When the door to Lavinia’s Lair swung open, it wasn’t Lavinia herself who greeted Tempest.
“Well, well, well … Lavinia forgot to mention we’d have a famous guest joining our book club discussion today.” With a critical eye, the woman looked Tempest up and down, from the thick bun Tempest had pulled onto the top of her head down to the ruby-red sneakers she was wearing with a simple fitted T-shirt and jeans.
The woman herself was dressed more like she was ready for an evening out at the theater, not a breakfast book club meeting, in red slacks a red silk scarf and a sleeveless black blouse. In low heels, she was as tall as Tempest at five feet ten. The only incongruous element of her appearance was a nearly undetectable patch of dog hair on the blouse. Her voice was gruff yet polished, reminiscent of the transatlantic accent actors in mid-century Hollywood movies used that sounded like something in between American and British.
“I didn’t mean to crash your meeting,” Tempest said, “but if you don’t mind a five-minute interruption, I might be able to find Lavinia’s missing typewriter.”
“You can?” Lavinia appeared in the doorway, looking elfin in both size and demeanor compared to the reproachful member of her book club.
“This is who you called for help yesterday?” The stranger resumed her inspection of Tempest.
“Tempest,” said Lavinia, “this is Sylvie Sinclair, one of the members of the Detection Keys book club.”
As she stood on the threshold of the space she’d worked hard to create, Tempest was even more certain she was right about where she’d find the missing typewriter. “I really am sorry to interrupt, but I know where the typewriter is.”
Lavinia frowned. “You remembered another hiding spot you built that you forgot to tell me about?”
“No. But if my theory is right, we missed one we all know about.”
Lavinia stepped aside and Tempest hurried down the sloped entryway leading into the main room of Lavinia’s Lair.
“Tempest!” Ivy called from underneath the gargoyles above the Oxford Comma’s door. She swept her strawberry hair out of her face, revealing dark circles under her eyes. “Lavinia didn’t tell me she’d invited you—”
“She didn’t.”
Tempest and Ivy had made progress these last few months in renewing their abandoned friendship, but Tempest wasn’t exactly sure how far they’d gotten. Ivy was busy with two jobs plus school—working at Secret Staircase Construction part-time while she pursued her dream of becoming a librarian. Which meant that she was also working part-time at the Locked Room Library in San Francisco and taking online classes to finish the bachelor’s degree she’d abandoned, so she could apply for a master’s degree program in library and information science. And Tempest had been just as busy helping her dad get the business back in shape, preparing for her grand farewell stage show, and secretly looking into what had happened to her aunt and mom.
“The more the merrier.” Another woman joined Ivy in the Oxford Comma’s doorway, underneath the gargoyles. Her hair was dyed lavender, with black showing at the roots. A portion of a tattoo showed on her neck but was mostly covered by a sweater. Her inquisitive expression contrasted Sylvie’s jaded one.
“I’m Ellery.” The lavender-haired woman raised her coffee mug and gave Tempest a warm smile. “Cheers.”
“Ellery,” Lavinia said, “this is Tempest Raj, whose dad’s company built this place. Tempest, this is Ellery Rios. She rounds out our four-member book club. Now, where did you want to look for a clue to where he’s taken my stolen typewriter?”
“I’m not looking for a clue. Unfortunately, I don’t think it was stolen at all.”
“Why is that unfortunate if it wasn’t stolen?” Ellery peered at Tempest from behind her oversize mug.
“I’ll show you.” Tempest walked underneath the gargoyles, into the book club meeting room she’d helped create, and sat down at the far end of the round table. The table was set with four coasters with mugs resting on three of them, and strewn around the tabletop were four paperback copies of The Poisoned Chocolates Case, with different covers and various states of spine crackling.
Tempest reached under the table and unlocked the hidden compartment meant to hold pens and paper. Sure enough, she pulled out two metal pieces that had once formed the frame of a typewriter.
Lavinia’s face fell as Tempest held up the broken pieces.
