Tempest knew what Ash was doing. And why he’d been horrified to see Sanjay. He didn’t want Sanjay to change the plans they’d made.
This was why he’d asked Sanjay to go to Lavinia’s house with his Cabinet of Curiosities trunk, which contained a never-ending rope. A rope that Sanjay had used to tie an inescapable knot that only he knew how to get out of.
Tempest banged on the front door of Lavinia’s Lair, with Sanjay beside her, holding the antique travel case.
Sylvie was the one to open the door. “We can’t keep meeting like this.”
Lavinia, Ivy, and Ellery came up behind Sylvie.
Had Tempest gotten things wrong? “The book club is meeting?”
“Not exactly,” Lavinia said. “You two should come inside.”
“Is … anyone else here?” Sanjay asked.
“My mom is in the Oxford Comma.”
So Kumiko was there along with the members of the book club. Not Ash. Where was he?
“We each received a text message,” Ivy explained as they followed her inside, “saying the book club should meet. We were all cleared of suspicion, so we should get back to normality. The texts came from an unknown number, but the person said they were Sylvie, explaining that she’d had to get a new phone since hers was broken during her kidnapping.”
“Which doesn’t mean I’d need a new number,” Sylvie snapped. “If they’d stopped for one moment to use their brains and think rationally, they’d have known it wasn’t me.”
“Sylvie was fooled as well,” Kumiko said from the Oxford Comma doorway. In a black wrap and with angry eyes, she looked far fiercer than the gargoyles looming above her.
“I was only fooled because I received a phone call from someone claiming to be from the police department,” Sylvie said. “Not a text message that would have been easy to see through. They said they needed to go over some more details about my kidnapping here on site. When I arrived, the members of the Detection Keys were the only people here.”
“Was it a man’s voice?” Tempest asked.
Sylvie nodded.
“Was it Houdini here?” Kumiko pointed at Sanjay. “It was you two who set up this ruse to bring us back together, wasn’t it?”
“It wasn’t them,” another voice said. One Tempest knew well. “I’m sorry for the deception, but I had to see you.” Ashok Raj stepped into the room. He was wearing a new set of his own clothes, suggesting Morag had helped him.
“Ashok?” Kumiko wheeled up to him.
“Don’t, Ma.” Lavinia blocked the way.
“Are you ready to confess?” Ash asked Lavinia. “I’d hoped I wouldn’t have to plan an escape from my confinement to see you in person. I thought you’d come forward when you saw I wouldn’t be freed. I know you didn’t mean to frame me.”
“You don’t really think it was me?”
“I forgive you,” he said. “I know your alibi with Victor is fake. I’d hoped I wouldn’t have to resort to this, but I needed you all as witnesses.”
“I—I really was with Victor,” Lavinia sputtered.
“You were,” Ash said. “I’m not disputing that. But my granddaughter solving the trick of how Corbin made his way to Hidden Creek gave me the answer for how you both faked your alibi.”
“My, my.” Sylvie slid away from Lavinia.
“Don’t be ridiculous, Ashok,” Kumiko said. “My daughter didn’t kill Corbin or kidnap Sylvie.”
Ash glanced at Sanjay. “If she tries to escape, Sanjay will tie her up with the rope he’s got.”
“I will?” Sanjay’s eyes bulged.
“Why did you think he wanted that specific trunk?” Tempest whispered.
“For the fake bottles of poison,” Sanjay whispered back.
“I’m not guilty,” Lavinia cried.
“You were ‘seen,’” Ash said, “just like Corbin was ‘seen’ by Hazel. It was a trick using unreliable eyewitness testimony. You ordered take-away coffees at a café that takes online orders through an app. What’s to stop someone else from having picked it up? A busy barista isn’t a reliable witness.”
One of the trickiest things about tricks is that they work in numerous ways. When a magician performs a successful sleight of hand, it’s not uncommon for someone to ask them to do it again. The person thinks they know what to look for now. They might. But what a sneaky magician will do is perform the same effect through different means. The deception and the sense of wonder is repeated, but the behind-the-scenes mechanism is different. But Tempest reminded herself this wasn’t a magician who had staged this illusion.
Ivy zipped up her pink vest until it covered half her face.
“You were the most likely suspect all along,” Ash continued, his eyes full of sadness as he addressed Lavinia. “I don’t judge you for killing him. He was a bad man. If you turn yourself in, I believe they’ll go easy on you.” He turned abruptly. “Don’t touch that phone, Sylvie. I see what you’re doing. Don’t worry. I’ll turn myself in as well, as soon as Lavinia confesses. There’s no need to call the police.”
Tempest stared at Sylvie, her elegant hand poised above her phone.
Sylvie’s kidnapping had ruled her out as a suspect, but if not for that, with what they knew now, Sylvie was the person at the séance for whom all of the facts fit. Almost all the facts. Corbin’s manuscript had alluded to an affair with someone Tempest took to be Ellery, but since the facts about Tempest’s family weren’t all true, why had she assumed the other plot points were?
When Tempest had spoken to Sylvie in the hospital, Sylvie hadn’t accused Lavinia of kidnapping her, only because the police told her they already knew Lavinia had an alibi. In making her plan, Sylvie would have assumed that newly single Lavinia would be sleeping alone without an alibi, not with Victor across the bay.
Sylvie was trying to frame Lavinia. Twice.
If Tempest hadn’t gotten her grandfather a last-minute invitation to the séance, he wouldn’t have been the person to get blood on himself—but someone else would have. Again, it was Lavinia who was being set up. Without Ash there, Lavinia would have been the natural person to look at the body of the man she once loved. If she hadn’t immediately gone to him, Sylvie could have easily goaded her.
“Grandpa Ash,” Tempest said, “we both got it wrong. Sanjay, I need you to get out that rope. For Sylvie.”