Third Time is a Charm

by Cate Martin

  "Ivy is a misplaced dream," Otto said. "Have you ever even met her?"

  "No," I admitted. "Only her sister."

  "I've never met her either, but I think we both know her type," he said. "Rich family, correct upbringing, proper social standing. She isn't so much a person as a concept."

  "I think that's a terribly unkind thing to say," I said.

  "But you know what I mean," he said. "They met at a party, the sort thrown by the best people to mix their offspring together. That's not the place you go to meet a person. That's a place you go to meet a concept."

  "You're saying Edward was at that party to find a marriage prospect and he found one," I said. "I don't think it has to be as nefarious as you put it."

  "It's maybe a class thing. My people don't throw such parties," he said, then looked irked as I laughed.

  "Sorry, but you do realize that you just said that in your lower class voice," I said.

  "I only have the one," he said darkly.

  "Oh no you don't, Mr. I've read H.G. Wells," I said. "To be fair, I'm guessing you talk that way most of the time to most people you meet. You talked that way when I first met you. But when you're around the three of us, and I suspect even when you're just around Edward, you let your education show a bit."

  "That's a filthy lie," he said, but I knew he was joking with me.

  "Edward isn't the only one looking to move up in the world," I said.

  "Yeah, but I'm looking to do it honestly," Otto said.

  "Through crime?"

  "Through crime. But not through marriage," he said.

  "I'm guessing Edward feels differently about that distinction," I said.

  "That's because he's deluding himself," Otto said. I could hear the frustration and almost anger in his voice. "That family will never have him. They're playing him for a fool."

  "They're using him?" I asked, confused.

  "He's young, charming, and eager to please. When you have a squadron of young men courting your oldest daughter, it's nice to have such a fellow around to force the lazier ones to try a bit harder."

  "Wow," I said. "You really do see nefarious plots everywhere."

  "I'm not wrong," Otto said. "Ivy McTavet will never be Mrs. Edward Scott."

  "Have you told Edward how you feel?" I asked. Otto scoffed. "I don't mean how you're clearly missing him now that he works in a bank all day and not running schemes with you anymore. Or how you know you'll see him even less if he marries into a respectable family. I mean about your suspicions."

  "No," he said, studying a small imperfection on his car's dashboard.

  "You should," I said. "Especially if you're right. He should be warned."

  "You think I'm right?" he asked, still not looking at me.

  "About your feelings?" I asked, only half teasing, but if I said it seriously again, he'd probably get out of the car and just walk away from me. "I don't know."

  "You could find out if I was right," he said.

  "I could," I admitted. "Maybe it would be better if I did. I could read up on all the local history and find out the fate of everyone I've encountered in 1927. I would know who they married, when they died, maybe even if they were happy. But having those facts would mean not really being able to get to know them as people. I don't want every conversation I have with Coco to be under the specter of knowing her entire fate."

  "It must be tempting, though," Otto said.

  "More than you know," I sighed. How many times had I been distracted from my own studying by the temptation to look through the old newspapers for Edward's name?

  "It's not just her family, though," Otto said after a long moment's silence. "It's Edward. He's worked hard to get to where he is. He's left his past behind. I'm not bitter about that; I think it's wonderful. He looks like a young businessman on his way up in the world because that's who he is. But he's gotten it in his head that the next step up is marrying and having a father-in-law to fill in for the father he never knew. And he doesn't need it."

  "Tell him that," I said, but he just shook his head.

  "I'm just trying to explain that Ivy to him is a concept. If he had met her somewhere else, didn't know who she was or who her family was, just found himself smitten by her wonderful self, I wouldn't say a thing. But he's not attached to the person. He's attached to the concept. That will never be a happy marriage."

  "Well," I said, scrambling for words. Something about how love can grow over time, maybe. But he didn't wait for me to gather his thoughts.

  "I've never met Ivy, that's true. I've never seen Edward and her together. But I know Edward. He doesn't love Ivy."