“Neither of us was looking in tiny hiding places when we searched.” Tempest popped open two more hidden compartments in the table. A dozen keys from the typewriter fell into Tempest’s hand. She placed them on the table.
“I’m going to kill him.” Lavinia’s voice shook. So did her hands. “Thank you, Tempest.”
“At least he didn’t smash the pieces.” Sylvie picked up a single key with her manicured hand.
“I can’t believe he’d do this to me.” Lavinia stifled a sob as she rummaged for her cell phone. Once she had it in her hand, she darted from the room.
“My, my.” Sylvie cast a chiding glance at Tempest. “Maybe you should have thought it through before showing her what he’d done.”
“I’d better check on her.” Ivy ran after Lavinia. Sylvie shrugged and followed suit, leaving Tempest alone with Ellery.
Tempest counted the typewriter keys on the table. “Sorry to have wrecked your discussion.”
Ellery shrugged. “Let me help. Can you show me where we can find the rest of the pieces?”
“Let’s try the rest of the panels around the table first.”
Ellery smiled as another secret panel popped open at her touch. “I would have killed for something like this when I was a kid. I’m the youngest of five, so all I got was hand-me-down toys and clothes, whatever my older siblings had liked.”
“What did they like?”
“Sadly, dolls and race cars more than books.”
“With your name, it’s your fate to love books.”
Ellery’s lips turned up into a mischievous smile. “I really was named after Ellery Queen. But the 1970s TV show, not the books or authors. My mom was a huge fan, and they were already out of family names by the time they got to me.”
“My parents almost didn’t make it to the hospital when I was born because of a huge storm.”
“A tempest.”
The story about the storm was true, as far as Tempest knew, but it wasn’t the whole story. When her mom and aunt had performed as the Selkie Sisters on the stage in Edinburgh, their most baffling and famous illusion was called “The Tempest.”
Ivy returned five minutes later. By that time, Tempest and Ellery had found most of the pieces that made up Lavinia’s beloved typewriter. There were still a couple of missing keys, but they had their answer.
Ivy joined them in the Oxford Comma. “Sylvie is making Lavinia some tea in the main house. We managed to stop her from calling Corbin to yell at him about something she had no proof of. Their divorce isn’t final yet, so that wouldn’t do anyone any good.”
Ellery picked up one of the books from the table and slid it into her bag. “Next week instead?”
Ivy nodded. “I’ll message the group later today.”
The three walked out together. Ivy waved goodbye to Ellery as the lavender-haired woman got into her old clunker of a car at the bottom of the driveway, while Tempest stood under the archway of carved keys, eyeing a large crow watching them from a nearby barren tree branch. Or was it a raven? How did one even tell the difference?
“Are ravens and crows the same bird?” Tempest murmured aloud.
“I don’t think so.” Ivy joined Tempest underneath the archway. “Ravens are bigger. And spookier.”
“Obviously.”
“I’m not sure if Lavinia’s typewriter is salvageable.” Ivy zipped up her pink vest against the chill in the air. “Do you think I should offer to weld it back together as a piece of artwork?”
“Probably best to wait until she tries to fix it.” Tempest gave an uneasy glance at the raven that was intently watching them.
The raven on the branch above them cawed, and when another bird’s caw answered from a distance, he stretched his wings and took flight. Tempest and Ivy both watched as he disappeared into the trees.
“Okay, that’s just creepy.” Ivy zipped the collar of her vest even higher, until it covered half her face.
“What would have been creepy is if a murder of crows had joined him on the branch above us.” Tempest wrapped her white coat more tightly around her as the wind picked up.
Ivy’s auburn bob blew around her face. “An ‘unkindness’ of ravens. That’s what a group of ravens is called. I looked it up the last time I saw one hanging around Lavinia’s house.”
“For some reason that’s even more sinister than a ‘murder’ of crows.” The empty branch swayed above them. “Please change the subject.”
“How about some gossip?”
“A good choice, as long as it has nothing to do with me.” Tempest stuck out her tongue at her friend.
