by Debra Snow
A smile came across Pro’s face. Not only had she broken the code, she had been able to translate it into a message that made sense.
She glanced at the phone on her desk, wanting to call her partner, but realizing that perhaps a night with the auburn-haired Ms. Barker was exactly what he needed.
She quickly looked at the list of emails and proceeded to locate and print up the individual ones the Cyber Unit had sent to them between [email protected] and [email protected].
As the printer made noise creating finished documents, Pro realized two things: she was famished, and her father had been right.
There was someone else involved who might indeed be the murderer.
And he was definitely a magician.
10. DeKolta Chair
Pro grabbed a greasy burger and even greasier fries at the bodega near the subway stop for her Brooklyn apartment. With her leather attaché under one arm and her purse under the other, she unwrapped the paper and took bites of the meat and bread combination as she walked toward home. She made little humming noises of pleasure in the back of her throat as she went.
By the time she’d reached her brownstone, the burger was gone, and she wiped the grease from her hands with a wad of napkins as she got her key.
Once she was through the outer door, she headed up the three floors to her studio, munching on fries one at a time.
She undid the three locks on her door—two were deadbolts and one opened a lock that held a metal bar in place. The bar was jammed into a holder on the floor and made the door impossible to break through.
The joys of life in NYC.
She came in and dumped her things onto the coffee table in front of the sofa that was her pull-out bed. She stuffed another fry into her mouth as she headed toward her tiny kitchen, then paused. The sofa was closed, and she was sure she left it open and her bed a mess when she headed out to get coffee for her mother that morning. Now it was closed and there was even the blanket she used on cold nights neatly folded on top.
She glanced around the room. There certainly was hardly any place to hide. There was only the one room, taken up by the sofa and the coffee table, with two chairs just beyond the reach of the bed when it was opened. One chair was padded and covered with cloth, and the other one was a director’s chair that could be folded up to make more room. Then she had her bathroom with its shower, and a little kitchen that was more of an alcove.
There was, however, a large closet, and the door was closed. Her hand went automatically to her service weapon under her jacket, she pulled it out and took it into a two-handed grip.
“I don’t think you want to do that, pumpkin.”
Pro spun, her weapon extended in a shooter’s stance as she faced her father, who stepped out of the kitchenette with his empty hands raised in surrender.
“Max, for chrissakes!” Pro hissed and lowered her weapon. She put on the safety and jammed it back into her holster. “You need to turn yourself in.”
“I will, I will, but right now you need me!”
“Max, you escaped from a holding cell! That is a big deal! They put out an APB on you. I could lose my shield from just talking to you.”
“I can’t help you if I’m locked up, honey.”
“Don’t you dare call me ‘honey.’ My name is Pro—Pro Thompson.”
Max held up his hands defensively. “Okay, Pro. But don’t you want to know what I found out since I’ve been out?”
“No, I want you to sit in a chair while I call for backup.”
“Pro, you gotta listen to me. The killer is still out there, and I think other people could end up dead.”
“All the more reason you should be in a nice cell,” Pro said pointing a finger at her father. “To prove you are not the one who is committing these murders!”
“Word on the street is that the plans for Prism are still for sale out there. I even heard that there might be a prototype.”
“Do you know who might be any of the interested buyers or the next target?”
“I went to see Sam Lovell of Lovell Magic. He gave me the name of two other guys besides Shaut.”
Pro reached into her attaché and pulled out her detective notebook. “Give!”
“Adrian Novack, who goes by Adrianna Gray. She’s a female magician with a touring stage show. She’s been trying to rip off parts of my act for years.”
“Could she come up with the fifty grand that Shaut was talking about?”
“Hard to say. The other name I was given was Michael Mystique.”
“Isn’t he one of those guys in a comic book?”
Max sighed. “Don’t blame me. I didn’t give them their stage names.”
“Says Max Marvell!”
“Okay, point taken. They might have information that could help lead you to the killer.”
Pro finished writing and put down her notebook with an angry sigh. “Okay, I’m going to share something with you—I have no idea why!”
“What is it?”
She reached into her attaché and pulled out one of the coded emails, which she had not yet translated.
“What is this?” Max asked as she handed him a printout.
“Look at it. What does that look like to you?”
Max studied the paper for a moment. “That’s the Houdini code.”
Pro smiled. “I know.”
“What?”
Pro reached into the attaché and pulled out the email with the notes she had written. “I translated it,” she added triumphantly.
Max took the paper, gave it a once-over, and gave a smile of pride. “You sure did! This is good work, Pro.”
“I am a detective.”
“How did you figure it out?”
“Because of you. I remembered when I was little and saw the mentalists at A Night of Wonder and thought they were real. You told me how the trick worked and showed me the Kellock Houdini.”
Max frowned. “You were barely five years old…”
“I know, but it all came back to me, and I was able to find the book online and find the page with the code.”
“And then you just figured everything else out,” Max said. “Wow! I have a really smart daughter.”
