Chapter 27

My phone pinged with an incoming text almost as soon as I hung up from Otis. It was from Gabriela.

 

Hi Nora. I’m working on the next gen tablet for our friend, but it’s going to take a few days. Any word from Lillian? Are we having another séance?

 

I saw the three gray dots that told me she was still typing.

 

I see you’ve been experimenting with the keyboard. Did you use ice?

 

She saw? I typed quickly.

 

How did you see? What did you see?

 

I watched the three gray dots impatiently.

 

I set it up so the input from the keyboard automatically gets sent to me as a text. I nearly died when I saw you type Hello Trixie this afternoon, after what looked like a couple false starts. Are you trying to get her attention?

 

I put the phone over my racing heart. Gabriela could see what Trixie was doing on the keyboard. I really wished I’d known that before. I wrote back.

 

Yep. Hey, do you mind fixing it so that the keyboard sends me a text as well? Since I’m usually at the theater it might make sense.

 

She answered immediately.

 

Great idea. Meanwhile, I’ll keep working on this. Hope we’re on for another séance!

 

I’ll check on that. See you soon!

 

I ran all the way up to the office.

  

“Trixie!”

She wasn’t there. I went to the keyboard and saw that the screen displayed her experimental Ts, then a few more random letters, then the word HELLO, more gibberish, and finally TRIXIE.

I sank onto the couch, my knees suddenly weak. What if she’d written something else? Something Gabriela wouldn’t have assumed was me?

All the potential consequences of helping Trixie prove she was real descended on me in that instant.

If there was proof Trixie was real—genuine proof—would it mean that I could start letting people know I could see her? Without the fear of a quick trip to a chic little sanatorium nestled in the redwoods?

Maybe.

But.

It was a lot to ask anyone to go from believing that a disembodied spirit could manifest during a séance to believing that I regularly palled around with a very lively usherette who died in 1937. An invisible presence putting out candles was one thing, but would anyone believe Trixie and I spent rainy afternoons discussing whether Clark Gable or Cary Grant was better boyfriend material? (My answer: neither of them. Save your time and go with Jimmy Stewart.)

No. The way I saw the situation, people still might—quite understandably—think I was crazy if the whole truth came out. And if people thought I was crazy, especially people who cared about me, people like Robbie, they’d want to get me away from the source of the craziness. For my own good.

I could see how it would play out. Robbie would, with all the patience in the world, tell me I’d been pushing myself too hard since Ted left. She’d tell me that taking over the Palace had been too much for me. She’d insist I get away and relax somewhere. Web links to meditation retreats and holistic spas would follow, and before I knew it she’d orchestrate getting me out of the Palace as smoothly as she’d orchestrated getting me into it.

And once I was out of the Palace, who would look out for Trixie?

“Trixie?” I called out again.

When she didn’t answer I wrote a note on a yellow index card. I propped it up against the tablet screen.

Please don’t use this again until after we talk.

Because there could be all kinds of consequences.

  

I was heading down to work the concessions stand before the seven-thirty show when I finally got a text from Ted. Or rather, a series of texts, pinging in one after the other. I stopped midway down the lobby stairs to read them.

“Nora?” Albert was restocking the licorice supply. “Everything all right?”

I looked at him numbly, then back to the texts.

  

Babe, you’re the best. I knew you’d come through for me.

I have all the paperwork on the gowns. I knew you’d love them. I really want you to have them. Like I said, the only favor I need is for you to take a meeting with a producer.

I’m totally supposed to have the lead in that Scandinavian franchise. You know, from those books you liked? With the reporter who’s ex-CIA? And the fjords?

But now I’m hearing that there’s a new producer on the deal, and he’s not my biggest fan. He’s talking to some other actor, Glen Hendricks. Like that dude could ever get a part where he keeps his shirt on.

Listen, you have to nail down this producer for me. Work your magic. I know if anyone can bring him around, it’s you.

His name is Otis Hampton. Thanks!

 

Albert was still peering up at me from behind his little round glasses.

“You know those gowns?” I asked him.

He nodded.

“I’m never going to get them authenticated.”

  

Albert went home once the seven-thirty started, and Callie left early as well, taking advantage of the fact that Brandon unexpectedly showed up during the nine-fifteen.

“I take it you haven’t found a coin yet?” I asked him.

He looked like he hadn’t slept since I’d seen him the day before. “It’s impossible,” he said, coming around the counter to get himself a soda. The machine made an alarming clanking sound, which I chose to ignore. “Have you heard what they’re saying?”

“By ‘they,’ do you mean the crazies on the game forums?”

“Them,” he agreed. He gulped down half the drink before continuing. “The latest thing going around is that there never were any coins, and the two that were supposedly found were just planted to keep everyone playing.”

