Hot Trick (A Detective Shelley Caldwell Novel) (20 page)

“He vanished. That bastard Cole vanished!” Norelli said.

Being that I was on leave, I had no official position at the pier. I’d absorbed as much information about the situation as I could while waiting for Silke, who was still answering one of the investigator’s questions as were Oriel and DeGroot. Norelli’s announcement brought me back into detective mode.

“What happened?”

“Cole was handcuffed, had two uniforms within feet of him and suddenly the only thing left were the cuffs on the ground.”

“No one saw what happened?”

Norelli shook his head and cursed. “What is it with this case? We can’t get or keep anyone locked up.”

Not when magic was involved.

“Any lead on the victim?” I asked.

Norelli pushed a hand through his salt-and-pepper hair. “They found his wallet, still intact. You’re not going to like this one. Harry Abrams—”

“Brother of Sol Abrams, foreman of the Hernandez jury,” I finished.

Three escapes. Three murders. Three connections to the same trial gone wrong. That there was to be a fourth escape to help fund Benita Rivera’s legal fees didn’t get by me. Nor did the identity of the logical fourth victim. Not that I knew how Sebastian could pull it off now.

“The media is going to have a field day with this one,” Norelli said.

The media were crawling all over this end of the pier. Reporters kept trying to stick a mike in our faces—uniforms kept pushing them back behind the line—and cameras, both still and video, were pointed our way.

Camera…

I looked around for Jake, but if he was on scene, he was keeping a low profile. If he didn’t know about it already, he would explode when he got wind of the latest murder.

“We’ve got to get the murderer before anyone else gets killed.”

Norelli swore. “We did have him for all the good it did us.”

“You don’t know that Sebastian Cole is the murderer.”

“Fingerprints on the Martin woman’s car say he is.”

“They only say he met her, maybe spent some time with her.”

“We can go to trial on it. You getting soft on me, Caldwell?”

“I just want to get the right man, Norelli. Or woman.”

He frowned. “If I get anything else, I’ll call.”

“I’ll do the same.”

“Don’t get anything else,” he warned me. “Go home, get your life in order and stay out of trouble. I don’t want to have to explain you.”

I clenched my jaw and smiled.

“What did he mean, Shell? Don’t you have work to do?”

I turned to find Silke behind me. “Formally, I’m on leave, so no.”

“You’re just going to do nothing?” she asked in disbelief.

“I didn’t say that exactly. Let’s get going.”

Even with the pandemonium of a crowd gone ballistic, we were able to get a taxi when we reached the end of the pier.

“I’m going home with you,” I told Silke. “I’m not ready to face Jake just yet.”

“Sounds serious.”

“Maybe.”

“Shell!”

“Don’t get too excited. Serious as in not good.”

“You’re not breaking up?”

“I’m not sure what we’re doing and lately I haven’t had a breather to figure it out.”

“You’re on leave. You have the time now.”

“Only officially,” I clarified. “I can’t let this case get away from me.”

I could feel Silke’s disapproval like a tangible slap, but she didn’t continue the argument.

Good, because I didn’t know what to do. I was too muddled emotionally to see my future. Besides, with Jake so angry at me, he might not give me a chance to make any decision. He might just decide I wasn’t worth the trouble. The last thought saddened me more than I could bear, so I tore my mind from my personal troubles and landed them smack dab on my professional ones.

The moment I entered Silke’s apartment, I went directly for her closet.

“What are you doing?”

“I need a change of clothes.” I pulled out a pair of embroidered and sequined crop pants and a matching boho top, layers upon layers of material in shades of aqua through teal. Thankfully, the top was long enough to hide my holster and gun at the small of my back. “This will do.”

“It will? Since when? That’s not your style. I have jeans and T-shirts in the chest of drawers.”

“I’m not looking for casual.”

“What are you looking for?”

“Answers,” I said, stripping. “I need to look the part.”

“What part?”

“I’m going to play you again.”

“Shell!”

Pulling on the top, I said, “I’m going to Illusions to see what I can learn about your coworkers.”

I stepped into the crop pants, then searched her closet for a suitable pair of shoes. What I found were teal sandals encrusted with fake jewels. Could I run in them? I didn’t have a choice, so I slipped them on.

As I made my way to the dresser that held her hair tools and makeup, Silke said, “I’m going with you.”

“No you’re not. It’s too dangerous.”

“Asking questions is dangerous?”

“You get what’s going on, right?” I released my hair from its tie and brushed it out, then back-combed it, sprayed it with aqua highlights and fastened it away from my face with a couple of sparkly combs. “A sibling of someone connected to the Hernandez case dies every time Sebastian does one of his escapes.”

“Sebastian isn’t a murderer.”

