Chapter Two #2
Jack had been too when she’d first seen the trick at the tender age of five, after she’d snuck out of the dressing room to see the show.
“Then the magician pulls the box apart, and it looks exactly like the woman has been sawn in half. The audience at this stage is gasping in terror, but then the magician says fear not, and he pushes the box back together and says a short chant, telling the audience that he has the power to restore the lady to life…”
Jack licked her lips as a sense of nausea began to rise her throat. Surely, it didn’t mean anything, happening on this day of all days? It couldn’t mean anything. It had to have been a coincidence. But she’d never been one to believe in coincidences.
“Well, what happens next?” Cordy asked, practically on the edge of her seat.
Jack dragged her eyes back to her friend’s.
“The magician waves his hands around, and there’s a great clap of thunder from above.
Then he leans over the box, unlocks the top of the lid, and miraculously, the lady sits up, completely unharmed.
But what really sends the audience into an uproar of amazement is that the lady is now dressed in a white gown and holding a white rose in her hand. ”
“Is that one of the illusions your father created, Jack?”
Slowly, Jack nodded. “Yes. He often used it as the opening act for his shows and it set the stage for many more death-defying illusions.”
“So, someone has copied your father’s illusion, but has killed the lady instead of restoring her?” Cordy said. “Do you think it was a magic trick gone wrong?”
“Performed in the middle of a deserted alley?” Jack shook her head. “I doubt it. Magicians crave an audience to marvel in their feats.”
“There was a very large audience of onlookers that gathered after the fact, though. Perhaps that’s why he killed her?” Cordy ran her hands up her arms as she shivered, then suddenly, she stilled, her eyes fixing in on Jack with true fear in them. “Jack? Today’s the fourth of November…”
“I know.”
“Surely, such a thing can’t be a coincidence?”
Jack didn’t know what to think. “Honestly, Cordy, I don’t know.” It was fifteen years to the day that her father had died, and twenty years to the day her mother had been murdered. One date, two different years, where her world had changed forever in an instant.
“I don’t like this, Jack.” Cordy took in a shaky breath before gulping. “Do you think the murder had anything to do with you or your father? I mean… No one apart from Sera and I even knows who you really are, let alone that your father was the Magnificent Maguire… Do they?”
“The two of you are the only ones who know of my alias, and everyone else from my childhood, apart from two people, think that I’m dead.
” Two men, whom she was confident would keep her status of being alive a secret.
One because he held her in affection, and the other because he wanted to protect his own legacy.
“Can you trust the two?”
“I can certainly trust one of them, and the other won’t say a thing, I’m sure of it.
” Her father’s old stage manager, Jeremiah Black, was more than happy to keep her secret, and that bounder Caleb Dodd wouldn’t dare breathe a word of her existence to anyone, for fear that her being alive would detract from his own magic show.
The rake was so preoccupied with himself and his own fame that she doubted she was even an afterthought to him, especially not having seen him in over ten years.
It was only after she’d known she could trust Cordy and Sera with her life that she’d trusted them with the truth of who she really was: Jaqueline Maguire, the only child of the late, great Magnificent Maguire.
An easy secret to keep, given everyone had thought her father had had a son and that Jack had also died in the fire that had taken her father from her.
The night a monster had begun to stalk her dreams.
Which was why Jaqueline Maguire had disappeared, and Jack Hart had taken her place. And that was how it would stay. How it had to stay.
Cordy’s forehead creased with a frown. “Then surely this killer, whoever he is, must simply be using your father’s illusion to cause fear and chaos, and it has nothing to do with you, even though the murder happened only a few blocks away…
I mean, if no one knows you’re alive, then it really can only be a coincidence, can’t it? ”
Jack could only nod. Perhaps that was the case, but again, she never liked to believe in coincidences.
“Your father was very famous, after all, so some mentally disturbed fiend has probably decided to mimic one of his more terrifying illusions, in the most macabre way possible, on the anniversary of his death.”
“Yes, that’s the most likely explanation,” Jack replied, though her voice lacked any real conviction. Because even though that was the most logical explanation, a part of her was worried that perhaps that wasn’t the case. Though it had to be, because barely anyone knew she was still alive.
As Cordy had said, the most likely explanation was that whoever this murderer was had simply decided to kill a lady in the same manner as the illusion her father had created, on the anniversary date of his death.
“I don’t know, though,” Cordy continued. “Something just doesn’t feel right about it all.”
Silently, Jack shared Cordy’s concerns.
“Perhaps we should go speak with the inspector in charge of the case?” Cordy suggested. “At least to see what he knows, and if anything, to reassure ourselves that it has nothing to do with you.”
“Do you honestly think the police know what’s going on, let alone could or even would provide us with any useful information?
” Jack scoffed. “We’ve both dealt with our fair share of those idiots, and you know as well as I do how corrupt and incompetent they are.
Not to mention how contemptuous they are of women in general, let alone women investigating anything. ”
“True, though this inspector definitely had an aura of competence about him,” Cordy replied, a slight twist of a smile across her lips. “Among other things…”
“‘Other things’?”
Cordy blushed. “Well, he was rather deliciously handsome, with very broad shoulders, and amazing stormy-gray eyes… Not to mention, he was very tall and athletic in appearance… I think it might be prudent to talk to this inspector and, um, see what he knows.”
“We do not need any inspector’s help.” Jack’s voice rang with conviction.
“We have a talented team of investigators right here. We can use our own agents to find out any information we need. Not to mention, I can easily slip into New Scotland Yard to see what information they have, without anyone, including this so-called deliciously handsome inspector, even knowing I was there.”
The idea actually had a great deal of merit.
With her skills in illusion and disguises, rivaling even those her father had possessed, she could easily infiltrate the Yard and find out what information they knew about this murder.
And if it was as they were assuming, completely unrelated to her, then she could ensure the usual precautions were taken for her staff and not worry about the matter again.
“You do have the skills for that,” Cordy agreed. “Though in all honestly, this inspector looks different to the rest. There’s a keen intelligence in his eyes, and I got the impression he doesn’t miss a thing. You might want to be careful not to underestimate him.”
Cordy had always had an excellent ability to get a read of a person in seconds—probably from her training as a child, being the daughter of an art forger and having to participate in her father’s business of not only painting fakes that could not be differentiated from the originals but in having to sense when danger was coming before it arrived.
It was a skill Jack had used over the years, and one to which she paid attention.
“I’ll take the usual precautions, but at the end of the day, no one has the skills to get the better of me. ”