Tempest cut the engine as she pulled up in front of the Whispering House. The old Gothic Revival mansion built more than a century ago looked completely different in the bright daylight than it had the night before. It no longer resembled a haunted house, even though it still had all the trimmings.
Was she really doing this? Yes. She had to.
Tempest had come to the Whispering House jobsite not because she was expected after what she’d been through last night but because she needed to make sure that once the police figured out Paloma wasn’t guilty, they wouldn’t turn to Tempest or anyone else in her family.
The police weren’t convinced about her booby-trap theory, so they were focusing on the wrong suspect. Surely the crime scene team would examine the booby-trap mechanisms and realize their mistake. The note from Tempest’s notebook would turn their attention to her once they realized they were wrong.
She needed her best friend’s help. And this was where she’d find her.
The sun was directly overhead as Tempest stepped out of her jeep. This style of home, with its steeply pitched roof, decorative gables, and arched windows, had fallen out of fashion by the 1880s when the house was constructed, but local architect Chester Hill had loved the past. All the buildings he’d designed were known for their Gothic elements, even as late as 1900. This was the house he had been living in when he died, and it was now owned by their client, retired architect Lenore Woods, who was one of Chester Hill’s descendants. Lenore was restoring the house to bring many of its original elements back to life, and she was hoping to get a historic home designation from the city. Nearly 150 years didn’t sound especially old to Tempest for a building, but Chester Hill had built several Hidden Creek landmarks. And hey, this was California, so 140-odd years was still pretty historical.
Julian and Paloma Rhodes’s house sat across the street, slightly lower on the hillside. It wasn’t a coincidence that the houses were directly across from each other. Julian had hired Secret Staircase Construction precisely because his neighbor had. He wasn’t the type of guy who would let his neighbors have something better than him. He even rushed his plans through so that Secret Staircase Construction could fit him in first. His wife, Paloma, had been apologetic for her husband’s behavior. Despite Paloma’s behavior when she checked herself out of the hospital yesterday, Tempest didn’t think she was a killer. At least not one who’d kill her husband with an elaborate booby trap at Whispering Creek Theater.
A face peeked out from behind the curtains inside Julian’s house. For a fraction of a second, Tempest wondered if it was Paloma Rhodes. But no. As the person pulled the curtain shut, she caught a glimpse of their sleeve. This person wasn’t wearing white, as Paloma always did. This was a uniformed police officer. They must have been staking out the place to see if Paloma would return.
Why had Paloma left the hospital—against medical advice—without having her husband come get her? Was it because she planned on killing him? But why bring him to the Whispering Creek Theater? And why use a note from Tempest’s notebook? How had Paloma even known to look for it? Tempest didn’t buy it. She glanced again at the house across the street. The officer was no longer visible.
Tempest needed another coffee. And then probably another. Since she’d been up all night and caffeine alone wasn’t enough to make it through the day, after breakfast at the tree house, she’d pulled her curtains shut and fallen into a restless sleep. She’d woken up shortly before noon, tired but functional. She’d pulled on a fitted T-shirt, jeans, and her ruby red sneakers, which was pretty much her uniform these days now that she didn’t have multiple closets filled with costumes. And now here she was, across the street from the house that might destroy Secret Staircase Construction.
Ivy’s pink moped was directly in front of her. Her dad’s truck and Gideon’s baby blue Renault were parked farther down the street, but she didn’t spot anyone or hear the sound of any power tools or hammering.
“It’s about time,” a voice called from above. “I’ll be right down.”
Tempest looked up and spotted Ivy leaning out of the attic’s open window. Ivy’s bob of red hair was visible beneath a pink baseball cap, and she was wearing rose-colored overalls and holding a respirator mask in her hand.
“You’re not with your creepy mentor.” Ivy set down a handled cotton bag as she reached the front porch. It clanged as it hit the wooden slats.