Even though she and Ivy had officially moved beyond the rift that had come between them a decade ago, they weren’t quite where they’d been before Aunt Elspeth had died in a supposed stage accident in Scotland. Grieving, Tempest had gone to stay with her grandparents in Edinburgh and ended up finishing school there, not realizing that Ivy had her own major life problems and had felt abandoned. Now, in Ivy’s presence, Tempest felt the same ease she had when they were childhood best friends, but she knew not to take it for granted.
“I was thinking of the book club,” Ivy said.
“I knew it.” Tempest forgot all about friendship insecurities and the creepy raven watching their conversation from its nearby branch. “I didn’t think it was only the broken typewriter that made that group seem like an odd mix of personalities. It’s a strange group of friends.”
“I’m not sure I’d call any of us friends. Haven’t you ever joined a club? No, I don’t suppose you have. That’s not your style. We enjoy each other’s company for our twice-monthly book club, but I don’t see them any other time. Saturday mornings were the only time that worked for everyone on a regular basis. Ellery refuses to read anything too scary—so Gothic horror is out, even though it has a great deal of overlap with mystery. She’s a caregiver for her widower dad, who’s a handful, so she says day-to-day life is frightful enough. And Sylvie won’t let us hear the end of it if the author doesn’t have a PhD-level grasp of grammar.”
“You hang out with that woman by choice?”
The edges of Ivy’s lips ticked up into a smile, and this time when she spoke, she lowered her voice. “Like I said, we wouldn’t be friends if it weren’t for the books. But truly, Sylvie isn’t that bad once you get to know her. And it’s a treat when she brings her dog along to meetings. She can’t comprehend why I don’t admire the deep characterization of her beloved Dorothy Sayers novels, and that I find fault with her favorite books when examining them as fair-play puzzle plots. But I’m quite clear about how that’s my preference, not something that determines the merit of a novel. Aaaand, now I’m just babbling.”
“The bigger issue is that’s not even proper gossip. You’re far too nice a person, Ivy Youngblood. I want the gossip.”
Now it was Ivy’s turn to stick out her tongue at Tempest. “Patience, my tempestuous friend. My gossip is about our fearless leader. Lavinia loves books, but she hates the ones written by her almost-ex-husband.”
“She already told me that when I interviewed her to come up with the plans for the lair.”
“Did she admit she hated his books long before she kicked him out?”
Tempest blinked at her. Now, that was interesting.
“She told us we had to keep it a secret,” Ivy continued, “so you’ve got to do the same. Even though I doubt Lavinia would care what the press thinks now. But when they were married, it would have been bad press to share that she hated her own husband’s books. Since we talk about books all the time, she couldn’t get around the subject. She said it proved how what they had was true love. Corbin is such a gorgeous guy that when his debut novel hit it big, a ton of people were fawning over him. Lavinia wasn’t one of them. At the bookstore where she worked, she got him away from a crowd of people who wanted him to stay longer than the three hours he’d already stayed for a book signing. During their escape, she admitted she didn’t like his book enough to finish reading it. They’ve been together ever since—well, until a few months ago.”
“So much changed a few months ago,” Tempest murmured.
“Still no sign of Moriarty?” Ivy was always the best at reading her thoughts.
“Moriarty? Cute. A good name for a nemesis.”
“Since you don’t know who he really is, I figure we need something to call him.”
“I’d rather not think of him at all. It’s too disturbing that that the police haven’t found him and he’s still out there.” As she spoke the ominous words, she half expected the creepy raven to return. She shook herself. Why was she so jumpy?
Tempest stopped herself from saying out loud what she was thinking. That she was more worried than she wanted to admit to Ivy. Tempest Raj had a good self-esteem. Not quite Sanjay’s level, but pretty damn close. She’d grown up being tall, brown, and that kid who liked to perform magic tricks, so she was good at not caring what other people thought of her. She knew she was smart, talented, hardworking, and fierce. So when someone else had nearly outsmarted her and had escaped from the police, it threw her. It worried her that she hadn’t had any contact from a man she believed was capable of anything. Ivy was right. Moriarty was the perfect name for him.