Sunlight streamed into Tempest’s bedroom. She’d fallen asleep while digging into research on Corbin Colt on her phone and forgotten to close the curtains. Her phone lay under her arm, which now bore a rectangular impression.
She rubbed her arm and tapped her phone. Nothing. It had only had 5 percent battery life the last time she’d noticed before falling asleep. There was an endless amount of content on Corbin Colt she could have read, so she’d told herself she would only research until the phone battery died. She’d nearly made it.
Not that she had much to show for it. There was plenty of information about Corbin online—some fact and some fiction—but nothing that connected him to the Raj family aside from living in Hidden Creek and the single essay published on the one-year anniversary of Emma Raj’s disappearance. In the essay Corbin explicitly said they had been quite close (a lie) and obliquely hinted that he had ideas about what had really happened to her when she vanished. Yet after that essay appeared, nothing. Was that because of her grandfather threatening him? Whatever was going on, his manuscript proved that Corbin Colt had known a lot more about Tempest’s family than she’d ever realized.
Tempest plugged in her phone and headed to the bathroom to smooth out the rat’s nest of hair she always woke up with when she didn’t tie up her thick black hair before going to bed. When she stepped back across the floorboards of different lengths and colors pieced together to form the image of a skeleton key, her phone was blinking from where it rested on top of her old steamer trunk she used as a dresser. She’d missed a call during the night and a voicemail was waiting for her.
“Sorry to ring you so late,” her grandmother’s voice said in the recording, “but we didnae have a chance to speak earlier and I thought you might still be awake. I’m at the airport awaiting my flight. I wanted to hear your voice, and to thank you for sending the professor to get me. Such a charming young man. Why haven’t you told me about him before? Ta. See you soon.”
The professor?
No. No, no, no. It had to be Moriarty. Sherlock Holmes’s nemesis James Moriarty was a professor.
Nicodemus was supposed to be picking her up. What had Moriarty done to him?
Tempest phoned her grandmother back. The call went immediately to voicemail. It wasn’t her grandmother’s voice on the outgoing message. It was Moriarty’s.
The message was short: “Call me,” followed by a phone number beginning with her own area code.
The somber tone conveyed a serious urgency that frightened her nearly as much as the fact that his voice was on her grandmother’s phone. She hadn’t gotten a handle on her guardian-angel adversary. She called the number.
“This isn’t funny,” she said before he could speak. “The members of my family aren’t pawns you can use—”
“Don’t worry,” Moriarty said. “She’s fine. I would never hurt anyone you care about. I wasn’t using her. I—”
“Why are you even in Scotland?”
“I’m a man of the world, Tempest. I enjoy travel. And helping those I care about.”
“You didn’t fly to Scotland to take my gran to the airport.” She wasn’t even going to ask how he knew. She didn’t want to know the answer.
“I needed to talk with her to help you both. I’m the only person who knows she’s looking into your mom’s and aunt’s murders. I know you want to figure out what happened to them. I really am here to help.”
“How exactly do you think you can help?”
“I’m good at asking important questions.”
“Did you upset her?”
“It’s insulting to her that you think of her as a frail old woman.”
Tempest bristled. “She’s nothing of the sort. I’m more concerned that when she finds out you who you really are, she’ll hurt you. Badly. Then she’ll be arrested for your assault.”
Moriarty chuckled. It wasn’t a lighthearted sound. It was cold. Clinical. Like if you’d explained to a robot what a chuckle was. Or a sociopath.
Tempest swallowed hard. “How did you dispose of Nicodemus? If you hurt him—”
“I don’t know what I have to do to convince you I’d never hurt anyone you care about. I know you think of Nicodemus the Necromancer as something of a mentor. His act is a bit over the top, you know. All of those devils whispering in his ear? I know it’s in the tradition of classic stage magic, but I quite prefer your style of honoring the classics by making them your own. Then again, I prefer your magic to anyone else’s.”
The phone went silent. Not just the absence of speaking, but a faint hum she hadn’t been aware of until it was gone also vanished. Her screen assured her the call hadn’t dropped, and two seconds later Moriarty spoke again.
“I need to sign off in a minute. Before I go, I should tell you—”
“Wait. Is my grandmother on that flight she was supposed to be on?”
“She’s somewhere over the Atlantic as we speak. She even received an upgrade to first class. And she’s none the wiser that I subtly asked her for information pertaining to your family curse and her daughters’ murders.” As he spoke the last few words, his tone shifted. “I’m truly sorry, Tempest. But you must believe me. Your grandmother is the least of your worries. I didn’t think I needed to be concerned about your grandfather’s predicament, but I was mistaken.”
“He’ll be much better as soon as my grandmother gets home to him.”
“I’m not so sure about that.”
“You can make the most innocuous things sound sinister.”
“The world is a sinister place, Tempest. As you know all too well. Which is why I’m glad you called me back. I’m glad I could assure you your grandmother and mentor are safe, and I always enjoy hearing your voice, but that’s not why I wanted to talk with you. I need to tell you something.”