“So the people who found them…”

“Fakes,” he said authoritatively. “Bots, maybe. Or plants who worked for S.”

I wondered if that could be true. Which is exactly how conspiracy theories caught on, I told myself.

“Looking for the bright side,” I said to Brandon, “does this mean ‘they’ have stopped talking about me being a homicidal maniac?”

“Oh, yeah,” he said, as if he’d just noticed. “I told you they’d move on.”

Thank goodness for short attention spans. At least in this case.

“Um, Nora?” Brandon said. “Could I maybe get some more hours for the next couple of weeks? I need to make some money to pay for all the stuff I bought in the game, and I need it before my mom gets her credit card bill.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” I told him. “Meanwhile, how about heading downstairs with a mop?”

Which is how I found myself alone in the lobby when Detective Jackson stopped by.

  

“I’m only here to pick Marty up,” Jackson said when he came in through the lobby doors and saw me behind the counter. He held up both hands. “Not to talk about the case.”

“Of course,” I said smoothly. “But before you go upstairs, have a free cookie. I’ve still got three left and I’d hate to have to throw them away.”

He paused on his way to the stairs. I brought the tray of Lisa’s cookies out from the glass case and held it temptingly.

“Maybe just one,” he caved.

“Take the rest to go,” I offered. “How’s Kristy? Is there any news?”

He gave me a look as he reached for the tray. “So these cookies aren’t free.”

I shrugged. “Monica’s been texting me. She’s still with Kristy’s parents at the hospital. She says there’s no change yet, but they’re still running tests. Have you heard anything more?”

He shook his head, munching. “That’s as much as I know.”

“What about the investigation? Have you found anything? Was there arsenic in Kristy’s tea?” I poured him a cup of coffee and was happy when he accepted it and took a seat on the stool opposite me.

“I hate to tell you this, but you were right,” he said. “We found a concentration of arsenic in the tea still in her cup, and an empty bottle containing traces of arsenic in her kitchen trash can.”

I shivered. “Thank God she didn’t drink the whole cup of tea.”

He nodded. “That’s probably why she’s in the hospital, and not in the morgue.”

“Hang on,” I said. “Why was the bottle in her trash? Did the killer leave it behind? Isn’t that a little cavalier? Were there fingerprints on it?”

“You’re assuming the killer was there,” he said, picking up the coffee.

I stared at him. “You’re not saying you think it was suicide?”

“I’m not ruling anything out, but there’s another possibility.” He seemed to be enjoying this. I’d have to remember to bribe him with sugar more often.

“You’re saying the killer tampered with something in her kitchen some other time,” I guessed. “Something he knew Kristy would eventually eat, or drink. Like a bottle of milk or something. Almond milk! Isn’t arsenic supposed to taste like almonds?”

“You’re assuming that the killer is a man,” he said reprovingly. “And you’re assuming that the killer had access to her flat.”

“Access to her flat was a cinch,” I told him. “At least it was for Monica and me. I told you, the guy downstairs let us into the building and her apartment door was unlocked. I thought the killer must have left it unlocked when they left, but maybe Kristy was just careless about that.”

He nodded, finishing the cookie. “Or…”

“Or…” I repeated, not getting where he was going. Normally he drove me crazy by not telling me anything. Now he was driving me crazy by telling me next to nothing. And he was enjoying it.

“It’s not so easy, is it?” he said. “When you don’t have the luxury of assumptions.”

“I never claimed it was easy,” I protested. “I respect the hell out of you, you know that.”

“Really?” He looked genuinely surprised. “No, I didn’t know that.”

“Of course I do.”

“Well, thanks,” he said. “I appreciate that.” He paused. “Listen, I really didn’t intend to talk to you about this, but you were there when Kristy and Tommy and S all met for the first time, right? At the Potent Flower, the day before the big product launch where S was killed.”

I blinked. “I hadn’t thought about it like that—the three of them meeting that day. But yes, I was there.”

“We’ve gone over the surveillance footage from the shop,” Jackson said. “But there’s no audio. Was there anything, even something that you can’t imagine being important, anything that you noticed when those three were together? Did anybody say anything, or react oddly to anything?”

I grimaced. “I hate to tell you, but I didn’t actually see those three together. I met Tommy, but he was talking to Monica and Abby when I got there. And then I met S, but just for a minute. Then Monica and Tommy and I went into our meeting and S stayed with Abby in the shop. She told us later that she introduced S to Kristy when he had more questions than she could answer. So I never actually saw the two of them together, with or without Tommy. Have you talked to Abby?”

He nodded. “She said all she noticed was an obvious, immediate attraction between Kristy and S.”

“They were soulmates,” I told him. “At least that’s what Kristy said.”

And now Kristy was in a coma, and her soulmate was dead.