I ignored her protest and started on the makeup, raccoon eyes and pouty mouth. I applied dark liner and smudged it. “Sebastian made it clear that there were to be four escapes. One more escape, one more victim. So far, the targets have been the sister of the judge, the brother of the prosecuting attorney and now the brother of the jury foreman.”

“What am I missing?”

“The identity of the next intended victim.” My chest squeezed and my throat clogged as I met my twin’s gaze in the mirror. “Each time the victim was the sibling of one of the principles on the case. Remember, I was the lead detective, Silke.”

Her mouth opened and her eyes went wide. “You think
I’m
next?”

“Who else is there?” I tossed her my clothes. I wasn’t going to let her put herself in danger. Maybe die. Not when I could stop it. “Put these on and fix your hair so you don’t look like you. Then pack an overnight case. You’re going to Mom’s.”

“You’ve got to be kidding.”

“It’s the safest place. Mom will put a guard on you, have you covered 24/7.”

Silke’s stubborn expression meant trouble. “Which would be great if that’s what I wanted.”

The sister in me understood. The cop in me got pissed. “It’s not a matter of what you want or what I want. A murderer is running around loose wearing a hard-on for you. If he can’t find you, he can’t kill you.”

“Maybe not in a normal world.”

That took my breath away. “You’re saying whoever it is can use magic to find you?”

“What do you think?”

Having read some of
Chaos Magic,
had my dreams invaded, witnessed the power of suggestion, lost goons under arrest twice and been trapped by a spell in my burning apartment, I figured anything was possible.

I turned to face Silke. “Can’t you create some kind of a protection spell at Mom’s?”

“Sure, but a more powerful sorcerer can overcome it,” she said, following my directions and climbing into my clothes.

Taking a big breath, I dug at the bottom of her closet for her overnight case and threw it on her bed.

“Then I’m going to have to find him or her before the murderer gets to you.”

“Maybe you should go into hiding too.”

I gave her my best you’ve-got-to-be-kidding glare. Her jaw constricted but she didn’t say more, merely started throwing clothes into the overnight bag.

“By the way,” I said, figuring she’d better be prepared, “don’t be surprised if Mom starts comparing me to Dad. Or if she starts asking you questions you wouldn’t expect.”

“Like what?”

“Like what kind of otherworldly oddity I’ve convinced myself is real. Apparently our mind meld isn’t a twin thing. It’s a Caldwell thing. Dad was psychic. And Mom admitted that when he was killed on the job, he’d been after a murderer who was both man and beast.”

“A shape shifter? Not a lycanthrope?”

My eyes fluttered closed. I was still having trouble accepting this supernatural stuff that rolled off Silke’s tongue so easily. How had I inherited all the skeptic genes in the family and she’d inherited none?

“Mom wasn’t that specific,” I finally said. “I figure we can look forward to some girl talk on the subject once I nail the murderer.”

And for once, our mother couldn’t be all righteous with us. She’d buried the information about our father and our abilities, supposedly to protect us. It made me feel like I had the upper hand. For the moment.

While Silke finished getting ready, washing the makeup from her face and brushing her hair into a neat pony tail, I called Mom and explained the situation without telling her I was playing switcheroo again. Mom said she’d send a squad ASAP. And then I called Brogan and told him to meet me at Illusions. Surely a banshee could separate the human from the preternatural better than I could.

I slipped the cell in my pocket and saw that Silke was ready. I put my arm around her shoulders and turned to the mirror. What I saw made me hold my breath. I’d taken over Silke’s job as a waitress a few months back, so my looking like her didn’t surprise me.
She
did. Without the colorful clothes and the dramatic makeup and hair, she could easily pass for me. Good. Exactly what I’d been going for.

Realizing Silke looked about to cry, I hugged her hard. “Stop that. I know what I’m doing.”

“That’s the problem, Shell,” she said, clutching me as if she would never let go. “I’m terrified for you, because for all your bravado, you really, really, really
don’t
know.”

Silke’s prophetic words followed me all the way to Illusions. I entered the club holding my breath and wondering what I was about to face. The decor played up the magic theme, but other than that, it seemed like any other club in town. Dim lighting. A crowded bar. Music that was loud but thankfully not overpowering.

Most of the club goers were youngish—mid-twenties to forty—but enough belonged to the older crowd that it set my antennae on alert.

Mages? Or other preternatural creatures?

Or was I simply anticipating?

I decided to make mental contact with Silke as promised.
The place looks pretty normal, like any other club.

No answer.

I didn’t think the message went through, so I tried again. And then made a third attempt. I could feel a block of some sort. A kind I’d never experienced before.

Magic?

Had someone made this club a no-mental-contact zone?