He raised his hand and wiped his eye as Pro stood in amazement.
“Are you…crying, Max?”
“Just something in my eye,” Max said and blinked rapidly. “Kid, between the two of us, we could figure this case out.”
“Max…” Pro lowered her voice. “I am serious. You have to turn yourself in. I’ll call my partner, we can escort you to the precinct, make sure no one gets hurt.”
“I can’t do that, Pro. Two people are dead because of my invention. I have to stop the killer.”
“Right now, there are people who think you are the killer. Max, there is an APB out on you. Somebody might shoot first and ask questions later.”
“I’m good at hiding.”
“Max…Dad,” Pro pleaded, and Max looked at her in surprise. “Dad, I don’t want you to end up dead.”
Tears flashed in Max’s eyes. “Well, that’s a step in the right direction.”
“So sit down, let me call my partner, and I can still have a father, okay?”
A tear fell from Max’s left eye. “Okay, pumpkin, you’re right. I went too far.”
He walked over to the padded chair and sat down with his back to Pro. “Okay, call!”
Keeping her eyes on Max, she went to the kitchenette and pulled out her cell. In moments it was ringing, and Chu picked up.
“Can’t I get a night off?” he said, annoyed.
“Tom, I have Max at my apartment.”
“What? How did he get there?”
“I’m still trying to figure out how he got my address,” Pro said, and looked at the chair. She hadn’t turned on many lights when she came in but could see Max’s silhouette plainly.
“Wait! He broke into your apartment?”
“More likely picked the locks. He’s very good at that.”
“I know.”
“I made a deal with him to escort him back to the precinct. But obviously I need him to be driven over. I can’t just take him by subway.”
“Christ! Hold on,” Chu said, and then it sounded like he spoke to someone with his hand over the microphone of the phone. “Okay, I can be on the road in ten minutes. Thank God I’m dating someone who knows the job.”
A female voice said something indistinct, and she heard Tom say, “She knows…I don’t know how, she figured it out…I don’t know, radar or something!”
Another burst of indistinct babbling, with a conciliatory tone, and Tom was back. “Okay, I’m heading out there. You keep an eye on him.”
She looked over. “I’m watching him right now, Tom. See you soon.”
She hung up the phone and went through the doorway to start the kettle. “You want coffee, Max? It’s not very good, but it’s strong.”
No answer.
She stuck her head back in the room and saw Max’s silhouette in the same place in the chair. “What happened? Cat got your tongue?”
She walked over to the chair, but it was empty. A cardboard cutout of Max’s silhouette was attached to the top of her chair. She touched it and it fell over on a makeshift hinge.
A realization hit her, and she ran to the table with her attaché case. The papers with all of the coded messages were gone.
She ran over to the front door, yanked it open, and headed to the stairs.
“You goddamn old bastard!” she screamed looking down.
A door opened on the floor below her. “Hey, shut the hell up!”
“Sorry,” Pro snapped, but shot her middle finger at the unknown complainer before she went back into her apartment.
∞∞∞
“What do you mean, gone?” Chu demanded.
They were in her studio apartment, and Pro led him to the gimmicked chair to show him the fake silhouette. “Honestly, I don’t know how he could have done it. I only looked away to hit your number on my phone.”
“You couldn’t call me when I was en route?”
“I thought you should see how he fooled me.”
Chu blew out his breath in a steady stream, like a deflating balloon. “He fooled you because he knows how to push your buttons. Like any magician, he gets you to look where he wants you to look to trick you.”
Pro glanced down, embarrassed. “You’re right. And God, he snuck into my apartment like he freakin’ owned the place!”
“You could press charges.” Tom smirked.
“If I thought for a minute that it would make him act sensibly, I would. He stole the emails I printed up, but I cracked the code.”
“The code?” Tom repeated.
“Yeah, in those weird emails with all the ‘Answer-Pray’ stuff. It’s an alphanumeric code based on an act Houdini did with his wife.”
Chu considered this. “Did Max tell you that?”
Pro shook her head. “No, I figured it out myself. But now, I’ll have to print up the papers again.”
“Leave it go until tomorrow, Pro, but I fully expect we are both working on Sunday.”
“We were supposed to be off, but until this case is closed and Max placed where we can find him—”
“See you about ten in the morning,” Chu said as he neared the door.
“Sorry about your date,” she apologized.
“You should be. It looked like tonight was going to be the night,” Chu grumbled.
“Sorry,” Pro sympathized. “Now I really do feel bad.”
“Well, we want to try for an actual relationship, so there will be other chances. Good night, Pro.”
“‘Night, Tom,” she said and shut the door after him.
She moved to her tiny kitchen and opened the door of the refrigerator. It wasn’t close to being as tall as her, coming only up to her chest. She extracted a large bottle of white wine, grabbed a jelly jar from the dish rack, and filled it full of wine. She drank half the glass in one shot. She refilled the jar, put the cork back into the wine, and returned the bottle to the fridge.
