“A fourth impossibility?” Sanjay stared at her. “And it’s even more impossible than the others? You can’t be serious.”
He and Tempest were the first to arrive back at Fiddler’s Folly. They’d agreed to meet at the tree house, and even after Tempest had royally stuck her ruby-red sneaker in her mouth and hadn’t figured out how to apologize without making things weird between them, Sanjay still showed up. Tempest had thought it likely that he would. He was an emotional guy who reacted strongly in the moment, but he was trustworthy and loyal—often to a fault. If there was ever a friend in need, he was incapable of saying no.
They were currently seated in the curved banquette of the kitchen’s cozy breakfast nook. It was too chilly outside to be on the dining-room deck, plus it felt so exposed after the violence they’d witnessed earlier that evening.
Tempest had wanted to wait for her grandfather so she could put his bike in the back of her jeep and drive them both home, but he’d insisted she go home to both fill in her father about what had happened and eat the leftovers in his kitchen. There were indeed plenty of leftovers in the tree house fridge, but Tempest’s dad was nowhere to be found. His car wasn’t in the driveway and he wasn’t in the main house, his workshop, or even visiting Abra’s hutch. Tempest sent her dad a text message, then she and Sanjay climbed the steps of the tree house of Fiddler’s Folly.
Tempest’s family home was far from the ancestral estate that the name “Fiddler’s Folly” might imply. Her dad had no known family aside from Tempest and his in-laws, and her mom had run away from Scotland and the Selkie Sisters stage show she performed with her sister. The couple named it “Fiddler’s Folly” after the instrument Emma Raj had loved and as a tongue-in-cheek reference to European follies, those ornamental buildings that served no purpose at all. The tree house and half-built fort on the hillside property had once qualified as follies, but no longer, now that Tempest’s grandparents lived in the tree house and Tempest was turning the half-built Secret Fort into a separate home for herself. The main house had always been functional, albeit a quarter its current size when her parents had moved here twenty-six years ago and began experimenting with unique home renovations. The barn workshop was constructed after Secret Staircase Construction grew in size and they needed a proper workshop.
“I’m surprised you didn’t spot the latest development first,” Tempest said to Sanjay. “You’re the one glued to your phone.”
“Some of us are trying to focus on working out the first three impossibilities.”
She handed him her phone with a headline pulled up. “How does the press even find things out so quickly?”
“There’s gotta be a leak. I knew I didn’t like Rhinestone.”
“Rinehart.”
Sanjay ignored her correction and accepted her phone and read the article on the screen aloud:
AS THE CROW FLIES: THE SHOCKING IMPOSSIBLE MURDER OF AUTHOR CORBIN COLT
Supernatural-thriller writer Corbin Colt, known for his breakout hit The Raven, was found dead of unknown causes at the home of his ex-wife, mere moments after appearing on his new partner’s livestreamed video.
Sanjay looked up before scrolling further. “An internet celebrity played a recorded video she claimed to be live? So what?”
“Keep reading. It couldn’t have been recorded ahead of time.”
Colt was seen on Happy Hour with Hazel, filmed live in Forestville, Calif., at 5:15 p.m. A 9–1–1 call was placed from 55 miles away in Hidden Creek at 5:33 p.m. Police arrived seven minutes later.
Happy Hour with Hazel is a livestreamed show. Thirty-five-year-old influencer Hazel Bello interacts with her fans during her livestreams and responded to many live fan comments between 5:02 p.m. and 5:14 p.m. before Colt appeared at 5:15.
Forestville is at least a 60-minute drive from Hidden Creek—more than 90 minutes with that evening’s traffic. But as the crow flies? The distance is less and the travel time much shorter.
Our source reports that the feathers of a raven were found surrounding the body. Had Colt, a student of the supernatural, found a way to fly like the Raven, or to teleport like a character from his lesser-known work The Flying Dead?
Sanjay looked up again. “The Flying Dead? Is that a joke?”
Tempest rolled her eyes. “Didn’t you look him up?”
“I did, but he wrote a book a year over thirty years. I didn’t read about all of them. I don’t need to. I think I’ve solved this already.”
“You have?”
“Not the impossibilities. But the killer. I’m betting on Kumiko.”
“You’re a riot.”
“I don’t think she needs that wheelchair.”
Tempest blinked at him. “I know surgery has come a long way in recent years. But she’s not that good an actor when she does her fake act of not speaking English to mess with condescending jerks.”
Sanjay shook his head. “It’s her shoes.”
Tempest thought back on Kumiko’s attire. She’d been dressed in a navy-blue wrap dress. What shoes had she been wearing? Slip-on flats. Maybe. “Okay. I give up. What about her shoes? You think she slipped off her shoes and stabbed him with her feet?”
“The bottoms of her shoes were scuffed.” He gave a dramatic pause. “Proving she’s faking it. She doesn’t need that wheelchair at all.”
Tempest groaned. Sanjay could be incredibly brilliant, but he also had gaping blind spots, exacerbated by the fact that he was well aware of his intelligence. “All that means is that she didn’t buy new shoes after she had her bad fall. Of course her shoes have scuffs.”
Sanjay frowned, then leapt up. “Someone else is here.”
Tempest’s dad appeared in the doorway and gave Tempest a hug, lifting her off her feet as he did so.
Tempest had gotten her height and ease of gaining muscle mass from her dad, who towered over her and whose arms Sanjay had not inaccurately described as wider than the tires of either of their pickup trucks.