Telling myself that I would be fine, that I didn’t need Silke listening in on my conversations—I could, after all, call her on my cell phone if I needed her—I looked around for Brogan. I would feel better once someone was watching my back in person. I found him surrounded by a small bevy of young beauties.

“Did you hear about the Irish newlyweds who sat up all night on their honeymoon waiting for their sexual relations to arrive?” he joked.

“Did they ever get there?” a wide-eyed blonde asked.

I rolled my eyes. “Brogan, there you are.”

“I’ve been making friends. Maggie, Christine and Blaire, meet Shelley.”

I leaned into the banshee and whispered, “Unless any of them can help with this case, say good-night.”

Brogan sighed. “That’ll be it for tonight, my darlings, but I’ll be sure to stop by another time.” Seeming reluctant, they drifted off and he turned to me, frowning. “I was simply warming up.”

“I’ll just bet you were.”

He eyed me closely and looked surprised. “So what are you playing at?”

“At trying to get information. Lots of people here are bound to know my sister by sight if not in person. They would talk to her before they would talk to me.”

“The look suits you. Perhaps you’re destined for a makeover.”

“Looking like this is like Halloween for me. Pretty damn scary.” And for all I knew, the monsters were all around me in this club.

“So where do we start?” Brogan asked.

“We need to find out anything we can about Sebastian’s employees, Conrad DeGroot, Tanya Janicek and Oriel Leger. They’ve all spent time here, all may have some magic tricks up their sleeves. A lot of the customers here do too, but you probably already know that.”

“I was getting the impression that one of those darling girls got a little furry at certain times of the month,” Brogan admitted.

“TMI,” I said. I wanted information, but of a different sort. “We need to find out if one of the employees has said anything negative about Sebastian. Or anything at all about the Rivera-Hernandez case. By the way, Tanya seems to have left town. At least no one knows where to find her.”

“Then she’s the one you would be looking for.”

“I’m looking for her, yes. I don’t know that she’s guilty of anything but spite, though.”

I quickly filled him in on Silke’s take on DeGroot and Oriel as well as Tanya, emphasizing that we needed to ask about all three of them. We headed for a bar that seemed quieter than the open dance floor, but by the time I got there, I was alone.

I looked around for Brogan and saw him talking to someone who made my skin crawl. Something about the guy—maybe the way he looked at me and smiled as if he felt my interest—convinced me he wasn’t one-hundred-percent American boy next door.

A better look at some of the other customers put my nerves on edge. I recognized a vampire. Saw a woman pull her drink down the bar with a wave of her hand. Some guy on the dance floor changed colors like a chameleon and I was certain it wasn’t the lighting.

Shuddering at the truths I didn’t know about the city’s denizens, I settled at the bar, hoping to hear what someone had to say.

Assuming anyone would tell me anything.

“The usual?” the handsome, very buff young bartender asked me.

I smiled and nodded, wondering what the usual might be. No worries, I soon learned. Apparently Silke stuck to wine spritzers, which would keep her head about her. And mine about me.

I sat on the barstool and scanned the patrons, looking for a spark of recognition in anyone’s face. Instead my radar told me this was a no-human zone. I didn’t know what each of the patrons was, but speculating kept me from getting too relaxed.

I tried SOS-ing Silke again, but hit the same block. What was going on? I’d been able to contact her here the other night.

A few guys came up to the bar and tried a pick-up line on me, but they didn’t seem to know Silke. When I asked if they’d seen Tanya or Oriel, they both gave me blank stares. Either they weren’t regulars or they didn’t stop long enough to get names.

I was surprised to finally hear my sister’s…

“Hey, Silke. Jana and I saw the news,” a curly-haired woman in a sparkly midnight blue outfit said as she stepped up to the bar. “Two glasses of Merlot,” she told the bartender, before turning back to me. “How horrible.”

“I’m still trying to chill,” I said. “Hey, Jana.” As if I knew her, I nodded to the second woman, taller and older with short-cropped silver hair the same color as her molten-looking dress.

“So Sebastian just disappeared?” Jana asked.

“Apparently.” And apparently my switcheroo was working. I just needed to carefully steer the conversation so I didn’t get stuck trying to answer a question I knew nothing about. “I guess I’m out of a job again.” I did a Silke shoulder shrug. “Maybe I can get a waitress gig here.”

“If Lynn or I hear of anything—”

“I see someone I need to say hi to,” Lynn interrupted. She picked up her glass of wine and started off. “I’ll be right back.”

I waited only a moment.

“Everyone connected with Sebastian seems to have disappeared,” I said. “You haven’t seen Oriel Leger tonight, have you?”

Actually, I had feared running into Sebastian’s other assistant, certain she knew Silke well enough to blow my cover. So part of me was glad I hadn’t run into her. The other part wanted to give her the third degree. How did I know she wasn’t involved in the murders?

