The Illusionist's Apprentice

by Kristy Cambron

  “I have no idea where we are,” Amberley said as if trying to sound brave, though her voice nearly cracked. “They kept me blindfolded. It was night anyway, so I couldn’t have seen much had I wanted to. I tried to listen, though, to see if something sounded familiar when they brought me in.”

  Given what Elliot had surmised about the possibility Amberley was involved in Victor Peale’s death, Wren wasn’t ready to trust her entirely. But she wouldn’t need to in this case. Wren could have walked the walls blindfolded, for all around her were the worn and wooden bones of her memories. And in seeing this particular room again, her heart began to bleed from the inside out.

  “We’re at the Castleton.”

  “What? No.” Amberley shook her head. “I used to work at that run-down vaudeville hamlet. I’d know if there was a room like this one backstage. I’ve never seen this place before.”

  Wren sighed. The carpet. The rolls of show posters discarded in the corner. Even the chairs—once gold but now dingy and forgotten . . . They all cried out from her memory, of the early days when her uncle had told her about the hidden door under the stage. She’d gone exploring in the back halls, discovering the shrouded corners of her family’s old entertainment world.

  “You were a dancer. That’s why you wouldn’t know this room. Only illusionists ever used this space. Illusionists, their stage assistants, or the owners.”

  “But . . .”

  “We’re under the stage, Amberley. Any illusionist with a disappearing act would have known of it. There’s a square cutout in the planks above our heads. It’s hidden, so they could drop down from the stage. The door at the back leads to a hallway behind the VIP rooms. There’s another hidden door behind the stage curtain. After I came home and worked with Houdini’s show, my father refused to hire another illusionist. So this just became a lost storage area. Shut up and forgotten.” Wren tilted her head toward the lettering on the back wall. “See that? Old banners for the shows. They were used long before a marquee was outside. That one was for my uncle’s act.”

  “Your uncle’s?” Amberley squinted, trying to read what was left of it.

  “It doesn’t matter now. We have to find a way out of here. If I can get out of these ropes, then I can come up with a plan. No one knows the Castleton like I do—even in the dark. Maybe we could stack the chairs . . . climb up through the trapdoor to the stage . . . That is, if it’s not bolted from the outside, but it might be too high. We may have to pick the lock on the door.”

  Working it out aloud triggered a reminder.

  Wren lifted her wrists until the rope connected to her ankles went taut. “Amberley, can you see gold cuff links? There, on my shirt?”

  Please, God . . . Let Irina have overlooked them.

  Amberley ran her hand over Wren’s wrist. Wren twisted her upper body to lock gazes with her. “Well?”

  Amberley’s face broke into a smile of pure disbelief. “So that’s how you did it.” She shook her head. “You scheming little minx. I knew there had to be something you had onstage at my party. I just couldn’t work it out. Imagine that—these cuff links were all it took to humiliate me.”

  “What does it matter now? We need to work together to get out of here.” She leaned her back closer to Amberley so she could unfasten the cuff link from her sleeve. “Just get them off, please. The left one has a metal file affixed to the end. See it? We can saw through the ropes. I have a pick we could try to use in the lock on the door.”

  “That would do no good.” Amberley tugged at her wrists. “I heard someone moving around out there.”

  Wren grimaced through the shot of pain when the action tugged at her shoulder, though only because she thought Amberley wouldn’t see it.

  “I’m sorry. I forgot,” Amberley whispered.

  Wren exhaled through the dull reminder of pain. “It’s alright. But, Amberley, I must ask you something—” She froze, cutting her words off because of the sound of something—footsteps?—moving across the floorboards above their heads.

  Dust rained down like flour on air. They just sat together, neither able to breathe, Amberley’s hands sweaty and gripping Wren’s, waiting to learn if their captors meant to break in on their fledgling escape plan.

  The footsteps died away seconds later, and the hold of Amberley’s nails to Wren’s palm eased. She worked at the ropes silently after that, the two of them hoping to make a getaway before anyone knew Wren was awake.