An imposing figure who’d shaved his head for as long as Tempest could remember, Darius Mendez turned heads wherever he went. Sometimes it was out of fear of his light-brown skin and large size, but more often than not it was interest of a romantic nature. He certainly had presence. Though you might not expect it from his size, he was the gentlest person Tempest knew. Tempest’s mom had been the petite one, but never as gentle as her dad.
“You all right?” he asked as he set her down. “Dad’s not with you?”
“Detective Rinehart wanted him to go to the police station to answer some more questions, since he examined Corbin Colt’s body.”
“Rinehart?”
“New guy. I think he’s who they hired after Blackburn retired. I offered to stay with Grandpa Ash, but he wanted me to come home so you wouldn’t worry. Why are you scowling? Ash has examined dead bodies before. Being a medical doctor for four decades prepared him—”
“That’s not what I’m worried about.”
Tempest gasped. “Is his health worse than he’s let on?” Her grandfather was eighty years old and incredibly fit from all the bicycling he did. Having a purpose—cooking for people—also kept him young.
Darius kissed her forehead. “His health is fine. I don’t like the fact that Rinehart wanted him to go to the police station.”
“The detective promised to drive him home personally,” Sanjay said. “That’s the only thing that made Tempest agree to come back here with me. Ash thought you’d want to know what was going on.”
He turned to Tempest. “Tell me everything.”
“I’ll make coffee,” Sanjay said as he fiddled with a moka pot. “Not as good as Ash’s, but it’ll be caffeinated.”
Darius ran his hand across his face. “Corbin Colt is really dead?”
“As a doornail,” said Sanjay. “Which is a terrible expression, but there you go.”
Tempest watched her papa. “You usually see my texts more quickly.”
He didn’t answer immediately. Was that guilt on his clean-shaven face? And was the scent she detected aftershave? Wait. Could her dad be dating someone? Part of her hoped he was. Apart from a couple of single dates he’d agreed to but then felt too uncomfortable to pursue further, he’d been alone since her mom vanished more than five years before. They knew she was dead, even though they couldn’t bring themselves to say it out loud. Still, if he was ready to date, that would take some getting used to.
“I should have pulled off the road to look at that damn phone when it beeped,” Darius said. “I went for a drive. I didn’t like that a séance was happening, since nothing good happens when Sanjay holds one—”
“I know,” Sanjay growled, spilling coffee grounds onto the counter. “You don’t have to rub it in.”
“Here’s what happened,” Tempest began, then went over everything she remembered, with Sanjay adding comments periodically.
“You really need to stop agreeing to do séances,” Darius said to Sanjay once they were done telling him what had happened.
“Don’t I know it. But Lavinia is impossible to say no to! I would have said no to anyone else.”
Tempest doubted that was the case, but held her tongue. Which was rather difficult. They’d each finished a second espresso and she was jittery.
Sanjay clutched his bowler hat. “I’m never doing this again. Especially now that I see she used me to kill Corbin. That has to be the solution.”
“Lavinia isn’t guilty.” The words were out of Tempest’s mouth before she realized she was saying them.
“When people tell you who they are,” said Sanjay, “you should believe them.”
“That adage doesn’t apply here. She said she was going to kill him when she was angry that he’d wrecked a beloved, irreplaceable keepsake. People say they’re going to kill someone all the time. It doesn’t mean—”
“She hated him,” Sanjay said, “enough that she needed to renovate her house and hold a séance to banish him.”
Darius’s jaw pulsed as he watched the two of them, but he didn’t speak.
“If he’d ended up dead in any other situation,” Sanjay continued, “Lavinia would have been blamed—she was vocal about hating him. But if he’s found dead in not one but four impossible ways? And with multiple magicians as her fake alibi? A jury will surely let her off. That much confusion means reasonable doubt.”
“You and I,” said Tempest, “are the two people at that table who can be absolutely certain she didn’t slip her hands out of ours. There was no faking that. I’d swear to it. It wasn’t her.”
“She could have paid someone.”
“Unless that person is one of the fake spirits you conjured, I don’t see how. Nobody broke the circle.”
“I hate to think it’s Lavinia,” Darius said quietly. “But it makes sense. She was in really bad shape emotionally when she came to me about renovating the house.”
“You two have known each other a long time,” Tempest said.
He nodded. “Veggie Magic is a Hidden Creek institution. It’s been here since we moved here right before you were born. Lavinia and Corbin had just moved here and it was just getting off the ground. But…”
“But what?” Sanjay asked.
“If she didn’t do it, and if she can prove that to the police…” Darius paused and pushed open the sliding kitchen door to the deck. He walked to the smooth wooden railing and squeezed.
Tempest followed him outside. A cold breeze sent her hair swirling like tendrils of smoke.
When her papa spoke again, his voice was barely above a whisper. “If Lavinia didn’t do it, it means your grandfather is in a lot of trouble.”
“Because he’s being interviewed at the police station? I told you, Papa. Grandpa Ash tried to give him medical attention. He wanted to make sure Corbin was dead, not just badly injured. Rinehart wanted to get his opinion.”
Darius shook his head slowly, his jaw tightening with each shake. “There’s more going on with Dad being questioned than you two realize, Tempest.”
“It was inevitable,” said Sanjay, “that Tempest became a great stage performer. Now I see she gets her sense of the dramatic from both sides of the family. I’m dying of suspense. What are you so conflicted about telling Tempest?”
“Corbin Colt had a restraining order against your grandfather.”