“Then go ahead and tell me,” Tempest growled.
“I wouldn’t trust that detective who’s been assigned to the case.”
“Of course you don’t trust detectives.”
“This has nothing to do with me. Detective Rinehart isn’t what he seems.”
“If you’re trying to tell me something, go ahead and tell me.”
“Patience isn’t one of your virtues. No matter. You have so much else going for you I’ll forgive that.”
Of all the impossibilities she was trying to solve, this impossible conversation had now topped the list.
“Until ten years ago,” Moriarty said, “Detective Austin Rinehart didn’t exist.”
“He’s only been a detective for ten years? Not the most experience possible, but still a lot—”
“Precision with language. I appreciate that. Allow me to clarify. Austin Rinehart, who is currently a detective in Hidden Creek, California, only came into existence in the world ten years ago. Before that, the man didn’t exist.”
“What does that even mean, he didn’t exist—”
“I really do need to sign off now. Be careful, Tempest.”
Her phone beeped. Moriarty had hung up on her.
Tempest tried calling him again, but it went directly to voicemail. She squeezed the phone.
She was going to kill him. He’d ingratiated himself to her grandmother and left her with a bombshell that the detective who’d put her grandfather in jail was a fraud.
He had to be lying. Or mistaken. Or it was a sick joke.
No. None of those alternatives made sense. She believed him when he said he didn’t want to hurt her. Not that she trusted him, but she believed that in his own twisted mind he believed his own words.
She looked up the detective online. The Hidden Creek PD didn’t include a staff list on their website, but she found Detective Rinehart several other places online in his official capacity. He was truly a detective with HCPD.
But … that’s not what Moriarty had taken issue with. He said Rinehart didn’t exist until ten years ago.
Tempest switched from her phone’s browser to her phone contacts.
“Tempest?” Ivy’s voice on the other end of the line was groggy. “Oh, God. What’s wrong?”
“Sorry. I forgot how early it was.”
“What’s wrong?”
“I shouldn’t have called.”
“It’s early even for early birds.” Ivy yawned. “I’m awake. Whatever you called about, tell me.”
“Can you use your librarian-in-training superpowers to look something up for me?”
“Like, right now?”
“If it’s true, it’s a problem I should know about sooner rather than later.”
The sound of a book, or something like it, falling to the floor came through the phone, along with a grumble from Ivy.
“I’ve got a pen and paper,” Ivy said a moment later. “What do you need?”
“Detective Rinehart, the guy investigating Corbin Colt’s death. Someone suggested that he didn’t exist until ten years ago.”
“What, like one of Corbin’s fans saying the detective investigating their hero’s death is a supernatural entity, and he’s ten years old in raven years or something?”
“Something like that.… Can you help me look him up to reassure me he’s just a regular guy who became a detective? A general search didn’t get me anywhere.”
“The Raven is getting to you.”
“Everything is getting to me.”
“I’ll put my information-science skills to work. Call you back when I have something.”
Tempest called Nicodemus while she waited for Ivy. She used a video call, since they always liked to see each other from across the world.
“Tempest!” He was in good spirits, so that was something. And he was in his house, with his magic memorabilia behind him. Magic apparatuses as well, so he was in the workshop beneath his living quarters. She caught a glimpse of several automata behind him. The fortune-teller in a glass booth who told your fortune by dealing Tarot cards, a handwriting automaton who could write several short messages, and her favorite miniature automaton, a woman made of wire who sat at a toy piano and played a melodious tune when wound. A framed poster of the Indian Rope Trick peeked out from behind the automata.
“Why didn’t you take my grandmother to the airport, Nicky?”
“It’s nice to hear your voice, too, my dear. Didn’t she tell you her flight was delayed?” He swore. “Don’t tell me they changed her flight again. Airlines these days, I tell you—”
“They did. She got another ride to the airport. Don’t worry.” No need for both of them to be worried.
“I’m sorry I missed her. But I don’t see a missed call.…”
“Don’t worry about it. She’s fine. She—”
A banging knock on her door at the bottom of her secret staircase nearly made her drop the phone.
“Tempest?” her dad called from behind her door. “We need to see you.”
We?
“My dad’s calling for me,” she said to Nicodemus. “We’ll catch up later.”
“Everything all right?”
“I have no idea.”
She ran down the stairs in her pajamas and bare feet. The members of the Secret Staircase Construction crew had seen her with grimy arms, sawdust in her hair, and covered in sweat. They could deal with plaid pajamas and bare feet.
But when Tempest opened her bedroom door, it wasn’t a member of the crew with her dad. It was a uniformed police officer with a solemn expression.
“It’s Sylvie.” Her dad ran a hand across his face. “One of the members of Lavinia’s book club who was there at the séance that night.”
“I remember her. What’s happened?”
“She’s dead.”