  “Did you hear about Connor?” Amberley whispered, so softly while she worked.

  Wren nodded. Just once, and clamped her eyes shut.

  She couldn’t think about Connor right then, shot and possibly bleeding out somewhere. The image was too terrible to entertain. Heaven help her if the same guns came after Elliot too. He didn’t know she’d been plucked up either, and if he came looking, he might not come to the conclusion that Irina was involved. That put him at as much risk as the rest of them.

  “Is he . . . alive?”

  “I don’t know. I heard about it and then all of this happened.”

  “Connor stood outside in the hall, blocking my door. Men broke into the cottage and he refused to let them pass. He . . .” Wren could hear sobs backing up in Amberley’s throat, her hands trembling with them. “I heard footsteps and gunfire . . . and then I heard something slump against the door and everything went quiet.

  “I tried the window, but the sill had been painted shut. And I’d have broken the glass, but it would have been too high to jump without killing myself. So I broke the porcelain wash basin on the side of the bureau and backed into the wardrobe with the shards in my hand.”

  The pain in Amberley’s voice was too raw to ignore.

  “I don’t believe it’s your fault, what happened. Connor was doing his job. Blame the people who did this to him.”

  “But I should have fought harder. I was no match for them. I’m not strong like you. I fell apart and they just dragged me out. They dragged me over him, Wren. Just lying there in his own blood. And I tried to grab hold . . . to take him with us . . . I scratched one of them with everything I had in me, and I screamed for Connor all the way down the stairs. And we just left him there.” Amberley stopped filing and wept quietly, the action tugging at Wren’s heart.

  Perhaps there was more to Amberley’s misguided attachment to Connor after all. It could have been fear talking. Or shock. But Amberley seemed genuinely crushed by Connor having been hurt solely to protect her.

  “Amberley, I have to believe we’ll see him again,” she whispered. “Look at me.”

  Amberley opened her eyes, blinking through the dim light.

  “If there was no darkness, there would be no opportunity for light to overcome it. This is the time for heroes to rise, okay? And Connor was your hero last night. So if you promise me you’ll calm down, we can do what we need to in order to get out of here, and I’ll take you to him first thing. If there’s anything you need to tell him, you can do it yourself. But you have to work with me, okay? Just keep cutting the ropes.”

  Once she felt the pressure of sawing at her wrists, she continued. “Now, what about the grounds keeper and his wife at the cottage? Are they okay? Surely they heard what happened if you were screaming.”

  “Connor had sent them away, for their own safety.”

  “Then at the very least they won’t have been harmed. But what else? Were any other agents at the house?”

  She shook her head. “Connor didn’t think it was safe to let anyone know where we were—even fellow agents. After what happened to you and Elliot after my party that night, he seemed to suspect everyone.”

  “How many gunmen were there?”

  “Two that I know of. But I’ve never seen either before.”

  “Okay. So we have at least two hired men, maybe more. What else?” Wren strained to listen to any sound that might drift down through the wood panels.

  “I’ve seen Irina, but only when they brought you in. I don’t know who else is out there,
but I did hear her talking.”

  “With whom?”

  Amberley shifted her kneeling position, like her legs were falling asleep. She moved over Wren’s right shoulder and went to work sawing at the ropes again. “I heard her and another man. They were speaking French.”

  Wren did a double take. “French?”

  Amberley scoffed behind her, keeping her voice to a rough whisper. “I’m sure they thought some former chorus girl turned wealthy widow couldn’t have any education. Well, being married to Stanley Dover was no cakewalk, you know. He was always traveling for business. And I got bored, so I hired tutors to help me acclimate into society. That included art instruction, music, and the ever-dreaded French lessons.”

  “So you know what they said?”

  She hesitated, then eked out, “Yes.”

  “Well?”

  “Si elle ne parle pas, alors nous la tuer. It means—”

  “I know what it means.” Wren exhaled low.