  "I don't know," I said. "I've seen him talk about her. He lights up."

  "With ambition, maybe," Otto said. "Look, Edward is a decent guy. He can't be otherwise. He's not going to have a wife and something else on the side. So I know he can't possibly ever have looked at Ivy with real love in his eyes. Because I've seen him look at you."

  I had no answer for that. Even if I had, my heart was pounding so hard I don't think I could get the words out. It was all I could do to keep my breathing under control.

  Hey, I'd found another use for Sophie's meditation practices. Thwarting emotional reactions to just the things you'd been secretly dying to hear.

  "That doesn't matter," I said when I, at last, had myself mostly under control. "He should be with Ivy, and I wish them every happiness. Because he can't be with me."

  "Because of the time thing," Otto said.

  "Yes," I said, and my cheeks were burning again. "But not just that. There's another, um, fellow."

  "Oh yes?" Otto said with dripping skepticism.

  "Yes," I said, raising my chin. "Obviously I can't tell Edward about that. Not without explaining the time thing, which he really shouldn't know. But there is someone I've been seeing. Someone I'm fond of."

  Otto scoffed again, louder than before.

  "You don't know me," I said angrily.

  "Please," Otto said. "You are just like Edward. Too honorable to be messing with two fellows at once. Whoever this guy is, I'm sure he's all kinds of wonderful, but I'll never believe you look at him the way you look at Edward."

  "You sure put a lot of stock in looks," I said, getting annoyed. "Feelings are feelings. We can't control those. All we control is our actions. I can't be with Edward. I'm not taking any action that says otherwise."

  "Fair enough," Otto said. "I'll be watching you. I'll keep you honest."

  "Thanks much, but I can police my own behavior."

  Otto shrugged, then shifted in his seat. "It looks like our lurkers are finally heading out."

  I sat up in my own seat, watching as five men in wool coats and fancy hats walked down the recently shoveled walk and dispersed themselves among the two cars parked at the curb about half a block away.

  "Right," Otto said, opening his car door. "Let's go."

  Chapter 16

  After several long, fruitless minutes, Otto swore under his breath then straightened up, stuffing his lock picks back into his pocket.

  "I'll just break a window," he said and started kicking through the snow around the shrubs in search of a rock.

  "Hold on," I said, checking all my pockets. I found the gold key in my dress pocket. "I have something quieter."

  "That's not the right size for this door," Otto said, but now it was my turn to grin at him.

  "Trust me," I said. I pushed the key into the lock and gave it a turn.

  "Can I have that?" he asked as I swung the door open.

  "No way," I said, tucking the key away.

  "Can you make me a copy?"

  "No," I said, laughing. "Come on; let's get inside before someone sees us."

  "No one is around to see us," he said but followed me into the darkness of the front hall. When he closed the door behind us that darkness became total. "Do you have a spell for this?" he asked.

  "Maybe," I said, reaching for my wand. I knew I could do it, but I also knew it would be d
raining.

  "Forget about it," Otto said. "I've got this one." There was a click, and then a beam of light shot past me to illuminate the stairway in front of us.

  He'd brought a flashlight and lock picks. And I hadn't seen him grab any of those things on the way out of his speakeasy. Those were apparently just the sorts of things he always had in his pockets.

  "You said the wardrobe was upstairs?" he said as he shone his light up the steps.

  "Up, to the left, back of the house," I said. "Bedroom maybe?"

  Otto nodded then started up the stairs. I followed behind, stepping as softly as I could even though I knew the house was empty. Otto's feet made no sound on the bare wooden stairs either, but then a man who always carried lock picks with him probably also always walked silently through strange houses at night.

  We turned to the left at the top of the stairs and followed the hallway until it ended at a pair of doors. Otto gently turned the handle on the door to the right, the one that led to the room at the back side of the house. He shone his light all around the space, then crossed the room to secure the shade over the room's only window. Then he gave me a nod, and I flipped on the light switch.