Though Jana tried to hide her reaction, I could tell whatever she felt was not positive. “Maybe Oriel went into hiding so the press couldn’t get to her.”

Someone who actually knew Oriel! And who obviously didn’t like her. Exactly the person who might give me information I could use.

“Hmm, I got a bad vibe from you when I mentioned Oriel’s name.”

“Maybe because that isn’t her name and it irritates me every time I hear it.”

“Oh, Oriel is a stage name?” Why would it be irritating, I wondered. “She didn’t tell me.”

“I believe Oriel is her birth name. It’s Leger—all so very cutesy considering she’s working for a magician. You know, Leger as in short for legerdemain. As in one who acts with trickery and deception.” Jana gave a sharp laugh. “That describes Oriel Leger to a T.”

Good at reading people like books, I knew this page said it wasn’t the name that made Jana dislike the blonde. “What did she do to you?”

“Not me. A young Wiccan friend of mine crossed Oriel. When Oriel got through with her…well, let’s just say my friend is a different person now.”

Was I supposed to take that literally? Where magic was involved, anything was possible.

“What is her real last name?” I asked.

“Oh, heavens, I should remember that. It begins with an R. Robi-something.”

Big help, I thought. “If it comes to you, I wouldn’t mind knowing.”

“Do you really think you’ll ever see Oriel again?”

“Is there some reason I wouldn’t?”

“I just thought that since you’re all out of jobs now, Oriel might go back to Vegas to find work. I’m sure she still has contacts there.”

“Probably,” I agreed, as if I’d known she’d been from Las Vegas all along.

It made sense, of course, because Sebastian had worked in Las Vegas before coming to Chicago, and I was pretty sure Oriel had come with him. I would check with Silke later.

Lynn returned to the bar. “Hey, Jana. Muriel is here. She asked if we wanted to join her and Heather.”

“Of course.” Jana picked up her glass of wine and said, “Good luck on finding another gig, Silke.”

I raised my wine spritzer to her. “Thanks.”

Though I made several other attempts to engage club patrons in a dialogue about Sebastian’s employees, I hit a wall. Either the people I approached were clueless or discreet or they saw through my deception.

I wondered if a certain banshee was having more luck than I was. Leaving a tip for the bartender, I set off into the dance area and squeezed my eardrums against the hip-hop suddenly blasting from the sound system.

As I looked around for Brogan, I couldn’t help going back to my conversation with Jana and the fact that Oriel used a stage name. I didn’t agree with Jana, though. I thought choosing Leger was pretty clever. Kind of a personal ID. I wished she’d remembered Oriel’s real last name.

Robi-something…

Robi…

Why did it sound so familiar?

I spotted Brogan and waved. He was talking to yet another pretty young woman, a tiny Asian with long straight hair to her waist. He saw me, nodded, then turned back to her.

Annoyed—I assumed he was ignoring me in order to score with the woman—I made my way through the crowd toward him. A commotion on one side of the dance floor caught my attention. One of the beefy bouncers was arguing with a patron. When the bouncer stepped aside, I saw who.

Snake Eyes stood glaring at the other man, then motioned to someone and started for a back exit.

That someone was Oriel Leger.

My breath caught in my throat. Oriel with Snake Eyes. That had to be significant.

I switched directions and forced my way through the dance floor to get to them before they disappeared.

My mind worked at warp speed. Oriel Leger.

Not Leger.

Robi-something. But Robi-what?

And then it dawned on me.

Robichaux…as in Delano…as in Delano Robichaux the magician…as in the man Sebastian had been accused of killing over a married woman…as in the man who had been murdered by a mobster.

Snake Eyes pushed past the guard at the rear exit. He opened the door and Oriel rushed through, him following. I sped up.

Oriel. Silke said she’d thought her friend had more power than she’d revealed. Suddenly the pieces fell together in my head.

Oriel’s brother had been murdered. Now siblings of key players in the Hernandez trial—a trial whose outcome Sebastian disputed—were dying….

It all fit somehow.

I just needed the missing puzzle piece.

Ready to race into the alleyway, I said to the security guard at the rear door, “Open Sesame.”

He didn’t even smile as he swung the door open and let me through.

My hand already going for my gun, I realized Oriel and Snake Eyes were waiting for me a few yards away.

Oriel smiled. “It took you long enough.”

Did she think I was Silke or not? My fingers curling around the handle of my weapon, I stepped closer and returned the smile.

“What’s the hurry?” I asked.

“No hurry. I just wanted to get you out here to show you something.”

“A new piece of magic?” I asked in my best Silke voice.

“Sort of,” Oriel said, reaching toward me.

I saw the small vial in her hand too late. The glittering contents flew out at me and she mumbled.

The next thing I knew I couldn’t move a muscle.