about the note they found.”
“What note?” Ash and Morag asked at the same time.
“It read, Come in, Tempest,” Darius explained.
Grandpa Ash frowned. “That sounds like Tempest was the one being invited inside.”
“It was in her handwriting,” Darius added.
“I already told Detective Rinehart I didn’t write a note to Julian Rhodes,” said Tempest. “Obviously, it must have been taken from one of my notebooks where I plan my ideas for shows. A bunch of them are in the theater.”
“So your fingerprints would be on it,” said Darius.
“If I could get inside the theater to see if my notebooks of show notes are there, I can find where it was pulled from. But they wouldn’t let me inside. If I can get my notebooks back, I can prove—”
“You can’t be serious, Tempest.” It was Nicodemus who spoke. He’d been uncharacteristically silent through the exchange, but Tempest was pleased to see he was looking slightly less like he was about to be sick over the railing of the deck. “The theater is a crime scene.”
Tempest dangled a ring of keys in her hand. She’d been given two sets of keys when she rented the theater.
“Not happening,” her dad said to her. “You don’t need to butt in. You’re lucky you’re not a suspect. That they think—” He broke off when the buzzer from the front gate sounded.
“Och!” Morag cried as she leapt up. “That’ll be Trina and Tansy.”
“This early?” Tempest asked. She knew her grandparents got up early, and she was adjusting to the schedule of construction work, but six o’clock in the morning still seemed ridiculously early for guests.
“We made plans to paint the sunrise light through the trees, but with everything going on I forgot,” Morag said from the doorway. “I’ll greet them at the gate and tell them we need to reschedule.”
The gate wasn’t visible from the tree house deck, but Tempest was pretty sure she remembered Tansy, a contemporary of her gran who was a fellow ex-pat Scot. But in general, she couldn’t keep up with her grandparents’ myriad friends. They’d only moved from Edinburgh to Hidden Creek a few years ago, but Ash’s friendly bedside manner from his years as a doctor and Morag’s connection to the local art community meant that they had a far more active social life than Tempest did these days.
Someone’s phone trilled, and Darius lifted his phone from his pocket. “Hey—She’s fine. Arrested? No, why did you think Tempest had been arrested? She’s not answering your messages?” Darius raised an eyebrow at his daughter. “She’s right here. You want to talk to her? Uh-huh. Yeah, I’ll let her know.” Darius clicked off and turned to his daughter. “Check your phone. Puppy Dog has left you a bunch of messages.”
Sanjay would be mortified if he knew her dad referred to him like that. Performing as The Hindi Houdini, he was a successful enough stage magician to have a fan club (The Hindi Houdini Heartbreakers) and headline medium-size venues all over the world. Tempest had once been more famous, but her fall from grace had squished her flat. Sanjay was one of her few magician friends who’d stood by her, even when all the evidence incorrectly pointed to Tempest as the one responsible for the fire that ruined her career. His huge ego was balanced out by his enduring loyalty, and the fact that he was gorgeous and fun made it all the more confusing to know what to do with him now that they were both back in Northern California. Though he was currently out of town for a show.
“Puppy dog?” Ash repeated. “You’re getting a dog? Nobody tells me anything around here. I don’t think Abra will be very happy about that.”
Ten-pound, lop-eared rabbit Abracadabra was surly, but also a softy. The fact that Tempest was a similar mix of contrasts wasn’t lost on her. Abra was the perfect pet, and one she almost hadn’t kept. Abracadabra had been a gift as a bit of a joke because she was a magician. Although she fought against magician stereotypes in her life and didn’t use animals in her acts, Abra wasn’t remotely like a bunny you’d see in a magic show. He was far too big. He also turned out to be an excellent judge of character. As soon as he’d bitten an annoying woman Sanjay had been dating at the time, Tempest knew Abra was a keeper.
She checked her phone. While talking to her family, she had indeed missed a string of text messages from Sanjay.
u ok?
where are u?
Tempest, seriously, we talked about this. HOW COULD U TURN OFF UR PHONE???
where are u????
can’t focus. where are u?
dying. srsly. don’t leave me hanging.
“I should call him back,” she said. “I don’t want to ruin his rehearsal. But first, Papa, why are you so sure I’m not a suspect?”
“They didn’t tell you? They already have their main suspect. Julian’s wife, Paloma Rhodes.”
Tempest gaped at him. “I know I’m the one who said it was a booby trap, but how could Paloma have set the booby traps that killed her husband? She couldn’t have set the booby traps before he tried to kill her and she ended up in a coma. I’ve been inside the theater since then. There were no booby traps. She couldn’t have—”
“Paloma Rhodes,” her dad said, “is no longer in a coma.”
Tempest nearly dropped her phone.
“She woke up late in the day yesterday,” Darius continued. “She checked herself out of the hospital, against medical advice. They can’t find her anywhere.”
“She could be sicker than she thought.” Ash frowned. “Did someone check her home? She could have fallen and be unable to answer the phone.”
“But that’s not what the police think,” said Tempest. “They think Paloma Rhodes committed murder and is on the run.”