  It was a bedroom, but it didn't look like it saw much use. There was nothing personal sitting on the dresser or nightstand, and the bed was neatly made but didn't look freshly so.

  The wardrobe stood against the wall to my right. There was a wide space between it and the side of the bed, as if whoever had arranged the furniture had for some reason left a huge gap in the room there.

  "Look at the floor," Otto said, pointing at the bare floorboards. "There's a rug missing."

  I bent to get a closer look. The floor was free of dust, but there was a faint outline of an oval shape as if something had protected that part of the wooden floor from the bleaching effects of the sun.

  "Why would someone take the rug out of here?" I wondered. "It doesn't look like anyone even uses this room."

  "Well, since we're dealing with three suspected murders, I know what leaps to my mind," Otto said.

  I looked up at the wardrobe.

  "What does it mean that you're here and not in Manhattan?" I asked it.

  It towered over me but said nothing.

  Otto opened a door in the corner of the room and peered into an empty closet then shut the door again.

  "I'm going to try a few things here," I said. "It's going to look to you like what I did in the car."

  "Ugh," he said. I shot him a quizzical look. "Dead bodies don't creep me out the way that did. You were looking at me, but you weren't there."

  "I thought my eyes were closed," I said.

  "They were until I said your name," Otto said with a shudder. "I never should have called your name. But you were breathing really weird. Like, mechanical."

  "I had no idea," I said, and in my mental to-do list, I double-underlined going into the web world with Brianna and/or Sophie watching over me. Apparently, I hadn't quite finessed it yet. "Maybe you should go out? I mean of the room, not the house. Be my lookout while I'm occupied."

  "And how am I suppose to warn you if I need to?" he asked.

  "I'm not sure," I admitted. "Just improvise. Hopefully, if there is genuine danger, I'll be aware."

  "I'm only saying yes because I want to snoop around," he said. "Don't take long."

  "I'll try not to," I said, then added as he was going out the door, "and don't steal anything!"

  "Just snooping," he shouted back. But I couldn't read his face to know if he was telling the truth or not.

  I opened the wardrobe doors wide, then made a search of the stack of smaller drawers up one side of the inside space, then two wider drawers on the bottom.

  Nothing. Save for some balls of dust; it was completely empty.

  It looked vulnerable with its doors open. I gently shut them again before sitting down on the floor in front of it. I was acutely aware of the absence of rug. Perhaps it was needed in some other part of the house, but I doubted it. Otto's idea that it was related to the murders felt more right to me. Even if there had been no need to roll up a body inside of it, it would have gotten stained when the body was stuffed into the wardrobe.

  Assuming the murder wasn't actually committed right where I was sitting.

  I suppressed a shudder then closed my eyes and dropped into my meditative state.

  The wardrobe stood before me, its threads glowing brightly with the inner fire of an enchanted object. It was a brighter glow here than in 2018.

  There was also a strange truncation to some of its threads as if they had been severed and then retracted protectively deep within its matrix. Was this because its sister wardrobe had recently been burned to ash in Paris? It felt that way. When my consciousness brushed over the cut ends I felt a profound sadness.

  But the wardrobe wasn't sentient. Unlike the crystal ball, it couldn't communicate with me.

  I searched it for any stray threads that related to Danny Bannon. I found a few. Nothing large enough to tell me any details, but enough to know he had been inside this wardrobe recently.

  There were other traces as well. Two other people, I thought, but I couldn't get a real picture of who they were. Maybe they were just previous owners of the wardrobe leaving an imprint behind like Nick had in his room back in his grandfather's apartment.

  I made another thorough search but turned up no more clues, so I returned to my body and opened my eyes.

  Had I just been breathing mechanically? I felt a little lightheaded, now that I was really thinking about it, although I would have thought that would just come from doing that magic.