  If she doesn’t talk, we’ll kill her . . .

  The ropes gave then and Wren let out a sigh of relief, reveling in the feel of freedom at the wrists. She gingerly pulled her left arm forward, the wound on her shoulder more tender after being so tightly restrained. She turned her wrists in circles, feeling the burn of raw skin that seared from where the ropes had been.

  Never mind that. She could think about pain tomorrow.

  Wren held out her hand. “The file?”

  Amberley handed it over and Wren went to work, starting on the mass of ropes binding her ankles.

  “What are we going to do, Wren? If they want me to spill about Stapleton, I won’t have anything new to give them. They already know everything I do.”

  Wren paused, looking up to confront Amberley. “And that’s what I was going to ask you. What you know. Because it must be something, or else they wouldn’t have gone to the trouble to abduct you and bring you here. The only way I can get us out of here is if you tell me right now what you’re holding back—immunity or not.”

  Was it guilt or just plain surrender that caused Amberley to shake her head? “It was the adrenaline. You know, the second shot Victor Peale was given? Elliot must have figured it out by now. He’d have told you that’s what happened.”

  Wren was angry with herself for trusting Amberley Dover any measure at all.

  She continued filing the ropes. “I knew it.”

  “But I didn’t do anything!” Amberley gripped Wren’s wrist. “I’ll swear to it in court if have to. Stapleton was trying to blackmail me because of my late-husband’s debts. He paid me to administer the shot. But I swear I didn’t touch Victor Peale. You know that because you had to have seen me. When it came down to it on that stage, I couldn’t believe it was all actually happening and I stepped back. One of the gravediggers must have done it or Stapleton himself, because it sure wasn’t me.”

  Wren eyed her, the force of her frustration at the boiling point.

  “I know you’re angry. I am, too, for what happened to Connor. All I can say is that I was scared. I admit it. And very much alone. I couldn’t tell the FBI what I knew and risk being pulled into Stapleton’s case. And I couldn’t tell anyone that someone was threatening me, because I was scared of whoever killed Victor Peale. But this?” Her shoulders slumped. “I don’t know what I could’ve possibly told Irina that would have her say something like that, in French or in English.”

  “They weren’t talking about you, Amberley. They were talking about me.”

  “You? Why?” Incredulous, Amberley stared back.

  “I already know what they want.”

  “Which is . . . ?” Amberley began, her voice tight. “Look, you said we’re in this together. If that’s true and if Connor—” Her words hitched for a split second. “If he took a bullet for me, then at the very least, I deserve to know what it was for.”

  “You’re in no position to make any demands when you’ve been holding out on us until you get your signed immunity deal.”

  Amberley shook her head in a glimmer of shame. “I don’t know anything, Wren. I was just playing a hand.”

  If they weren’t facing possible death at the hands of unknown captors, Wren might have strangled her. “Playing a hand?” She stopped filing the rope and gripped Amberley’s wrist. “You are playing with people’s lives, Amberley! This isn’t some petty game. Don’t you understand that?”

  “Of course I do—now. But I’m in trouble too. Stanley had amassed gambling debts all over the city. Several to some underworld characters who want it all back—with exorbitant interest. It will take nearly every penny I have just to pay them off. It was only for the money that I agreed to anything. I knew that wheedly little Stapleton from ages ago just like you, when we were all on the vaudeville circuit. He telephoned with the idea and I figured it couldn’t hurt, as he was more than willing to reimburse me for the use of my name and association in the papers. I had no idea when I went up on that stage that he’d set his sights on murder, the miserable little troll.” She kicked at a stray bit of rope near her shoe. “I hope he’s rotting in that jail cell.”

  “Then it really wasn’t you who gave Victor Peale the toxin before the show or the shot of adrenaline in the coffin?”

  The shock that washed over Amberley’s face was so authentic, Wren was sure she couldn’t have made it up. “You mean you didn’t know about the toxin?”

  “I swear it.” She shook her head, locks of hair dancing over her shoulder.