Tempest did want to spend more time with Nicodemus before his tour began in a few days. Especially since she could tell he was shaken. But Nicodemus and Brodie were already out for the day meeting a magic builder regarding a broken prop they needed for the tour. They were staying at Fiddler’s Folly for two more nights and then flying to Los Angeles, where they’d meet up with the rest of the crew, three days before Nicodemus’s tour kicked off.
“Just because he pretends to control the dead,” said Tempest, “doesn’t mean he’s creepy.”
“I rest my case.” Ivy, with her head-to-toe pink attire and friendly smile, was the anti-Nicodemus. “Are you okay? I mean, after what happened last night after I left?”
Tempest glanced across the street. On the sloping hillside, the houses weren’t too close to each other, but Tempest lowered her voice anyway. “How much do you know?”
“Your dad told us why you weren’t here this morning. That Julian called you and asked you to meet him at the theater, and when you got there he was dead. Impaled on a blade on the theater door.” It was a warm spring day, but Ivy shivered. “I would have texted you this morning, but he said you needed to get some sleep. Since you’re not a suspect, I sacrificed my burning need to know.”
“My dad told you that, too?”
“Everyone knows that much.” Ivy pulled up a page on her phone and read, “Paloma Rhodes, a person of interest in the death of her husband, Julian Rhodes, is missing.” She set the phone aside. “A ‘person of interest’ means the prime suspect.”
“I’m pretty sure that’s only the overly dramatic meaning in TV shows. But yeah, in this case, it’s true.”
The scent of toasted cumin seeds and fresh chili peppers wafted across the breeze. Grandpa Ash had brought lunch as usual.
“Should I be worried about you?” Ivy asked.
“I don’t know.” Tempest ran a hand through her hair and looked up at the decorative gable trim of the porch. “What I do know is that I don’t believe Paloma could have killed Julian, but you’re right that she’s the main suspect. It doesn’t make sense on so many levels. The killer involved me by picking the theater as the site of Julian’s murder. Was the location just to get Julian to an out-of-the-way place or did they mean to implicate me? Was that why they used a booby trap? Not only that, but there was a note in my handwriting taped to the door—something the killer found in my notebooks to make it look like I was personally inviting Julian to open the door that killed him.”
Ivy gaped at her. “I thought your dad told us everything, but … a booby trap?”
“That’s why I need your help to find out what’s really going on.” There was something she didn’t say out loud to Ivy. It wasn’t only her own notebooks that were in the theater. There were also a few of the journals with magic show notes that her mom had left her. She couldn’t bear the thought of losing those.
Instead of replying, Ivy opened the bag at her feet and handed Tempest a stainless-steel tiffin of warm food.
“No comment?” Tempest accepted the fragrant stacked containers. “You don’t accept my challenge?”
“Oh, I accept. But if we’re going to solve the mystery, we need some sustenance first. You can tell me the rest of the details while we eat.”
“You’ve been hanging out with my grandfather for too long.”
Tempest’s grandfather Ashok Raj had christened himself the personal chef and dabbawalla to the Secret Staircase Construction crew. Dabbawallas help the city of Mumbai in India run smoothly by delivering home-cooked lunches to workers across the city. They pick up tiffin lunch boxes at homes, stack the circular stainless-steel containers on their bikes, and travel by road and train to offices so that workers can have a lovingly prepared home-cooked lunch. After his long career as a medical doctor in Edinburgh, Ash took up his passion for cooking, so when he moved into the tree house in Hidden Creek, he insisted on cooking lunch for his son-in-law’s crew.
Ash’s deliveries were always a hit and were known to be a perk of working for Secret Staircase Construction. Whenever the team subcontracted portions of a job, Ash was sure to cook enough extra lunches for them. He claimed that riding his bike across the Bay Area helped him stay in shape, which was technically true, but Tempest knew the real reason he loved it. He loved people. When you’re an eighty-year-old man with a smile on your face and a bicycle stacked high with silver lunch box tins emanating delicious fragrances, it’s easy to strike up conversations with people. He always brought extra cookies for just that occasion. He’d collected hundreds of business cards from the people he had met, which he kept in a Rolodex and referred to frequently. Tempest didn’t know how he kept it organized, but her grandfather had always been magical.