  I looked at the wardrobe again in the warm light from the fixture over the door.

  "I wish you could tell me your story," I said, pressing my palms to the wood. I opened the doors again to make one more search for any sign that this piece of furniture had been bled all over and then methodically cleaned.

  There was no sign of blood anywhere, but I did find a slip of paper in one of the drawers that hadn't been there before. I stepped back to look at it in better light before unfolding it.

  There were only three words on it in a spidery script that looked so perfect in line and spacing I would have thought it was printed from a computer. It said, "Je suis désolé." That was all.

  One of the French sisters trying to apologize to the other? But which one? And how had the note gone astray? Perhaps the reason their parlor trick act had failed was that the witch they consulted for time magic didn't have the control she thought she did. What disappeared in one wardrobe would appear in either wardrobe at any time completely at random.

  That would be a terrible show. Especially if Sephora was right and they had started using people.

  What a horrid thought.

  I put the note in my pocket and shut the wardrobe doors. Then I turned out the bedroom light and slipped back down the hall, looking for signs of Otto's flashlight.

  I found him in a room off the front hall. From the looks of it, this was Danny Bannon's office. Otto was sitting behind the desk running his hands over the wood.

  "I didn't learn anything useful," I said as I watched him. It looked like he was searching for hidden compartments. "Do you know if he's dead yet?"

  "I'm not sure," he said, then pointed with his chin at a photograph on the corner of his desk. "If he is, I think I might know who the other two victims are."

  I picked up the photograph. Danny Bannon, I recognized at once. With him was a rosy-cheeked woman with her hair combed back in sleek waves and a boy with an overabundance of freckles that even in black and white looked like they had been exacerbated by an impressive sunburn.

  "His family?" I said, setting the photograph back down. "I liked the henchmen theory better."

  Otto shrugged. It was all the same to him, apparently.

  Then something clicked, and he said something in German I was sure meant "Eureka."

  "What is it?" I asked.

  "Ledgers," he said, reachi
ng into the open space by his knee and pulling out a series of leather-bound notebooks.

  "That will tell you if he's living or dead?" I asked.

  "It's the best clue to who might have killed him," he said, flipping through the pages.

  "I would assume there'd be some sort of code," I said.

  "There is, but it's to confound the government building a case against him, not for the likes of me," Otto said. "Plus, the man who taught me everything I know about the business first learned it from Danny Bannon. And like I said, he's not changing with the times."

  "So you can read that?" I asked. I could tell what the numbers meant, but the words that were attached to them were unpronounceable jumbled anagrams.

  Otto didn't answer me, focusing on the finger he was tracing down the last column of numbers on the last page of the book. He looked up at me, and his face had gone grayish-white.

  "What is it?" I asked.

  "We have to get out of here, now," he said, shutting the books then tucking them inside his coat.

  "Bannon is still alive?" I asked as we fast-walked across the front hall to the door.

  "No, definitely not," Otto said grimly. "I know who killed him. I'll explain later. First, we get to safety."

  I wasn't about to argue with that. As he reached out to pull open the heavy front door, my fingers were already reaching for my wand. Because it felt better to have it in my hand.

  But before he had quite touched that doorknob or I my wand the door blew open, hitting the wall with a crash and throwing us both back onto the tiled floor. The men from before were back, and they had a woman with them.

  And I didn't need to go to the web world to sense her magical power. She was radiating it out of her body as if she had no worries about running out or growing tired from the effort.

  She was a witch, but nothing like any witch I had yet met.

  And my fallen wand was on the floor at her feet.

  Chapter 17

  I blinked away my awareness of her magic as the woman strode towards me. I think it was a spell; she was deliberately trying to dazzle me so I couldn't see her.

  A handy spell if you ran with gangsters. Anyone asking for a description of the suspect gets nothing useful back. A woman, average height and weight, hair that was maybe blonde or brown, no distinguishing features. Nothing that would ever lead anyone back to her.