She walked to the other room, took off her jacket, and hung it in her small closet. She moved the seat cushions and pulled the frame to unfold the bed.
When she opened it, sitting atop the neatly folded sheets was revealed a red sponge of some kind. Pro reached down and touched it. It was a little smaller than her hand, and the shape was an outline of a rabbit.
Her father had done this when she was little, hidden sponge rabbits in her things. Sometimes in her bed, sometimes in her shoe—all different places. When she was little, she asked why he did it.
“Because I love you, pumpkin, and when you see the rabbit, it reminds you that I do.”
She couldn’t help but smile, then shook her head in amazement that he was still trying to influence her after what he’d just pulled.
She removed her service weapon and took off her harness, which she hung from the closet rod. She picked up the locking metal box and set the three small dials to the correct numbers. She opened the box and placed it on the bed, then quickly made sure the pistol’s chamber was empty, then pulled the magazine. She went to place the magazine in the box when she saw a piece of paper.
Frowning, she pulled the paper out. Scrawled on it was this:
Sorry for the trouble.
I really do love you.
MAX
She shook her head and grabbed the glass of wine to take another sip. “How the hell did he get into this box?”
11. Botania
The next morning, Pro was walking with coffee up West End Avenue toward her mother’s apartment. She’d decided when she woke up that if Max was still going to be in touch with anyone, it would be his ex-wife.
And despite Elisha telling her that they had a fight, she might be covering for him. She wanted to make sure to lay down the law, so that if Max did show up at her mother’s door, Elisha would call the police.
She went up the elevator and considered her arguments. They needed to be strong, to let her mother know in no uncertain terms that aiding or abetting her ex-husband could mean that charges would come down upon her head. Not to mention the fact that her NYPD detective daughter could lose her job.
She unlocked the door and picked up the cups of coffee and walked in with a yell of “MOMMA?”
To a garden.
At least that is how it appeared at first glance. It seemed like every spot was covered in flowers. Each piece of furniture was lost in a sea of different blooms held in vases of various sizes. The table she had sat at the previous day seemed to bend from the assorted greenery placed on it.
The only way to move about the apartment was through a narrow path in the middle of the room that allowed her access to the bedroom.
She placed the cups in a tiny space open on the table that barely fit the pair, and knocked carefully on the bedroom door. “Momma? Are you alone?”
“Oh come on in, sweetie, it’s all right.”
She opened the door and was relieved that the flora did not continue to this section of the living quarters. Her mother was in a robe and was standing up next to the bed.
She indicated the flowers. “What is all this? Who did this?”
Elisha smiled. “It was your father.” She stepped to a nearby desk and grabbed a large cardboard heart and offered it to Pro to read.
Pro opened the card to reveal a hand-written message in her father’s strong hand:
Elisha
I am an insensitive jerk.
Please forgive me.
I would like to see you again.
Max
“Well, I agree with the insensitive jerk part,” Pro admitted. “Have you seen him?”
“Since yesterday?”
“Well, the previous night he spent in your bed.”
“Oh will you let it go,” Elisha sighed and strode past her daughter toward the door. “You better’ve brought me coffee if you gonna interrogate me this early in the day.”
“How did he even do this?”
“I don’t know. I went shopping and came home to this. The card was on the floor as I came in. Some chocolates, too.”
Pro froze. “You have chocolate? Good chocolate?”
“I saved you some,” Elisha grumbled. “The box is on the table.”
“I can’t see anything but the flowers and the coffee I brought,” Pro said while getting on tiptoe to peer around the miniature forest.
“Well, give me my coffee and I’ll find the chocolates for you.”
Pro handed her mother a cup, and she took a grateful sip.
Elisha reached past a rhododendron and extracted a medium-sized, half-empty, open box of chocolates. Each one was a perfect sphere dusted with fine cocoa powder. She held it out for her daughter, who took one and popped it into her mouth.
“Wow, that’s good,” Pro moaned, her eyes closed as she savored the dark sweetness that made her knees weak.
Her mother raised an eyebrow. “Max does know how to get to my heart.”
“Yes, Mother,” Pro retorted. “And how to get into your pants.”
Elisha put on a smug smile. “I guess so or you wouldn’t be here.”
“Seriously, Mother. How did all this get here? Did he break in? And with the APB out, Max’s credit cards are frozen. How did he pay for all this?”
“I don’t have an answer for you, baby.”
Pro grabbed another piece of chocolate. “He was in my apartment last night.”
“What?”
“There waiting for me. He made my bed.”
“The nerve.” Elisha smirked.
“It’s not funny, Mom. It’s disconcerting that he can sneak flowers into your place and just show up in mine.”
“Did you arrest him?”
“I thought I persuaded him to turn himself in. Then he disappeared and took some evidence I had brought home.”
Elisha tried to look serious, but as her daughter went on, her mouth began to move and a chuckle escaped her lips.
“Mother, it’s not funny! He left me a sponge rabbit and a note that told me he loved me!”