“Do we need to worry about being overheard?” Tempest wasn’t referring to their client Lenore Woods. Lenore owned two houses, so she wasn’t staying at the Whispering House while the construction work took place.
“You mean your dad? He and Gideon are out back, half eating and half checking the masonry. I wasn’t hungry, so I grabbed both our lunches and thought I’d wait and see if you showed up.”
Tempest unlatched the lids of the interlocking containers. The first contained chunky salsa and guacamole kept fresh with lime juice. In the second was a fat burrito wrapped in parchment paper and homemade tortilla chips. When she noticed Ivy just watching her, not eating, she put the burrito back and closed the lid. “Now it’s you that’s holding back. What are you trying not to say?”
Ivy pursed her pink lips. “How do you do that?”
“What? Read your mind?”
“Obviously.”
Tempest grinned. “Magic?”
“I can’t help thinking about the bizarre booby traps … Doesn’t it sound like Moriarty?”
Tempest wished Ivy was referring to the fictional character written by Arthur Conan Doyle in his Sherlock Holmes stories. She didn’t know the true name of the real-life man they referred to as Moriarty. Ivy had dubbed him Moriarty because he was kinda sorta Tempest’s nemesis. He was more an enigma than a nemesis. But he was definitely bad news.
“I know.” Tempest kicked aside her lunch box. “I haven’t heard from him since Corbin Colt’s killer was arrested.” Corbin Colt was a supernatural thriller writer who’d been researching Tempest’s mom’s disappearance for a book, and the man they knew only as Moriarty had played a small part in helping them find out the truth about Corbin’s mysterious murder.
“So you think it could be him?”
“I don’t know.” Tempest shook her head as she stood up. She made sure she had space for her arms, then twirled into a pirouette. It was an easy movement from her stage show that she could do anywhere. Blurring out the world around her and focusing on that one motion calmed her, enabling her to think. After three spins, she came to a stop in front of Ivy. “He’s killed before, but not like this. But there is one thing…”
“What?”
“Moriarty is my self-declared guardian angel.”
“And Julian Rhodes,” Ivy whispered, “was trying to destroy your family’s business.”
It was true that it gave Moriarty a motive, but it didn’t feel right. “If Moriarty wanted to get rid of Julian, he would have done it in a way that didn’t potentially hurt me. He wouldn’t have made it look like I was somehow involved. In that sense, Paloma is more likely.”
Ivy scowled. “You’re the one who said you didn’t think she was guilty. And we got to know her when we renovated her house. Now you’ve changed your mind and think someone that nice could be a murderer?”
Tempest fought an urge to roll her eyes. “You’re biased because she used to be a librarian. For someone who loves deviously plotted classic mystery novels, how can you say that being nice means someone isn’t a killer?”
“Fair. But you’re the one telling me she’s not guilty, so we’re in agreement. Sit down and eat your grandfather’s lunch and finish telling me what else you know.”
Tempest obliged. “Paloma is the main suspect, as far as I can tell. But Julian was killed at the Whispering Creek Theater; he was actively attempting to destroy my family, and … Wait—”
“What?”
“I know that a note in my handwriting was on the theater door that killed him when he tried to open it, but how did he get a message in the first place telling him to go to the theater? Why did he think—” Tempest’s words were interrupted by her phone.
Brodie’s gaunt face appeared on the screen. Tempest shivered. She probably should have selected a different picture for Nicodemus’s assistant.
Besides helping backstage, Brodie sometimes appeared on stage in one of Nicodemus’s shows as a puppet, with Nicodemus as the puppeteer. Tempest had always loved how Brodie’s long limbs kept perfect time with the jerks of Nicodemus’s hands on imaginary strings and the truly magical effect of the magic lantern shadows of paper puppets on the wall behind them. His cadaverous face took little stage makeup to appear creepy, so she didn’t love seeing that ghostly face fill her phone screen.