  “Alright. Enough about Stapleton for right now. But you mean to tell me that’s what your meeting was about at the Union Oyster House? Your husband’s debts?”

  “Well, now they’re mine, but yes. They want to collect.”

  It all made sense. Amberley hadn’t been running from Stapleton. She’d been running from people for the oldest reason in the book—money. And thinking it was the only card she had left to play, she feigned possession of more information than she had in order to protect herself.

  Wren sighed. Typical Amberley.

  “What were you going to do when Elliot got a judge to agree to give you immunity? He’d have figured out pretty quickly that you were a lying snake.”

  “I’ll ignore that last comment, but yes—my lawyers have been delaying the process. They said they could bury it in the courts another few months at least. And the last thing I would do was let someone pin something on me, so I wanted protection from the beginning.”

  “And in the meantime, you left Elliot holding the bag.”

  “Look. I dislike this horrible mess as much as you do, but whatever I might have said to Agent Matthews doesn’t matter now. You said they came after you. But I don’t know why I’m here. That’s the honest truth. The fact that anyone other than a loan shark would come after me is more than a surprise.” She shrugged. “Everyone likes me.”

  “I’ll try not to give us away by outright laughing at that.” Wren rolled her eyes. “But it’s me they want. Or rather, what I know about Harry. I’m sure of it.”

  “Harry Houdini?” Amberley rocked back on her heels. “Then it’s true? You know how he managed his illusions?”

  Wren kept filing away at the ropes, the final strand becoming more threadbare as the seconds ticked by.

  “Well, I’ll take that as a yes since you’re not going to answer. But what could they possibly want with some old magic tricks—especially since he’s gone?”

  “They think they can reveal them to the world, to discredit his name. Or manufacture their own illusions with his methods. I don’t know. Maybe become greater than Houdini was? I can’t claim to understand why it would be that important to take a man’s life over. If you ask me, I think Horace Stapleton is the fall guy for someone else entirely. And we know now that Irina is involved, we just don’t know with whom. The timing, though, so soon after Harry’s death, tells me they were interested in resurrecting Horace Stapleton’s career when the great Houdini was no longer around to discredit him a second time.”

&n
bsp; The ropes gave and Wren unfurled them from around her ankles, savoring the ability to stretch her legs in front of her. She slipped the cuff links back on her wrists. It was the safest place to keep them, should she need them later on.

  “You trusted her. Irina. She betrayed that trust, and . . . Well, there’s nothing else to be said, is there? When trust is shattered . . . it changes you. I suppose you’ll finally understand the kind of bitterness I’ve felt these past years. I should have let go of it. I see that now.”

  Wren had trusted Irina, yes. As much as anyone, really. But she couldn’t think about that betrayal now, nor the years they’d forged a friendship in the back halls of vaudeville. Pain would make her weak, and Wren needed every ounce of strength she had, both in her body and in the confines of her heart.

  “Yes, well. Bitterness isn’t going to help us out of this mess, so I’d just assume talk about Irina’s motivations later.” Though a bit shaky, Wren bent her legs under her and wobbled to stand, testing out her weary limbs.

  Amberley followed suit, looking around the musty room with her. “So now what?” she whispered.

  “We find a way out of here.”

  CHAPTER 22

  Something was wrong.

  Elliot’s gut kept nagging him, replaying every possible scenario concerning Wren as he hurried through the halls of the Boston Bureau office. Thoughts of her whereabouts inflicted punishing fears as he swept past a sea of people: witnesses, agents on telephones, and secretaries pecking typewriter keys.

  She wouldn’t just leave . . . not after last night.

  Over and over, Elliot told himself there was a logical explanation for her absence, and he vowed to find it. He’d find her.

  The one man they’d finally picked up and brought into the downtown office that morning ignited a flicker of hope within him. Elliot stilled the rabid beating of his heart as he came to an interrogation room door, opened it on a determined intake of air, and stepped inside.