“I need to ask Nicodemus a question about our tour,” Brodie said. “Could you put him on the line?”
“He’s not with you? I thought you two had to plan some tour logistics today.”
Brodie swore. “Bastard. He lied about where he was going.”
“Why would he lie?”
“Because,” said Brodie, “he’s gone to protect you.”
“What do you mean, protect me?” Tempest’s skin prickled. Whatever was going on, this was bad.
“He knows you want to get inside the theater to get your bloody notebooks. He doesn’t believe it’s safe for you. Not with all the booby traps.”
Tempest held her breath for four seconds as she processed the information, then ran to her car.
She tried calling Nicodemus as she started the ignition, but he didn’t answer. She barely missed hitting a parked car as she rounded a corner on her way to the theater. The Whispering House and the theater were at opposite sides of Hidden Creek and several winding roads away from each other. It would take her at least ten minutes to get there.
Ten minutes later, stuck behind a moving van attempting to maneuver the small road, Tempest called Nicodemus’s number again. He didn’t answer, so she tried Brodie once more.
“I’ve gone after him.” Brodie’s voice was half obscured by the sound of a car door closing. “A hired car dropped me off at the theater. I see him.” He paused. “Nic, come away from that bleeding door! The blade—!”
Nicodemus howled in agony. The phone line went dead.
No …
No, no, no!
It was happening again. Her nightmare from five years before was repeating. The theater had claimed the life of someone else Tempest loved.
EDINBURGH, SCOTLAND
Sixteen years ago
“You should make it scarier,” Tempest says the first time she meets Nicodemus the Necromancer.
She is ten years old and already taller than all the other girls her age. Braver, too.
“You want a truly frightening trick then, do ye, lass?” His mischievous smile rivals that of a child Tempest’s age.
“Do your best,” she says with a straight face. She doesn’t yet know how to raise a single eyebrow for effect, but he can tell she’ll get there soon.
“I wouldnae want to disappoint a child now, would I?”
Nicodemus lifts both his hands into the air, then presses his thumbs and index fingers together and gently pulls upward, as if he’s tugging strands of invisible string.
“Let me tell you a story,” he begins. As he spins a tale of friendship and betrayal, he manipulates the invisible string, bringing to life paper animals that cast eerie shadows on the wall of his magic workshop on the outskirts of town.
The wolf is the most frightening to Tempest, Nicodemus can tell. Her eyes widen as she follows its sharp teeth and a jaw that opens and snaps shut, and she wonders how a paper cutout can come to life so vividly. But as the story progresses, it is unexpectedly the wolf who saves the baby rabbit from the clutches of a hawk. Before Tempest can even blink, the paper animals have disappeared, leaving only the shadow of the outstretched wings of a hawk on the wall. When Tempest looks from the shadow to where Nicodemus was standing, he too is gone.
This is the summer Tempest realizes the power of magic. Her parents are building two secret libraries and an art workshop with sixty secret compartments for a wealthy client’s sixtieth birthday. The house is isolated and near a dangerous cliff, so they’ve sent Tempest to Edinburgh to spend two months of the summer with her grandparents and her Aunt Elspeth.
Two weeks after Tempest is introduced to Nicodemus by Elspeth, Tempest appears on stage during one of his performances at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. That first afternoon at Bedlam Theatre, Nicodemus can tell she is hooked on the feeling the stage gives her. Not the adrenaline rush of being the center of attention, which is what Nicodemus loves, but something else. Tempest is focused on the audience. She loves watching their faces. Seeing their eyes light up. She performs for them.
On stage, Tempest is a dancing shadow up until the finale, when Nicodemus hands a top hat to her. On accepting the hat, her shadow form becomes real.
Nicodemus disappears, but his shadow—his memory—remains with Tempest.